Cthulu: Your last post concerned me, 'cause it sounds like you're taking my critiques as more expansive than they are. I guess, my question is "what more resolution do you need?"

Let's be fair - I still think your idea is quite good, and forms most of the backbone work of designing things. You can base a lot of the future work of the scenario from what you've done already. For most cases - routine cases, if you will - the work makes a lot of sense. And you still have a lot more money to play with.

I've given some examples that should elucidate how I think about the problem. In each of those examples, there's a case where your force can work through it, and there's a case where a force with more people can work through it. None of the solutions are perfect; but, it's war, not rocket science. I think the question is one of interpretation - which kind of independent decisions can drones make, and which kinds not. I'm not sure how to answer your question in the abstract, so give me some specifics.

We both agree that you need some human capability on scene. I have posited some scenarios where I think you'll need more human control then you have; and there are many scenarios where you won't. You've talked about some scenarios where you need more capability. In many cases, your telepresence example works well. I'm almost sold on the notion for the doctor thing, for example. Not quite as sold on the mechanic thing. We both completely agree on the utility of drones for establishing a 1000 meter standoff zone around a site - I think one rigger could control the site, for at least long enough to trigger the "Stand to" if there is abreach bigger than it can handle.

And some of these scenarios one or both of us may be wrong on how they might play out - I have never actually played the scenario of Nimrods guarding a cargo helicopter, for example. I'm just positing an example.

KZT - yep, you're right about the attack vs. defense thing. *concedes point.* I've seen some similar scenarios. However, this won't necessarily be as clean (since I'm allowing you a whole lot more control variables than those army scenarios give you), and Cthulu's point about the replacability of Steel Lynxes is well taken. You can afford some losses more than others.

Note, as a GM, if I think yall're tracking hard and on a glide path to easy success, I usually do fall into the trap of making the scenario harder. Mostly, because if it's too easy or too difficult it's not fun. I can explicitly state when I do this, so we know how the concept works.

You are not properly exploiting the internationally variable cost of labor . You recruit from 3rd world countries (India, the Philippines, Thailand, etc) who have the skill sets you need. I'd assume that it is only those people who can beat the die pool of drones that can command the 'international' salary levels expected by runners.

Aha. And yeah, fair cop, didn't figure you were recruiting third world-ers there, sorry.

If you take a look at Philippine passports issued in the last 5 years, you'll find 'Not valid for travel to Iraq' stamped on every page. Because some Filipinos were desperate enough to travel to a war zone to try to find a job driving a truck, or something,

Oh yeah, I'm aware of the practice, and of the problems involved in using third world contractors as opposed to first world (I guess thats the right team) contractors. I just didn't realise you meant them in this case.

Its a set of trade-offs - moving towards the other point of the triangle I outlined before

Developed forces
Drone Armies
Chumps with or without skillwires.

Good point about being useful for soft power operations, though I'm not sure how useful soft power will be in a 2 month deployment, rather than a national building exercise.

Another thought - we probably won't need fuel except for the heavy vehicles. Satelitte power projection exists, and there is no reason not to use it. So gadgets, drones, etc should be okay, but a 10 tonne APC might be a hard nut to crack.

Aight, I've started a general planning thread in the Welcome to the shadows portion.

Since we're getting down to some of the meat here, this will be a general way to move it in. Plus, I've given myself an opportunity to put in some actual guidance of the specifics and some ways to follow up with the in-game questions.

If ya'll're intrested, it's open. I'm still planning on continuing this thread as well.

Chrysalis - Didn't mean to ignore your previous post. Remember, we're doing this collaboratively, and at a lazy, spare time pace. You mentioned "Diesel's Figures on how much an infantry soldier would cost to supply?" Do you know where to find those?

As for the dudes who are willing to haul 7 tons of artillery through forests without roads, well, I'm of the opinion that soldiers can do amazing things when well led and motivated. Even mercernaries, and even chumps with AK47s. (Esp. since those dudes who did that were chumps with AK47s).

