In a recent thread I've been a bit whiny about how much security coverage my group seems to run into, mainly cameras.

So, in order to get some perspective rather than be a whiny pansy I'm asking what you guys put as CCTV coverage and automated defenses for a location in your campaigns. The sample locations are:

1) A remote drug lab owned and operated by a crime syndicate like the mafia or the vory, say on the outskirts of Puyallup disguised as a farm.

2) A club owned by an organized crime syndicate.

3) A corporate office block.

4) A corporate lab.

How close a watch do they keep on these cameras?
Do they have special sensors (EG thermal, vision enhancement)
Do they have motion sensors attached as well?

1) Limited amount, enough to provide coverage on the points of access and egress and maybe a few perimeter cameras. Too much will ruin the disguise but you want a decent early warning of Law Enforcement or other threats. Watching the camera comes down to how alert and paranoid they are.

2) Again you're seeing access and egress but otherwise limited external coverage typically only covering the parking area.

3) Corporate Officeblock will normally have a lot of coverage on lobby and corridors but I wouldn't expect to see the expense employed in the offices themselves. However more sensitive offices may certainly see increased surveillance and security measures. In all cases I would expect to see sensor arrays in place of just cameras as well as motion sensors and pressure sensors on the window.

4) the Lab is an interesting one, because it may be in a shared block, or it may be in a pure corp facility. In the former then I'd expect to see the above with additional physical security and methods of restricting / preventing access. In a pure corp facility then utterly anything is possible and I recommend the corporate security handbook.

Take this with a grain of salt, I once had a player draw a gun in downtown only to have him appear on his "things you might be interested in" twitter feed moments later. The other things to consider are your other security options like choke points, automated guns and security staff. For example the syndicate might have saved money on the cameras out at the drug den only to spent it on an automated turret. Something they couldn't do at the nightclub.

1. A single guy will be monitoring the video feeds. There will be gaps in the coverage but the known entry points will be well covered by the syndicate.
2. Complete coverage of the public areas including the bathrooms. Entrances to areas sensitive to the syndicate will be covered but not the actual area itself. The difference between the remote drug lab and the club will be the cameras at the club will have multiple fields of view.
3. Complete coverage, multiple operators.
4. Complete, discrete/hidden coverage, multiple operators, multiple sensors.

It's important to consider, in these cases, the surveillance that doesn't belong to the people that own or run the site - they might not be able to get into that, but someone else could.

I always try to keep cost/risk in mind when designing security. No ones going to spend more on security than they absolutely have to. I'm also going to talk about security and not just sensors, since I think the two go hand-in-hand

1) Disguising it as a farm is probably most of its purpose built protection. Drug labs are usually cheap to set up and if they get hit, you lose your product and some equipment, but not too much the syndicate cares about. They'll rely on their reputation and retribution to scare off other syndicates looking to hit them. Probably a few sensors set up on the obvious approach paths. Depending on size, between 2-6 security guys that are primarily there to act as overseers for the cooks and work in shifts. If there is an active dispute with another rival, maybe extra perimeter sensors. Visual surveillance. No wards or magical protection, because that's likely too expensive, though the facility might be mostly underground to use the earth as a shield to keep snooping spirits out. This set up though is most likely to get raided by lone star or someone else looking to make a flashy bust and it doesn't matter how many sensors you have. If their informants are worthwhile they'll pull out the valuable cooks and anything especially expensive removed before the raids.

2) Again, most of the surveillance here is going to be in the form of lots of package boys, wannabees, and eyes in the neighborhood hanging out and looking to make a name for themselves. Their will be video, ultra-sound, and audio surveillance of all the areas, especially the most "private", but not for security reasons, but for all the potential black mail material they might get on someone misbehaving in their club (the daughter of a local politician drinking at the club on a fake SIN? well, that just saved them several thousand in campaign contributions). Probably have some automated systems running facial recognition and analysis to see if anything they're getting is worthwhile. Probably a few bouncer like guys at the doors and the entrance to the more high security areas. Probably an obvious safe and a more secret stash for cred sticks and the second set of books. Probably a violence suppression system that would neutralize things in the main areas with knock-out gas or something similar, which is installed to code and there to prevent "riots" or "bar fights". The syndicate is again relying mostly on reputation, because you might be able to hit their place with a team, but you better hope they don't find out who you are, because they'll hit you and everyone you ever met right back.

3) Probably just external cameras on the doors and a few other angles, probably covering most of the building, and maybe a surveillance drone or two with automated analysis software to assess threats. Possibly a cleaning drone pulling double duty. Maybe a night security person, who's mostly there to check I.D.s, open the door for people working late and discourage people getting mugged in the parking area or solicitors. And a fence to discourage casual approaches. There's usually not actually much worth hitting an office for. They might steal work stations or other equipment, but I imagine companies have taken to bolting them to desks and a lot of specialized equipment is hard to move on the black market. Records are probably more easily stolen electronically.
Note: I assume you mean a wage slave office drone building and not a high level executive building where real decisions are made.

4) I'll assume you mean a research lab and not a production lab. I work in a research lab and have worked in several others. The best defense it has is that mostly no one knows what we're doing or really cares. Most of R&D is just not really useful except to a handful of people, most of whom are already funding you or funding someone else competing with you along different avenues. And no one really finds out about the work until it's already published or patented. Most of our equipment and experimental results are meaningless to anyone else. Almost all of my data is in massive spread sheets that just look like numbers and I'd be surprised if anyone could make heads or tails of it even with my extensive notes. To really steal research, your best bet is to get involved in it and learn from the people doing it, like corporate spies do, not to just grab a bunch of documents, data, or a prototype in a big heist. But that's no fun. So I would probably have higher security on these facilities. Cameras and other sensors on all the external entrances, running wireless so they can't be hacked and feeding into a central computer that's running analysis and has some one watching it. Ultrasonic sensors to detect invisible individuals. Biometrics to enter more secure levels. Biofiber wall boards. Security drones doing random routes in the hallway. One way mirrored glass to protect guards from mages. Chemical sensors (as much to sense for chemical leaks as intruders). Automatically locking doors that seal sections of the building if an alarm sounds (if it's like some labs I've worked in, the building is already subdivided to prevent serious damage if an explosion occurs in one of the labs and this is easy to do once you've done that). A fence with sensors around the facility.