Several things I think many people dialing down the math are loosing sight of.

Ares biggest customer is the UCAS government, full stop. Even looking beyond that Ares is a company whose flagship is arms and armaments. There's no reason for the pages and pages of books on ware and gear if the government isn't putting them in folks. Throw out your reasonable expectations of expendature because Ares is either cutting the goverment bulk deals (while recouping their costs in other ways) or outright using their political connections to force them to buy.

Secondly, I think people are getting too hung up on the R or F restriction's. In the books. R is "you need a permit" F is supposed to be super scary but it really boils down to "you need a bigger permit". You get the war, it's tagged to your sin, your name goes on a list. Never use the ware to commit a crime? No problem. Use the ware to commit a crime and it's likely stiffer penalties, easy peasy.

Finally the majority of the moderate to heavily cybered characters I've seen over the years used the military or law enforcement background as an explanation. I see no real reason to change that just because the game's cyberhate is getting progressively worse.

I agree (with LurkerOutThere) if the military or government isn't using the ware and such how does a company justify producing it. It makes no sense to produce something if no one is buying it.

As a side note, my current character is an ex 10000 Daggers mercenary. It's easier for me to justify said background with the 800 point build we used than the standard 400 point one.

You generally shouldn't have a 'bigger permit' for F.

I just had a thought from the "Cyberbody & limbs, VR, and Movement" thread...

If a military is willing to spring for an initiative booster, why not just install a Stirrup Interface instead, and just tell the soldier it's regular old Wired Reflexes?

Adds Skillwires into the soldier's capabilties, plus if you need to you can put the soldier to sleep and assume control of the hapless guy, if say he's being reluctant to jump into a firefight.






-k

ack, double post

I don't know... "We're the gummint damnit!" Seems like a pretty big permit to me. If you have something installed in you during government service and leave on good terms it would be on your SIN that you can have said equipment/implant. Even when you are serving the government they better put some kind of lisence on your SIN or all their people would get hemmed up.

I think implants are attractive to some generals; they make logistics a lot easier. Implants don't get lost or sold. They're also predictable, and generals like things to be reliable. Especially cyberware has great potential for reducing fog of war.

Sleep Regulator: obviously.
Biomonitor implant: very useful for central command.
Cybereyes: a touchy subject. Generals would like to be able to spy along with soldiers in the field, and to keep an eye on soldiers in the barracks. But if soldiers feel they're being spied on, that could be bad for morale.

I think there'd be a lot of emphasis on TacNets.

The rest of the loadout depends a lot on the kind of tactics being used. Scouts/infiltrators coordinating artillery and other indirect attacks could be a big thing, in which case heavy armor is a liability.

I'm not too sure about the heavy armors; that kind of protection basically transforms a soldier into a very expensive tank drone with enhanced intellect. Is it really worth it to use those instead of drones, with perhaps a sneaky rigger to supervise things?

I don't think that really applies, Angelone. Troopers don't have 'permits' for their bazookas. They're in the military. And they don't keep them when they leave, either, nor are they allowed to have other bazookas after leaving, good terms or not. What I meant is that 'normal' citizens don't have access to F things, so it's more than a 'bigger permit' issue.

The advantages from wired reflexes, and skill wires,are so massive that I couldn't see the military not using them. Especially as the bill comes to only $12,000 (2010) or so.

With the right software, every soldier could be a professional medic, professional driver, professional shooter, professional levels of combat perception, professional computer user and infiltrator. And then AIT could turn them into so much more. Realistically, you could have the average soldier a 5 in his specialty skills, as opposed to a 3, because you could focus his solely on those applicable sets since everyone has the skill wire loadout. Training costs would be slashed, yet the benefits would be stellar.

Then you make them twice as fast for just a little bit more.

Who cares if you can't get it back when he leaves. You can't get back modern day training and care when a soldier leaves. Doesn't mean you don't train him. As far as permits, well, if he's a good law abiding citizen, he gets his SIN stamped with 'wired reflexes present and approved.'with the caveat that should he be guilty of a violent crime, he gets misuse of deadly and specific force thrown on top, and spends a bonus 10 years in jail.

The loadout would depend on the mission.

