Yes, but why would Knight Errant, a subsidiary of Ares, spend the money to augment every officer when most of the officers are never going to see any combat, especially when they can try to get the officer to pay for part of their 'ware through some sort of "price sharing" BS routine that they can use to try to convince the cops to spend their own money to get Knight Errant brand 'ware.

Actually it's an established part of fluff to have most, if not all corps have their corpers pay for the entirety of the cost of any 'ware they will need. Of course, the wageslaves can't, and thus will likely be caught up in a debt for years on end. The corp will retain ownership rights to the 'ware until the debt is paid off. Guess what this entails.
Often, a lot of it will be recylced from earlier employees, drastically cutting down on cost. Not to mention often the corp will be implanting its own 'ware, making the up front costs really slim for them already. Note that a set of cybereyes with low light and thermo will run for :nuyen:2500, or about a month's worth of salary. Wired Reflexes 1 are only 4 times that, while Muscle Replacement only runs double that per rating. And these are consumer prices, where the consumer price of surgery is factored in. Cut half out for surgery, half for the point that it's their own ware, and you're looking at around 10k to get every rookie some very tricked out eyes, Wired Reflexes 1 and 4 extra Strength and Agility. And make them indebted say 20k to you, if you're feeling fair.

Also, cops will very rarely be writing parking tickets, as GridGuide will gladly do so for them. Automated and free.

I think there might be a discounted in our opinions though. I don't think you're average police officer would have any combat enhancing 'ware. Stuff like cybereyes, datajacks, and internal commlinks I can see because everyone gets those, but even in shadowrun I can't see a situation where all officers get combat 'ware. Experianced officers, detectives, SWAT, and the people who go into Z-zones yes, but not you're average guy who's job is primarly to walk around and make it look like there is a police presence. Combat 'ware is illegal in most areas of the UCAS, and I don't think most cities will tolerate a police force where every single officer has wired reflexes. If an officer elects to take advantage of discounted 'ware thats one thing, but required 'ware implemented into every officer is another.

That's pretty much the Lone Star SWAT suite you're describing, so it is more than what the standard cop will have. Moreover, Lonestar cops are established to rely on Jazz rather than Wired Reflexes.

It might be different for KE, though, since they are backed by a AAA so they can get all their ware internally.

It is 100% illegal for a civilian to do a bunch of stuff a police officer does every day, carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle, possesion of a concealed firearm, speeding, basuc assault (described as physical contact with a person against their will) and on and on and on. Just because something is illegal for civilians to have, which by the way much of the ware is restricted not forbidden, doesn't mean it makes sense for it to be out of the reach of government proxies.

A officers day to day if not week to week job has the potential to come into conflict with someone, that some is usually not a Shadowrruner so their not going to be wared up to that level, but conflict is a natural unfortunate result of many of their encounters. It would be foolish, as well as expensive to not prepare them for that.

I don't think they'd cyber the officers at corporate expense right out of (or even in) the academy. Not even if it's "we pay you reimburse".

The big issue is failure during probation. For two to six months you don't know if the rookie's going to stick. You don't want police wares on the street.

Second reason is potential advancements. For the first six months or so the officers don't know enough about the system -- and the system doesn't know enough about them -- to think about departments. While the theory is that an officer is an officer where-ever he serves, vice needs different tools from homicide which is different yet from ... well, you get the idea. Several departments use undercover, and it's a lot easier to not have to remove "police property" RFIDs.

Cost... it's cheaper than a year of medical and such, but it's still money. . Corps are still driven by their bureacratic accountants. Those have a habit of pinching pennies and tossing dollars. In this context, the gear for the majority is "pennies". It's also technically not necessary. Every time they go under the knife there's a potential of loss. But the big deal is the green eyeshade crowd pinching those pennies.

I see the cybering of the police to be a logical extension of cybering other similar professions.

The first to be cybered are going to be injured soldiers who get augmented instead of replaced. It's much more cost effective to slap on a new better arm/eye/whatever and send them out to do their job. Eventually, you're going to have ex-military who make the cops looks like wussies and the police are going to need to hire ex-military just to deal with ex-military.

In a similar vein, we're likely to see cybered fire fighters. Someone is going to need an internal air tank and cybereyes and they're going to be much better at their job than they were before the accident. Cybered fire fighters are simply better at their job than mundane fire fighters or droids.

Some of the earliest "preliminary cybering" of these dangerous professions will include skillwires and wired reflexes, a pair of items whose cost/benefit is goiung to make it attractive to military, police, and firefighters. By this time, the people people in charge of the police will be well aware of the benefits these other profession receive and they may well have some cybered ex-military on their payrolls. In the meantime, skillwires are becoming common in the civilian population as well. (At least that's how I remember the fluff.)

