@ Karoline: Excellent, if you want to clean up the gear list now I'd be much obliged. I hate throwing away things I put time and thought into buying.
Also, just generally as far as the "regular gear" goes: you are kind of nickel and diming that Music man. ALL of the communal gear is less then 25K, but here is why I bought it the way I did.
- I assumed a party of 10 PCs
- I assumed that eventually we would be attacking a big ship
- I wanted maximum flexibility in the ways we could handle said ship. This includes being able to climb the sides of the hull in multiple separate parties (hence the rope and individual sticks), sneak up under the ship and blow bits of the hull, or jam their signal and rock their world.
- I also want us to be able to get away with all desirable goods as fast as possible. 5 tag erasers only have a bill of 2k and they allow five pcs to run around looking for the best cargo in a huge cargo freighter, zap the tags, and run off with it clutched in their thieving hands. I thought 5 was a good level for hand thievery there, but meh.
The chemsuits and survival kits are extra things that we may find useful. Again, their low cost to me seemed not worth scrimping on when we may find ourselves desperate for that kind of stuff.
Now, the Fake SINS DO have a high cost, but let me tell you my reasoning on them. It is already in the GMs fluff that we have been brought together as a team for effectively the first time (at least all of us together like this). It is also in the GMs fluff that we are acquiring the vessel just as the run begins as he is loaning us the money and connections to get such a tricked out thing. SINCE it is in flavor to assume we don't know each other, and it is AGAINST flavor to assume we have the proper backstory to be tour guides and boat operators of a legitimate business, I thought each of the 10 PCs would be MUCH better off with a specially crafted fake SIN making them ideal for this job. 10 well crafted SINs that intertwine our backgrounds and give us permits to do what we do should give us a much more rock solid alibi. That said, 40K is a steep pricetag for that, but I have a VERY hard time believing that a standard fake SIN would easily translate into this line of work.
And lastly on vehicles, I believe VoG has ruled that a pick-up probably won't be able to fit amongst our cargo right now. The motorcycles are just quick easy ways to tool about town IMO. And they aren't racing bikes, they are the cheapest bikes you can find (other then a scooter...which I refuse to ride on principal) with only one piece of software added. And my thought for the upgrades I chose for the zodiac were:
-we want a pilot so that our rigger can guide it while either we
a) aren't aboard and need an emergency pick up on the other side of the ship -or-
b) are far too busy shooting and running away to want to steer the damn thing
-the smoke projector is for when people bring heavy fire to bear against a zodiac (as in we f**ked up hard and need to gtfo). The smoke radius is much bigger then the zodiac, so it will provide cover and block LOS if you can keep the huge quantity of smoke between your pursuers and you.
-I already explained why I bought the vessel the way I did, I think it was general consensus.
But like I said, this is all just my opinion, gear is on Karoline now (run away!).
Also, If we could have this game up and running by Monday I would be very happy, I grow weary of bookkeeping and discussion time. Though I do enjoy our little chats.