Isn't the damage equal to square root(kg) * Rating? If so, that makes those 810kg cause 285P at ground zero (286P with one net hit ). Make the bomb with plain old TNT and you still have a bomb that does 114P. That one would cost only 162000 based on the book's screwy prices.

A 1000kg bomb actually weighs 1000kg, explosives, casing and all. It has to be labeled that way for calculating weight loads for the aircraft thats going to carry it. As for the percentage of weight thats casing I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure it would be less than 20% for a bomb that size. A little 50kg one might get up to 20% but then they might just turn it into a dedicated fragmentation weapon specifically for use on infantry. For the sake of argument, 90/10 works fine.

The mighty Iron Bomb seems to have roughly 20kg of TNT in it and is just barely light enough to be carried by a roto-drone (If they can cart around an LMG + 250 rounds of ammo, they can carry 20kg). A military aircraft would be dropping these things by the dozen.

*EDIT* A quick brainstorm and search of wikipedia reveals that a suitcase nuke would do roughly 4,000P at the center of the blast. Gotta love dem nukes.

@Mordivan=
That's indeed what I was going for.

I find it amusing that Hyz says they're on the battlefield in the name of freedom when I was almost certain they were on the battlefied in the name of "Oh my god they kill my whole family and told me that they would rape me to death with knives if I didn't kill and rape everyone I saw".

But there I go, the crazy idealist again.


Now, before we get into a debate over the actual combat effectiveness of child soldiers I should point out that with simsense/btl delieverable through trodes I think it's reasonable to expect an enormous amount of highly trained child soliders on the battlfields of 2070. A good p-fix BTL chip that's been burned out and copied a million times is all you really need to accomplish what slits on the back of the head and copious amounts of amphetamines and cocaine accomplish today. Additionally a burgeoning BTL addiction certainly helps create the vital physical and emotional dependancy that child solider units rely upon to maintain order and discipline. I'm sure the required killing/rape is still a popular indoctrination technique.

Now, I must admit that I've having great difficulty locating documents pertaining to the combat effectivness of child soldiers. If anyone has some good links I'd love to follow up on the topic. Most of my information is out of an issue of Scientific American almost a decade ago and that only applied to Africa. Things may very well have changed but from that and other articles I've read I was never under the impression that child soldiers were being used for much more than cannon fodder and fucking up the enemies minds. There are notable exception (I believe they had a 14 year commander in Afghanistan and the Lords Army was run and mostly staffed by preteens)

That's ingenious there are a number of potential issues though.

1) I'm not sure that you can treat cultured ware as delta, even if you use clones. You could certainly make the case that it should be cheaper, but it's not certain, and not necessarily 10 times cheaper.

2) The wait time, you already acknowledged this of cause, but it make the list longer and more impressive, plus it is a significant disadvantage.

3) Civil rights. This isn't a problem if you're Aztlan, but if you're UCAS you clones would probably have rights which menas that a number of them might choose not to go into the army. I'm sure Ares and the other corps would love recruiting them instead, this means you would have to raise several clones for each one you train.

4) PR. I'm not sure how the public would react to clone armies. This is especially valid for child armies.

5) Finding a template. Very few people have type O quality and very few of those have the potential to get the stats you supersoldier has. You might have to relax the standard a little, though to be fair you can relax demands on mental stats with little effect on combat ability.

6) And this is my personal favorite. Tailored Bioweapons. You soldiers are all clones. Corp X or nation Y gets a sample and manufactures a nasty personalized bioweapon. Kills mr. supersoldier deader than weak old fish and does nothing to anyone else other than cleaning out their sinuses.

7) Nothing in the game mentions clone soldiers. That doesn't necesarilly mean it wouldn't be possible, in fact the idea is quite clever, even if cultured ware isn't included in the type O quality or just costs 5 times as much instead of 10. I does mean that it's not actually done though, at least not commonly.

