-- That's possible, and actually somewhat advantageous from a logistics standpoint. Of course, being locked into vendor standards can also be a huge hassle -- especially if it's consumables.

-- That's pretty much in line with my thinking, but I consider full mags more akin to doctors and thus start as Lieutenants. Warrant officers for adepts sounds logical. They are FAR too valuable and rare to be treated otherwise.

-- I suspect that college being a requirement for officers isn't a huge importance for the CAS/UCAS and other military forces (especially the NAN).

Isn't Steyr a sub of Ares. I know HK is SK. Also lets not forget pratcial all the gear in Aresnal and the BBB has any corp equivalents. The bleeding edge less so but still I know Aztech has it's own Alpha clone I'm sure there more like it. The same goes with maybe it wont be a Renraku com but it will be more or less the same stats wise. Though Renraku is one of the comunications megas.

And that's how it's justified in a lot of cases, and as pointed out the result isn't always bad, it just limits competition and closes the market to a degree. It also explains why a lot of soldiers supplement gear with off the shelf stuff from REI and Cabellas.

In game it's a flavor issue but also something an astute runner can take advantage of, for example if your target has been on one side of a proxywar between two corps where the participants are Banana Republic militaries and you know one side is running drones from say Mitsuhama and the other side has been running countermeasures from Renraku you can have your fixe procure accordingly.

Even though in the end it al goes to the same parent company, each Ares Brand has it's own balance sheet and they do compete with each other (even to the point of running on each other for schematics and marketing strategies). It is also mentioned that most gear comes in a variety of brandnames that are functionally equivalent though in the RAW.

I've been thinking on this too, and honestly IMO when an enemy hacker is detected the only sane response would be to turn off all commlinks right there. Unless we're assuming super high rating military hardware and software (that cannot possibly be issued to grunts or it would be all over the street markets) even if every soldier has his commlink slaved to the unit hacker, a shadowrunner specialist hacker will take that guy apart and then own their communications. And smartlinked weapons. And any cyberware, etc.

Needless to say a lot of the military unit's advantages are gone with reducing communications to each other or calling for support.

I'm goign to guess that the comlinks have an offline mode. Turning them in to simple radios when thats called for. Stop the wifi entierly switch to older tech.

That would make sense, redundant backup systems are a frequent feature of military gear.

Sorry if this was addressed before, I haven't been able to read the entire thead yet. (Boy you guys can sure spit out a multi-paged thread in no time!!):


Wrong. A SWAT team gets much more specialized training and more money is spent on each individual member than in the army. (Heck, even more than in the Marine Corps.) SWAT teams are concidered ELITE units nowadays, didn't used to be, but they are now.

Perhaps, in 207X, the trend towards smaller, more capable militaries has continued and then you would get the average soldier being about a match for the average runner, but not as they are currently. Especially, when you take into consideration that governments aren't as powerful/wealthy as they used to be.

But, I agree that the smallest unit you would generally run across is a squad. (It is the sized unit I had in one of the adventures I put together.) In the USMC we had squads of 12 - 3 fireteams of 4 individuals - and 4 made up a platoon. Yes, you could be "short-handed" with fewer, and you could be augmented with extra, but generally that was the base size/make-up. (OF course, i have been out since '91 so things could have changed - though I doubt it the Marine Corps is nothing if not a creature of habit.)

As for a massive number of drones, I doubt it. Maybe 1 or 2 per squad, tops. You have to treat them like heavy weapons - not everyone had one for a reason. The drones themselves may be cheap, but to train and dedicate a soldier to fill that role, as well as up-keep of the drones, would get expensive. Only specialized units are likely to have more, but I am sure that more can be sent from regimental command if needed.

Tactically, a well seasoned squad should be able to take care of a group of undisciplined shadowrunners (and they all are, no matter how long they have worked together, it seems) except for 2 things: IP and magic. Having a few guys with 3 IP (the base for any combat types) makes a huge difference. So does having magic, while the other side doesn't. This is where I think the modern military would be recruiting like crazy! Imagine the sign-up bonuses if you are a mage! That would be a way to get some good money fast. (At first, then it would take a long time as you served out your contract - when they offer you a huge re-signing bonus!!!)