At some point, it's going to occur to some of these groups that it may well be more effective to cyber volunteers up-front rather than waiting for them to get injured in the line of duty. (Welcome to the FDNY, here's your internal air tank and cybereyes.) Some specific areas will want cybered officers over non-cybered officers. (Lone Star has the contract to guard this facility inside a town that Knight Errant otherwise has the contract for. Your job is to keep all unauthorized people, including KE cops, out. To this end, you're being offered Wired reflexes as well as other enhancements at no cost as part of the contract.)

This doesn't mean all cops will be cybered, but as I said above, I don't think all cops will be uniform. I think each area has to make their own decisions and having all the areas be the same and making the same decisions seems odd to me. This is simply the way I see some units going and why.

This does not have to be implanted, it works as armor accessories too. Strangely, the firefighter suit in Arsenal does not include an air tank, only a gas mask Damn cheap politicians!

This.
As I've demonstrated, it's likely a net profit for a corp to implant its own ware into its employees without any futher qualifications. For a mere raw investment of 10k nuyen (not even discounting another 50% for being own produce), the R4 Muscle Replacement will give the officer the edge in almost all of the things he'll be doing when getting into situations where he gets to exercise his reasons for existence. The boost to his ability to fire his guns, while minimising the risk of collateral damage. The boost to his ability to use that baton to maximum effect. The boost to his ability to overpower and restrain someone. The boost to his ability to catch up to that person when he runs and get around obstacles in his path in the process. The benefit of 4 extra dice on all of these is pretty massive when dealing with the typical low level gangers.

The situations calling for there actions are the high risk situations the officer is trained for.
They're called high-risk, because there's substantial risk involved for the officer. From severe injury to death. Any of these could result in the loss of investment in training in this person. A training that is worth substantially more than the cost of the ware. Thus, it is worth it by far.

This all holds doubly true for Wired Reflexes, which are half the cost.

In SWAT members, I would expect to see heavier 'ware like Bone Lacing pop up, which is a tad too expensive for the street cop, but for those definitely getting in the line of fire, it pays off.
For HTRT, which is the next step up, much heavier 'ware should be no exception, because these are the people used to combat runner-level people.

Eh, why just give the 'ware to the employee.

Offer it to them with an attractive installment payment plan. Have the job pressures basically force them into accepting, or get left behind. Then the poor sap finds the contract effectively locks him into near indentured servitude to the corp.

Far more dystopian and cyberpunk.




-k

It's mentioned in Lone Wolf that construction workers normally get cybered. In a world where ordinary people get 'ware to do their ordinary, not-particularly-life-threatening jobs more efficiently, it would be totally bizarre for the cops to not have basic, cheap cyberware that makes them better at their life-threatening job.

While this is very true, and more likely, there are times when the ware would look free, but comes with a quiet raise to your "taxes" payable to the corp family. That sounds more dystopian.

Who said anything about offering? If they want the job, they will get this cyber, and yes, the corp will front the cost to get it/install it if you need help. However if you are getting it through the corp, you can guarantee that the cyber is used, from the last schlub who had your job and got slagged, and on your salary, with the cost of the ware, plus the interest on the loan, your grandchildren will be paying for that cyber. It's a little better if you have the money saved up to spring for your own, but good luck getting hold of that money.

While I can agree that some cyberware makes sense for quite a few jobs, and I enjoy the invisible shackles of debt and loan repayment and such as much as the next guy -- the fact remains that often it just doesn't make sense, still. In SR4A, for better or worse, there's an awful lot of stuff that doesn't need to be implanted any more because it offers the exact same benefits at a lower up-front cost and without tossing in surgery costs, lost Essence, time under the knife, or removal costs when someone quits.

Sure, cybereyes are pretty affordable and it's cool to think about a corp making someone take 'em and then the corp taking 'em back later and blah blah blah dystopia. But why would they go through the trouble if they can just give someone a pair of goggles or glasses, instead? They don't need to shackle people through holding onto them by their chrome, they already hold onto them by everything else in their life, so if the exact same benefits can be done in a cheaper way (glasses instead of eyes, for instance), there's no reason for the corp to bust out the cyberware. Hell, they could give 'em the glasses they need to do their job, and still charge them just for the glasses (an equipment deposit, or daily rental fee, or whatever else they wanted), and stay pretty cutthroat and asshole-ish.

I mean, chrome up your beat cops if you want your bet cops chromed. It's been perfectly in-canon since the old (and excellent) Lone Star sourcebook, if one assumes that other companies follow similar guidelines. Recycled chrome happens, and has been happening for decades. Some augmentation in the workplace (LEO or otherwise) certainly makes sense. But some of the suggestions being made just don't fly, or at least not for the reasons they seem to be suggesting.

