One of the big advantages I believe a game like Shadowrun has over a generic system like GURPS is the degree to which the world is defined before any particular GM comes to the table. This has a number of advantages, including players having the ability to answer questions about the game world without recourse to the GM, but the two advantages relevant for this topic are as follows: first, by giving the players access to expectations about the world their ability to create plans is dramatically enhanced, and second, by creating rules and guidelines for common situations the GM is freed from making ad-hoc determinations every time the situation comes up, making that attention available for other tasks.

Note that these rules are, strictly speaking, being developed for the SR3R Project, but they'll probably not rely too heavily on anything else from SR3R and can most likely be lifted into (and discussed in the context of) vanilla SR3 with ease. They might even be applicable to SR4, though the setting is so drastically different that I'm dubious. The big thing missing is that there are plans in SR3R for more detailed rules for making time into a resource at the minute level (right now if it isn't in combat turns or days it's pretty much left to GM handwaving), but even without those rules a guideline for the handwaving can be valuable.

For this discussion I'm going to consider Seattle only—the security rating system should to some extent allow application to different cities and countries, but I don't want to spend the time thinking about where that might break down right now.

So then, down to business. Canon rules for security response do exist (New Seattle p111), but they're complete garbage—the issue of no minute-scale timekeeping was "addressed" by making security capable of teleportation, with two patrol vehicles carrying two security officers each arriving on scene in a B-rated zone no more than 63 seconds after the start of a fight. Even worse, whoever wrote this section decided to base response on initiative passes—so the speed of the arriving security depends on the Initiative of the participants of the combat. If a brawl between a bunch of unaugmented average individuals (no more than 4+1d6 initiative) is going on, a wired speedsam at 14+4d6 initiative jumping into the fray will triple the speed of the responding security. (If you're tempted to say "of course, it's a more serious threat now", note that the unaugmented crew could easily be using rocket launchers, flamethrowers, and mortars.)

So we can dispense with the numbers in New Seattle, at least. Looking at the details of the response levels, it's clear that the rules assume that the fight is more or less taking place in public (in the city, rather than in a facility), with the response being from Lone Star or the appropriate local security contractor. I'm going to start by considering what I believe to be the more common case: security response inside a building or facility.

Some terminology for convenience:

• Unit (or Security Unit): one or more security assets which are dispatched collectively and which travel and operate in a closely coordinated fashion (so two security officers and a drone traveling in a group are one unit; if the drone is making use of its different mobility characteristics to arrive ahead of the officers, or by a substantially different route without deliberate effort to arrive at the same time, it's a separate unit. For simplicity the "synchronized travel" requirement is assumed to come into effect when the security assets are "sufficiently close" to the destination—glossing over little details like starting from different places but making rendezvous before it could actually matter)
• Response: the deployment of one or more units resulting from fulfillment of a specific set of conditions (including the passage of time). In the New Seattle rules, each different stage on the template except for "Aware of Problem" is a response. Unless otherwise specified, a response involves deployment to the location of the incident causing initial fulfillment of conditions. A response begins when the unit commences travel from its initial location to the response point (see below).
• Response point: the location to which a response is deployed.
• Response order: an instruction to conduct a response.
• Response delay: time between a response order and the resulting response. In general a measure of how long it takes the unit involved to get ready.
• Response time: time between a response and arrival at the response point. Travel time.
• Total response time: response time plus response delay.
• Facility: a contiguous region to which responses may be directed with impunity (usually one or more buildings all on a single lot under single control; may also be specific floors of a multi-occupancy building, etc.) which is "relatively compact" (response times from on-site resources are substantially more similar to each other than to response times from off-site resources—the Renraku Arcology, notably, is not a single facility under this definition).

Also, to start out I'm going to make a simplifying assumption that I think can be removed later: that fog of war is minimal. Responses are to a specific known response point, a unit is considered to have arrived on-scene when it arrives at the response point, there are no chain-of-command issues or similar that cause responses to not occur when they otherwise might.

Different parts of the potential response can be characterized in a reasonable-seeming fashion as follows:

• Deployed security: ready at a moment's notice, give or take. For physical non-Rigger security assets, probably on patrol or stationed on guard somewhere. Essentially no response delay, response time can vary widely based on deployed location relative to response point.
• On-duty security: in a state of "active waiting", probably in a ready room or similar. Response delay on the order of tens of seconds, response time dependent on placement of ready room—locations usually laid out deliberately for roughly equidistant coverage of facility.
• On-site reserves: present on-site but in no particular state of readiness. Response delay on the order of minutes.
• Local rapid response: active waiting, but somewhere else. Response delay on the order of tens of seconds, but response time on the order of ten minutes.
• Local security: response delay on the order of minutes, response time on the order of ten minutes, figure total response time on the order of twenty minutes.
• Regional rapid response: active waiting, but somewhere really else. Total response time on the order of tens of minutes (exact distribution may vary; personnel deploying by van may have response delay of tens of seconds but response time of tens of minutes, while deploying aircraft may have response delay of ten minutes or more but response time of ten minutes or less)

Comments? I hope next to look into the different kinds of security assets and how their capabilities and deployment characteristics differ, but I might alternately look at some sample numbers or the outside-the-facility case.

~J

I should point out that if you can write your security primer in high-level abstract terms of strategy rather than any specific tactic or technology, it can wind up being just as applicable to SR4 as SR3R, or for that matter to D&D, Star Wars, Exalted, or Star Trek.