Just for comparison I though I've make my own supersoldier. Only costs 500.000 in augmentation, I'll hand wave another 500.000 in training cost and equipment, making for a nice round 1 mill per man. Doesn't pose any of the problems clone troops do, and performs almost as well. Granted your heal a bit faster and takes a bit less damage and have 1 more IP, but being significantly cheaper (depending on how a hypothetical GM rules on the clone soldier thing) I can field somewhere between 2 and 8 times as many troops. So I can afford replacing those that die or are wounded much better.

http://www.coyotecode.net/profiler/view.php?id=4119



On the other hand I just noticed that an implantet delta Comlink costs 0.5 essence, not 0.025. Delta Skillwires with expert system also cost 0,45 rather than 0.225, so it almost evens out.



But the relevant comparison here isn't hamburgers or cinemas. It's soldier training cost, which will almost certainly be cheaper due to skillwires and better VR training.

Don't forget the Desert War (I just got a copy of Target: Wastelands). That's a year round proving grounds with live fire thrown in for flavor. Nothing says good training like "Let's go show those Azzie punks who's boss"

Of course, it helps that the Desert Wars are broadcasted and that it turns an enormous profit. According to the book all those operations end up paying for themselves (something that I find hard to believe but hey! That's what the "I Believe!" button is for.)

I believe there was an argument about whether Type-O System applied to Cultured or not a while back, and a developer stated it is left to the GM to decide.

My view:
Cultured has grades just like Standard ware does. This means that, although they do need to custom grow Cultured, they use the same basic genetic template as Standard grade does. The customization for Cultured ware comes in tailoring it, not to the recipients gene's, but to their nervous system &/or neural structure. As Type-O is based on genetic compatibility, it applies equally to Cultured and Standard ware.

That's not the case. The type O quality unambiguously does not apply to cultured ware. Obviously the GM can house rule it, but it's a house rule, not a valid interpretation of the actual rules. If the discussion that you refer to is the one I remember that is what the developer said as well. The real question is whether you could use the type O quality for a clone army which might make sense.

The relevant rule is:"Off the rack, basic bioware is considered delta grade for purposes of interacting with a type O body" page 20 augmentation.

Cultured ware does not benefit from type O according to the developers discussion a while ago.

To be fair the wait time is an initial disadvantage. Once the first group is done you can be having a new group every 6 months ( if you wanted to).


Doubtful. They have 18 years of indoctrination before they get the chance to potentially leave.


Yep, why I'm not going with child armies.


The template is the best ork solider you can find pre enhancement. While the quality is like Type 0 it is not Type 0. You take Solider X, you genetweak him, and you run off your clones. Every clone is genetically identical. So you can mass produce what would normally be delta grade ware (DNA matched to the recipient) just as easily as they mass produce Type 0 ware.


Thats why they have all the nice nano gear and their suits have a chemical seal.


Correction, it means that is hasn't been done or at least not acknowledged by any corp or nation. Not that they actually haven't started doing it. Cloning is new tech and with the lead time it could very well be another 5 to 10 ingame years before the first group is done.


No Orthoskin or replacement means 3 less armor.
No Bone Density Augmentation means 4 less dice to soak with.

Those 2 right there take off 7 dice to soak. And the loss of 3 armor means a lot of things that would do stun damage to my solider do Physical Damage to yours.


Incorrect.
Data Jack
.5 base
*.5 delta grade
*.5 less cyber than bio
.5*.5*.5=.125

Skillwires + Expert System
.8 base skillwires
+.1 base expert system
*.5 delta grade
*.5 less cyber than bio
.9*.5*.5=.225


Most likely.

Hmm, does anything that takes up capacity and that you add to a cyber limb have to be at least as high a grade as the cyberlimb, or can you just add a nanohive to a delta grade cyberfoot?

Correct. But that is because there is no "basic" template for cultured ware. To be honest, cultured ware shouldn't have grades, it should only be delta ware (being already genematched and grown for the individual).

I added a smuggling compartment and moved the nanohive into that, which meant I could use a basic grade nanohive instead of a delta grade one. This saved me about 530K. New figures are below:

Total cost per solider:
1,171,000 pre gear (all enhancements+lifestyle)
329,000 for gear
1,500,000 with gear

That could compound the PR problem, I'd be scared if my government started building brain washed super-soldier, or a foreign government.



