ok, perhaps you guys can help me out with an argument with a player. a facility doesn't allow mass production does it? he's finally bought himself a gunsmithing facility and the first thing he did was mass produce 50k worth of Ares Vindicator's. he also wants to be able to do this without rolls. i'm going to tell him to stuff that, unless someone can help me out?

A facility is just the (manual) tools for doing the job, it does not constitute a fully automated factory.

That's what a facility is for, BUT there are lots of problems with that players plan, like getting the almost certainly pattened material that would go into it, getting the raw materials, and my personal favorite, the idea that Ares wouldn't pay for a run to prevent someone from flooding the market with knock offs

biggest problem with that is that the character would likely have access to that material. mats for making a vindicator aren't too far out of the ordinary, and the knock off's wouldn't really be knock-off's. she's ex-ares gunsmith. that's what's pissing me off. the biggest problem is whether or not a facility is different than a factory. can he really automate it and pump out any gun he can design in mass quantity's?

A Facility is different from a Factory. A Factory is automated mass-production. A Facility is a large working space with all the tools necessary for constructing heavy-duty or complex equipment. A Facility does not allow automated mass-production - the character must still personally build/modify/repair the equipment; the Facility just makes it possible (with possible bonuses).

Snow_fox has the right idea. A facility does allow for mass production. And yes if you have labor, materials, industrial utilities, vendors all lined up it is completely push button. But getting that lined up is not trivial at all. Fixers don't deal ingots. A rating 6 fake SIN isn't going to get you a industrial power connection. etc

You should ask the table if they want to start playing Sixth World Tycoon or find an unacceptable way to back burner or remove the facility.

Frankly I have zero problem telling a player "no". Sometimes common sense has to prevail to reign in a player's greater stupidities. That said, what is the problem with your player manufacturing Vindicators? Does he plan on selling them? I say allow it and give him all the headaches and problems that go with it.

Here's a few issues I can think of, off the top of my head:
Play around with the volumes he can produce (he can only produce x amount - whatever x is. Increasing x becomes problematic either based on the size of the facility, storage, etc),
Storage/transport of the produced items (how many does he want and where will he put them?),
Raw materials for mass production (how/where does he get it without drawing attention?),
Ammunition (even if he makes the guns, depleted uranium ammo isn't easy to get),
Designs (does he have the Vindicator design or did he design it himself? If so, how reliable is it? The GM should be rolling this test if he's designing it himself).
Issues with legality (Lone Star/FBI catching wind of some runner mass producing milspec gear),
Organised crime (some runner is mass producing milspec gear),
Other team mates getting shitty at the amount of attention this draws to their team (if I had a team mate who wanted to do stuff like this I'd probably start distancing myself from him if he wasn't smart).

Depending on how silly he gets, this could be a lot of fun to play out.

On a side note, I have one player who comes up with the most bizarre tangents that border on game breaking sometimes. I just tell him no if its a really dumb idea. If I occasionally indulge their nuances, I usually counter balance said idea with a challenge of equal value (aka. law of opposites) - like what I'm suggesting above.

- J.

doesn't matter, if she's no longer working for Ares in Ares owned operated weapons factory then its not a official Ares product and her former employer would not take to kindly to her reproducing their products with out authorization.



I would say a facility is not automated and would cost quite a lot of money to do so. so while they could build almost any weapon the have to plans and parts for it would take a good chunk of time to do so.they can not switch every thing on before leaving for a run and then come home to enough weapons to arm half the Barron.

right, and $50 in miniguns is not that many.

just because she worked at Ares doesn't mean she's got hte machines. I mean think of it this way, mechanic knows cars inside out, he worked for ford for many years, that still doens't mean he can eaisly make Mustangs

Actually, at $150,000 in Shadowrun money, a facility is a factory, especially when you add in the Lifestyle costs to house the damn thing.

A Facility absolutely lets you manufacture huge banks of stuff, without rolls. Or rather, you'll make the rolls for the first few prototypes, and then just churn the rest out based on those hits.

well then... interesting ideas. thanks. how much would the plans for a weapon such as a vindicator go for?

Just because one PC has the facility, even the machinery, does not necessitate he's addressed all the logistic issues of managing a fully automated, heavy weapons production facility.

- J.