Of course, that largely depends on how well you wind up channeling Sun Tzu. The Art of War is written in such abstract terms that, while it was clearly written in a time of mundane swords-and-archers combat, most of it will be perfectly relevant and enlightening to read even in the 2070s. (The bit about spirits and seers being completely unreliable for intelligence can be forgiven given that when the book was written, that was true.)

Just don't let your Street Sams read it, or they'll take the lesson about using fire to cover their tracks to heart and make "burn it down" their standard getaway tactic.


Also, remember that the setting of SR4 isn't that dramatically different. The massive use of wireless technology means that controlling wireless airspace is now an important factor in security planning, but other than that, it's still the Sixth World.




Sounds like a match of Gotham City Imposters - unaugmented average Joes attempting to murder the shit out of one another with improvised heavy weapons.




Your list of terminology is pretty good. It could extend to Matrix/Astral security as well; the Response Delay and Time of a company Decker/Hacker is unrelated to his physical location (unless the site being invaded is completely off-the-grid,) but will be more related to whether the company knows it needs to send in resources outside the local area, and the time it takes them to evaluate and call in a hacker who has clearance to see what they have in their systems (or for them to decide that it's so important that they're going to say frag it and send in outside help who doesn't,) then to get that hacker access codes and such.

Availability of things like drones and cams can increase or modify response time. Did someone call it in? are you using things that decimate a building? A city block disappearing might catch more attention.

Combat turns are far too short in the game, and accuracy is far too high compared to the real world. These mean that responses that result from the players creating very loud noises and bright flashes need to also be far too fast compared to the real world.

<Handwave> But...Magic! <Handwave>

But seriously - even _I_ find the security response a trifle astounding, but on the other hand, watchers are cheap.

Sadly, most runners I know would tend to view an over-proportionate response as their god given proof that they've hit the big leagues.
Tir - Don't mind me, I'm just heading out to test local law-enforcement response time. Nah, don't worry about it this apartment is my re spawn point!

<Handwave> But...Magic! <Handwave>

But seriously - even _I_ find the security response a trifle astounding, but on the other hand, watchers are cheap.

Sadly, most runners I know would tend to view an over-proportionate response as their god given proof that they've hit the big leagues.
Tir - Don't mind me, I'm just heading out to test local law-enforcement response time. Nah, don't worry about it this apartment is my re spawn point!

I'm sure someone is going to get their panties in a bunch over this, but we "fixed" that first part with a House Rule. We changed the 3 second combat turn to 12 seconds. It makes movement rates seem a bit better, it also makes on-site response times of 2 to 3 minutes something to watch out for, and non-local response times of 5 to 10 minutes a problem for the runners.

Sure SR has ALWAYS had 3 second combat turns and those who have a problem with this house rule will hold on to that like it's gold (or a THOR shot remote) or something, but hey it works out really well. Not having a troll on roller-skates "running" down the street at 50 mph is a good thing in my opinion.

We as a group thought long and hard over how much time we should adjust the turn to, and the final vote was 12 seconds. It works out well as it is divisible by all of the “standard” speeds available in SR (I really personally hate the 5 IP matrix thing), and it does affect response times in a positive game-world way.

As always just my opinion.
-D

Edit:
OOPS sorry, forgot you were talking SR3 (5 IP thing isn't as big a problem there). But the time adjustment should still work.

As a timing note, my goal is to make between one and two substantive posts per week (ideally two), so if there's silence for a few days don't pay it any mind. Responses to intervening posts will probably come at that time (like today).


This isn't my goal, though. Sun Tzu's advice might be nearly as applicable today as it was when it was written, but with that generality comes weakness: although I'll admit that I haven't brushed up on The Art of War, I'm pretty confident that a player would not be able to use that book to come up with an expectation of how long it will take the corporate cavalry to show up, or what that cavalry's force composition will look like. The goal is to use the specific details of the setting to produce very concrete expectations that can be used to make specific plans from—I think the lack of such expectations is part of what produces the perennial "if a gun is fired the mission is hosed" mentality, the fact that players have no guarantees about security response speed and composition, which leads to assuming that in short order after an alarm as many security units as necessary will start showing up.


You'd be surprised. To give one example, take the movie Commando, whose plot hinges on the communication technology of the day—the villains are foiled in part because of the need to reach and use a payphone to convey information. Even beyond technological considerations, it isn't "the Sixth World" in both games, at least not the same Sixth World—SR4 brings substantial changes in the form of decybering (non-cyber options are less crippled compared to cybered options), big differences in magnitudes of bonuses/penalties (especially as regards the relative value of armor and body), dirt-cheap microdrones, and a very different set of motivations (the city of Seattle actually being able to fire a security contractor—accountability in SR3 is much, much less present).

But anyway.


Mm. Yeah, that's a good point—in a lot of my discussion, I've baked in the assumption that the security assets are mostly physical—chalk that up as a simplifying assumption like the "no fog of war" assumption that can be removed later. I'll probably make reference to magical assets, but unless I'm specifically discussing them we can assume that things like Fast Astral Travel or the ability to stay on the astral to avoid visibility to physical opposition isn't being used at the moment.


As I'm envisioning it at the moment, I don't think it would—later on we might come back and investigate things that might change response time, but for now I think making it simple by having response time be a basic property of a response is reasonable. We can get into issues like sending a squad car to check something out vs. racing in with sirens blaring later on.


It's not at all clear that this is the case. The basic issue, as I see it, is the need to have consequences for being obvious—the only reason why as it stands response needs to be "far too fast" is because as noted above Shadowrun has no timekeeping at the minute scale, so either you accelerate response to be on combat turn scale or you have to track tens or hundreds of combat turns. I guess in this sense I'm putting the cart before the horse by looking at security response before minute-scale timing, but I think we can manage.