Two points. First of all the best orc had body 8 and intuition 5 (still just soft-caping here). Secondly if they're not really type O then the ware might be slightly more expensive. Real type O is already being massproduced, you need to set up you own line of production. Could be more expensive, though to be fair it could also be easy and cheap, no way to know really.




True, but no soldier wears armour 24/7.




True, though it will never be standard in canon. For fluff reasons if nothing else.



Ohh, you soldiers are better, there's no doubt about that. However mine might very well be more cost effective. Depends on what you're using them for and whether you can afford to wait 18 years for the first batch, and how well clones really work.




Ahh, it didn't occur to me you were factoring in fact that you had less cyber. I personally do that when I add it all together. A mere difference in style, but it threw me off. My mistake. Though a data jack costs 0.1 unless they issues an errata. So the cost would be 0.025, not 0.125.




Everything has the same grade. I don't recall where it says so, but I'm pretty sure.

The prices listed in the book are retail; wholesale is always cheaper.

Fighting soldiers like that i would use two or tree guys armed with HMG:s firing capsule rounds filled with powerful acid, backed up by few guys with rocket launcers firing a mix of Inferno Rocket and Zapper Static Discharge Rocket.

That should wreak a havok on their funky gear.

Yep. Although this is Shadowrun.


Yeah, but even if it cost as much as the cloning facilities its still a major money saver.


True, but thats what the nanites are for.


Prolly not, but you never know. It's certainly dark enough to fit. And it sounds like something the corps would do.


At 500K for each of your guys mine just have to be able to take on 3:1 odds to come out ahead.

If both of our guys have the same equipment then their guns do 17p with -5 AP assuming a narrow, full burst. A hit on one of my guys with said gun deals stun damage while it deals physical damage to your guys. I roll 29 dice to soak for an average of 8s damage. Which becomes 6s because of ware. You roll 22 dice to soak for an average damage of 10p damage. Which becomes 8p, 1s because of ware. My soldiers can take 5 average hits before dieing (the 6th kills them), yours can take 2 average hits before dieing (the third kills them).

My guys also rolls 15 dice to attack vs. your guys 14. They both roll the same number of dice for defense tests though, both of us have to use full defense if we want to roll more dice that the attacker. We roll 17 dice to defend. The odds of a hit aren't great. But I get 1 more chance per round (extra IP).


Yeah, fixed.


Yeah, found it. But it's fine, saved me over 500K

As a note, one of the biggest problems here is the assumption that buying a permanent lifestyle is equivalent in cost to raising someone and indoctrinating them from birth. To say nothing of the assumption that such a lifestyle includes the cost of paying all the people who are working on the project.

Basic shadowrun rules just aren't equipped to handle this kind of thing, and it's a mistake to assume the gloss-over rules for lifestyle will accurately model it.

Fine with me. I have just been going with book prices.


They have all the resistance stuff.

Well i still think that those elemental effects are one of the best things for damaging them, and it goes little outside of the rules but i really thing that being doused in acid/napalm will have some nasty effect to your gear(but in game that would fully depend on GM:s discretion). The gun for example would propably not like being dosed in napalm.

Of course, just about anything will die if you give it a good acid/napalm dousing. That's not really a weakness of the super soldiers.

I was just defending my tactic of deling with those super soldiers becouse the only response i got for it was this



and i think that he's looking it too much from the rules perspektive and not considering what those weapons would ruly do to people hit with them.

Ah, I see. I misunderstood. Trying to keep track of too many threads at once.

That would make me more worried, not less, though I might have less to say about it.




As some deep dark undercover unit yes. As the standard for military forces no. It would be pointless to have everyone be the ultimate pinnacle of metahuman augmented perfection that the game systems allow for.



The thing is that your guys can't take 3 of mine, or even 2. First of all I only take stun. In order to do physical you need to exceed my armour without adding in the extra damage from burst. Also I roll 2 more die in dodge due to Move-by-wire. You biggest problem is full dodge though. You can't afford to use it. If each of you guys shot at 1 of mine I can go full dodge and still have 2 guys shooting next pass for each of yours. If each of mine shoots at 1 of yours then you'll have no people firing next pass. If you use full dodge then you effectively have only have 1 pass per round against my 3, if you don't then I'll hit almost every time. I also get to use edge much more often because I have 3 times as many people with edge pools.

