Lonestar: Threat or Treat?

Some of my friends looked up Lonestar officers in the SR3 book and found some worrying facts.

With all their penalties they can't hit the broadside of an Arcology. Let's see if I remember this correctly.


1: They have to a -4 to combat pool dice
2: They have +4 to their TN involving any physical action.
3: They don't have any Smartlinks.

Their combat pool is virtually nonexistent and they have a BASIC TN of 8+ to hit with their Thunderbolts.

What moron hired these goons to protect and serve? Criminals don't even have to be alarmed by the arrival of Lonestar anymore, just stand your ground; they can't hit you anyway. Poor bystanders though.

Could one perhaps invent a skill for them? A skill that has its value added to the characters Quickness for calculating penalties and combat pool loss? Skill name, dunno, "Armor Proficiency" perhaps.

Jopp,

The real problem is that the Thunderbolt is a real lemon of a weapon for an average non-enhanced police officer. Even worse, the Ruger Thunderbolt is a classic example of a bright game designer building a gun that would never fly in the real world but takes advantage of a gaping hole in an RPG ruleset (in this case shadowrun).

I mean look at it....you have a pistol that CAN NOT be fired in anything other than burst mode with all the target number penalties that implies....and you are putting that in the hands of Police Officers who hypothetically are supposed to serve and protect the civilian population.

Puhleeze....the Lonestar cops are more dangerous to the bystanders (as you so adroitly noted) than they are to the criminals. Hell the criminals are less of a threat to innocent bystanders than Lonestar. No Cop in his right mind would use this weapon if he valued his badge at all.

However, the reason the Thunderbolt is so popular is because in shadowrun, burst fire makes it easier to penetrate armor and more likely to take down an armored target in one shot. This of course is bupkis.....just because you fire more often at an armored target does not make that armor easier to penetrate....that depends on the KE and profile of the incoming round.

In addition for shadowrunners who usually have smartlink-2, superhuman strength, and cybernetic recoil compensation, the Thunderbolt is a damned nice weapon. Too bad that it is useless for who it was designed for (non-cybered Police).

-Polaris

<Officer standing in foreground, heaps of bodies on the sidewalk in the background>

"Yeah, we were called to the scene... apparently some so called 'shadowrunners' we're tapping into the LTG here... oh and shooting randomly at civilians. They do that y'know, shadowrunners... so we came here and ended up in a firefight, and we valiantly drove 'em off when the drones got here..."

Cakeman,

Yeah...too bad the runners were using Sliverguns, or Ares Predator IIIs and the bodies were clearly shot with Ruger Thunderbolts. The two weapons do leave very different sorts of ballistic traces you know....even no-nothing reporter would quickly pick up on this.

-Polaris

Polaris, not all Shadowrunners use Ares Predator IIIs or Sliverguns or indeed usually have Smartlink IIs, superhuman strength or cybenetic recoil compensation. Or have standardised uniforms ( )...

That said it is something of a problem. There are a number of ways to approach it, with only a couple being vaguely canon (for those that are worried about that kind of thing).

The first is to fix the gun; giving it recoil comp. Remember however that the first burst suffers no recoil penalties, only the second burst does. The idea being that if a pair of Lone Star cops open up on your normal criminal, they won't need a second burst. I don't understand the +4 base to all physical TNs though. Even if that applies, that's only +4 (am I missing something?). With 5 dice, a TN of 8 is getable and 12S stings something serious. Is it something I missed (probably. I tend to miss the obvious)?

Also officers can carry a second pistol. IMC (In My Campaign) that pistol is usally a Predator or something similar which is used when long-term precision is required.

Shadowrunners aren't typical criminals so I don't expect Lone Star beat cops to take them on when they know what they are. THat's what SWAT teams (elite officer stats IMC) are for and they do give runner teams a run for their money (no pun intended). Using tactics like those mentioned in Cyberpirates (adapted of course) and a SWAT team will take down runners. THe trick is to fight intelligently, rather than relying on gear.

