Ultratech and The Police

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by hal

precautionary measures BEFORE the roll is made is not the same thing as it being activated.

The rules don't provide any mechanic for modifying frequency of appearance by behavior. If the enemy does not appear, the character is not affected by the Disad in that session. Accordingly, if the character is affected (e.g. is compelled to modify behavior) then the Disad must be active.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

[I]

As for the setting, we should look at the who, what and wheres of the surveillance.
Who is your PC? Is he a street hood, member of an organised crime unit, a rioter who stole a TV, a habitual mugger, a graffiti tagger, someone who got in a pub brawl then did a runner when the fuzz showed, or what? Does he know he's wanted? Was he trying to avoid fac-rec when he did the crime? What resources does he or his organisation have to avoid fac-rec?

Where does he live? If his neighbourhood is often targetted by the cops, then all the local street kids and gangers might make a regular sport of paintballing surveillance cameras or taking down drones, causing a big blind-spot in the fac-rec network's coverage.

I'd look at it as an arms race between surveillance and counter-surveillance, with the needle swinging back and forward on which has more dominance. Yes, modern day London takes 300 shots a day of regular citizens, but that's because they aren't fighting back against it. For every new sophisticated technique, for spotting hidden weapons or gait analysis or whatever mentioned above, a counter-technique will eventually be found that rules it obsolete. E.g. Does it use near-IR to determine what heavy gear you're carrying? Then maybe people start carrying super-bright IR beacons that dazzle the sensors, or wear overcoats webbed with IR-emitting LEDs.

You just have to determine where in your setting the needle happens to be pointing. Is AI fac-rec dominant, or is mass-social non-compliance providing an effective counter?

To answer the question of who what where why etc...

This is a blending of GURPS ULTRATECH and CYBERPUNK 2020 - using Night City as the locale. The player characters have yet to be drawn up, but unless I miss my guess, they will not be the run of the mill street thugs. One player is leaning towards an ex-Marine who got into surveillance technology after leaving the service. I'm not certain what the other one will want to play, but I'm guessing he might take something akin to a "Face man" or perhaps a Shooter style character (from Action heroes). At least one NPC ally will be a Netrunner. Whether or not the second player will invest in an ally - is uncertain at this point in time.

If the "Wire Rat" style character is involved, he SHOULD be aware of the limitations of Surveillance, and know for example, that those with social status 2+ will want higher security around their homes. Those with social status 1 or 0 will likely have some law enforcement, but the closer you get to those regions whose wealth is struggling or poor - the more likely it is to be less patrolled and be less likely to have assets assigned against the apprehension of the criminals being sought.

There will of course, be surveillance drones about, but they won't be as common as might otherwise be in operation in the more affluent sections of the City.

On that note, time to hit the sack...

[Keampe]

Originally Posted by malloyd

On the other hand, it's a universal surveillance system, you have really good surveillance records of people who came right up to it to damage it. Send Homeland Security stormtroopers to arrest them, confiscate everything they owned to pay for replacement cameras and dismember them for saleable organs to cover paying the stormtroopers bonuses.

RL example here.

For a time I was a security installation person. One of the first cameras that I had to replace was the one in an ATM, inside a bank. The person wore a hoodie, sunglasses and a baseball cap and we never got a good look at the face.

Turns out these cameras were a frequent target - taken and used on grow ops.

Any camera within reach distance is likely to be messed with. Depending on the area, reach distance is how accurately a thug can shoot.

- Shane

[Willy]

Quite right any visible camera, depending on the setting is fair game for thugs. In a modern london with cops a few minutes away, it may be difficult to destroy them faster than replacement, not to mention it´s a good chance you get caught.
In a distopian setting with the cops not wanting to enter some hoods or not enough money for replacement and police it´s the other way around.

Iwrote visible for a reason, modern cammeras are quite small and will get even smaller in higher TLs, so a lot of them may be to small to detect. But raw data is one thing you need either staff or tech to use the cameras in a way that makes sense preferably both. Not to mention most cameras record only for some time and overwrite the stuff than. Keeping all data from thousands of high resolution cameras will make enormous server farms necessary and steady rising costs.

By the way most cameras using night vision are next to useless if you wear a baseball cap with a few LEDs shining in a infrared or nearinfrared spectrum. They never have a chance to get a picture of your face. They are even hard to detect because people don´t see the light emitted from the LEDs.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Keampe

Any camera within reach distance is likely to be messed with. Depending on the area, reach distance is how accurately a thug can shoot.

- Shane

"In serious dystopia, camera shoot back" ;-)

[Anthony]

China is currently a test case for both the capabilities and the limitations of mass surveillance cameras.

[Tinman]

I think that in this thread there's a mixing of two problems/questions.
1) How accurately the system recognizes the target.
2) How quickly the police can get a unit over to the suspect to intercept them.

For example even if recognition happened with 100% accuracy, it will still take time to search the database, alert dispatch, for dispatch to locate an available unit (if any are available) and for the unit/units dispatched to reach the area.

If the GM & players are ok rolling for each segment of that process: well & good, go for it & move on.
My players & I would rather just have one roll on do the cops show-up in a timely manner. I think the basic disadvantage frequency roll modified by the severity of the crime & actins, disguises ect... from the players is an excellent & efficient way of ding that.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

The rules don't provide any mechanic for modifying frequency of appearance by behavior.

It's not explicitly stated in the RAW, but I think it was FoA that Kromm was talking about when he basically said "if it's a roll, it can take modifiers." In this case, either laying low or bringing attention to yourself could modify the roll down or up.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

It's not explicitly stated in the RAW, but I think it was FoA that Kromm was talking about when he basically said "if it's a roll, it can take modifiers." In this case, either laying low or bringing attention to yourself could modify the roll down or up.

Which in turn, is more or less the direction I hope to go with this.

If a character has luck as an advantage, and the frequency roll of the police as an enemy would indicate that despite the player character laying low, picking a hard to find spot via urban survival - should not result in an activation roll of 12 or less that is blindly adhered to. If the character commits the ultimate sin of killing a police officer, you can expect that the entire city police force will be out looking for said individual, will offer high rewards for the capture of said murderer - and ultimately be a High Activation value enemy. Contrast this with a character who failed to appear in court and has a bench warrant out for him for said violation. **Shrug**

Sometimes, those things earned as disadvantages in game play, will not easily fit into the system used of 6/9/12/15 activation numbers. Sometimes, having the police arrive at the scene of events should be a simple "observe and report" event that takes place after 2d6-3 minutes plus any modifiers for how well protected the area is as far as law enforcement goes (and yes, in another thread, I actively discuss that!).

:)

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

It's not explicitly stated in the RAW, but I think it was FoA that Kromm was talking about when he basically said "if it's a roll, it can take modifiers." In this case, either laying low or bringing attention to yourself could modify the roll down or up.

I wonder what actions would give better odds for an Ally or Patron to appear.