One thing to consider with military equipment - I think army troops (be they corporate or government) are always going to have much better software than runners. Per unit costs on software, likely developed specially for the services, are going to be quite low - sure, they spent 20M developing it, but they probably don't have to pay license costs on each copy.

I also think a lot depends on how current trends in acquisition continue - do we invest more and more in fewer and fewer soldiers (the American trend), or do we go with lots of cheap, disposable troops. I think the answer will vary by country/corp, and by tier. Someone like CAS, with conscription, won't invest too much in regular, rear-echelon troops. But I suspect that front line troops in CAS, UCAS and other heavily industrialized nations will be pretty significantly augmented. And the enlistment period probably significantly extended in the case of those modifications. I think the distinction would be pretty profound, with forces being defined by the prevalence of augmentation.

As for prevalence of magic, I think the use of bound spirits would be a serious force multiplier, with combat mages having as many spirits bound as they could handle (Cha). With an obvious need for recruiting mages, their prevalence might be 1 in 100 in a country like the UCAS, putting individuals at the company level, with small groups (fireteam?) attached to higher units. At that point, you could reasonably consider that any given platoon may have a spirit tasked to support it. And considering the costs, I can't imagine many aviation assets would be operating without multiple spirits in support.

I can't really see the need for large dedicated magical units - once you get beyond a certain point, ritual circle have diminished returns. Physical adepts could be treated as regular (augmented) troops, or be tasked as part of specialist teams (particularly for counter-spirit operations).

A heavily Awakened nation might have much higher prevalence of mages, which would push down the tier at which they would be found - even as low as the squad level. Which matches with where Amazonion forces have been described in adventures and the like.

Just my thoughts. Once you start noodling the implications of magic on military operations, things get complicated.

But I still think the average shadowrun team is going to get their tails handed to them in an open fight with the average UCAS combat fireteam. Mind you, if they are in an open fight with an average UCAS combat fireteam, the runners have already lost. And the biggest problem is there isn't one fireteam, there's an entire brigade out there too, and they have the ultimate runner-killer: artillery. There ain't a whole lot they are going to be able to do with the GPS-guided 155's come down. Or, Ghost help them, a few MLRS rockets.

-- The military almost NEVER does its own software development. They still pay licensing fees for Windows for example. The US military in particular fobs almost of its R&D to private companies and universities.

-- That said, the Unwired software development rules are actually pretty optimistic in many cases, and it might make sense to have a programmer team devoted to say, military commlink Firewall programming.

-- Why? There's pretty much no "big ticket" advantage that can't be replicated by a few thousand nuyen in wearable electronics. That's been the case since Shadowrun, First Edition. The sole exception was wired reflexes, which are both monstrously expensive and monstrously overpowered

-- I can't see any military taking on the long-term issues with augmentation without good reason. Not only are their health issues (surgery, Essence costs, maintenance requirements) but if you give everyone wired reflexes (for example) then you have these guys out in the civilian population at some point.

-- I find that dubious. That spirit is doing nothing useful most of the time that platoon is doing its thing. You're better off using the limited magical assets available to dole out a spirit as a form of fire support.

-- The corps have a competitive advantage in recruiting mages, and they don't seem to do this. So why the rump national governments?

-- That could be a sign of serious manpower issues actually. 10 mages in a force of 100 might look more magically capable compared to 100 mages in a force of 10,000 if you don't look closely.

-- They probably can't or WON'T exploit a fire support advantage in every case. Rules of engagement are an issue, especially when they have to throw this stuff around in inhabited areas or in places where that sort of thing could really piss off Awakened critters best left alone.

US Army has a AT section in the platoon weapon squad.

As a former USMC Artilleryman, I can attest to the affectiveness of 155's. The guns I crewed were Mi98 155mm Medium* Towed Howitzers, and we were expected to hit a mansized target on the second shot.