I don't see that particularly helping—people without reaction or initiative enhancement already have mysteriously slow rates of fire, and now people walk in molasses as well.

Perhaps more to the point, the response times aren't just problematic from a realism standpoint, they're also far too punishing—it hardly seems unreasonable to expect to be able to get into a noisy fight and not suffer excessive consequences as long as one finishes it and evacuates in a prompt manner, but especially if the response is played as making use of cover the canon rules have new opposition showing up at a rate pretty similar to that at which it can be dispatched.

After all, I assume the bigger weapons (and Trolls and Orks) are in the game for some reason other than to be used in a marathon last stand against infinitely-spawning security.

~J

So after giving it some thought I've determined that really the next priority is to take a look at security codes.

As defined in New Seattle, security codes strongly assume a public-security-type arrangement with someone playing the role of "the cops". This doesn't really fit in well with in-house security, especially in circumstances where both "public security" and in-house security may respond.

Actually, that's an even better place to start: the distinction between police-like security and "in-house" security.

But now something's come up, so more on this tomorrow.

~J

I suggest you do brush up on it. For free no less. There's a reason that it's required reading not just in military academies, but also for a lot of corporate raiders and security forces and such.

Besides, you'd be surprised just how applicable it will be to your work here.

Your arguments were some of the some of the same ones brought up in our own group before instituting the change in timing that we did.

The seemingly slow movement rate is actually quite a reasonable movement rate when compared with modern humans. A modern human runs on average of 10.5 mph (16.8 kph) (we calculated this figure based on several Wiki sites data). Using the movement rate of 25 and a 12 second combat turn your human shadowrunner is running at 4.6 mph (7.5 kph). The reason we found this reasonable is that the modern average is based on someone that is only running. They are not doing anything else. The shadowrunner is dodging bullets, avoiding obstacles, shooting, or casting spells while (s)he is running. If the shadowrunner dedicates time and effort to only running then they can easily move up to the 10.5 mph+ range.

I agree that the fire rates are a little slow, especially when you move the turn to 12 seconds; however Shadowrun gun-play and targeting seems to be very accurate overall. So the slower fire rate does make some sense. Typically most people can either fire fast or accurate, but not both. In Shadowrun most people can and do fire both fast and accurate. The slower fire rate is a sacrifice in this case, but in all honesty it's not a huge one.

On the topic of response times, the current movement rates along with the distances that can be traveled make a response time greater than 2 minutes pointless. As far as I remember typical off-site response times range from 10 minutes and up, in 10 minutes a standard character not dedicated to running can clear 5,000m. After the firefight breaks out, if the runners simply run away (without dedicating any skill dice to actually running) they could be up to 5km away from the gun battle by the time off-site support arrives on site. That is absolutely ridiculous. When we use the 12 second combat turn that drops to 1,200m (1.2km) in the same 10 minutes. Sure that’s still a long way but it’s better than 5km.

Now I’m not saying that this is a perfect fix for movement rate and response times however it is a simple one to implement as there are no other changes that need to happen anywhere else in the game. Because it affects both the PCs and the NPCs equally it remains balanced.

I’m not trying to be argumentative but I wanted to explain some of our reasoning in implementing the change the way we did, and as always it is only advice and can be taken or left or partially implemented (by changing the turn time to some other value, we tossed around 9 seconds as well). It is strictly a house rule. I hope that my explanation as to why we chose to do this helps you in your decision.

Sorry this is so verbose.
-D

*edit* Sorry, all my numbers are based on 4th edition. I honestly don't remember what the speeds looked like in 3rd.

That's probably the source of our disconnect. In SR3 metahumans moved Quickness meters/turn with a 3x running multiplier (4x for ghouls, 2x for dwarves), so a typical human (QCK 3) walked at the restrained pace of ~2.2MpH and ran at the more or less reasonable, perhaps a little slow, pace of ~6.7MpH. Quadrupling the length of a turn without adjusting movement per turn suggests that in Shadowrun everyone totters around arthritically with walkers and canes.



That carries the strong assumption that the characters can immediately bug out—it seems to me to be reasonable that if a team gets into a firefight or otherwise triggers an alarm but is able to immediately (modulo a single-digit number of combat turns at their 3-second length) commence their escape that they should, under ordinary circumstances (no giant maze-like facilities to wind their way back out of, no crawling back through tens of meters of wire obstacle, etc.), be able to get away cleanly, at least as regards any response that travels at the speed of meatbody metahumans (and I'll be examining the effect of astral movement and aerial drones later on).

The thing is, though, it's also quite possible for firefights to break out while a team still needs to do something on-site—before they've completed their objectives, for example. That's the kind of situation I'm most concerned about, giving players some actual basis on which to decide whether the run is hosed and they need to cut their losses or whether they might still be able to accomplish their objectives before opposition they can't handle shows up.


This is a dangerous assumption—PCs and NPCs tend to be built fairly differently, and have different roles and incentives. NPCs are much more likely to have a home turf advantage and to, at the beginning of combat, be located in or near advantageous positions—PCs are more likely to need mobility to reach or transfer between cover. Time is more typically on the side of the NPCs as well. The big thing that I think would keep your change balanced is that there's still no real minute-scale tracking, so it's mostly just uniformly scaling numbers in a vacuum—the flip side to this, though, is that it doesn't really "fix" anything—consider that although the team now gets only a quarter of the distance away from wherever the firefight happened, any security response will take just as many combat turns to catch up to them.


This is a virtue, but as our project has already resigned itself to making larger changes we're going to be a bit more aggressive in exploring the design space.