Also worth considering is the raw materials cost (+ labor) of the stuff he makes in his shop. Since he is not buying his raw materials on an industrial scale, they will cost a bit more. Also, the marcinal costs of production at a full fledged factory will be much lower. It may turn out that the facility only lets you make stuff at a significant fraction of the items retail cost.

If you are making stuff you can't get otherwise (or is just plain illegal), or want to customize stuff then the facility is a good deal. If you plan to resell the stuff you make, then you'll want something with a high added value. And making copies of weapons that are mass produced in automated factories do not count as high added value items.

High 'added' value, no. But highly desirably, high availability, highly restricted milspec weaponry - oh god yes....

I'd be wanting high value security for said facility too....

- J.

Another note. A move like this would bring about every singling max level in existence. Nothing stirs the lethargic powers that be to drop hammers like a credible threat to there power base. Operating a weapon's facility means that the PC is now involved at the highest level of military power and industrial capitalism. A tiny microscopic spec of a player in the two biggest league baddest league ever invented. If I had a player try this I'd let them play Yojimbo for while. Then I'd have some Corp make them an offer they can't refuse. If they hold out the corp moves to wipe them out that simple. If the PCs can quickly find allies that can protect them, or can make a deal that keeps them in the loop to there satisfaction great. If not Tungsten, on the house!

Heh, it's like saying that Rwanda's ability to make machetes for dirt cheap will cause the US to come and take them over. since dirt cheap machetes are a threat to the US military-industrial complex...

ummm no. It's like saying the US would drop hammers on a criminals mass producing mini guns in Seattle ... which is basically what the OP is talking about

I've always used car-facilities to make the clearest analogy for myself and teams i play with.
A facility in that context is -to me - a very large garage with virtually every single piece of mechanical tools you use to repair and tune cars. It also holds metal workshop elements so you can produce replacement parts for vehicles.
However, a car factory is an entirely different construct of a long assembly line of parts put out at a high rate. You'd need as a very minimum some extra drones to form an assembly line and a whole lotta extra space to set up as a factory. And while space might not be a problem - it might attract a lot of attention - so you need extra security, perhaps you actually need to start hiring the guys you normally take out on runs. You'll also need shipping to clients, cargo manifests if they are going anywhere outside the city for example. On top of that as already mentioned, sourcing raw materials on industrial scales is not trivial either - simply because you are operating in a completely different circle of people of of a sudden, and there will be a lot of corp monitoring of these markets as well...


Anyways, just my 2 cents

First of all I assume that you and your players play �Shadowrun� and not �Corporate Management 2070�.

IF you play “Corporate Management 2070� we might want to look up a few details.

The player have access to a WEAPON PRODUCTION FACILITY…

Right, this would be a BUILDING which is a stationary building unless the player have hires a HUGE amount of cargo vehicles to move every piece of machinery out of said facility.

If the player have NOT moved equipment to an undisclosed location then I have a feeling that the powers that be (ie government, corps and Lonestar) have a good surveillance over said WEAPON PRODUCTION FACILITY and will inform the player of his legal (or lack of) if he/she illegally floods the market with weapons.

I’m pretty sure that he/she is looking at serious jailtime and/or terrorism charges.

Not to mention probable tax fraud, weapon manufacturing without license, weapon smuggling…

The list can be made LOONG…

Just because a player have access to something does not give the character a free ride. If they manage to create a fake front for said company and manufacture pink fluffy bunnies while shipping guns then all is fine and dandy.

My feeling is that a Facility is enough space for one person to make one thing at a time. A vehicle facility's more like a large garage than the production line.

If they want a fully-automated factory, though, I say give it to them. And then have it taken over by a malicious free sprite or AI or something. They'll regret all those miniguns that suddenly start with propulsion systems and the like

Gunny surveyed her sparkling new shadowfactory with a proud smile. There it was, her baby, all ready to start churning out miniguns for the cause of chaos, mayhem, and her own cred accounts. Her heart swelling with pride, she flipped up the cover on the "production start" button. It was a nice, classic, big red button, and it gave a satisfying click as she triumphantly pounded it in with her fist.

With a whine of turbines spinning to life, the factory line started! Soon the building was full of the industrious clanking and hammering and stamping of busy machines, all going about their automated business of making Gunny rich.