Eventhough magic concentration would be higher in the military (due to reasons mentioned above), I still don't think that the average fireteam (4 guys) would have magical support, and thusly, they would likely loose on that alone. Add in the fact that generally 2 of the runners would have 3 IPs, with one or more having 2, and the soldiers definately loose. (Even if you want to stretch things, the best that the average soldier could hope for in reaction enhancers is Wired Reflexes-1, the rest would be way too expensive. (In the main book, it isn't until Professional Rating 5 that you see any IP past 1. I don't think the average soldier would be PR-5, not even PR-4; I would put them at PR-3, though, which means no reaction enhancers.)

But, I don't think you run into a fireteam, I think you would run into a squad: 12 guys (or gals, it is late in the 21st century, after all). A squad is much more likely to destroy a group of runners, magic and IP and all. (Unless they are Prime Runners, that is.)

* I always like that they called them: medium. I guess the 205s (I think that was their size) are the large howitzers.

Many modern SWAT teams are part time. For example, there in ONE full time SWAT team in the state of New Mexico. Many smaller, part time SWAT teams have limited training, limited access to training ammo, etc. The more effective and motivated teams train on their own and buy their own ammo. Lots of teams don't have people that motivated on them.

IIRC, the few hundred members of Delta Force shoot a million rounds a month in training.

It's quite simple you implant second-hand wires and rip em back out. Do you keep your rifle? This is the 6th world we are talking about people starve to death in numbers 100-200m away from a stuffer shack as they are in a Z zone. You really think govement is going to be heavly worried about removing argumentations? I can see maybe for cybereyes and legal implants a scheme where you pay a bit each pay cheak to keep them after but for things like wires taking them out sloves a lot of problems and money.

-- You're reaching
-- It's been forever since I read Burning Bright, but doesn't it talk a bit about some of this?

Regarding military software, the stuff guarding military nexi and strategic communications (and the hacking software intended to target enemy military nexi and strategic communications) will be amazing higher-than-6-rating stuff, "weapons grade" software if you will.

But the stuff in any given soldier's commlink? Hell no, shooting a grunt and taking his 'link would then instantly give whoever a copy of your state of the art military firewall. Those guys will be using something far more basic.

Semper Fidelis Augmentin...

Keep the Faith

hi hi

I can see the military removing cyberware only if the cost of the cyberware is greater than the cost of the operation. Cybersurgery can be expensive, so unless they're chopping the body up, they probably wont bother with the small stuff. If they do let people keep their ware, they've probably got dibs on it when they die though.

But... But...

"The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years."

Check out the link. It also argues for the relevance of the Marine Corp going into the future.

From a dystopian magical cyberpunk future, I'd argue that in the age of diminishing nation-states, and considered from a financial perspective, the marine corp becomes more vital than ever.

The Marine Corps is 6% of DoD's budget, but

• 16% of the U.S.'s maneuver battalions,
• 15% of the U.S.'s attack aircraft, and
• 19% of the U.S.'s attack helicopters.

The average Marine costs $20,000 less than the next closest service man.

So yeah, Semper Fi, Teufelshunde.

I was always partial to obtaining Skyline, and even a can or two of Backblast^TM for weapon cleaning... and don't forget the BFA for the .45...

Keep the Faith

A lot of cyberware is cheap as hell too. Cybereyes, Cyberears, Skillwires and a Datajack would probably be standard issue. It would definitely cost less to put 8,000 nuyen into Skillwires than training to skill level 4 in multiple topics, hell even his firearms skills could be artificial, who cares?

The activesofts cost a lot but again, the army probably just develops an in house marksmanship skillsoft from some of their own riflemen and makes as many copies as they want, dropping the price to damn near zero.

Don't forget, LivingOxymoron, that even us lowly Marine Corps grunts were issued LAAWs and AT4's in the First Gulf War in '91... I vividly remember carrying 3 LAAW's and 1 AT4 personally, while in the field... It is not just the weapons platoon that is getting the AT rounds... we all carried at least a couple of Rockets to supplement the Weapon's Platoon guys.

Oh yeah, My credentials: 0311 (Rifleman)/0331 (Machinegunner)/0341 (Mortarman)/0351 (Infantry Assault Gunner)/0352 (AT Missleman), and also trained as a STA Marksman... Crosstrained over multiple Tours... Served with E Co. 2/7... Served as Platoon Radioman for the Gulf War... I requested as much crosstraining as I could get, and was still requesting when I eventually left the Corps...