Later today: actual new content.

~J

Ok, the way I see it there's a distinction to be drawn in many cases between "outside" security and "inside" security (I'll brainstorm better names later). "Outside" security is what the section in New Seattle is focused on—usually an outside contractor, usually contracted with an area rather than a single facility, usually without any real connection in chain of command or C&C to facility security and without any particular knowledge or responsiveness to specific security priorities of a facility. Facility access may be limited, and where significant "inside" security exists "outside" security may not even be permitted across the property line. "Inside" security is much more connected to the facility—on-site resources more or less automatically fall into this category, but off-site resources may also count as "inside" security if they're specifically responsible for the given facility and can be expected to have detailed knowledge of the facility, broadly free access to it, integration into the on-site chain of command and C&C, and adherence to the specific security priorities of a facility.

(What I mean by "specific security priorities" may not be obvious, so an example: a certain research facility may consider it a priority that individuals capable of Astral Perception not gain access to their labs; "outside" security most likely wouldn't know this or particularly care even if they did, while "inside" security might Assense intruders to prioritize targets and determine how much effort to spend herding the intruders away from the labs)

Next: an investigation of security codes for "inside" security, and maybe some better names for the two kinds (suggestions?).

~J

Suppose you could do some simple charting...

Scale of the operation vs capability to respond vs how swiftly your characters took care of the problem vs how loud they were.

Attach it to a scaling ranking for foe capability and responding similar to the process they went through for GTA. If you just destroyed a high-rise they might be more willin to respond than if you raided a company warehouse and a few drones appear to be malfunctioning but you were not seen and nothing appears out of place (Records altered and drones quietly disabled while your big dudes walked out with the loot).

Ok. For the most part security codes for "inside" security arise fairly naturally from the "outside" variants, but two specific cases call out for attention: Z-rated zones and Zero-Zones.

Zero-Zones, when I was looking at them, initially appeared to be the top end of the security spectrum—so a Zero-Zone would be a AAA-rated zone or something like it, or maybe an extra step above. I quickly realized, though, that this wasn't a good fit—the concept of a Zero-Zone is less about the actual security level and more about procedure and security priority. It's been bandied about on these boards a lot that in many cases it may be valuable for security to take an intruder alive to obtain information like what the objective was, what the intruder knows about who gave them the job, etc. The thing is, though, the attempt to take an intruder alive or even the need to make the decision about whether or not to attempt such creates an opening—by removing any question as to the nature of that response, the effectiveness can be improved. Thus, I think Zero-Zone is most properly a modifier to a security code rather than a direct factor in it. I was originally going to say that the concept of a C-level Zero-Zone didn't make much sense, but thinking about it I've changed my mind—certainly it probably wouldn't be called a Zero-Zone in-game, but I don't see anything contradictory about the idea of an area to which not a whole lot of security, and especially proactive security, is devoted, but which operates under a shoot-to-kill procedure. Some of the more unfriendly national borders could be considered to operate like this.

Then we have Z-rated zones. To some extent I think this doesn't really translate to "inside" security—the closest equivalent is simply not having "inside" security and relying entirely on "external" security. To emphasize this, I think it's best to reflect this by giving it a code of "—" rather than "Z". Conveniently, this also allows us to use "Z" as a modifier to the security code to indicate a Zero-Zone.

Next up: a discussion of security codes capturing the area's "outside" security, the facility's "outside" security, and "inside" security, all in a glanceable format. Also maybe security codes for "inside" security.

~J

I'm going to start today by discussing a key modifier to the significance of the "outside" security rating on a facility: access/engagement.

As we all know, Lone Star and other "outside" security providers aren't police, and even if they were they operate under very different sets of jurisdictional considerations than today. This is significant in two ways: first, "outside" security will not protect things they aren't contracted to protect (New Seattle p108: "Lone Star's coverage ends where a corporation's property begins"), and second, "outside" security has no authority to enter extraterritorial property (note: I haven't finished research to ensure there isn't some "hot pursuit" exemption hiding somewhere in Lone Star or something).

So while I need to do more research to be sure of the details, I think with regard to "outside" security the cases break down more or less as follows:

• No extraterritoriality, no contract: will respond or pursue into territory as convenient with the goal of protecting the general area or adjacent/nearby contractees. Unless specific reason to do otherwise exists, responding units will typically set up a perimeter and wait. Will generally not bother to engage any targets who don't seem to present a threat to something they're actually contracted to protect; on the flip side, will engage targets that do appear to present a threat, including pursuing "inside" security. Still, institutional predisposition to consider intruders a more likely source of trouble than "inside" security. Depending on organizational temperament, may engage intruders, security, or both just to stir things up.
• No extraterritoriality, contract equivalent to that of surrounding area: most similar to a modern law enforcement response. Show up, go in, some units may remain at perimeter to prevent spillover. Typically unified C&C.
• No extraterritoriality, contract lower/higher level than surrounding area: some dispatched units will have orders specifically relating to the higher-rated area, often on separate or partly-separate C&C; will tend to attempt to flush intruders to or bottle them up in the lower-rated area. Most corporate policies frown on units dispatched to higher-rated area giving backup to units dispatched to lower-rated area, but policy frequently violated (still, may be some maneuvering to limit flagrance of violation—taking pot-shots from across the dividing line instead of closing range, for example).
• Extraterritoriality, no contract: Keep Out. Will set up a perimeter like "no extraterritoriality, no contract" above, but in contrast to that situation will (exceptional cases aside) absolutely not engage targets on extraterritorial soil. No more inclined to give fleeing intruders a hard time if they don't threaten protected areas, but significantly more reticent to engage "inside" security assets.
• Extraterritoriality, contract: this situation is more varied than most of the others. While some extraterritorial facilities with "outside" security contracts will give those providers free run of the facility, most impose restrictions (for example, limiting "outside" security to external areas, or to ground floors and parking structures) and some will require that either all "outside" security assets or those deploying outside certain limited areas join the "inside" security C&C.

