Early Phase Cache Upgrades

[cosmicfish]

This is one of the many reasons I always assume that BEM was able to provide the approximate date of the war, say within a year. No need to upgrade, no sending people into the nuclear aftermath with gear that is either outdated or unfamiliar. This is no scenario to tackle with less than the best gear, or anything you cannot pick up and use on day 1.

[Desert Mariner]

For those that don't have 4e, it specifies global cache upgrades in 1987, 1999 and 2013.

[ChalkLine]

So we are saying that all caches are upgraded? That either no M14s are left in caches before The Big Event or they are brought up to a 2013 standard?

[Desert Mariner]

I dislike the idea of replacing everything a team has trained on with possibly unfamiliar weapons and/or equipment.

I think the 1987 update would be more extensive as that's when the fusion units and lasers were added. Per 4e, this included a global update of not only the caches but boltholes as well.

Subsequent updates wouldn't have been as extensive both for the training impact and security issues.

As a side note, 4e even includes a table to randomly generate the era of cache equipment so there does appear to be some intent to possibly give a team equipment they've never seen before.

[cosmicfish]

The problems of replacing equipment gets even bigger when you consider people being used gear that they simply don't understand. Give a guy from the 60s, trained on the M14, a laser weapon that he needs to maintain and operate, and odds are good that a few dozen innocent people are going to be permanently blinded. And god help them if there is a problem with that fusion reactor and they're sitting there under fire trying to fix something that looks nothing like a gas engine.

[Desert Mariner]

Or do you create a logistical and security nightmare and wake the teams on a rotational basis so they can be trained on their new toys?

[ChalkLine]

For a change of pace playing a 1975 team with a 2013 stockpile would be interesting. Trying to play a person who missed the Information Age by a large amount confronted my modern electronics would be fun