Ultratech and The Police

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

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

Specifically attempting to contact them (although overuse of that should result in reduced odds for a bit), doing something that is highly-relevant to their interests (going after the Joker when your Ally is Batman; going after vampires when your Patron is a god of death who hates cheaters; etc), having recently helped them with something, and so forth.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Specifically attempting to contact them (although overuse of that should result in reduced odds for a bit), doing something that is highly-relevant to their interests (going after the Joker when your Ally is Batman; going after vampires when your Patron is a god of death who hates cheaters; etc), having recently helped them with something, and so forth.

Is this from an official source, or your suggestions?

[Pursuivant]

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is the possibility of police body cameras being linked into the camera surveillance network. If you have lots of cops on foot patrol, that adds a bunch of eye level security cameras that can't be easily disabled by vandals.

Might be good for additional bonuses.

I'm actually a bit surprised that GURPS is so light on surveillance/countersurveillance rules, not just for electronic surveillance, but also things like Shadowing people and vehicles, running stake outs, and planting bugs and hidden cameras before it was easy. It seems like a Pyramid article or game book waiting to be written.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Is this from an official source, or your suggestions?

My suggestions. I don't think modifiers for FoA rolls are mentioned anywhere in the RAW.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is the possibility of police body cameras being linked into the camera surveillance network.

There's that. There is also the likelihood that businesses, householders, landlords and housing co-ops, and the service companies providing internet-connected front-door cameras, motivated by apprehension of lawsuits for callous negligence, will run processes that report suspicious activity to police without even waiting for a request, let alone a warrant.

Then you have dashcams and the cameras of driver-assistance systems in passing and parked cars. In the future it is possible, too, that civilians might start wearing bodycams (or wearing their smartphones in breast pockets as bodycams) either for running life-logging, Foley file, and other personal assistance software on, or for performance monitoring by their bosses. Even if the individuals don't supply reports to the police and neighbourhood morals committees, there's every chance that the manufacturers of their equipment and software, and the providers of their internet services, will.

Another thing to consider is that even if ubiquitous cameras can't identify you, they can trace you from private place to private place and in many circumstances identify you by inference.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

I'm actually a bit surprised that GURPS is so light on surveillance/countersurveillance rules, not just for electronic surveillance, but also things like Shadowing people and vehicles, running stake outs, and planting bugs and hidden cameras before it was easy. It seems like a Pyramid article or game book waiting to be written.

We have GURPS Mysteries, and for 3e, Cops, Espionage and Covert Ops for which surveillance would be their bailiwick, but I don't think any of them go in depth on the subject.

Originally Posted by Varyon

My suggestions. I don't think modifiers for FoA rolls are mentioned anywhere in the RAW.

I wish I could find where Kromm was talking about it, but I couldn't wrangle anything up with a Google hunt.

[hal]

One thing I wish the rules had done was to build frequency of activation in such a manner as the target number wasn't 6,9,12, or 15 - or no roll required. There should have been a range as specific as what you can roll on 3d6. Having a frequency of 3 or less on 3d6 should be possible. Having a frequency roll of 10 or less should be possible.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by hal

One thing I wish the rules had done was to build frequency of activation in such a manner as the target number wasn't 6,9,12, or 15 - or no roll required. There should have been a range as specific as what you can roll on 3d6. Having a frequency of 3 or less on 3d6 should be possible. Having a frequency roll of 10 or less should be possible.

If we ignore the x4 for 100% (which is a clear outlier when you graph it), Excel gives an equation with a pretty decent trendline as either an exponential (R-squared=0.9982) or polynomial (R-squared=0.9983) function... but there's not a lot of separation, particularly at low frequency. Here's what you end up with.

Freq	Polynom	Expon
3	x0.46	x0.44
4	x0.46	x0.45
5	x0.48	x0.48
6	x0.52	x0.52
7	x0.59	x0.6
8	x0.73	x0.74
9	x0.95	x0.94
10	x1.26	x1.21
11	x1.64	x1.57
12	x2.05	x1.99
13	x2.45	x2.43
14	x2.76	x2.8
15	x2.97	x3.08
16	x3.11	x3.26
17	x3.18	x3.36
18	x3.2	x3.39

Freq is the activation roll (note "18" is the same as "always available," at least if you aren't taking into account the possibility of modifiers), Polynom is the price multiplier if using the polynomial trendline, and Expon is the price multiplier if using the exponential trendline. Here's a progression that's a bit cleaner, albeit not by much:

Freq	Mult
3	x0.45
4	x0.46
5	x0.48
6	x0.5
7	x0.6
8	x0.75
9	x1
10	x1.25
11	x1.5
12	x2
13	x2.5
14	x2.75
15	x3
16	x3.2
17	x3.3
18	x3.5

EDIT: As a final option, if you wanted to set a 50% probability (roll of 10 or lower) as the base, and then just scale by straight probability, you'll end up with something like:

Freq	Mult
3	x1/100
4	x1/30
5	x1/10
6	x1/5
7	x1/3
8	x1/2
9	x3/4
10	x1
11	x1.25
12	x1.5
13	x1.67
14	x1.8
15	x1.9
16	x1.95
17	x1.99
18	x2

[Balor Patch]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I wish I could find where Kromm was talking about it, but I couldn't wrangle anything up with a Google hunt.

Divine Favor petition modifiers perhaps.

[dcarson]

The x4 for always makes sense. The difference between you can guarantee it and almost certainly matters. And it removes GM options.