The exact meaning of security codes for "inside" security needs to be hammered down still, but I'm thinking a two- to three-part code in the following format:

<Outside> [<Modifiers>] <Inside>

Where the brackets indicate that <Modifiers> is optional.

<Outside> is the neighborhood's security code as per New Seattle.

<Modifiers> is a security code or "—" indicating no contract; if absent, the facility is assumed to have a contract at the same level as the surrounding area. Alternately, <Modifiers> is an "X" indicating eXtraterritoriality, optionally followed by a security code; in contrast to non-extraterritorial facilities, no security code indicates no contract and contracts at the same level as the surrounded area are listed explicitly.

<Inside> is a security code, with "—" rather than "Z" indicating no "inside" security, optionally followed by "Z" to indicate Zero-Zone protocols.

Next up: I finally actually try nailing down the security codes for "inside" security, some examples of codes for various facilities, and maybe a discussion of how to handle varying security in a single facility (for example, perhaps only one research wing is operated as a Zero-Zone).

~J

As to response times by RAW, yeah they were way too short.

Beyond your initial on-site security response, I've found that that following is crdible for various response times(while running SR4, still applicable to SR3):

After alert is sounded the following time frame applies to the HTR team:
1 Combat turn for additional Matrix personnel. Not exactly top of the line, but still should give your hacker/technomancer a run for his/her money. Offsite support may be limited in SR3 time frame, and may not exist at all. The pucker factor can be raised as needed by increasing the number of security hackers showing up. THey can even show up every round as the hacker comms his co-workers he needs help.

2-4 Combat turns for astral support. Mages get there quickly to cover the facilities astral defenses. They can also assist in dealing with intruder's spirits. Also if comms are down they can use watchers to communicate the situation with the rest of the HTR team.

10-20 (30 seconds to 1 minute) Arial observation drone support arrives. Typically arial observation drones that are nearby are sent to identify the team and track should the runners make a hasty getaway before the HTR team shows up.

40-120 combat turns (2 minutes to 6 minutes) Arial combat drone support arrives. Typically arial observation drones that are nearby are sent to identify the team and track them should the runners make a hasty getaway before the HTR team shows up.

5 to 15 minutes (lots of combat turns later):HTR team arrives via VTOL craft/helicopter. Depending on situation/jurisdiction may or may not follow runners that have been identified.

15 to 30 minutes (WTF are you still doing there?):Back-up HTR teams arrive via ground vehicles. Surround the facility and prevent Runners from exiting the building. Most likely will not follow runners that have been identified.


I've always been a firm believer that once the alarm is sounded, the groups time grows short and they need to get out ASAP. My players know this as well. Also HTR teams are special forces level forces that get good if not the best gear so tacnets with the drones and other equipment is standard. The grunt on-site at best has a pistol, stun baton, and an armored jacket. THe onsite mage is fresh from hermetics school (if there is one) and onsite matrix is usually just IC, but an onsite spider may be there as well.

As always, I upgrade or down grade this based on the value the corp places on the facility.

Considering astral response times...

It takes a turn just to astrally project. I think they would not be astral until needed as essence withers away. Also, how are they getting dispatched? Astral beings can't get reports from mechanical devices, so if they are already astral, it involves relaying information which lends itself to errors getting introduced.

Next, once astral, yes they can move at fast astral speeds, but they need to navigate, so unless they know exactly where they are going, they need to navigate by landmarks or counting streets, etc.. Once they find the address they got called to, is the threat going to be evident? Are they just going to pop into the middle of things or approach using cover? This will slow things down a turn or more.

If the threat is within a building, once again, the respondent will need to locate it, and are they going to go headfirst into an unknown situation or use a bit of caution. Slowed down again.

If they are going to use spirits, it takes a simple action to call them to service and a complex action to order them. So if they are having each spirit do something different, each takes a complex action.

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head.

I'm going to go into depth a bit later when I get to astral/magical responses, but the existence of polarized wards means that a responding astral mage would be very hesitant to enter an enclosed space in non-known-friendly territory.

~J

True, but iirc even in SR3 wards take time to set up and assuming the HTR astral mage know the location (very likely) and is one of the mages who helped create the ward or is attuned to it, that is not an obstacle. True he won't know going in what the opfor is or where, but he will be on site much faster than the rest of the HTR team and be able to help.

For "inside" security, absolutely. "Outside" security? Not so much—and the risks are big enough that even probably-friendly locations like contracted facilities would give a mage pause.

(I really need to hurry up and think of better names for those categories.)

~J

In older source books neighborhood security was rated AAA (Top of the line security), AA, A, B, C, D, E, and lastly for no security at all Z. You might want to use those as guidelines.

I am. Those are the security codes referenced above from New Seattle p108 (though I should double-check other descriptions to see if there are any changes over time). The distinction I'm talking about is between what's measured (mostly) by that neighborhood rating and what the ratings on p96 of the Corporate Security Handbook capture. Though you remind me, I should read that through carefully before going too much further.

~J

I would avoid using 'Z' for zero-zone, since most people reading it will still think it's Z-rating, even if you tell them straight out. Instead, I'd recommend using '0'.

