Quote:
Originally Posted by cosmicfish
For the Project, the implication has always been that members receive a relative minimum of combat training. Their primary mission is reconstruction, combat is at best secondary if not tertiary, and while canon lacks any real specifics it certainly looks as if their training is closer to Army Basic than any other military training. While any PD may decide to give the Teams more training, that assumption should be stated if you want others to consider it.
As to the idea of veterans in the Project Team coming from SOF, it would seem likely that any such veterans would be a substantial minority (just as they are in the military) and that their unusual capabilities would be reserved at some higher level for special purposes (just as in the military). A run-of-the-mill MARS team would be lucky to have a couple of guys who are Ranger-qualified, even a single SF vet would be truly remarkable. Even if we consider the absurd extreme where 75% of the team are not only veterans but actually SOF veterans, and where 50-75% of those were combat vets, then we still have maybe 4-6 Green Berets against an A-Team twice the size that has already had the chance to get acclimated.
And again, the idea that an A-Team would tear through a Morrow Team is not only sensible, but canon. The Ruins of Chicago already addressed this possibility, and made it clear that if the Team wanted to live they needed to tread lightly and use diplomacy, not bullets. While I disagree with many parts of canon, I see no reason to disagree with this.
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I disagree with a lot of this. First to say that MARS teams receive a relative minimum of combat training seems to be contraindicated by the canon description, their equipment load outs and their Acronym. They are a combat asset. They should be recruited from the best available resources and given as much additional training as possible. Otherwise all the fancy tools they get up to and including the MARS 1 are just a waste of valuable resources. I don't think I need to specifically state this because it is stated in canon
"The personnel of the Project are well trained, but they are not all combat verterans..." (This indicates that a portion of them were)
3rd edition Introduction
"The warriors of the Morrow Project. MARS stands for Mobile Assault, Rescue and Strike forces. The members of these teams are equipped with heavy weapons and the knowledge of how to use them"
"Many of the members of Mars Teams are veterans"
3rd edition page 11
I'm not certain how much more clearly this canon statement can be. It doesn't specifically say that the "veterans" were SF or other Sof troops but since the Project sought out the most capable individuals they could find it stands to reason that they would have looked for the best "warriors" they could find.
You state that canon says SF vs MP will lead to MP being handed their ass. Canon is only so good. It gave us things like the MARS 1 and the even more loathed Science Rover. It also has blue undead. The original designers saddled the project with almost a dozen calibers of ammunition and gave Recon teams vehicles that aren't amphibious, the design team was not infallible. Yes I quote canon above and like everyone else will pick and choose what parts of it I use and what parts I don't.
That being said is it, the players need to be extremely careful about getting into any combat. Getting shot in the original rules was likely to kill a character. Depending upon how a PD runs the game (and again YMMV) civilization can't really be rebuilt by the gun alone. I haven't looked at Ruins of Chicago in a long time, but even if the MP should, through some huge fluke, beat the SF guys can they succeed in their mission?