"Every Meal a Banquet, Every Formation a Parade... I Love The Corps"

Keep the Faith

You're assuming the military hasn't adapted tactics to the realities of 2072. Granted, there's a definite tendency for US armed forces to both 1) prepare for the last war and 2) draw down military power after every major conflict.

However, in the dystopian canon, don't we see wars and rumors of wars? Nothing spurs innovation like conflict.

Frankly, the concerns about signal integrity and compromised networks have been around since the early 1980s. The SINCGARS (technology) and new SOPs (behavior) were the answer.

The SINGARS is heavy as hell and doesn't have any better range than what you can buy at Sports Chalet. What it does have is very sophisticated encryption. It also has a "shoot here" spot. If your unit is being overrun, there is a clearly marked "X" that you shoot with your last bullet. This renders the SINGARS inoperable and makes it unable to be used for future signal interception. (For the curious, yes, we take it off the RTO first.)

Even without breaking encryption, any radio transmission greater than 5 seconds can be triangulated. For that reason, no one ever broadcasts for more than 3-5 seconds at at time. Unless you really like push ups and field day and hate liberty (free time).

I would envision a future fighting force that has adapted to these weaknesses and played to their strengths. I'm not very smart and I can offer several solutions:

• centralize, centralize, centralize: slave every commlink to the team of hackers (ais?, tms?) at the battalion, or heck, even DoD level.
• specialized technology: virtually unhackable laser and microwave links could keep the squad slaved to EchoMirage 2072 sitting comfortably back in the Pentagon.
• force multiplying drone support: retrans units, microdrones, CAS, oh my. Since the inception of the Predator UAV program, nearly every Predator mission has been piloted from Nellis AFB outside of Vegas. Why would 2072 be any different? If anything the hacker threat makes this even more likely.
• force multiplying magical support: how long does it take an astral form to travel from D.C. to Beijing? Any reason why that wouldn't be the primary method of magical support? This would be 1) cost effective, 2) allow greater command and control, and 3) protect mages from fear and prejudices in the field. I'm sure there would be some mages at the battalion level, but most would probably be at MAGCOM in D.C. Astral overwatch mages could provide recon and counterspelling support and when needed access vast reserves of bound spirits.

As a shadowrunner, it's not very pleasant to think about, but all but the most prepared and disciplined teams of runners would have a very short life span in direct combat with an infantry unit. Those with the smarts to pull it off would have the wisdom not to try.

In a "regular" dystopian universe, I agree with you. In the unique politics and history of Shadowrun, however, I think that it is perfectly plausible to say that the UCAS got rid of the Marine Corps as a separate service.
[*] All Marine Corps bases of today are located outside of territory. Pendleton? Nuclear Slag. MCRD San Diego and Miramar? Aztlan. Hawai'i? It's own nation. Lejeune and Cherry Point? CAS. Okinawa? Imperial Japan. I can totally see the Army, Navy, and Air Force completely unwilling to give up space on "their" bases.
[*] No power projection anymore. It seems like the Marines' modern day role as rapid deployment and the MEUs just don't exist in UCAS foreign policy
[*] General Isolationist policies.

By Contrast, the CAS inherited Lejeune, Cherry Point, and PI. Since Aztlan and the Carrib League play heavily into CAS Defense Policy vis-a-vis the Gulf, I can see a dedicated Amphibious Warfare component being desired. Add to that the culture of the CAS as the legacy of the good 'ol USA, and you can see where I'm going with this.

Dang. Didn't think of that. Good points. Well, as long as there's still a corps, I guess I don't have a problem with them all being in the CAS.

Who guards the nukes in UCAS?

Hey... at least the Corps lives on...

Keep the Faith

Loss is not necessarily dictated by vocal individuals refusing to accept what you identify as logcal. I would regard your position in that argument as winning because it makes coherent sense, rather than listening to a different section of the rules which would have unacceptable after-effects upon the rest of the world. Such as cheap, unstoppable magical SAM attacks. Or low-level mages being able to more effectively demolish old buildings than a demolitions team.