The idea is that it will always be attached to a non-Z rating, but that is something I'd waffled about. I'll see if I can't come up with some tests and run them on people.

~J

One case I forgot to consider that I want to come back to: cases where a facility has a contracted facility provider that's different from the neighborhood security provider. I'm still waffling as to whether it makes sense to have this kind of situation and not have the facility-contractor be providing "inside" security, but at the least it would raise tensions at the perimeter. More examination later.

~J

Honestly, probably not. That's such an odd circumstance, if it's relevant to the situation, it should be mentioned specifically.

Why is that an Odd Circumstance?
When I was in the Security Industry, it happened all the time. That is, after all, why you have an Independant Contractor.

It's odd in that it rarely matters. Your site either uses the local company, or it has 'on site security'. On site security may have a mother base at another location (whether the security is owned by the parent, or a separate contractor), and that's worth mentioning. The name of the security company and ratings specific to it may be worth mentioning. But both of those you'll mention regardless as to who owns the company.

The only case where ownership is relevant is when the on-site security is an outside contractor, and there are some tensions between that contractor and the neighborhood company. But that's such a specific scenario, that it's worth just mentioning specifically. Otherwise it's just confusing up a simple interface for no benefit.

Ahhh... I see what you are saying...

Right. You need the facility to elect to not contract with the local provider, but then elect to contract with some other outside provider, but then elect to not coordinate with them closely (per the above description of the distinction between "inside" and "outside" security).

I've reconsidered my position on how unusual a position it would be from a pure frequency standpoint, but I still think it's sufficiently edge-case-ish (especially once you throw in the filter of "what kind of situation is the GM actually likely to put in his or her game", which I think trends against convoluted situations like this) that it's not worth bloating the official security code specification with. Maybe add a suggestion (gaah!) to stick some parentheses around the middle component of the security code if a GM wants a reminder of this sort of situation.

~J

Ok, with the caveat that I haven't yet finished my homework as regards the Corporate Security Handbook, a stab at descriptions for security codes for "inside" security.

But first, a stab at better names for "inside" and "outside" security:

"Inside" security: facility security.
"Outside" security: local security.

Thoughts/suggestions? I'll continue to use the terms "inside" and "outside" for this post, and until I get some feedback or come to a clearer idea of how I like those proposed terms.

Note that with the exception of the lowest security tiers there's a heavy bias in these descriptions towards places with no or very small areas accessible to the public—security on places like restaurants will be addressed separately later.

So, in reverse order for the moment because it's easier to work that way at the momen:

• —: No "inside" security to speak of. Usually a modest amount of passive detection devices intended to alert "outside" security (motion detectors and door open/close sensors turned on after close of business, breakage sensors on windows or doors—think slightly more advanced versions of modern-day automated burglar alarms). No active security measures at all.
• E: Minimal "inside" security, focused almost entirely on detection. May involve a minimal number of usually-not-specifically-trained metahuman security assets, almost invariably not present outside business hours. Examples: a Stuffer Shack with the owner keeping a revolver or shotgun underneath the register, a facility with one possibly-unarmed guy watching camera feeds all day.
• D: As per E, but with some semblance of shifts and division of responsibility. Only a few people, but now at least a little attention is paid to ensuring that shifts staring at camera feeds aren't so long that the guard has certainly zoned out for most of it.
• C: As per D, but now extending to 24-hour coverage and shift changes. At least basic armament (possibly nonlethal-only) now expected for at least one security asset at any given time.

Actually, before I go on, here's a question: I feel like this structure more or less echoes the security levels in New Seattle, but am I giving too much granularity to facilities that are too insecure to be interesting for typical games?

~J

Site security?

I'd come up with "Enclave" but don't mind "Site". Also "Municipal" for "outside" security which somewhat encompasses public domains and their government or mandated agencies.

Some other SR sources worth a look are "Response Times" on p52 of Denver GM book which has Docwagon and Law Enforcement response rules. These are based on the earlier Docwagon response rules on p100 of NAGRL.

No security means, to me, no security. No alarms, nothing. I'd put the alarms you mention as E, if someone might possibly respond, or -- if it's just color text. (I'm hesitant to categorize 'the cashier carries a gun' as security though. Unless he's specifically hired to protect the facility, he's just a threat.)

I think your examples need to be a little concrete, and the value depends wholly on how you apply it. Ultimately, an underground bunker, unmanned but locked tight and trapped could qualify for an A rating, just like a mall with no locked doors, but swarming with guards, astral, and matrix patrols. The problem is that even though they are both As, the security response time, method, nature of the defenses, etc. are so wildly different, it almost defeats the purpose in categorizing them.

Thinking on it, you may want to break "Security" into sub-ratings. A facility can either be "Rating A", in which case everything is approximately A, or you can break it down item by item, with some being AAA and some being --.

This is exactly the issue that I'd run into while thinking further about this—I'd left the scope implicitly defined, and we're running into the problems that that leads to. To ground this, let's revisit the security ratings in New Seattle.

As described, the Security Ratings mix a few different things together. The only crunch consequences are detection/response time and responding force composition, but a few other consequences are implied in the descriptions like the presence/absence of PanicButton™ booths, patrols, cameras, and security rigger systems, as well as the zeal with which investigations are pursued.

Corporate Security Handbook gives ratings for facility security, giving Physical, Technical, Magical, Matrix, and Personnel security ratings from 0 to 4. Note that quantity/quality of guards is covered under Physical Security; Personnel Security covers resistance to infiltration/bribery/blackmail/etc. via background checks, loyalty checks, etc.