But there was another sound. Faint at first, she thought it was a problem with a motor somewhere. She sighed, annoyed that she would have to do repairs already, but the sound grew louder, more distinct. She tilted her head, straining to hear, but in a few seconds that was no longer necessary--the unmistakable 'thup thup thup' of choppers!

Gunny's stomach sank, her mind going numb. Could it really be? Could it be over as soon as it began? Her body acting on its own, she barely noticed that she was running haphazardly for the emergency exit. She had just a few seconds to note the three Ares gunships surrounding her building before the world erupted in a hellstorm of fire and falling shrapnel. Would she survive? It hardly seemed to matter anymore.

In the shadows, it's easy to think you're powerful. You've got toys, and juju, and sometimes even industrial factories. And the best part is, you have the freedom to use them all. But illusions are dangerous, and liable to be shattered at any time. The runner who forgets the shape of the world is the runner who ends up under a pile of rubble, her shattered life's work all around her. As much as we hate to admit it, the only safe place is within the shadow of the powers that be -- step outside of it, and much like an ant, they will crush you as an afterthought.

OOC: So yeah, I would have told my player beforehand, "if you follow through with this plan, military grade helicopters will blow it up. Your character knows this, because it's obvious." The shadowrunner's best defense is to stay off the radar. If they don't know about you, or they don't care about you, they won't bother to swat you. But things like factories, fortresses, and other highly conspicuous ops will get you killed, if only to make an example of you. Black facilities do exist, but not without protection. If she had an agreement with UCAS to block Ares forces coming to destroy it, for instance, then it would work just dandy. Though it would take more than just one Shadowrunner making an etiquette roll to make that happen, and to make that last, because Ares might be able to sue for permission to bomb the place, or they might just make an unauthorized strike on UCAS territory, and there's probably nothing UCAS could do about it.

A lot of things have been said already but I just want to insist on one point:
A character doing this is not a shadowrunner. He's an entrepreneur (criminal entrepreneur in that case). It's exactly the same as a mage spending his time enchanting things, or a street-doc character.

What if a player tells you that his SINner character with high mental attributes will try to get a nice job at some corp or another? What if a player tells you that his street-samurai will enlist in an army?
Even if they could, that'd mean they wouldn't be running the Shadows.

What's the point of this facility? I can see two:
1. It can become an interesting plot hook.
2. It's another source of income for the character.

Number 1 is good, but it means that it'll impact your games. Number 2 isn't very interesting: nuyens are, among other things, a way to "reward players" and to let them develop their character further, a bit like karma. They're also a nice incentive to explain why the runner is risking his life. If the character has another source of income, these two things become meaningless. So in that case, the only outcome is that the character runs without any reason to (from a Roleplayer PoV) and/or is unbalanced compared to the other characters (from a Rollplayer PoV).

So I'd advise you to have a little talk with your players to see how they want to play the game.

Well if you want to be far about it. i'd call it and investment. lets face it, if i put 200,000K into a business i'd expect residuals.
tell her the the facility is a permanent lifestyle investment. As long as she runs the company legit enough to keep it off the radar she'll get 10% of her total investment, including future "upgrades" to the facility, back every year. Or .83% per month. so that's 8.3Y per 1,000 per month.
so if she spent 65K on start up shed get 539.5 a month
if she wants to make more she can deal in more illegal and volital markets, but she runs the risk of getting attacked by cop and crook alike.

Of course she can also use it for making build repair skill checks for what ever nefarious deeds she's up to. she owns the place after all. As for why she only gets 8.3% per month on her investment. simple over head. employees, permits, materials, vendors, borbes, and yes security all take out there fare share of the gross.

This actually gave me an idea for how to model a little bit of an management game. Give the player 10% (or a little less even like 5%). Explain the low return as a function of how un-networked the business is. You currently have no major buyers, no major whole materials, no privately owned residental commersal developments to recupe 115% of wages paid. etc. The team can then do runs get better assets, and the return goes up a little.

Plot hooks certainly work, but when I think of how much it costs to get a car in Nuyen then it just makes me compare dollar to nuyen on a 1 to 1 ratio (10-15k will net you a car in SR.) What will 150k get you today? It might get you a large car shop with tools, but it's not a multi million automated facility with drones that crawl around and fix any machinery that might get broken, or the materials to smelt and create an ares alpha all on its own. A facility will let you have a really big machine shop, but lets face it, it still takes player time to create the weapons. The biggest thing is the character is a gun smith, not an ex-ares weapons automated production facility everything worker.