Remember the archetypical Lone Star officer is not there to fight Shadowrunners. His job is to make the common folk feel secure, create a law presence and control everyday crime. If most beat cops came up against a Runner team, they'd call for backup. They're simply not meant to be on the same level as Runners.

They'ree not really fixes for the Thinderbolt so much as fixes for Lone Star. The police who are expected to fight runners use SMGs, Assault Rifles and Shotguns.

I don't know where you're getting the +4 / -4 stuff, but I can't spot it in any of the core books (don't have my Seattle book with me, where it is probably given mention if it exists). As far as the gun goes... it's designed to rapidly put three shots into a single hole. The first shot in a combat phase has no recoil penalty. Trying to use it like a machine pistol doesn't work out very well, though, and the second shot takes a +4 TN modifier.

So here are your average street cops, rolling 4 dice to hit (combat pool 5) against TNs 3,4,5,8 (laser sight is a common option for the thunderbolt). For 12 S on a hit. Seems to me like they'll do fine. Sure, you only get 4 shots to a clip, but if you have to shoot at the bad guys more than four times, you probably need to be down behind cover where you can reload, anyway.

"Next time on COPs: Seattle"

I thought that was the rule beging referenced, but the typical Lonestar Cop is wearing a vest with plates (4/3) and a leather jacket (0/2) with a quickness 4. Now thats +1 to quickness linked tns, and no combat pool mod. In high threat areas they upgrade to an armored jacket (5/3) which results in the same mods.

So theyre getting 2 shots a turn, first no recoil second 4 recoil, with plus one to the base tn, but have a lasersight minium. Basically base tns, laser sight and armor penalty cancel out. Now, the way we typically play LS is that they aim the first action then shoot, because most cops dont want to just hit anything like you guys were saying as well. This puts them back at the same tns they would with the laser sight and no penalty, which are better than standard, making the cops a fair shot with a decent damage code of 12S. Plus its a burst so its harder to dodge, or they can use searching fire from cc to get an extra die on the attack (drops damage to 9M tho).

All in all pretty fair for an average cop who, like has been said, isnt really there to fight runners, but to keep gangers from hassling the population. One patrol car of 2 cops wont give most runners any trouble, its the possible attention the encounter would bring and the potential for backup thats really an issue.

edit: to request for reference, basic LS cop stats are given in New Seattle, p.112-3

You can't use searching fire with anything on burst fire, as it takes three rounds to add one die and those three rounds don't count for damage, so you wouldn't actually be doing any damage.

~J

The Scamp hit it on the head, at least here anyway cops do NOT shoot to wound, ever. If they pull out a gun it's with the intent to kill. Period.

Ok, I was going off memory been awhile since anyones pulled it in game. I *know* the dodge thing is correct, but very well could be off on the search fire. Not that youd really want to, with a heavy pistol far better to hit for 12S than get one measly die. Anyway, from the sound of it LS is a threat (on some level) when implemented in ways consistent with police work nowadays.

Lone Star Patrol Officer (vital stats according to New Seattle page: 112-113)

Quickness: 4

"All officers wear armor vests with plates (4/3) and leather jackets (0/2). In high danger zones (rated B or lower), patrol officers wear armor jackets (5/3) along with the vest. See p. 285 of SR3 for the rules of layering armor. [snip]"

Lets see how much this affects your combat pool and quickness:

A (or better) Ballistic: 4+0=4
This gives no penalties.

B (or lower) Ballistic: 5+4=9
According to the rules, each point which the total exceeds the quickness attribute you get +1 to all quickness related tests. In this case a +5. The cop also loses 5 points from his quickness for movement calculations, giving him an effective movement rate of zero!

Now for the combat pool. We have Ballistic at 9 and every two points above quickness reduces combat pool by one. If we don't count with the Impact armor (6) that gives a reduction of 2. If we also count the Impact that gives a total reduction of 5 from the combat pool.

So +5TN to start with when you shoot. 0 in effective quickness for movement and -2 (-5) in combat pool. To me that's not good.

What happened to the bit in the Lonestar book saying all employes must have a smart link?

Well that is stupid as Frag all.

Sigh what happened to even the janiter being a gun bunny .