I think that as a result of the noted potential for diversity in specific areas of security like those captured by CSH's ratings we should probably maintain a similar system. Nevertheless, I think security codes as an indicator of speed of response still have value. Viewing them in this light, it would not be true that an unmanned but locked and trapped bunker could qualify for an A rating, but on the flip side my attempt at defining ratings above is also barking up the wrong tree.

So then under this view the "inside" security rating would capture speed of detection and response. A high-security facility crawling with guards but which, for some reason, was operating under standing strict orders for all security assets to not leave their posts under any circumstances would qualify for a "—" rating, because if you get into a firefight or otherwise kick up a ruckus in one location no additional security assets will ever arrive at the scene (this is an extreme example; I haven't thought it over carefully, but I doubt personnel directives would be enough to change a facility's security rating under ordinary circumstances).

This poses two additional questions: first, is such a narrowly-defined rating excessively technical, such that only rules lawyers will properly understand it after reading about it; and second, how to deal with the question of detection by "outside" security in a facility. This was the main reason why my description for "—" above was not, in fact, truly "no security"—a facility with rating AAA/— seems to me to likely still be risky turf on which to cause a ruckus.

More after contemplation.

~J

Off the top of my head, if I were to make up a system, I'd do it thusly:

Security is broken up into a number of areas (ex: personnel, matrix, magical, technical controls, environment, etc.)
Each of these areas has traits. There being PanicButtons is an Environment trait. Tough Locks is a Technical trait.
Then I'd have a score for each rating, which determines, broadly, the TN for any activities in that area. Technical 4 with Tough Locks would mean that rewiring the security camera has a difficult of 4 (before other modifiers), but picking the locks has a TN of 6 (because of the trait Tough Locks).

The security rating for the facility is just an average of these scores. Or in reverse, if I don't need that much detail as above, I give the security rating, and all the individual control areas have a score of approximately the security rating.

In a nutshell, I'd probably run it pretty similar to how SR3 matrix is run. Which maybe is an indication that it's a mistake

On vacation, back next week!

~J

On reflection, I've concluded that this issue at its current scope can't be resolved without significantly more time and effort than originally anticipated (I'm only partway through a close reading of Corporate Security Handbook, and after that's done I still need to read Lone Star), so since chargen rules really demand attention soon I'm deferring most of the issue. Nevertheless, I'm sick of digging into an issue only to put it back on the shelf as unresolvable without actually producing any end products, so in the interest of making something useful I'm going to restrict focus for right now to purely the response time issue. Even in the absence of full details, I feel like having an idea of security response times significantly improves the ability of players to make plans.

I started with "inside" security above because I felt it was more important, but I'm going to switch to "outside" security because it's easier and I think it can be knocked out pretty quickly.

In New Seattle, the phases of response are "Aware of Problem", "First Response", "Second Response", "Patrol Arrives", "Reinforcements 1", "Reinforcements 2", and "Continuing Response". "Aware of Problem" seems problematic—I'm not at all sure I like the idea of making detection by security automatic, even with a delay—so I'll ignore it for today. Likewise, "Continuing Response" is subject to some thorny issues, as a strict reading of New Seattle means it consists of infinitely-spawning responses arriving at perfectly regular intervals, so we'll leave that for another time as well. Going down the list, then:

First Response: this consists, as written, of assets with near-instant response time and almost no floor on response delay; the examples given are security Riggers who may already be jacked in Observing via an already-present cameras (where available) on the one hand, and astral mages and spirits who lack gear (few ways to equip yourself for the astral) and have access to Fast Astral Movement. In a true CCSS environment, the Rigger's Response is actually a Free Action, or a Simple for Observe in Detail; in this case, 1 Initiative Pass is actually a potentially reasonable timeframe, but since the GM is unlikely to roll Initiative for the Security Rigger (and because said Security Rigger might be doing something else), I think we can slow him down to the speed of the astral response (but we might not need to, will give more thought later).

For the astral response, we have a few cases. Fast Astral Movement is at a rate of Magic kilometers per Turn, and includes the ability to "dodge around astral obstacles", so in general we can assume that a projecting asset will reach the response point in one Turn. It takes one Complex Action to Project, Call Elemental, or Summon Nature Spirit, and a Simple Action to Command a Spirit; I can't actually find any reference to what kind of action it is to summon a Watcher Spirit, but it seems reasonable to assume that that's also a Complex Action. We then have one Turn response time and one to two Turns minimum response delay; longer response times in lower-security areas will probably take the form of either inefficient communication to the controlling mage or the mage not being stationed in such a way as to permit immediate projection (so, needing to run into the other room to sit in the Projection Chair or something).

So I don't forget, another thing to consider: these times probably can't be brought down in general by having astral assets on patrol—being astral means they're cut off from the technological/meatspace communications networks, so unless I'm forgetting some other communication channel any already-Astral assets who didn't stumble on the response point themselves aren't going to get word until something projects or is summoned/called and travels to them.

More later.

Edit: on review, an Extended-Range version of Mindlink could provide a communications channel from meatspace to astral, but it would be Deadly drain, would need to be Sustained once for every projecting Mage to communicate with, and would have a typical radius of only a few hundred meters (Force*Magic*10m). It might be an option in very high-security areas, shaving up to one Combat Turn off the total response time.

~J

Ok, where was I.