Any high threat mission would have milspec armor with ruthenium coating to allow for surprise attacks unless it is for show of force. It would just take awhile to dress in full armor, go through the usual checks, determine loadout, etc. As milspec armor is narrowly defined to body types and the military usually has a narrow range it would not be unfeasible to have several different sizes that would be modified . Now, I would limit milspec armor to combat arms soldiers who are exposed to the elements (tankers, pilots, etc tend to be protected by their vehicles). For normal garrison missions I would go for armored clothing for all soldiers. For light patrols I would go with an armored vest or armored jacket. I do firmly believe all soldiers would have the military helmet with associated mods.

No combat drugs. If there are side effects mentioned in the description even if there are not direct mechanical effects it means it happens often enough to warrant their careful and very limited application. Also no government feels like paying for long term side effects so unless it is deemed that the short term threat exceeds the effects I think you would rarely see it used except by desperate third world countries. If I want to fight sierra leone style forces that is great to give them combat drugs, but they would have almost 0 skill.

As for cyberware I would limit cyberware to either physical damage or anything not of R or F until a second or third enlistment. I would allow R cyberware to be installed once the soldier is past the 6 year mark, with F being relatively forbidden except for black ops troops who are not officially recognized. Soldiers would keep their cyberware when they leave the government except for dishonorable discharges or some types of Other than honorable discharges. And even then only those with R or F would be removed or disabled. For a typical soldier they would have a permit with a SIN. Our blackops would be sinless or be ordered to transfer said individual to the government. Skill softs now cost 10000 per point. That is more than the armor itself.

As for initiative passes if you look at the reality of combat rather than the abstract mechanics having numerous IPs isn't necessary in most situations. Most fire is suppressive while artillery or backup is used to rout or kill the opponent. When you factor in poor visibility, cover, etc then rarely will combat be decided in less than 30 seconds. Unit effectiveness tends to rely more on cohesion and cooperation more than individual skill. Shadowrunners operate more in the sniper pinning down forces, but if you have a squad it will hunker down and call in UAVs, drones and other support, which is where shadowrunners do not excel for a prolonged fight.

Overall unless players are trying to fight a major power or attacking a military complex they should never be dealing with highly armored soldiers. The two run in completely different circles unless you are dealing with a Kelly's heroes scenario where the players are trying to get an item ahead of an approaching army.

I would say at this point it will be impossible to say how things definitely should be. I think we have to look at it more from a game world perspective:

It's really up to the way you want things to be Do you want (UCAS) soldiers to be a powerful force to be reckoned with? Or do you want to play a game where runners are the crème de la crème?

The way I would build the world:

Professionals naturally gather around in the best paying jobs, or those that offer the most other rewards. That means: Corps attract their share of the "best" professionals, a portion become runners, if the price is right or for other reasons, and the military special forces attract those that seek goals other than money. If you assume a lot of runners are former corporate employees, and the other way around seems to be less canon, then I would think you have a concentration of the "best" available specialists in the runner sector. That fits the game world just fine.

The second angle is: Don't make a nameless force better than the protagonists, unless they are a sort of super-nemesis. So I would never let a nameless soldier, corporate merc or other, be as good as the protagonists. If you engage another runner team, or a similar force, give them names, at least as a group.

The third angle is: Runners, especially BP runners, should be the best of the best in their very NARROW field of specialty. Runners excel at infiltration, B&E, magic, and maybe assassination. Pure combat power is... well, the realm of a special kind of campaign. Which is also why runners don't have to compare themselves with pure fighting troops. I would, however, expect a dedicated cheesed out sammy to shoot and dodge better and have more edge than even a special forces soldier. At least after a bit of karma coming his way. I would not expect the sammy to be able to replace said soldier in his squad - because his specialty is too narrow. SF soldiers need to do a lot except shoot and dodge, in fact I would say that this is merely their most basic skill. A lot of excellent marksmen never make the SF, because they can't manage the other requirements - tactical insight, strength of will, intellectual requirements. This is exacerbated by the generation rules, which want to create definite specialists. I would say a broadened out runner with a load of karma under the hood might end up being SF capable.