Having it as something that the party sets up to create stable income and then move on to some different runs can be an interesting way to create a self sustained facility and might be a nice story arch, but in the end your the GM and if you don't want to do it your players can't force you. Compromise with the players, but tell them making an automated weapons factory is a crap ton of hard work and a facility will not net you anywhere near a weapons factory. If they want to upgrade it to a factory I think it would also be risky too, as you would have to steal quite a few schematics for automated machinery, repair drones, computer programs to set the whole thing up, a supply contract for the raw materials, and the party might have to steal some of the machinery from Ares itself... unless they want to dish out two mill for the automated smelting and pressing unit.... or they could pay a hell of a lot less for forty year old machinery that is being auctioned off at an old Ares plant that is closing down (because the machinery is now vastly out of date and can't make Ares Alphas anyways.)

Although a tactical strategy game if done right for Shadowrun would be pretty cool. You could play as a AAA corp in a city and battle it out to gain control of the entire areas resources.... like syndicate wars.... only cooler.

Cooler than the persuade-o-tron? me thinks not!

I can see this whole plot as having some potential, but yeah, a gunsmith doesn't design production facilities. Industrial engineers do that. And they do it by hiring a whole slew of people to install the hugely expensive production tooling that they have custom made.

A SR "facility" is a collection of tools, not an integrated factory. A NASCAR team garage is an automotive "facility" that can build race cars from parts, but it isn't going to turn out 5 cars a week and it isn't going to be making engines and transmissions from scratch.. Maybe it could make one a week, given all the parts needed. And the cars it turns out is going to cost a lot more then it would at the dealer.

I'd argue that he can make them, but there is going to be a lot of experimentation time to get it right (somehow I doubt he's going to buy the ares vindicator control board that controls the various motors from Ares Electronics Inc) and then he gets to make one at a time, with a week full time to do it. And, unless he's strictly selling to a single organized crime family, I'd probably have one of the first 5 buyers be an ATF undercover team, followed by either an offer he can't refuse or a fully blown strike force loaded up and designed to take down people making vindicators.

Sounds like a roundabout way to acquire the Day Job quality to me.

Nope. Facility is 100,000 Nuyen. Factories are 1,000,000 Nuyen and up. Being able to process hardened turned high-velocity barrels would definitely qualify as "and up."

From a real-world perspective, a factory outside Shanghai that makes wooden furniture is looking to sell for $1.7 Million, and a New York matzo factory is looking to sell for $25 Million. A custom metal manufacturing factory in california, specializing in roofing and duct work, is selling for $7.5 Million.

In contrast, most full-service repair shops are asking $200,000 to $600,000.

Lets not forget that desktop nano-forges DO exist, and youre certainly bound to have some version of that magical machine within your facility thats capable of making pretty much anything from a tool to a completed object.

I wouldnt mind a player who spent the cred on a facility for gunsmithing actually constructing his own copies of whatever gun or ammo he wanted using the B/R rules. I WOULD have a problem with a PC thinking that it's not going to eat up his downtime. After all, even if the thing is COMPLETELY automated, someone educated has to be there to monitor and provide quality assurance. That would be the player.

^^^
Except this is SR3 and I don't remember seeing anything on nano-forges in SR3.

This goes for the rest of you as well. Show me where it says a Facility is a fully automated manufactering plant.


A Facility has the tools & machinery necessary for a character to create/repair complex &/or large hardware, but it is not in any way automated.

Aww, nobody liked my story? Or the "just blow it up like an asshat" strategy?

Doh, thats even worse then.

I like it. But I wouldn't have blown it up right then....

Actually, I feel your story is exactly what would happen if the PC managed to get a factory (instead of just the Facility he has) and do what he wanted.

Yes they do.. but since the feedstock to make them work costs about the same as the actual modification they were intended to create, to make a Ares Vindicator would cost the price of an Ares Vindicator per the rulebook. If you turned around and sold it (via a fence) you'd start at about 30% of the value and have to work the price up from there.

Odds are you'd lose money, not make it, trying to manufacture and sell guns.