Second Response: "always a spotter drone". Security provider "alerts a patrol". This leaves some question as to the actual level of response—from just reading this you'd think it's a mostly passive response, but the standard "spotter drone" for Lone Star is the Strato-9, which comes packing an MMG with heavy recoil compensation and 500 rounds of ammo. I guess a reasonable assumption is that even if a Strato-9 or similarly-equipped drone is the dispatched asset, standard practice would be to not engage under normal circumstances. Looking at the UAVs in Rigger 3 with reasonable Sensor (3-5, preferably at the high end or with explicit reference to being a spotter or surveillance drone in fluff), we've got the fixed-wing Aztechnology Liebre with top speed of 1,620, accel 75, 160l fuel at 0.5km/l efficiency, and STOL; the iconic Strato-9 with Speed 100, Accel 9, 120l at 0.25km/l, and VTOL; and the Ares Guardian, with Speed 60, Accel 6, 150PF at 1 km/PF, and VTOL. Neither of the canon miniblimps have the sensor package to be a spotter drone, but I built one that gives Speed 75, Accel 5, and ridiculously huge range.

I'm going to have to come back to do more detailed analysis of timing, but at max speed the Strato-9 covers 2 kilometers a minute; Acceleration time is likely to make a big difference once I work it out, but I think a loose lower bound for response time is 5 Combat Turns, or 15 seconds, allowing the Strato-9 to arrive on-scene at max speed from up to half a kilometer away. Response delay has a small lower bound, reflecting loitering drones.

Huh, this takes more time than I figured. More later.

~J

Regarding astral response times, also consider bounded spirits will be available and that watchers can communicate between the mage and meatspace.

If Lone Star routinely equip their 'quick response' drones with gel ammo, you're likely to get more people available for questioning and far fewer 'wrongful death' suits, property damage and whatnot.

That said, shooting at Lone Star drones with sniper rifles might be part of a good Saturday Night in the worse parts of town.

You should probably take some time to note what security features they put into those drones.

Things like automatically circling back if they detect a jamming field, for instance, a hard assumption that the unit has been compromised and returns to base without accepting any more commands if it gets any orders to shoot on recognized owner's personnel, property, or customers (presumption of spoofing,) and (SR4 specific) that the unit has been written at a low level not to accept any more user Accounts of any access level being created while the unit is operational.


Because very little is more embarrassing than having your asset become the crook's asset. Except when it does so by way of machine-gunning several of your other assets.

Also, yeah, less-lethal measures in the loitering drones are probably a really good idea; Gel rounds for SR3, Stick 'n Shock for SR4.


Also, for SR4 GMs, you might want to look at the Hawker-Siddley Mixcoatl (from MilSpecTech/Runner's Black Book) as a loitering surveillance drone. It's pretty beefy, has SunCell so it has effectively limitless operational range in daylight, it has articulated landing legs so they can land anywhere and just sit for essentially infinite loiter time, it comes preinstalled with a turret just waiting for your choice of weaponry to be installed, and it can go from a standing start to maximum velocity (admittedly only 90 m/turn) in only three combat turns.

I'm going to want to come back to this in more detail, because I think there's a widespread misconception about how likely the Star is to prefer less-lethal force—I think this is a result of overestimating how valuable questioning is and how much a security provider like the Star can actually be held accountable for its actions. On a one-ammo-bin drone like the Strato-9 you also run into the issue that vehicles and drones are immune to Stun, so if the opposition gets into a car that MMG is just an oversized hood ornament.

(Also, the executive of the Lone Star Division of Patrol is more or less philosophically opposed to defaulting to less-lethal measures (Lone Star p27))

For the immediate discussion, though, I misspoke above—I didn't mean to suggest that an armed drone arriving as part of Second Response would never engage in combat, or would hold back out of worry for collateral damage, but that it would not be typical for an arriving armed spotter drone to initiate combat on its own, before the later phases of a response take place.


I guess Watchers are explicitly described as being able to see and hear goings-on in meatspace, so a Watcher could relay radio messages or somesuch. It all seems somewhat elaborate and unwieldy, but I'll have to think about whether that case should cut down the floor on total response time from two Combat Turns to one.


That's out of scope, actually


How are you going to identify recognized owner's personnel, property, or customers using only on-board information and processing?

(Also note that in base SR3 the overwhelming dominance of broadcast encryption over broadcast decryption means the MIJI rules collapse into the J rules, so until I overhaul that it isn't particularly important)

~J

Quick-and-dirty solution is to use IFF transponders, though that would be easy enough for the other guys to spoof. Another Q&D would be to use visual recognition to be able to recognize things like your logo, uniforms, the make of your patrol cars, etcetera, though again, that can be spoofed. Better to use them together.

And frankly, if someone has stolen/copied your gear and is using your IFFs, you have bigger problems than that your drones won't wanna fire on them; namely that they're probably in your station house, stealing your secrets.

All good - Lone Star had a look at the options and chose lethal force.

My next question is ... how much is likely to salvage when one is shot down by less than savoury elements ? They are high signature and low body ... they could probably be popped with a sniper rifle.

Take your computer, a video camera, and a scoped rifle. Wrap them up in a beach towel, pour 2 gallons of gas on the bundle, light the towel and throw the burning bundle out the 80th floor of a building onto the street below. How much do you think you could salvage?

I'd guess maybe the bolt of the rifle...

So, maybe the cost of a couple of .50 cal rounds and a hot meal ?

Sounds like a Barrens Business Plan to me

Speaking seriously, plenty of stuff has been salvaged out of crashed aircraft. I can also see the varuious Z-zone residents not liking Lone Star drones hanging around.

Anyone ever watch Destroy Build Destroy.

I find it interesting some of the stuff built from the scraps.

On tht angle i once discussed with a former army guy who had been training for commando style operation. The basic rule was that after a strike out of urban areas, being 5 km away from teh site after the operation is about what's required to be out of a realistic attempt at blocking your escape.