Lone Star efficiency, Giving my players a scare Options

[CanRay]

Add to that the Beauracracy that is inherant in the system, corruption from a variety of different people, corporate infighting and politics, and so on...

Honestly... Lone Star is probably less competent as the Cops are IRL right now. Which means they stop the most obvious crimes pretty well (Which are the majority), are decent at investigating things, and catch the rare professional.

Professionals, however, are better trained and experienced than most police are, are paid a hell of a lot better, and can afford to take more time and effort into things than the Cops can. On the flip side, they have less of a support structure.

Want to make things scary? Let the group go up against forces that don't have the budgetary restrictions that Lone Star has... Security forces for AA and AAA Corporations! They don't have to guard as much, get much better equipment and support, and don't have to answer to any stupid UCAS laws, as they're their own countries.

"Hello, this is Doc Wagon! Hello Officer Friendly. Shooting? Oh yes, there was a few discharges of firearms, however none penetrated the walls, so no UCAS citizens outside our territory was harmed. No, you may not enter to investigate, we have our own security doing so. No, no, it's a non-issue. Thank you. *Click* OK, harvest the bodies. Looks like we have a special on Second-Hand Troll Cyberlimbs this week."

[Cantankerous]

Lone Star is a AA Megacorp, yes, but it is something more important than that; it's the lowest bidder. Being the lowest bidder means getting the least amount of money for the contract. Somehow, you have to pay your officers, buy equipment, train officers, maintain equipment, and etc. while still making a relatively large profit. The only way to do that is to cut corners. Hell, they must cut whole sides.

When Lone Star initially bids on a contract they don't have enough personnel to fulfill that contract. Instead, when they get the contract, they immediatly use the money that they're being paid to hire local people and give them the bare minimum of training before sending them out onto the streets with guns and badges. All training, salaries, and equipment are paid for using the local budget, which is the contract value - a reasonable profit. Local Lone Star departments do not see any support or equipment from the main office unless they pay for it. That's just the way it has to be done because if it wasn't done that way then Lone Star would go out of business.

Even with low bidder this is a corp designed to do the job of enforcement AND detection. Check the sections in the Lone Star Sourcebook. Their Forensics labs aren't local for one thing. They use the Corps facility in Austin which is supposed to be one of the finest in the Sixth World, a rival to the best of the best of the FBI. If you know anything at all about Investigations, if the FBI wants to put their hands on you and they have an even relatively localized area in which you probably are residing, they WILL put their hands on you in very short order, in main part because of the excellence of their forensics work. If the Forensics Units are supposed to rival the FBI and there is a localized area...syonara baby... IF it were played anywhere even vaguely NEAR up to snuff, just on the strength of that alone.

Now add the Elite Units, which are no joke either, and it matters less and less whether or not the average street cop gets tons of toys or not, as long as they aren't completely incompetent the not so average boys, like the ones doing the investigations, backed up by the best forensics possible, WILL have your butt very quickly... or would if they were played anywhere NEAR the bottom end of their reasonable capabilities.


Isshia