Mandatory cyberware as part of the company's bottom line should only be happening when, well, that mandatory cyberware actually benefits the bottom line. If glasses or earbuds are cheaper, if external biomonitors are cheaper, if Jazz is cheaper than Wired 1 in every cop...just admit you're up-gunning the opposition to account for the power level you want in your own game (which is perfectly valid) instead of trying to jump through hoops to justify it.

I gave cybereyes to firefighters because they don't have the vulnerabilities real eyes have. They are, for that job, better than natural plus gear. The same thing goes with the air tanks. External air tanks aren't light, inhibit mobility, and need to be worked around. Internal air tanks are better for the job.

Note that many pieces of cyberware are not particularly expensive. An internal air tank costs 650Y. I'm not sure what the conversion rates are, but a SCBA kit for a firefighter costs roughly $5000+ ( http://www.edarley.com/draeger-airbossr-scba-5822.html ). And why I don't see the point in cybering EVERY cop, soldier, or rescue worker, I believe that many of them are going to get it somewhere along the way. I also believe that many people have gear and training from past jobs and past experiences. There should be a lot of people alive who remember wars, riots, and bad times and why they may now be bartenders, taxi drivers, low end security guards, car salesmen, middle managers, etc. that doesn't mean that they've always been those people.

This isn't jumping through hoops to justify power levels. This is what happens every day as people change careers and build new lives for themselves. And as that level of cyberware trickles into the civilian population, the police are going to find it more and more necessary to employ people who can effectively deal with such issues. Police are going to want to employ cybered ex-military because they can benefit from someone else's investment.

You try breaking out into a sprint after that shoplifter, traversing half the mall to catch him, while keeping those glasses on your face.
Also, glasses put a barrier between the wearer and people he interacts with. A cop needs to be accessible. Open to the public. People need to be able to look him in the eyes. Without having even a transparent bit of glass in the way, that's constantly reading off the KE news ticker.

I'm sure that by the mid 2070s someone will have invented a glasses strap.

Accessible? Open to the public? What?

Look at the helmets these guys wear in, I dunno, almost all the artwork, ever. How accessible and open to the public are they? How interested in being accessible and open to the public do they look?

And have the glasses fall off your nose anyway, making you lose 95% of the AR feed that's keeping you updated on the situation?


*grin* True enough.
But that doesn't fly in Fun City.

Note: Police Car camera systems cost $3000 ( http://www.martelelectronics.com/PVS.html )
Rating 3 cyber eyes only cost 1000 AND (unlike glasses) record what the officer sees for another 500 you can record what the officer hears as well, something earbuds don't do.

Maybe LS would like their uniforms to look like Judge Dredd's uniform, but don't dare to go all the way there because of the threat of a trademark infringement lawsuit from whatever megacorp holds the rights to the 2000AD IP.

They're just not cabale of doing anything spiffy by then. Low Light will run you another 1000. But don't forget that a major chunk of those costs is the cost of the implantation surgery, not the ware itself. Plus, that's consumer price. Corps, especially those running their own clinics and making their own 'ware, will be much, much cheaper off.
Not to mention shoving the cost off onto the employee in the end (with interest) anyway.

Errr question, why does Joe non magic user give a flying frag about essence loss?

Further on the glasses versus eyes, if as a person who wears glasses if I could get a set of implanted eyes with perfect vision plus low light, and all the other amenities plus ballistic grade covers I'd do it in a heartbeat and I think most other people would. At some point people got hung up on the min max and poor game design and forgot the great benefits cybereyes and ears have over external add ons, you always have them and they always work. Only in the the flavorless mess of magicrun 4th edition is that so casually overlooked.

Also why would a major chunk of the costs be implantation surgery, it's out patient, if you are a municipality or a corp that has to keep doctors or surgeons ont he payroll anyway the costs once again drops substantially. Or even better just have drones do it because the surgery itself is routine to the point of being trivial.



Um no, again the power level is irrelevant, i just refuse to buy into this make believe that there is this entire cyberware industry that is only supported by shadowrunners and the military there arn't enough shadowrunners and military people for that be the case. Based on current population figures military vets make up about 9% percent of the US population. Cyberware wouldn't exist it's max penetration rate was 9%. So we have a setting disconnect, the cyberware industry does exist, the options are out there and supposedly people have them and realistically as I said, cybereyes are better then glasses or goggles for everyone but a hardcore min-max RPG player, especially when you start to put things like economies of scale and reliability into the picture.

I'm not saying the industry doesn't exist, and the people don't -- often -- have chrome. I'm saying it shouldn't be mandatory for as many jobs as some people would like to see it mandatory for. Offered? Absolutely. Incentivized? Sure. But not insisted upon.

Especially not in a thread that is (nominally) about kids right out of the academy. Should more cops have cyberoptics and a few other goodies by five years in, or ten? Sure, maybe. But right out the door, while they're still pissing off their FTO and fucking up every ten minutes? I don't think so, personally. Lots of folks wash out that first year, and I can see upgrades like combat 'ware being the carrot on a stick that's dangled in front of them for a while.