Cthulu - Sattelite power projection exists in Shadowrun? Can you show me something like that from the book? That could make a lot of your stuff much easier.

That's exactly the argument I'd expect from a Harvard MBA. But it's both cost effective and dumb. It's the same problem as depending on remote AR/VR to do critical tasks, but worse. If I bribe the sat operator to shut you down for 20 critical minutes you are going to be SO fucked.

This is why real armies don't plan on going to supermarkets/McDonalds to feed the troops, or gas stations to fuel their tanks and instead build expensive parallel infrastructures. You can't count on anything you don't control being there when you need it.

It sounds kzt is on the Opfor-team then. Myself I am happy to supply feedback, or ideas for Opfor as well (since I'm lacking sr4 materials).

Kilko - I'm starving for some OPFOR feedback. PM me later, and I'll break down what I have in my head.

I'm seriously considering moving the actual IC and stuff posts to the Myth Weavers website, because they have an integrated dice roller and the ability to lock acceess to certiain portions of the game threads (so I can have separate OPFOR and BLUFOR threads, and never the twain shall meet). BUT, I like dumpshock, and d'ruther not.

KZT - yup. But it's a tradeoff. Here's some ideas for statting out support requirements for power and stuff:

- 1. Generators: By 2070, I'd say a light truck (1.25 tons, HMMWV sized (and I think HMMWVs and Hotspurs are ROUGHLY about the same, but Hotspurs are better)) should be able to carry a 100 KV generator, or enough for a platoon's living areas and equipment OR a platoon living area and a shop. A heavy truck (5+ tons, ares Roadmaster, capable of pulling a not-full 20' shipping container or a full-to-the-brim ISU 90 or two) should be able to carry about a 300-500 KV generator. A Zugsmachine with 1 trailer can carry a 2 MW generator (enough for MOST everything, or a facility with a couple associated shops), or a Zugs with 3 trailers could carry an (approx 5M ) 5 MW portable nuclear reactor (assuming you can find a river or lake).
- 2. Lifestyles: US Soldiers deployed live "Low" Lifestyles. I'd cost out an MRE at about 20 a pop if you buy individually, to about 10 a pop if you buy by the palette. A mobile kitchen trailer (capable of feeding a company) would cost about 10K for the shop plus 5K for the trailer, be mobile by a 5 ton truck, and would cost out at between 2.5 and 5 nuyen per meal (assuming a lot of soy food, with some dietary supplements and shit tons of calories). This is cheap, but you have to remember that you're providing the food, power (above), and comforts.
- 3. Matrix: You'll need to buy a couple "nexus" things from Unwired. Haven't looked in detail to see how many, or what. If you want dedicated sattelite feeds, I'll need some estimate of the number of feeds before I can price out the birds and the bandwidth.
- 4. Water: Assume 50 gallons of water per person per day as a high estimate (if you provide laundry and showers), and 10 gallons of water per person per day as "basic livable." Once you get an estimate of number of soldiers and consumption tables, I can price out a filtration unit for you.
- 5. Gas - haven't thought about this one in detail yet.
- 6. Pay scales - assume that pay scale is one higher than normal lifestyle. So, your lowest ranking first world soldiers would get paid somewhere between medium and high lifestyles (medium for the lowest ranking, high for senior NCOs and senior lieutenants/captains); higher ranking first world soldiers would get high lifestyles, most third world soldiers would get somewhere between low and medium, and those from the most rural places would be at "Low." Note, that the people from dirt poor areas might flock to join, because they'll live deployed as well as they can expect back home.

Right.

I did some rethinking.

The cost of an individual soldier's basic combat load came out to 45,005 nuyen including comms for each and image enhacement devices, let's pretend it's 45,000.

200 soldiers x 45,000 = 9,000,000

I would need to have a list of company level equipment that should be taken with. I would estimate a partially mechanized infantry company at 10,000,000 nuyen. That would include repair facilities and mechanised units (trucks and landrovers). If anyone would like to make a list this would be better than this kind of guestimation.