Ares makes their money because
1. they buy in volume... way more than you can
2. they are further up the supply chain and are using huge factories, not small garage shops
3. they likely mine up the resources (or recycle them)

etc.

0Recycled? Ares alphas are made of people! I knew it all along!

B/R rules allow you to buy "components" to build something from scratch for a fraction of it's book price. What you trade for the nuyen is downtime.

For SR4,

I'd ask for a Knowledge roll, a business running skill roll, could be Professional or Street, doesn't matter. If he succeeds, he might get some idea of what it takes to run this business. If he has all the requisite Knowledges at the necessary levels, then I'd let him run with it and succeed.

Say he has Armorer 6 and Business Management 6 (Professional Knowledge), maxed Logic and has boosts to these dice pools and the facility. Then I do not see why not. Add in stuff like Divination and definitely why not.

So Toturi you mean if a character goes and buys two rank 5 knowsofts and has a high logic then they are fine or does it have to be rank 6? During character gen you can't have two sixes in a knowledge skill so you are basically saying that if the character invests anywhere between 11 to 22 karma they will be able to the character can just take a facility and make it fully automated with all the resources set up? Or do you mean that the character at least knows what needs to be done to set up the facility into a fully automated factory?

What I am saying is that if he has the dice pools to do what he needs to do in order to succeed, then I do not see why he should not.

Or just use industrial mechanic with a high logic and have the character just build everything. Have the character buy three knowsofts and it is done?

I'm just wondering does the character just get an automated factory w/o having to pay extra nuyen? Having knowledge in a skill to me does not mean you get what you want, but have the ability to set it up. Personally I think it would take business - distribution, industrial mechanic, armorer, business management, industrial schematics, and a crap ton of elbow grease.

Weapon schematics are much easier to obtain then the machines that make them. You pull apart a gun and poof you know the schematics, while pulling apart industrial machines takes a lot longer. Generally since in the automated world there are different places that make different machines for even the machines in the automated weapons facility, the knowledge is diffused and generally never in the hands of one person even today. You would have to have an impressive array of skills and knowledges to pull it off. Even if your background is a weapon smith all that might mean is you do tune up on guns that don't properly work.

Also if I was to even pull something from a RL example it might put things in perspective. My step father is an artist who deals mainly with stainless steel. Search - Tiburon Coming About on google images if you are interested. He uses someone elses shop who has for fifteen years been purchasing serviceable equipment that was used to make ships in WWII, or else it would be way beyond the persons price range of 5-20k per piece of industrial hardware. When creating that fountain there were a lot of experts my step father tried to consult who have worked with stainless steel for over forty years, and most people said it couldn't be done with the grade of steel and thickness he was using especially with the slope and curvature he was going for. He was barely able to pull it off by hiring a ship maker that used current up to date technology, and had to pay through the nose... and it took them three tries to get it right. Needless to say the whole fountain was a lot of painful trial and error, and I spent 36 hours straight helping them so that the fountain could make the imposed deadline. He has been working with stainless steel pieces for over twenty years and has an impressive array of contacts in the industry, but it took him three months to find a place that could help make the sails in the proper shape he needed.

Just because you know your stuff, and trust me my step father knows his stuff being in the business his whole life, does not mean that you can build every single machine for a factory or suddenly pull something out of your ass with knowledge skills.

The way everything is set up today (and that is not even the SR world,) no one person really has a knowledge base that spans the entire industry to be able to set up of weapons manufacturing plant. I mean even in SR it would be a stretch, and you would at least need the schematics for all of the industrial machines to be able to set it up as an automated facility.

As for myself I have worked in the industry long enough (off and on for ten years) to know that the only thing I know is how ignorant I truly am.

I like this example of the difference between a facility and a factory. If you wanted to model a character buying or assembling an outright factory you could have them purchase multiple facilities and shops and put them together. An example of this is the remark in SR4 Augmentation that indicates that Seattle General is made up of some thing like 6 medical facilities and 30 medical shops.

I do wonder, if the players really want to flood the market with vindicators, if it wouldn't be easier (or at least more shadowrunner style) to just get a group of good hackers to slip in a bunch of bogus manufacturing orders into legitimate fabrication plants: be it for full vindicators or the parts for them which could then be assembled or shipped to another facility with bogus orders to assemble them.

