Trace Tracker Teams, Who and how many go after the decker? Options

[tisoz]

When a corp succeeds in getting a trace on the physical location of a decker, who would constitute the team and how many would be sent? I know the logical response is enough to challenge the team, but what resources would the corp deploy?

The corp doesn't necessarily know what they are facing or who they are confronting. They would probably have a standard response team for tracking the trace. Who is on it? What kind of weaponry, armor, etc. would they field?

[Kanada Ten]

IMO. Depends on the system hacked. If you walked into Ares Human Resources, they'll send an investigatory squad consisting of a few well trained surveillance types. If you hammered your way into a Mitsuhama Military Satellite, they'll drop a cow on your house - meaning two choppers and three squads in full combat gear with a bucket full of drones.

Unless they have reason, I think the corps are more interested in finding out who did it, why they did it (or who's behind it), and what action to take can be decided later. I think three squads of six to eight is a nice even number for a high threat response. Definatly low profile surveillance drones though.

Of course the area the trace leads to matters as well. Can't be sending a fleet into Downtown without some paperwork filed.

[toturi]

[Kanada Ten]

I think hacking from inside the Veil is the safest place to do it. Well, other than the whole confusion and gremliny electronics siznat. Can the Og allow planes through? Sort of like mages letting things through their ward?

Anyway... Did I kill this thread? Frag, I forgot to let it get ten posts first. My bad.

[FlakJacket]

Oh yeah, tourism still makes up a fair bit of the Tir's economy IIRC.

[tisoz]

I was kind of thinking of letting the decker be traced and ambushing the trace team for weapons and armor. Have the trace lead back to a basement and when the trace team arrives bombard them with concussion grenades in the enclosed space. Probably do a couple of practice runs where the decker is pulled and the shadowrunners observe so they learn what the response will be.

[gknoy]

tisoz, that's pretty demented :)

High risk, but then again -- pretty high reward. The surveillance drones tho probably mean that they would only get to do it once ...

And I imagine that these teams have backup waiting on the sidelines waiting to go in, if there is indeed a response team.

Here's an idea, though ...

Have your decker's connection be via satellite, or other wireless method, but then connect THAT be connected to a physical jackpoint -- so for all intents and purposes, the intrusion looks like the initial jackpoint is at Warehouse X, when in reality your team is 2 blocks away communicating via microwave relay or something. :)

Just as a way of physically messing with the trail, of course.

You could even make them think they had gotten you by bouncing your connection then off of a satellite and then making an apparently half-hearted attempt to redirect yourdatatrail anyways. Not only is it a good idea in its own merit to obfuscate like a little obfuscation-monkey, but if they crack THAT datatrail, they might think they have got you and send the response team to your decoy location.

Which is of course loaded with concussion explosives or knockout gas... or C12...

Sorry, I'm in an evil mood tonight -- started a star wars (2nd ed, lol) campaign as a slicer, and hardly got to play at ALL. Because some people decided to start a bar brawl. START!!! Criminy ... oh well. :-) Hopefully I can make a later session and manage to be useful.

[tisoz]

[blakkie]

Astral tracker Mage show up ahead, very quick responce time.

[tisoz]

I'm assuming this is a follow up response, as the mage would have a difficult time astrally tracking an electonic signal :) , or finding an intentionally obscure location.

How likely would a mage be included on the tracking team? I'm worried about the havok that could be wrought after the mage is defeated in astral combat and his body is possessed. Then the team has an insider in the target.

Same with drones, the team is already thinking of ways to hijack the transport helicopter.

[CardboardArmor]

Corps wouldn't send greenhorn teams in as part of Trace-Track teams.

Think special operations, who shoot to kill. Then shoot the corpse a couple more times in the spine/head to make sure you're dead.

I personally base corporate military strength off of what I saw Umbrella use in the RE games. Lots and lots of mercenary types and so forth and a few operators used for special jobs.

[Kanada Ten]

[tisoz]

Thanks about the Possessing correction, the shaman doesn't have it yet and I was dreading he would take it (note the use of that could bein the post.) He is a holy terror in astral combat. A force 1 whip weapon foci seemed relatively harmless at the time. Then again I was assuming the mage went along, so he could cast spells, such as detection, and do all the normal magey things.

A magician hasn't died around him in ages because the shaman has usually encountered/disrupted the confronted magicians spirits and wants a roll for each spirit to see if it becomes a free spirit. That roll is successful too often, then the shaman assenses the spirits aura (or guesses its native plane based on having seen what type spirit it is), quests to its home plane, learns its true name and binds the free spirit. Viola, a spirit with no measure of services, perhaps even a type of spirit the shaman couldn't normally summon (such as an elemental.)

[Kanada Ten]

Shamans view spirits as allies, not tools. He is not roleplaying very well, IMO.

[Voran]

I've learned to appreciate the value of having a base of operations on Council Island. Its a great place to sortie from. Neither corp nor lonestar, etc forces can just swoop in without getting permission, and if the intrusion was already quietly sanctioned by the powers on Council Island, oh well, nobody gets in :)

[lacemaker]

I honestly don't think an initial trace response team would be that powerful - I think in general there's a tendency to treat anything a corp throws out as being loaded for bear without much consideration of the resource implications - mages in particular are very rare and very valuable, I'm not convinced that one would accompany a standard response to system snooping, particularly given the possibilities for false alarms...

Unless you've cracked something very, very serious I'd imagine the level of response would be geared to take down a decker and a couple of muscle boys, with the assumption that backup would be called in on the rare occaisons where that proved insufficient - probably four or five guys in a patrol car with SMGs or assault rifles, armor jackets or light security, with some drone backup but nothing magical...

I don't think corps are going to drop true special forces teams all over the planet on the basis of an electronic intrusion...

[as a side note a trace response team is described early in dreamchipper in "decking ma bell" or some such - don't have it in front of me though]

[Voran]

Another option for a security team would just to run a trace and analysis of the decker/icon/etc and save it for future reference. Nabbing or otherwise acting on the information when it was easier for them to justify the effort. Or track the decker down with their own deckers on the matrix.

[Zazen]

[tisoz]

[lacemaker]

That's true but I don't think it negates my point - any corporation big enough to employ a full time security mage is going to have lots of demands on that mage's time, and is also going to avoid committing them if they fear something else high priority could come up - if someone's got time on their hands they might well go out with a team, but in general I think corps would manage their magical assets well enough that no one ends up "just having time on their hands"- There's an analogy with a corp's in-house legal counsel - they're free to provide their services at any time, but this doesn't mean that corps treat legal advice as a free resource in the medium to long term - if you're sending them out to do minor jobs you'll end up needing more of them...

So I don't think a standard response to electronic intrusion gets magical backup at the first instance...

[Zazen]

[lacemaker]

Yep, good point - works realistically and makes the encounter more interesting... and it's exactly the kind of thing you'd want to do if your players were regularly trying the kind of ambush described in this thread.