Transportation cost rules of thumb:

By Sea 0.1 cost x10 time
By land x2 cost x5 time
By rail x1 cost x1 time
by air x10 cost x0.1 time

By sea 200 troops and company level equipment would cost 1,900,000 nuyen, but would take 10 days to arrive.
By land 200 troops and company level equipment would cost 3,800,000 nuyen, but would take 5 days to arrive.
By rail 200 troops and company level equipment would cost 19,000,000 nuyen, but would take 1 day to arrive.
By air 300 troops and company level equipment would cost 190,000,000 nuyen, but would take 2.4 hours to arrive.

During the first month there the cost of billeting soldiers will be 145,000 nuyen (assuming that there are ten tenants and 190 sublets as according to the BBB). This is for a middle class lifestyle involving electricity and running potable water. The middle-class lifestyle covers being in the barracks.

To make things simple all 200 soldiers have to be payed 5000 nuyen a month. = 1,000,000

The first month is very bad. Every soldier who goes out accrues 40% equipment loss. This can be due to damage, misappropriation, loss, or use. Each soldier goes out on patrol only 1 day in 3. 40% loss is 9,000,000 *0.4 = 3,600,000 /3 = 1,200,000

The company is also having to utilize its resources at 60% This implies undergoing infrastructure construction such as an airstrip, and emergency transport of equipment on-site and arrange medical air evacuation of wounded personnel. 10,000,000 *0.6 = 6,000,000

The second month stabilizes. Every soldier who goes out accrues 20% equipment loss. This can be due to damage, misappropriation, loss, or use. Each soldier goes out on patrol only 1 day in 3. 40% loss is 9,000,000 *0.2 = 1,800,000 /3 = 600,000

On a company level stabilization means having to utilize its resources only at 40% This implies undergoing infrastructure construction such as an airstrip, and emergency transport of equipment on-site and arrange medical air evacuation of wounded personnel. 10,000,000 *0.4 = 4,000,000

The cost of equipment is: 19,000,000
The cost for two months of operations in the area is: 11,800,000
The cost of transport (by sea both ways) is: 3,800,000

The total operation cost is: 34,600,000 nuyen

Obviously the less equipment, the cheaper it becomes, but then again the mortality rate becomes higher.

Edit: Changed the numbers from 300 soldiers to 200.

I gather its in the previous editions and is a major reason for the rise of the japancorps. I will try and get a reference for you.



Wow, thats almost complementary.... sort of.



Anyway, Skynet is rented by the British military from private contractors (though admittedly Paradigm is pretty much married to the MoD), and I don't care about a 20 minute shutdown because drones have batteries. It matters if you take it out for a day or two so I cannot recharge of course, but that seems unlikely. Of course, operating against hte intrests of the corp I rent that service is likely to bad. Renting it off two rival corps at the same time is likely to be a good idea.

I've done games like this before. I'm kind of worried that SR is too granular and character oriented to work. Things like people never missing with guns have a huge significance in a military game that they don't have in a RPG where you want fast play.

I'm with kzt on this one. Best of luck, as a dedicated war gamer these are some of my favorite style games.

But run at this level requires a certain level of abstraction. Again going to battletech, the CV (combat value) system was downright awful for balancing fights, but it worked well for logistics and running campaigns. I don't really see how well you can do this w/o getting hopelessly bogged down in the details here. You're going to see a lot of this. Similarly, some units are great in normal battletech, but seem to suck when reduced to battleforce abstractions. Another game which saw a lot of the same is Star Fleet Battles/Federation and Empire. Units which play well w/ a good player abstract poorly, and other units you normally wouldn't use become better because of the abstraction.

Also there's an element of player expectations... reading through here... Cthulthudreams seems to think drones have a rediculous amount of autonomy if he just puts a cracked pilot 4 autosoft into it. (which raises the question, why bother w/ the fuzzy logic mod if the autopilot is that good). Drones will follow orders, but their little doggy brains are limited, and there's a good chance they won't do it in the way you think you told them to and they won't notice and report things out of the ordinary. A better way to put it, is a drone autopilot is NOT an AI. If you can preprogram them great... but if the mission parameters change suddenly or they're surprised... they're not going to react well w/o a human operator. I'm not trying to pick on the drone issue... just point out how grey the rules are here.