Why, Ares, of course

I think I remember reading somewhere that Ares had more WMD capability INTERNALLY than the UCAS. So I imagine that they probably market KE and Firewatch teams for such a purpose.

Of Course...

Keep the Faith

Creech, not Nellis. Nellis has the Raptors/Falcon/Eagle/Thunderbird/etc., Creech has all the drones.

And a sweet vantage point when the 52's decide to expend their countermeasures all at once.

Ares is freakign scary and along with Aztech looks to be one of the biggest millitary powers in the 6th world. Firewatch is insane in its top level opertives. Their anti-bug teams train in space and are heavy initiated. We can only guess at possible rotation in the role. We also know they have a large number of THOR sats and a large nuke stockpile. As well as the abillity to depoly any where due to exterteritoral bases and sub-orbital tech.

Aztech has an entire country under it's self and as such in involved in alot of wars as of now. They will have lower perunit cost troops but they also have the jaguar guard a unit on the same lines as firewatch.

Ah, my mistake. I knew it was near Vegas. Thanks!

::Bitter under breath grumble about Air Force nerds getting paid to play video games and taking libbo in Vegas::

I see the forces a bit more stratified than they are now:

Grunts - little to no cyberware, basic gear (amor jacket/vest; Assault rifles, etc like I mentioned earlier)
Lifetimers - cyberware, bioware with at least 8years in service and career soldiers (same kit, maybe military/security armor in home guard or specialist units [aka the special threats units like in the book set in DC])
Specials - special forces, firewatch, etc (sky is the bottom, go from there on gear and augmentation)

I don't see the military spending the time and resources to implant a grunt that isn't going to be in long term with even secondhand ware. The medical costs for implantation and possible removal are high in time and nuyen (in a 4 year new enlistment, you already spend 3-5 months in boot and mos training on average add in surgery recovery and that's going to be about 5-8 months of a 4 year term where the new guy isn't busting hoop. Add in removal on the 1 term ones and then you basically have 3 years of service from them)

Skillwires and the like are not really cost effective (fluff not withstanding) due to costs (sure you can buy them in bulk, but think about the cost per soldier in terms of : 2 skill softs @ 30,000 and the wires themselves @ 6000 + implant costs and recovery costs) vs just teaching them how to shoot a gun and their mos basic skills.

-- On the contrary, I assume it has. And that means dropping modern ideas about command and control and ubiqitous communications. Technomancers are also a big monkey-wrench that could concievably reduce many military units to semaphore and morse code.

-- Blowing up capital (in the economic sense of the term) is not necessarily profitable. Most of the Shadowrun "wars" have been small-scale affairs that aim to preserve infrastructure and keep down costs. Developing weapon systems without buyers around with no sense of scale or money sense like the modern DoD seems to have kept a serious damper on weapons development. Pretty much everything you see in Arsenal existed by 2053 (with the exception of the "see we're still relevant!" add-ons like the HEMP gun).


-- Good encryption simply doesn't exist in Shadowrun. They go out of their way to tell you this, hence the sidebar in Unwired (p. 67).

-- Keep in mind how Shadowrun arranges things. A military commlink may use a nonstandard wireless link (Unwired, p. 196) and stuff like that, but making up special rules just for "milspec" stuff strikes me as a waste of time. If the military of the rump national governments were using special stuff, the corps that actually run the show certainly would as well. If anything, national militaries in Shadowrun are left using cast-offs, old technology, scrounged gear 40 years old, and yesterdays off-the-shelf software.

-- I'm not sure what you mean by slaving commlinks. Sounds like a real bad idea in Shadowrun as it just gives lots of potential access nodes for a hacker. LOS comms are probably more doable but a GM fiat saying "can't touch this stuff" might not pass the player smell test if not explained logically.

-- The hacker threat and AIs are precisely the reason people would take a dim view of too-extensive drone deployment.

-- The "military' as a boogyman opponent has been a Shadowrun tradition, but it's NEVER been borne out by anything quantifiable. There's also a rather huge problem where if you replace "military" with "corporation" the entire raison d'etre of shadowrunners goes out the window.