(Now as an aside: Karmagen runners, either on the old buy cost rules or with a bit of added karma, IMHO might come close to SF material, simply because they can usually spec a bit broader, and might have all the requisite skills and attributes necessary.)

So, going from this I would put the requirements for the different branches of the military, and not worry too much about what happens after they leave.

Support troops, if they still exist in 2070, and haven't been replaced by private sector and drones, get a set of standardised gear (a carbine or subgun, defensive grenades, old-style NV gear, a gas mask, a camo suit with chemical protection), and on demand access to the Tacnet. The best of them get a commlink patched into the drone network. They don't get cyberware, except perhaps a sleep regulator or a datajack.

Frontline troops, any that can expect combat duty, get a better standard gun (and I would actually say Ares Alpha over Colt, but....), the usual heavy weapon support, full body armour or light Milspec with few mods, offensive grenades, constant tacnet incorporation, and select cyberware: Wired Ref 1, datajack, Muscle replacement 2, maybe something else, in a suite, and I would not even expect alpha-ware. Vision, smartlink and audio ware I would expect to be within the helmet.
(If you're a Marines afficionado you might give them slightly worse gear and few more points of stats, especially willpower. However, second enlistment marines might get better cyber, too, for all their semper fi and "Always a marine".)

Recon: Better stealth gear, some sniper gear. MAYBE the top outfits get cyber to make the foot-patrol a viable tactic again. Recon in vehicles is just... naw.

Officers: Get special offers on more ware and better comm gear.

SpecOps: Get whatever they NEED to be the best. Basically anything. MBW3? excessive bioware? sure enough. And form-fitting FB under their chameleon suit milspec so that all that investment doesn't go to waste.

On the Milspec discussion:
Purely from the armour angle a team of runners with a bit of experience should be able to deal with a group of guys in milspec - after all, some APDS in a high-powered weapon should do the trick, and I haven't played a longer running campaign yet where we haven't had APDS ammo, and even some AV. So... I think Milspec should be out there. And not just worn by a couple of guys. It's not THAT expensive, it's only a few thousand more than a full body.

Ok i'm going to call this out for a second because it's (IMO) bad storytelling and bad game mastering. Just because they are the PC's doesn't mean that they are the best in the world. Are they better then the rank and file certainly, but even before the military level there should be those out there who are their equal or better then them. That's where ciritcal thinking, planing, and some roleplay(Big Note: I'm not trying to start that debate) elements come in. If the PC's are out and out superior to everyone else in the game world they will have no reason to not be running it. Secondly there is no such thing as a "nameless fighting force" that too is bad storytelling.

Most other things we can agree to disagree on and I can see you logic even if I don't particularly agree on, but I've always felt that this notion of "their the PC's their the best in the world" was just bumpkis. As I said above, the heavily cybered street sam has to come from somewhere.

I definitely had the same immediate reaction as Lurker on this one. The runners should NEVER be the most powerful out there, and all the people more powerful than they are aren't big-name villains or named NPCs. A Special Forces squad should be able to cut through a 400BP shadowrunning team like a firehose through cheesecloth, whether they're Red Samurai, Firewatch, Tir Ghosts, or UCAS Delta Force. Their base stats are one thing, their tactics and support give them an even more significant edge. That doesn't say that those runners couldn't take out that squad given the right circumstances as the apex encounter of a vital adventure, if they have the right plan and misdirection, but ultimately shadowrunners are *criminals*, SF soldiers are better trained, equipped, and specialized. Corps have great security, but the highest-paid and best-trained professionals at a corp aren't military forces but executives, scientists, quantitative analysts. The UCAS, Japanese, and a couple other powerful militaries still have the pinnacle of training and preparation, and you're going to need a couple campaigns under your belt before you feel the need to take on a governmental military group without a huge numerical advantage.

Oh but that's what I'm talking about. Rank and file soldiers shouldn't be better than the protagonists, but an elite unite most definitely should. I'm not saying you should introduce every one of them by name, but IF and WHEN players encounter elite units, that should be memorable from a game perspective. Naturally, it could leave some PCs dead. You have to portrait and present those elite units as something to be feared. (Well... depending on the GMing, that can go both ways. I can remember after the only encounter a PC of mine (in SR3) ever had with Red Samurai we were thinking "and that was it? Those were the famed and feared elite Red Sams?" That was of course a misconception due to the requirement of the scenario - they were basically required to push forward, in the open, while we were sitting hunkered down and just picked them off with sniper rifle and machinegun fire. The second squad scared us away, though of switching their mags and taking cover. .)