All that is supposed to be handled by the GM on his call. But wargames aren't so nice and neat. Wargames typically have very strict rules and are very clear cut for the rules judge (limit the judgement calls, so neither player can claim favoritism). As an RPG SR has very nebulous rules so that the GM has a lot of leeway. The game is a lot more cooperative rather confrontational. So it comes down to the GM setting the ground rules clearly for all involved early. The maintenance drone is a prime example, it says it can handle basic repairs... but it's left to the Gm to determine what is basic and what requires an actual tech.

Falconer, KZT Yup. I knew that when I came up with this idea. I have a couple points:
1. The actual confrontation itself is less interesting to me than the process of working out how to get into the confrontation. I'm interested in the role-playing challenge of designing and fielding the company. That's why I'm not recruiting as heavily for OPFOR.
2. Many of the SR rules for stuff outside the purview of a normal SR game are quite nebulous. This falls into that category. Some of the generator and gas conversations work on that assumption. Rather than think of ALL the contingencies in the abstract and write the rules, I expect to rule some of these as it goes and write down what we figured out. Easier and more interesting for all concerned, and doesn't involve me writing a new wargame.
3. I expect the possiblity of some large scale combats, but those will not define the game. More than a platoon vs. Platoon will be very difficult to handle, in terms of sheer amount of dice rolling. C'est la vie. This is not a game of individual heroism and stuff in combat, this is a game of corporate strategizing and things that will enable mission success, hopefully without much individual heroism.
4. The player expectations piece is big. That's why this thread exists. It would be much worse to have the drone autopilot discussion when a PC's life is contingent on the results, rather than right now.
5. We got all the time in the world. This ain't my job, I'm assuming it ain't yall's. Hence the PBP forum as a venue. This would scuk if it was forced to a denoument by the fact that we have to sit across a table and get something done.

I like this game idea, because the details are interesting to me. I have some level of RL interest in moving companies to conduct independent operations, and what kind battlefield effects one should take into combat in future force planning. Hence, wanting to run a scenario that would figger out how it worked.

I used to play battletech, for example, and I always thoiught that battleforce was unfun, simply because it abstracted away too many of the lgocistic details and pesumed the confrontation was set. This is more like a sandbox, and the terms of the confrontation are mutable by player action. Abstracting the logistics takes away the OPFOR's ability to target anything except your force, and takes away your ability to affect the battlefied against anything except OPFOR forces.

Yes, in any kind of long term defensive operation the big threats are:

1) Continual economy of force attrition attacks on supply lines and patrols. Things like mines, etc.
a) The attrition threat causes patrolling to be reduced, allowing the massing of forces fairly close to the defended site.
b) This results in effectively blinding humint and further helps to allow the opponent to control the area outside the wire.
c) This results in the ability of the opponent to launch large scale direct attacks from close enough in that a lot of the unit firepower can't be directed against them. Detecting a 3 battalion attack when they blow lanes through the wire and your minefields is not exactly ideal.

2) The ability of an opponent to secretly mass forces over a long duration while preparing the battlefield. In this context that includes things like accumulating artillery, rockets and other long range fires as well as doing things like converting villages into fortified traps. If you know that a site will still be important a year from now you can work on a timeline that avoids doing things that have high signature but still manage to greatly degrade the defenses. For example, tunneling under the defenses and planting large quantities of HE under a critical site.

KZT - yep!

Hence the requirement to control the surrounding region. The sponsoring corporation doesn't want you to take a facility, only for the huge ambush that the bad guys are planning to be sprung the instant you leave.

The requirement to control the surrounding region is one of the more interesting ones, and one that they will have to pay through the nose for if your bid is accurate.

All - Remember, in terms of money, the 50M nuyen is capital investment, not operation costs. Much of the operation cost planning can go into preparation of the bid.