I love the scenario, Larme. And that is exactly how I would run it and definitely let the player know that the corps frown on poaching on their turf. When a CEO frowns, strike teams aren't too far behind. or for that fact,Shadowrunners.

To add another RL example:

We used to have the head quarters of the 5th largest cable company in the U.S. here in town. The #1 company in the U.S. made several attempts to buy them but #5 turned them down. Six months after the last" No thank you, we don't want to sell" occured the federal government arrested the CEO and CFO,convicted them of financial improprieties and put the company up on the market, and guess who bought the now decimated company. If you said #1 you get an extra karma point.

So #1 gets the company for pennies, and proceeds to gut it.

Welcome to cooperate politics,chummer.

Its a dog eat dog world and its not a good idea to be wearing Milkbone underwear, to paraphrase Norm Peters.

Good... good... send more strike teams... yes, everything is as I have foreseen. Send more. Hwahahaha! Shadowrunners? Only now do you realise the true power of the shadows, foolish young one, Granny is the shadows.

Granny gestured impatiently. Almost immediately all 3 attack choppers crashed into the earth, their ammunition and fuel exploding among the ground troops in a hellstorm of fire and falling sharpnel. "Mail them back to Knight, tell him not to bother his Granny again. Or the next time, I won't let him off with just a mere spanking."

There are no illusions in the shadows, illusion is a failing, a weakness of those who walk in the light. Those who run in the shadows have either long lost their illusions or they have fallen into the darkness. And Granny have long ran the shadows.

OOC: As long as you have big enough dice pools, you can accomplish anything you want or know who to do get it done with your current resources.

You can throw just as big of a dice pool on offense as you can on defense. The only difference is that an OR of 4-5 will be much harder to crack. Most people put so much into the offense they forget that a defensive mage can be just as good if not better. Granny might be able to throw some strong mojo, but you can counter with equally strong defensive mojo. Also snipers with a berretta 50 cal from max sniper rifle distance will probably come into play if Granny is that mean.

Actually, they can't be "just as big a dice pool on defense". The attacker rolls spellcasting + magic, the defender just countermagic. Which means the attacker gets twice as many success as the defender on average. Worse, countermagic is capped at 6, magic has no cap.

I don't know of any canon magical abilities that could destroy three military copters at the same time. Sure, a mage could fight back against air power, but unless they were some kind of 20th grade apocalypse mage, the gunships would win. If we're talking about a shadowrunner of that order, then I guess they'd probably find a way to start their own factory. But a normal gunsmith character can't just buy a facility for 150k, push the "go" button, and start making money. Like I described, you'd need to make deals behind the scenes, pay copious bribes, manipulate the political balance between rival factions... And even then, they might still get you.

I stand by my assertion: the only perfect defense in Shadowrun is anonymity. If nobody knows or cares about you, nobody will mess with you, and you can go about your business as you will. If you do over the top things though, like building a heavy weapons factory all on your own, you will get noticed. And the fact of the matter is, the GM controls the universe. The GM has the power of god, and can marshall absolutely unmatchable forces to beat you down, if he wants to. I don't care how powerful you are, no shadowrunner can defeat a tank battalion, or a military air wing, or an orbital strike all by herself. There are certainly ways to make alliances and try to ensure that you never have to face those things by yourself, but that's not the situation the OP was talking about. The OP was talking about a shadowrunner paying cash for a facility, and then immediately demanding to make a profit selling highly dangerous illegal guns. No org connections, no great dragon best friend to ward off the authorities, just one runner and a factory. In that situation, the natural result is that the factory goes kaboom, and there is no more factory.

You might think you're hot shit as a Shadowrun character with the same, or perhaps even greater power than the uber canon characters. But the GM controls the world's nuclear arsenal, which is enough power to destroy the planet a thousand times over. A conflict between the player and the GM is not an even match, the player can only win by the GM purposely holding back. To argue that you can do whatever you want as long as you have the dice and resources forgets that we're not dealing with a computer game that follows predetermined rules. It's a person controlling this world, and all it takes to shut you down is that person's fiat.

cows fall, you die:p have yet to use the thor shot...
we retconned a bit... he made a crate and sold them to his weapon's dealer. i didn't need to anything nasty... yet;)