Of course a GM shouldn't downplay bad tactics by the PCs. If they absolutely do want to engage a numerically superior - and in this case nameless - force, and they don't do things really smartly, then they should be taught a lesson. However, I don't think that a rank and file soldier, or even two or three, caught out of their element, should ever match up to a dedicated sam, let alone a combat mage.

I must say, a lot of my perspective is tainted - by SR3, when runners were ridiculously powerful at chargen. And 400BP runners are... not really that powerful. But i'm really also not talking about chargen runners, here.

I think that ordinary military forces aren't necessarily better in professional terms than the PCs (at 400BP PCs). They're probably slightly less-skilled (but not incompetent by any means), and they're not quite as good at the kind of asymmetric warfare runners engage in as their prime occupation.

But soldiers are dangerous opponents, because they have MilSpec and Forbidden gear. Unlike the runners, they don't have to be shy of using it, because they have it legally. If the runners show up in MilSpec armor, that makes them targets. If the army wears MilSpec, that means Ares is happy.

Sooo.. faceless, perhaps. Better than the runners.. in an open fight, the runners don't stand a chance. Runners shouldn't pick fights with the army. They should keep to the shadows.

I formally withdraw my indignation.

Ditto.

Runners are specialists, and, depending on how you want your game world, they fit in with other specialists. In my game world a 400BP runner built without cheese or overspecialisation would probably not be very good at anything much compared to others out there. A cheesed out specialist might end up the best in his particular field - I mean if you can field 20+ dice, you can say you're among the best, everything else is up to luck. You'll have glaring weaknesses, though...
Nevertheless, IMHO the setting demands that a runner - even a beginner - is a hardened pro at his field, at least he should have a chance of acting like one, and proving himself. There is no reason to give someone a job who can't get it done. Of course you might start out at a lower level - street, or that of a corp wageslave just after being laid off. That's your call. I would even go so far as to make that level of play with 400BP, but impose more limits on cash, stats and skills.

A prime runner built on 800BP or 400BP plus a few hundred karma - now here we have someone who should really be among the best of the best, and at least passable if not good at secondary fields. He can mix with the elite forces any day.

One more thing:

In a guerilla war, I think runners are the ideal soldiers. And the military should have real trouble dealing with them. So, for example, in an occupied town or country a runner is the perfect resistance fighter. He is good at B&E and obfuscation, and when the going gets rough he should be able to lay down some fire. Of course in 2070 the military will have better means at dealing with many of those things, but they would still have trouble fighting an enemy they can't see, while it's in the nature of the military to be out in the open and visible. As in Afghanistan now, specops and excessive use of drones would still be a primary strategy.
Look at it this way: A military advance in modern times by a profesional army usually comes to a stop once relevant casualties are taken. In urban combat, casualties can happen quickly. And as soon as the advance stops to root out the opposition, the opposition leaves, relocates, and attacks from another side. The principle of mass no longer applies. Even when you know you're much more powerful, it's not opportune anymore to just push on while taking casualties. You stop, take cover, get air support or arty, or drones, lay down some fire, and maybe also divert forces to a flank. A single sniper can stop a column of infantry. A few guys with AT-rockets can stop a tank platoon - at least often long enough to slow down an advance considerably. And that's what runners should be able to do, if they were so inclined. You don't fight the army, you just kill a few guys, the army will stop. Then you get the hell out, because you sure as hell won't be able to take the retort.

Armies in dictatorships or riled up fanatics notably differ.

I think it's a mistake to refer to soldiers as though they were some sort of homogenous group. A young private with a year in service could probably be replicated with 250BP (not optimized, most points in attributes, not skills). A 15-year SFC would need around 350BP (also not optimized, most points in skills, not attributes). But a SOCOM SSG or CPT represents the ultra-elite of the force, and would probably need 500-600BP, optimized. These guys are more dangerous than your average starting runner.

