Every Lone Star cop smartlinked., Not so unreasonable perhaps... Options

[Velocity]

Okay, so I gather (from skimming several threads) that many people here feel that the average security guard or Lone Star officer should probably not have any cyberware, or at least not any supplied by the parent corp. The rationale is that it's too great of an investment for the corporation. I'd like to offer an opposing view and see what people think.

Consider Lone Star and the smartlink system. Now, smartlinks retail for 2,500 :nuyen:. If Lone Star, inc. were to purchase 1,000 units for its employees, the cost would probably drop significantly. I'm thinking of a 10-15% discount, maybe more. To be reasonable, let's say that Lone Star purchases 1,000 smartlink systems at a grand total of 2,150,000 :nuyen:. This is peanuts for a company like Lone Star.

Now consider the effect of having every officer smartlinked:

1) The amount of aAmmunition lost to missed shots plummets dramatically;
2) Accidental civilian death and injury rates likewise drop like a stone;
3) Employee health and safety improves;
4) Firearm maintenance becomes significantly easier and faster;

Points (1) and (4) will immediately contribute to offsetting the direct (monetary) cost of the cyberware. By saving money on bullets and maintenance, the smartlinks will--eventually--pay for themselves.

Points (2) and (3) provide less tangible--but no less significant--benefits: employee morale and public confidence increase. The PR campaign practically writes itself...

The only major hitch I see is the surgery time for every cop and the various sundry medical expenses associated with major invasive surgery. However, given that Lone Star inc. MUST have some kind of plan for addressing employee injuries (either its own medical facilities or some kind of long-term contract with DocWagon, Universal Omnitech, CrashCart or whomever), I don't foresee the surgeries to be a major issue.

Thoughts? Additions or objections?

[Ol' Scratch]

Why not just give them Smartgoggles or Smartshades? Sure, they're slightly more expensive, but if you lose a cop in the line of duty or someone gets promoted to a desk job, you can recover the equipment.

[BitBasher]

Those are slightly more expensive, and singnificantly less effective. -1 vs a -2 to a TN is pretty significant.

[Ol' Scratch]

Only by 500 nuyen, which is more than made up for the fact that you don't have to pay for surgery costs, hospital bills and salaries for downtime, nor buy a new one each time a cop goes down or gets promoted.

[6thDragon]

I totally agree with you. In my campaign all Lone Star beat cops and professional armed security guards would be equipped with smartlinks. The cost really isn't that much especially when you consider the economy of scale. If it wasn't standard issue, I'm sure the companies would offer a purchasing program; possible accepting some of the costs and offering low interest loans to encourage employees to get them.
I think the costs involved with expended ammo would pale in comparison to the liability for accidental deaths. When I was in the Marines I was an Embassy Guard. We used an incredible amount of ammunition on a quarterly bases for familiarization firing, just to keep our skill level up. I'm sure security agencies in Shadowrun do the same.

[TinkerGnome]

Surgical costs run approximately 15,000 :nuyen: for a smartlink installation. The surgery itself deals 4 boxes of physical damage.

Even given the amount of a discount you could count on from having your own doctors on staff, the real cost of the surgery isn't likely to drop below half of that.

Even with that big price tag, though, it is quite possibly worth it from an insurance standpoint to have the officers outfitted with the smartlink. The surgical version is superior in many ways (not having a cable attached is a huge benefit, and it's vastly more presentable in a non-combat zone environment).

The simple fact is that in the kind of circumstances where police officers most need their weapons, you'd likely be increasing the chance of hitting by 20%+ (I'd expect most situations to be poor lighting and medium range, so the difference between TN 5 and TN 7).

[Prospero]

For Lone Star and other major security companies, I go with the fact that smartlinked weapons and smart-goggles were standard issue with purchasing programs (and probably some pressure from the top) for internal smartlinks - Lone Star, especially, would definately have their own docs and hospitals (or contracts with the big boys). That's how my last character got his smartlink II - he worked for a major security company before becoming a runner and he bought the thing on an employee purchasing program.

[kevyn668]

I was thinking about something like this a while back. I came to the conclusion that it would either be smartlinks or laser sights. The smart goggles look better but don't any of the real benefits that the cyber version does.

Lets throw out the whole -1 vs. -2 TN mod or now. I always liked the other things the SL does for you. For instance: eject clip=free action and change mode of fire=free action. Perfect for the Shadowrunner on the, well, run...Or for the corp sec goon chasing said Shadowrunner.

From a cost point of view, I give SLs to KE (and HardCorps) and other "higher end" sec forces that don't provide coverage for entire Sprawl. For LoneStar, I say veteran beat cops and plain clothes cops would have 'em, probably w/some other cyber thrown in too. (bone lacing after getting roughed up by trolls, some dermal work, maybe a radio or headphone, etc. Depends on the cop and if I need this cop to have this stuff) Call it 1 in 5 or 1 in 6. (note: I don't know if those numbers are RL accurate but screw it, I'm the GM so they're dead on balls accurate in my SR world). Plus, my players are newbs and thier characters haven't tackled anything too tough yet.

[Jpwoo]

I could see getting a smartlink as part of the corporate ladder for a security corp. They obviously wouldn't put the investment into a rookie who may or may not last the year, but maybe at their second year aniversary they would spring for the gear.

Currently people change jobs a lot, but it is implied that corporate loyalty is encouraged highly in SR and that the days of the 30 and out pension are back in full force in the absence of a strong government to stabalize an economy. So paying the 20k to do the whole smartlink system doesn't seem unreasonable for someone like knight errant.