Incorrect.

SR 4 page 140
If the attack causes Physical
damage, compare the modified
Damage Value to the modified
Armor Value. If the DV does not
exceed the Armor, then the attack
inflicts Stun rather than Physical
damage.


Doh, yeah.

I also forgot to account for tracer rounds and the Smartgun system on the attack test. So add 2-5 to the attack pool depending on the range. And add 1 too my guys dice pool from a Reflex Recorder for Dodge (the cost doesn't change because I hadn't spent all the equipment money yet anyways).


True. But again, this means that you have to have 3 times as many units at any given location at any given time. 30 men vs. my 10. It's hard to get those kinds of fields of fire in an urban environment.

But yes, your guys are good and a threat. In fact I would prolly take them over the 7 million dollar non clone version of my guys.

SR4 page 141-142:
"Narrow bursts increase the attack's DV by +2. Note that this DV modifier does not apply when comparing the DV to the armor rating"



I've got a reflex recorder on dodge as well. As for tracers you could use them but then you loose DV. Not sure it's worth the cost.


True, but even if only a limited number can fire at the same time, it still let's me replace those that fall.


As I said, which is best really depends on the need of the mission and on the cost of your guys.

I fail to see what an SR*3* rule has to do with a 2070 supersoldier.

Anyway, the weird thing about that rule is thats the only place it shows up is in the narrow burst description. For something that important, you would think they would display it more prominently. Whenever I see someone say 'Troll tank? Just use APDS full bursts.' I just roll my eyes and move on.

*Edit*
Also, check BBB p.313, the Tracers entry. They don't add any dice if fired from a gun with an active smartlink.

Sigh. The one thing I hate about SR, everything is spread all over the damn place. So it's stun damage.


It doesn't say you loose DV in their description. I always assumed that it was like Tracer APDS, or Tracer ExEx and you just added the cost together and that was that. Besides, they apparently don't stack with a SmartGun so it's not worth it in the first place.


This again assumes open combat. With even a few miniutes between waves they can reduce the damage by 4 points. And we aren't accounting for things like cover, ambushes, etc.


1,500,000 should be the final, hard number. I have looked and haven't seen any real way to either reduce the enhancement cost further (thank you smuggling compartment+nanohive) and anything added should come out of the cash pool left over (about 200K).

And for anything except battle on an open field the numbers aren't as relevant. Sure your army may be 3 times as large total but it doesn't have 3 times as many troops at any given point. And this is primarily an offensive army. Sure, it is excellent defensively and can prolly hold off your guys if they had time to prepare positions, but any concentrated attack will use combined arms including high speed attack runs by bombers and the like. And they won't survive that.

These guys were built on the premise that most combat in 2070 will take place in Urban settings or inside buildings. In both cases it is hard to bring a very large force in and my guys have lots of places to set ambushes and get around those set by others. Their scouting drones really come into their own as well in such situations.

As for inside, it's hard to believe that they would run into 30 men at any given time.

These guys are not meant for open field combat, mainly because no ground force really can be. Airpower can be far to effective in far to many ways. And the big players can drop KEW's on your head if you give them the opportunity.

SR3? Who mentioned SR3? *whistled and inconspicuously hits the edit button*

Though actually under the compare armour it says to add net hits to the base damage value, so it's kind of in there as well, though it's not obvious. And full burst does work well against a troll tank as long as you'll settle for knocking him out. Unless he has Pain Editor of cause, in which case you just have to keep firing a bit longer to get overflow.

It's a typo. The term DV doesn't even appear in SR3 and armor rating doesn't do shit to SR3 DL.





There are plenty of kids who are true believers and voluntarily sign up to make a difference, usually either little Inigo Montoyas seeking revenge against heavy-handed government forces by joining the rebellion or well-indoctrinated Hitler Youth types who want nothing more than to serve their government with honor, dignity, and courage. There are also plenty of kids who simply have no one else to turn to for support and thus join an army to put food into their stomaches without any external coercion but the general apathy of the populace.

I know that. I just thought it was funny.