Duh, noone said that they were all the same.

Actually participating in this thread has made me want to make a scenario where runners might have to interact in different ways with the military. Since we've just talked about GM rotation, I can put this forward as soon as my turn comes up. Please have a look at this:

I rather like it, really. While they're sneaking through town, evading the military, they should have some opportunities to observe the infected critters before entering the Corp A facility.

* What if they try to "help Corp B even more" by collecting evidence that Corp A was responsible for the outbreak?
* Make sure you've got your infection rules straight (how infectious do you want them to be?)

Letting them see the Military guys in a small fire fight with a few of these ghoul/zombie things could be very cool.
Giving the Runners the idea that gunning it out if they get caught might not be the smartest move.

This is just begging for some military guys to chase a fleeing critter that's heading in the PCs' direction...

Well... if they gather more info, they gather more info. Since Corp B isn't actually involved, well.... they can try to sell the info to them, which might be interesting .

And yes, I wanted pretty infectious. As in, a melee wound from a bite or claw pretty definitely infects you. Close contact (being breathed on) pretty definitely infects you. But not freely airborn. The transformation is slow enough that the infection could spread a bit - at least a few hours before they start feeling funny, and then a bit longer to fully transform. That being said, I haven't actually looked too closely at the rules yet, but I'll do that, shortly. I hope they will make this work, or else... heh, it's an experimental virus.

Actually the requirement for heavy hazmat gear makes it easier for the runners in a way - all they really need is military hazmat suits, a single officer commlink and some tags, and they might even be able to blend in, as long as noone actually asks them what they are doing. If a drone pegs them, that's probably bad news, but they might just bluff their way out of a simple enquiry. After all, the soldiers have no reason to be suspicious.

(Ok, I'm using hazmat here as full protection suits. I'm not sure if there are several types.)



Well... I don't intend for the critters to be that dangerous. They'll be able to hide a bit, run scaringly fast, and bite and claw. Naturally their physical stats will be slightly improved, with the mental stats most likely being dropped to 1 or 2. They'll get infravision, and maybe some useful ability... hmmm. Maybe they should be able to dig and tunnel with their claws. That way the entire situations more dangerous, and can spread better.
Seeing a few ripped up by a HMG can only be for show - although, I could actually ROLL it, in which case, it might make either side more scary than they really are, out of pure random effect .

If the critters run towards the PCs, with soldiers in pursuit.... hmm... we'll see.

The way I'm seeing it is that there will always be a lot of soldiers on every scene. The military has contingency plans for events such as these, and they'll use them. In addition, cerebral-boostered high-ranking officers are actually really smart - they'll improvise readily. They will advance street by street in broad swaths, with at least one or two off-road vehicles and a decontamination truck per street, and probably a full platoon, if not more. They will be issued a few flame throwers as additional gear, as well as tasers and gel ammunition, and drive the critters out of houses with tear gas. Specially trained dogs - possibly awakend critter-dogs - are used to sniff for infection on encountered civilians. Un-infected civvies (or those perceived as such) will be decontaminated and group quarantined. Infected who haven't broken out yet most likely quarantined in single cell containment units. If the infections breaks out, they are put down, if not, they will be moved to hospitals after a while for further examination. If any infected are still carrying their commlinks, the SINs are recorded before the bodies are burned. If they were not broadcasting, a single attempt is made to recover the commlink after killing the critter, and everything burned after that.
Any cleared houses will be flagged both physically and in AR. After a batch of streets has been cleared, checkpoints are left at junctions, and drones still patrol them to make sure noone reenters a cleared area. That way progress is quite slow, but very thorough, and there won't be any bad media repercussions - at least so they hope. While professional media coverage is naturally restricted and closely monitored, they are aware they won't be able to fully shut down reporting from the zone. After all, all it takes is a guy filming from his window and uploading directly to the matrix.