[thunderchild]

[Cain]

From my recollections of the Lone Star book, corporate policy requires every employee, from janitor and secretary on up to CEO, to qualify with a handgun. The standards vary (clerks and cafeteria workers only have to be able to shoot to standard X, while officers have to meet standard Y) but every Lone Star empoyee is required to be familiar with handguns.

With this corporate mentality, I'd imagine that not only would Smartlinks be standard, they'd be encouraged for just about everyone.

[thunderchild]

[Chodav]

In general, I agree with the original poster, but a couple of random thoughts . . .

1) If you want cost effective, add a laser sight to each Ruger Thunderbolt. If you want your cops to be better than that, add a gas vent. This is likely the route taken by the little companies that can't afford better. Also, many cops would pay to upgrade their own weapons. They do nowadays . . .

2) Notwithstanding the above, I would have all LS cops have a smartlink-I installed. (The smartlink-II benefits really don't apply much to pistols.) The corp would likely do it right as they were hired. But wait, you say, why would the corp invest then? Two reasons - first, the beginning weeks of most police academies (including the one I attended) are spent in the classroom, which allows for healing. Given the prevalence of simsense technology, those classes could be "attended" by recruits in hospital beds with ease. Second, the corp ensures each new recruit's loyalty by making them sign an obligatory document that mandates two years of employment before they move on (like many modern police departments do nowadays). Two years is enough time to recoup a 2,500Y investment. The only flaw in this is the expense of the small percentage of recruits who fail out of the academy, but them's the breaks.

(On a side note, recruits who fail the academy or fail to complete the two-year contract would have the smartlink disabled by LS. Perhaps an Electronics B/R (6) test to repair with a base time of four hours, and a Biotech (Cybersurgery) (4) test to avoid medical complications. The Rule of One for the Biotech test would be brain damage, and for the Electronics test would be functional destruction of the processor. Any cop would effectively have a permit for the smartlink by virtue of their employment record in their credstick; employees who completed the two-year contract would effectively have a lifetime permit.)

3) Smartlink surgery is highly invasive. The eye must be opened and an image projector (eye display) must be installed with a wire run to the rear of the cranium. The palm must be opened, an induction pad installed, and a wire run to the cranium. The cranium must be opened and a limited simsense rig and smartlink processor installed and connected to the aforementioned wires. It's not like popping in a dampener. It's much more complex and time-consuming.

All in all, I like the idea. I think every cop would want one. In fact, I think many cops would agree to pay for it themselves through a company loan, which is what my ex-Lone Star character did. (He did that for boosted reflexes 1, too.)

Good thread!

[Rev]

I also think that lonestar et all would preferentially hire ex military or security personel who already have a smartlink. Think of all the stuff people do before getting into the police department today. Maybe having a smartlink is yet another plus on your application. When it comes down to it an organization that cares how well its personel can shoot has two choices. They can spend all thier money on training, or they can spend some on training and some on cyberware. Quite possible the cyberware ends up being pretty cheap in this analysis. The smartlink can do some other cool stuff for cops, like that gun lock system so nobody else (or nobody but cops) can pick up the gun and use it.

[Tanka]

You can do that by adding a biometric safety as well. I did that with a custom shotgun I made. Biometric reader, removed external safety, security weapon (spikes in handle), and then just deactivated the safety via Smartlink. Made people think twice before grabbing my shotgun. (edit) Oh, and removed trigger so I just had to think to shoot. (Does that make it a semi-Free Action? o.O)

Although, I have yet to use that character... Maybe because I broke the rules quite a bit and got some stuff over Avail 8... Shh... :P

<ontopic>I think that most security forces wouldn't add Smartlinks to their officers. They could get them themselves, but I doubt the corp would shell out for it unless they were very beneficial to them and they never would be promoted.

Special Forces, on the other hand, probably have all kinds of wiz stuff.</ontopic>

[Grey]

[Tanka]

I know, I know, I was kidding. :D

OK, I wasn't. It was worth a shot!

No pun intended...

[Siege]

Not to mention the PR concerns -- nothing like nailing innocent bystanders to upset media outlets. Which in turn upsets voters which upsets the mayor and seriously endangers your contract.

You can also increase officer survivability by improving weapon accuracy and control. Which, in turn, more than makes up for costs in death benefits, medical bills and even employee morale.

All of which suggest that smartlink tech would be a major bennie all around, especially for patrol officers at any rate.

-Siege

[thunderchild]

so pros......

Accuracy (ammo savings, job effectiveness and not hitting civvies)
Safety (remove the triggers and all of a sudden, gutterpunks cant fire them, also lowers the chance of misfires)
Speed (clip ejection and such) ]
Reliability (cant be stolen... easily)

Cons

Costs (surgery and hardware)
Downtime (healing after surgery)
erm...... i cant think of anything else.

[moosegod]

Pros- officer survivability.

[Siege]

Pro - employee morale
con - higher investment per employee

-Siege

[moosegod]

If you have a fair number of magic types, you can have them toss around treats on your just cut-up officers, avoiding the messing up in training.

[Chodav]

That sort of thing cheapens magic to the point where I'd rather not play. it's supposed to be special . . .

[moosegod]

Personally, I like integrating the two.

[Luke Hardison]

I don't think it's unreasonable to think that the majority of people who routinely put their lives into the hands of their firearms (and skill with said weapons) would shell out for the system themselves. Typically, if the NPC cop is a veteran, or average Lone Star officer, he gets a SL in my games. Only officers with special stories (rookies, anti-cyberware activists) don't have them.