Because cybereyes might be "better for everyone but the hardcore min-max RPG player," but that doesn't mean they're better for the company who's paying for them, due to the wonkiness of SR4 making the implanted and non-implanted versions of so many things the exact same. It's a design flaw (in my opinion), but it still exists.

So I just don't see companies forcing their employees to get cyberware in the cases that exist of completely detachable, reusable, company-ownabled, bits of electronics that do the same thing. Obviously you disagree, and that's fine -- it's your game world, run it how you want to run it.

EDIT:

No, it certainly isn't. When these arguments (invariably) turn to things like "every cop should have Wired (1) at least," there is no way you can't discuss what that means to the power level of the game. Or, at least, you should certainly take it into consideration. There has just been, quite literally, a jump up from "most SWAT guys have this cyberware suite to get 2 IPs" to "every beat cop has 2 IPs," and that's a pretty big change in the overall danger -- or power level -- of a campaign.

Again, I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying be aware of why you're doing it, and the repercussions of doing so.

Somewhere along the line I think someone got it into their head that the corps care how effective the police officers are. Drones and computer systems do all the grunt police work, and detectives and SWAT do all the important/dangerous stuff. In 2072 street cops aren't there to suppress crime, they're there to be visible so that Knight Errant can collect a paycheck from the city. It is true that a unformed police presence can reduce crime, and a metahuman can judge peoples attentions and work crowds better than a drone, but they are not hired for their combat or investigative skills, they're hired because if people don't see uniformed officers walking down Pike street they'll hire a different security company.

If a beat cop wants some augmentation so they're more likely to survive their next patrol in the Barrens or so they can eye record their great service while bucking for detective rank, they can spend their own money to do so, and Knight Errant would be happy to sell them the 'ware, but they arn't going to waste time and money augmenting someone who's just is to fill a uniform.

And now we've got the "Corps are actively stupid in their corruption" viewpoint in to go with the cyber hate, we can close the thread.

Needless to say I disagree, places that are going to be patrolled are going to be patrolled effectively, places that are not going to be patrolled are not going to be patrolled rather then not patrolled effectively. THere's not a lot of hard data to support either claim.

EDIT.

Never mind. Whatever. If it's my posts that somehow came off as "cyber hate," I apologize for being unclear.

Hey, I've been trying to keep nice and polite about police officers despite having been raised by a Hippie, an Earth Child, and a Biker! It hasn't been easy.

...

Oh, the other people. Never mind.

You mean you have been raised by the Village People?

Only less Gay.

The Biker of the Village People came out of the closet as being Hetero, BTW.

They didn't. I just think you're underestimating the effect of utilising amazingly cheap cyber can have on multiple levels, especially if it's produced in house.

- Knight Errant is a major calling card for Ares, prime developper and producer of "defense" equipment. They're pretty much the most visible element they have, short of AR-spamming and the Predator's immortal rep. These guys are out on the streets, and can't be unseen by turning AR off.
- Ares has a reputation of being the best in the field of defense to uphold. Next to an image of being a no-holds-barred, effective, completely unsubtle powerhouse.
- They have recently taken over the Seattle contract from the Star, and have a reputation to establish here. Should they do this well, more sprawls -or even countries- may switch to them.
- Contrary to the Star, they're backed by Ares, and have substantially more resources to help them in their job, both monetary and logistically. If KE needs a special kind of weapon, another branch of Ares can develop them and supply them at base price. The same holds true for 'ware suites.

KE can have the suite I mentioned before developed. It would cost them 9k nuyen per implantation, plus the surgeon's salary. That isn't even two months worth of salary for someone working a 40 hour job according to RC, which is about a part time job for any proper wageslave. For the average employee, it should be more like a month and a half's worth.
This nets them the reputation of being the biggest and baddest thing on the streets out there, making the Star look like amateurs beside them. This not only vastly increases the opinion the general public has of them, but will also make the average ganger think six times before picking a fight with them, likely lowering crime levels without anyone directly intervening. When that average ganger does decide to pick that fight, the chances of the KE officer coming out on top are so substantially improved to almost be guaranteed. This makes KE lose less officers in the line of duty, which on one hand cuts down on costs to train new recruits, on costs for medical treatment, and payment to family in case of death, and on the other hand further reinforces the image of being the best with actual statistics.
And people in charge of overseeing their district's security contracts will take note of all this.

Beside all this, it's also a source of major publicity for Ares' cyberware division.

For Lone Star, I can see the low and non-cybered beat cops. For Ares, that really stretches believability for me.

"Ares, we practically are the military." *Suit whispers into ear of PR man, "Sorry, correction. We actually are the military. We just bought out the Army."