For the military this isn't really a difficult job, more a tedious one, which has to be carried out very meticulously. While the common infantryman might be scared of being infected, the chances that it will happen are very low. Drones advance first into houses which are already filled with teargas. The infected aren't really smart, and don't use guns. (Some might, hmm....maybe some gangers or even cops got infected.) In any case, the soldiers aren't scared of being shot at, that's just business as usual for them. They might be scared of their suits getting penetrated, but standard self-sealing suits and good procedure almost perfectly protects them, even in this case. There is a certain amount of tension in going into the confined space of a house, but that's really it.

So the general atmosphere should be one of professional calm - they don't enjoy what they are doing, but they'll sure as hell do it. The thing they are most concerned about is bad rep, which is why they'll be advised by the officers to be slow on the trigger finger. The only dead bodies they want to see in the media are those of transformed critters, not housewives or school kids.

The only way to up tension is to make the infection spread more in areas that are quarantined. If there were a larger slum, for example, with SINless and outcasts definitely not lespecting the curfew. Maybe a gang or two try to be vigilantes against the critters. And maybe some actual ghouls get caught in the crossfire. But that's not really the point of the scenario. I just really wanted a lot of soldiers on the streets.

Now the only thing that worries me is that the PCs might get caught up in the scenario, and end up getting infected. In this case, well... they would be pretty fucked. There is the remote possibility of them finding the convenient cop-out antidote in the lab, but... that's so overused, and I hate it. I'll just try to make it clear to them in advance that infection most likely means they'll have to be put down.

Now after re-reading what I've written, you can see what the base problem of most zombie movies is: No matter how infectious, there's just no way it would spread, at least not in any developed western country. Diseases spread because people get on planes and trains, but the entire "world taken over by zombies" scenario is just.... duh.

World Zombie thing happens, because something is so virulent and it starts somewhere unexpected. By the time the Government reacts to it, there's just too much biomass. The key is that infection has to be rapid, and absolute.

If infected creatures are aggressive about infecting other hosts, it'll spread pretty quickly.

If NPCs are infected easily, then PCs are also at high risk. You could have Johnson given them a once-time shot of nanite antibodies beforehand, and make them sign a waiver that they understand this is no guarantee. Sure, making runners sign waivers has little meaning, but it reinforces the corporate due diligence feel; "no distribution of nanites without waiver, or the Legal Department will kill me".

What if halfway it turns out the tear gas isn't working well? The military might become uneasy, because sectors they "cleared" aren't really clear.

What if people complain the military is too slow, that people are dying while the military is crawling forward doing due diligence?

(Just some ideas to increase the tension)

If the PCs spoof the military frequencies and matrix signals and such, they may pass for military (given HazMat suits). But maybe then they get mistaken for soldiers and instructed to go to a different sector and clear it? Hilarity ensues.

I wouldn't think the corp would want a paper trail at all to their deniable assets, Ascalaphus.

Anyway, I like your scenario brainpiercing.

Thanks.

I do want to make more fleshing out tomorrow. I also want to underline again how I see the (rank and file) UCAS military in this scenario: They are pros. They get the fucking job done. They are not sharks with fricken laser beams. They are not flashy, and a lot less cool than runners. They cheer when they blow up the enemy, and get sullen when they lose a few of their own. That's it. They have good gear, because it doesn't make sense to sacrifice a man when you can sacrifice some cash - in fact they are probably less willing to sacrifice themselves than the common runner, because they are not desperate at all. And until the going gets very rough, there's usually a better idea than getting into really dangerous situations. Of course when there are no other options, they'll do that, too, because that's just part of the job.

Armies, even western armies, fighting counter-insurgencies, have one severely noticeable difference (gear and kit aside) for the "runners = great resistance fighters" thing. You work against them, they ARE out for blood. Its not a corporate "cost benefit, well, its just not worth it" thing. You kill PFC Guy, and now everyone from PFC other guy to Colonel Big Guy wants you dead or captured. And they will bring in everything from the forensics guys to massive bribes/rewards to pick you up. And you have to go to ground eventually. In Iraq, and now in Afghanistan, the majority of insurgents killed or captured were gotten at wherever they were bedding down or meeting. More than one got sold out by the hooker he was visitng. Because, hey, the Army doens't care about her being a hooker. They do care about the guy in her having killed a American though. Imagine every time you went to a johnson meet, every time you try to pick up from a fixer, every time you see a patrol, every time you sleep, it might be game over. That's the real price of fighting the Army instead of a corp.