-- Indeed, the way I've played it there is no difference between UCAS Special Forces Command and Firewatch -- they are the same people and just swap billets around to take advantage of extraterritoriality and national laws as necessary. You "retire" from special forces right into Ares, and get "recalled" back to the UCAS as necessary. Think of it as a even cozier relationship than currently exists with the special forces and private military contractors.

All well argued points, but by that logic, the only unit that could survive in 2072 would be a unit of Cyborgs with their commlinks turned off.

The military, like Firewatch, Jaguars, Wildcats, etc. should be boogeymen.

Of course, if you are in a conflict with a CORPORATE military force, you have screwed the pooch royally already... What holds for National Militaries also holds for Corporate Militaries...

Now, Shadowrunners are more likely to run/operate against the Special Operations Groups of Corporates/Nations far more often than they will ever face the actual Militaries of such entities.

Militaries = Bad for Shadowrunners...
SOG's no so much, as they will often be on the same or similar levels of competence when they encounter such groups (or might at least have numbers on their side)...

Keep the Faith

And the Jaguars aren't even the really scary Azzies.

A slaved node is out of Unwired. Its basically a node that maintains a single open connection to a master node, and will only accept commands from an admin user on the master node. You can only hack a slaved node directly if you have a hardwired connection to it, otherwise you have to either hack the master and create your own admin account, or spoof the master to send a spoofed command to the slave.

There's also this (relatively) cost effective option.

There are various factors at work when you consider national and corporate militaries. Often there is a point where certain options become less cost effective than their counterparts, thus you would have a spread of options presumably at the levels of cost effectiveness that is acceptable to the decision makers.

The biggest benefit Military troops have is instant access to backup, support, information. If a squad radios in that they're under attack, help -will- be on the way. And that help can manifest in several ways. Information, people monitoring tactical feeds and offering advice. Off-site hackers using the team as relays to mess with the opposition. The platoon mage showing up in astral with a gank-squad of spirits in tow. Even calling for an airstrike, or diverting drone units to help with the area. A runner team usually can't call for that kind of support, on the spot.

That kind of organization comes with its perks, too. A deployed security team looking for trouble may not have a mage - but you can bet there's a decent force bound spirit with Magical guard watching their backs. Its a -very- cheap investment, and a force 6 spirit goes a long way towards keeping your team alive. It also means they can customize loadouts to the task at hand. Armories exist for a reason - if a milspec team expects heavy resistance and lots of vehicles, they are going to take gear to compensate.

I kind of don't care about the Crimson Samurai entry in the core book. It was written without taking the expansion books into account. I'm looking at their skills now - nothing below a 3, stats or skills. 5-7's in their attributes and skills for kicking ass. Not bad at all. And that's before you account for Metatype adjustments(Contacts and Adventures has a small table to adjusting contacts and npc's on the fly)

So, let's talk Gear.. The first big advantage to military opposition is access to gear. Restricted, forbidden, and high-availability gear are their bread and butter. That means explosives, rockets, missiles. Heavy weapons, nonstandard ammunition. Grenades, airbursting links, smartguns, high-rating tacnets. The kind of toys that might be a pain to get.

The next is standardization. Each member of the team is going to have a bare minimum of equipment and training - and more to suit their role. So each dude has access to those things. Compared to a runner team, only a few runners may have alphas or LMGs. On a milspec team, each member likely has alphas, on gyromounts, with airbursting links. Likely one heavy weapon.
If they're seriously expecting trouble, each member of that team has the potential to take an LMG on an articulated weapon arm as part of their armor very easily. In game terms, imagine the havoc you can wreak by having each member of a four+ man team Suppressive Fire in addition to their regular actions. Pilot upgrade or an agent is very affordable, and... its a military team. They -are- going to be running a tacnet

In arsenal, the lightest military armor available is 12/10 ballistic/impact. Its helmet starts at rating device rating 4, and goes up to 6 for a real cheap price, and comes with free encryption, and the whole thing has a biomonitor on top of that. It also has capacity, and access to things other armor can't get stock - gyromounts, no-encumbrance mobility upgrades, strength enhancements that ignore augmented maximums. It flat out ignores DV 0 injection attacks That's in addition to the usual stuff - chemical protection, nonconductivity, chemseals. When your entire team is immune to chemical weapons, it opens up a lot of options for dealing with your opponents - like neurostun grenades, everywhere.

