Topic: Questions

[croakerdogboy]

Ok. I have digested all the books and made my first character to run through the rules. He is a police officer on an occupied planet. I was trying to play around with what standard equipment for an officer could be expected. I was struck by Sonic Stunners. In the rules it says that the ear pieces to block their waves are outlawed on most worlds. Now if this truly is used this way, it seems these weapons are pretty devastating. I was trying to figure out why a police officer would carry something else except in case of emergency, or a long range battle.

Then I was trying to figure out what other kind of sidearm an officer would carry. I don't see them using Plasma (due to damage to the surrounding area), and blasters pistols have a severe range limitation. I thought about a laser pistol, but it seems that they are far less common then blasters. Kinda up in the air on this one.

[ictus]

The best starting point may be to look at current law enforcement, what do they carey/wear. They use tasers as a mater of course, hand guns, and usually a shotgun, for those times nothing else will do. More specialist units use rifles and in some countries water canon.

There is no reason your officer wouldn't have the same or a more upto date equivalent, your world may have economic or other issues why only some weapons are available and not others.

So personally I'd work backwards from the world and it's culture then kit him out.

Also is he just a poor grunt or one of the swaggering elite?

Then there's the armor, does he have a patrol car?

Sorry, more questions than answers

[croakerdogboy]

No, I saw him as having a standard ground vehicle as a patrol car. I debated on whether he would have a human or android partner. Androids are far more expensive then humans so that solved that problem.

I saw the sonic stunner as replacing the taser, I was trying to figure out what would replace the common handgun now. It is a border planet that is in rebellion (just using the standard SM:P universe for simplicity). I see him as working for the planetary government as local law enforcement (planning on getting him caught up with freedom fighters later). I can't see a shotgun as continuing to be the center mount of the car. Perhaps more a sub assault blaster. But the sidearm is what gets me.

[Dark Mistress]

I think it would vary a lot depending on a number of factors. Keep in mind just because something makes sense doesn't mean thats what happens. Often illogical things stay around for a long time due to political issues. For a long time police was forced to keep using .38 special which wasn't a very good hand gun and was way behind the times when they was finally allowed to switch and now most use the 9mm which while better is still far from ideal. Part of that is pressure to appear as non threatening as possible.

On the other hand some places have almost no restrictions.

Keep in mind the sonic stunner is much much more effective than modern taser. Likely i would think that a sonic stunner side arm and then sonic stunner longarm would be standard and then backup lethal weapons in the trunk. Many police carry such in their trunks now.

Of course it would depend on certain factors on the society in question and their views of things, as well as the local and regional politics. Just IMHO

[markc]

 I remember the core SM:P books say that it might be illegal to use SS oon middle age people do to the problem of inducing heart attacks. But besides that I think they would also have another less then leathal force option [LtLFO]. Eventhought they are not in the book I think some type of stickey gun would fill the option. The weapon basicly spits out sticky goo that immobolizes the target. IMO it shuold have a average weight of the energy weapons but with much smaller amount of rounds, maybe 3 for a hand weapon and 7 for a rifle.
 If you have other Sci-Fi games like Shadowrun or even SM2 they have some options if I remember correctly like the goo gun above. Yesterday I picked up the SM2 Companion 2 PDF from the ICE store and I think they had some stuff in the equipmet section but I could be wrong.

 As for other weapon IMO it would depend on the Law level of the patrol area as well as what threats the officer would encounter. If they face military firepower they would have military equipment. I also think they might or would have the best shields as this would make the "bad" guys give up faster since they would know that if they fired upon the officer they would not have as great a chance of injuring the officer and get away. The office would also have small drones to scout for him as well as track targets down.
That is all for now.
 MDC

[RandalThor]

I would say that due to the fact that it is a border world with conflict, your average police officer would be better armed (lethally speaking) than those on worlds deeper in and more peaceful. Other than the stunners (both pistol & rifle types) I say they would have either blasters or lasers. Their "SWAT" would have heavier weapons, they may, in fact, be local military due to the conflict.

[Defendi]

Three things:

1)  Tazer.  Mark is right about the middle aged thing.  It might be an interesting take to have them allowed to use lethal force on people of a certain age but not nonlethal because the non-lethal might kill them.    Also, they porbably would have a low-grade stunner for the  same purpose.

2)  Sidearms.  I'd go with the Beretta Commando or a similar gun.  It's the setting equivalent of the 9mm.  the ranges might seem like an issue, but from an in-game pov they really aren't an issue.  Something like 90% of modern gunfights occur at less than 25 feet.  If a person if farther away than that, they are probably running from you on a public city street any your gun should not be firing to begin with.  This  is almost exactly the medium range of the pistol, so I see that being the standard in most places.

3)  Shot gun.  What most people don't realize is that the shot gun's main purpose is deterrence.  There's a reason why law enforcement still uses hopelessly outdated pump shotguns.  Whenever they upgrade to semi-auto, they have to kill a LOT more people.  The reason is the sound of a shot-gun pumping has a staggering psychological effect.  In some law enforcement, it's considered the equivalent of shouting a warning.  So I think they middle of the console weapon would be a plasma carbine, but not just any plasma carbine.  It would be a weapon that make one hell of a whine when you flip off the safety, and that whine would strike terror in the hearts of any criminal who watches the futuristic equivalent of television.

4)  Androids are only expensive when you buy them.  Once they own themselves, they are probably less expensive than biological employees (for a variety of reasons.  No secretions adding to the wear of chair upholstery, for instance).  Having a naval droid that's bought off its initial bill and left the navy would be an interesting choice, as would a pleasure droid that's joined the vice squad. 

[croakerdogboy]

Thanks for the answers. That is a big help and I can finally see the police force coming into being.

I love the idea of a honking loud plasma carbine for the center console weapon. The idea about the Sonic Stunner being hazardous for the blue hairs means that they will probably not use the SE5 stunner, so the crits will be C or less. Still dangerous, but not nearly as much.

And I forgot completely about the Androids buying themselves off and being free to go where they will. I was still thinking more of them as robots rather then actual beings.

I was looking at the Berretta Commando ( without the books I believe that was listed as the standard ISC military sidearm). It does make sense.

Thanks again.

[markc]

 For close combat you couls also use DMSO weapons, AKA squirt guns with knock out capability. I know from many a chem lab that DMSO can make many things harmful and if in the futuer they coulds solve the problems with it then it is a great weapon for close in non-leathal force.
 For robots you can have specialised bots with net casters, stunners, goo guns, DMSO weapons etc. All very good at non leathal force to protect the citizens.

 Also do not forget hand to hand combat styles that you could create with the MAC or Combat Comp to immobalise targets.

 Firearms IMO would depend on how prevelent Kinetic Armor is in the society and maybe the officer also has an energy weapon that will become opperational by a command sent to the weapon from headquarters. They are testing gun impeding devices like this now and I think they will only get better with time.

MDC