The rest is vanished because author is embarrassed to have written it. Nothing to see here, move along.

Most people are idiots. Are you just now realizing this?

Vanished because author is embarrassed to have written it. Nothing to see here, move along.

I'm pretty sure it's in their somewhere, but I can't find it offhand. Since it doesn't matter I won't bother searching


You might not get a few minutes, as for ambushes and cover I get to use those as much as you do.



There's really no such thing as a hard number in this, since there are no actual rules for storm troopers in SR.
ANy kind of number not using standard rules involves a lot oh handwaiving.

BTW I'm pretty sure you're misreading the smuggling compartment rules. Smuggling compartments don't have a capacity. They have a capacity cost if you install them in a cyberlimb. Still you can use an artificial foot or similar to get the same effect.


Numbers aren't as relevant outside the open field but it's far from irrelevant either. For one thing I can simply choose to do 3 different things at once. You'd have to either split up your team or only counter one. Granted you'd probably win that one, but if you lost just 4 men it's still a strategic win for me. I might not be able to use all 30 at once against your 10, but I might be able to bring in 15 and if you win (which I don't think you would) 15 more could come, or alternatively your guys might have to split up to defend or assault from multiple direction. If I get caught by a bombing run I can sustain a few casualties easier etc. Numbers still matter, urban combat or not

It wasn't in the tracer description.


Yep. But the attacker has the advantage of selecting their targets.


Actually most of this is using standard rules, the only thing that isn't is the cloning its self and no one has really given a reason it can't work.


Yeah your right. Cyberfoot it is. Not like its a problem, although it still doesn't explain the absurd essence to capacity cost on the nanohive.


Sure, but on a strategic level thats a lot less relevant. I have 16,000 to your 21,000. It's not that many different things, I mean after a certain point the advantage goes away.


10 against 15? If I got surprise I would say I win with minimal damage (no fatalities, some physical damage). In an open fight it would depend on the dice rolls, if Initiative worked out right, if one of us got lucky on a few soak rolls, etc.

But if those guys use the weapons i suggested your teams equipments are most propably pretty much brogen before the fight ends.

Do you have a page reference for it dealing damage to the equipment?

How about another angle: your guys are using grenade launchers right? With the rules on sympathetic detonation, microgrenades go off if you look at them funny. How many were they carrying? Two full mags for the xm30? Since the ones in the rifle and the spares would be stored independently, if set off they would do two hits of 17P -2AP. The guy whose grenades went off would most likely set off the grenades of everyone else in about 4 meters. All you have to do is chuck one grenade at them!
*edit*
After thinking about this, reepneep decided that none of his characters would ever touch an explosive weapon again.

BBB page 154-155, but thinks like that are mostly left for GM to deside.

And the defender has the advantage of a prepared position. IN either case the question is which supersoldiers are most cost effective, not whether it's best to be on attack or defence.



Well I have given a reason it won't work, it's just a metagaming one. In either case it's not RAW to apply type O to cultured ware.


I though we were talking about small unit actions not large scale battles.



I think you're grossly overestimating the effect of the surprise rules. Besides you can't reasonably assume that you'd get surprise. In an open fight you still have the dodge problem. Once you start using full dodge your soldier won't ever get the chance to stop because I have more people. 7 ekstra soak dice, doesn't compare to 1.5 times more fire-power and 2 extra dodge dice (I can counter the extra IP by using edge). Barring a great deal of luck, getting an ambush from superior cover, me "playing" my soldiers stupidly or something like that your guys will loose.

As will booby traps and light anti-armour weapons. Which are *dirt cheap*. The RoI of the gear isn't worthwhile in all situations. It's very good in some, but won't be employed where there is a good chance of effective cheap countermeasures.

It has been said that SR is a game of hammers and eggshells. I suspect that this holds true if one adopts a large scale military approach. Consequently the odds are high that your soldiers will be so much red mist once the ordnance starts flying.

while I agree with you:
ordnance - 2 syllables, bullets, weapons, artillery and stuff
ordinance - 3 syllables, local laws, rules, etc.
/nitpick

How Freudian of me. Edited to fix.

Them local politics can be vicious!