Vehicles and drones. Per the Device Ratings table, Milspec gear(and vehicles) are device rating 5, which makes a significant difference when drones come into play. Response is used for initiative, as well as shooting people, and also defense tests. This also means each drone can run up to rating 5 software stock, with no mods. And you can bet a milspec vehicle will have top-rating defensive tools. That means firewalls, Analyzers, ECCM, likely Stealth. Ditto for Pilots/Clearsight/Targeting/Defense/ Autosofts.

Ware is something to consider, too. Augmentation sheds some light on military-grade augmentation. The standard military Cyberlogician rocks out with a Commlink, 3 datajacks, a datalock, an encephalon 2, attention coprocessor 3, hotsim module, simsense booster, and an orientation system. Its alphaware, so rating 4 to start - a betaware version's(device rating 5!) also available. Which means a competent, offsite hacker using the team as a relay , is going to be running that all as a cluster.
Using the Lonestar suite as a guide - they have Flare/Thermographic/Smartlink, bone lacing, and wired reflexes 1. Not bad, but military gear's going to be better.
Red sammy rock out with Cybereye, muscle aug and toner 2, synthcardium 3's, and wired reflexes 2. Thats more like it.

So, you have a group of people with heavy weapons, the discretion not to use them if its not called for. 3 passes, access to good ammo types(like ex-ex, apds, and grenades). They put out about 12-14 dice each for important tests - shooting, dodging, perception. Matrix stats of 5+, and -everything- encrypted.

That being said, I can see a group of runners taking out a generic military team.
What I can't see, is them getting away with it. The moment their biomonitor twinges, offsite people are going to start looking into -why-.
Once the hammer starts coming down on the runners for it, -then- they're screwed.


Iunno. I see a lot of optimized characters on this board. Anyone care to take a shot at making an Optimized Military Grunt? You know, with all the toys the runners -wish- they could play with?

IIRC: if they stay in the guard or reserves or individual ready reserves, then they keep it. And good luck getting to them an taking it out after that term expires if they don't want it ripped out.

You have got to love Marines. My asthma and eyesight kept me out of the armed services - so I got to play with the toys in DARPA and NSA

-M&P

This. In my game, the Military is the big green (or blue, or whatever color) machine that chews up whatever it runs into - usually

-M&P

What I seem to be hearing is that military forces would split into three major types depending on investment. Primarily you would get grunts, likely Orks and Trolls trained to the level of, say, a National Guard, who would do most of the crap work of holding places and humping stuff everywhere. Then you have the professional soldiers who are mostly lifers, who are the primary force projectors, are a much smaller group, and are kitted out quite heavily. Spec Ops like SEALs and whatnot would come from this group. The third group are the piles and piles of specialists who run everywhere from logistics to command and control, to astral scouting (astral is likely the best recon type, given the speed they can be deployed from the comfort of home), to the crack-troop General's Own Coffee Makers.

Basically with this set up you could have your decently large group of badass soldiers (probably the size of the USMC), and a big pile of more squishy troopers (about the size of one of the other service units), and the bazillion voices on the other end of the commlink (probably a decent chunk privatized, too).

Does this seem realistic from a military point of view?

They are deffently a rung below friewatch but as i can tell number more.

I just wanted to stop by and say that I'm really enjoying this thread. A lot. It's something I've thought about, but most of you guys have already said was I was thinking.

I had just one thought to add:
Great Dragons have fought off whole armies. Yes, they had small armies of their own, but mostly, they were just clever and strong. Its not even THAT hard to damage a Great Dragon with military grade hardware, heavy autocannons and vehicle laser systems, etc. So it obviously wasn't just a matter of soaking the damage. It's Just something to keep in mind.

Psh, that's Plot Device power, so you can't go by that. Either their stats are wrongly low, or something wonky happened.