What makes you think a corp doesn't do the same thing, at least often enough to foster the same sense of paranoia?

Ehhh.... corps are more about profit margin than tenacious, relentless destructification.

Some corps, and some of the time, yes. But let's not forget "Zero Zones," the pettiness and vindictive nature of middle management everywhere, the importance of reputation to corporate security forces (Lone Star, Knight Errant, et. al. aren't going to just blithely let you get away with killing their doodz any more than the Army would), and the fickle decision making of a certain great dragon who's known to take special interests in any number of his corporation's projects from time to time. The threat of annihilation should be there, any time a shadowrunner cocks up and stops worrying about it.

Not every corporation is going to hunt down every shadowrunner involved over every job, sure. But it could happen, and it should happen enough that they don't get sloppy and cocky about it. There's nothing innately more dangerous about ticking off the Army than anyone else, is all I'm saying. I don't see why an organization as sprawling and massive as the UCAS military would automatically take the death of a random PFC any more personally than any megacorp. It's not like the Army really cares about the individual any more than a business does (or at least not in my reality).

Well, in an insurgency, his mates are. as is his immediate command. Company level, certainly. Quite possibly up to battalion level. Maybe Brigade, depending. So, anywhere from 100-4000 guys, and the resources associated, have just been turned against you.

As far as the crop thing, the official core book fluff has them as fairly non-vindictive. It rather explicitly mentions this is one of the reasons shadowrunners survive. With the exception of zero zones, and personally affronting a dragon, the average corp has done the calculus, and determined there's little profit in going after your average team of runners. And if you make it bloody easy, of course they'll crush you.

The difference is that with said Army, it doesn't have to be easy. Its that they will pursue the hard case. Because, its what they do. Find and eliminate threats. Whether that threat is a tank battalion over the ridge, or a sniper who's been a menace, or the people who whacked their supply convoy.

Now, i'd say the KE and the Star probably operate very similarly. Only with less firepower, and at the end of the day, they are still maintaining a bottom line. Better local knowledge though.

Hmm. Ultimately, yes, there is a difference between fighting corps and the military, any military, basically. I still think there are a lot of differences between professional armies, constitutional conscript armies, or even forced conscript armies. The value of the fighting man changes, and hence the reaction. It's probably true that fighting the UCAS army will mean that you're pissing off a lot of people, but they still can't hit back with everything they have, at least not on UCAS soil. If the UCAS were to occupy a foreign country... I'm not sure. Still, the individual fighting man is thing of value, and they won't take unnecessary risks. Of course that also means that they are much more likely to shoot back with arty or missiles, rather than flushing a sniper out conventionally.

In a forced conscription army the individual soldier has no value. Killing one won't matter at all, because the others will just keep coming. These you can't stop with select casualties, you have to inflict mass casualties. On the other hand, you are more likely to be attacked by infantry than just bombed or shelled, because those bombs might cost more than the soldiers you're killing.


Another scenario: Aztlan pays runners (who share no allegiance) to destabilize the Yukatan. That's a hard one, because they will have to move about without backup in the populace. Probably doomed to fail.

Another idea: CAS nationalists hire runners to run terror and insurgence ops in the Aztlan half of Austin. (I hope that map I'm taking for reference is still accurate.) That's a different army and law enforcement, and a very different approach is necessary. Life-expectancy... well, I would say it would be quite short, unless you go about it VERY smartly. That might actually be interesting to run, at least for a short while.

Granted, all assumptions so far have been for the UCAS. Who apparently have no posse comitatas anymore, because troops have been deployed on UCAS soil regularly. Hell, the most famous recent actions have been on UCAS soil.

But generally speaking, yes, the army is going to shit bricks to find you if operate against them. Reference the fate of some gangers in New Orleans who though they would hold their turf against the National Guard.

I'm sure somebody has already mention this, but I'm too lazy to read the entire thread

the novel "Just Compensation" by Robert Charrette might give you some loose idea about the UCAS military and what they carried.. Being that the story is set in 2050 it might not.

looking at my receipt, I bought this book on the 3rd of March back in '96. Har