[Nightmaster]

So the group with I am playing decided to stablish a "underground base", I.E a base build beneath the streets.

The group have accumulated some vehicles so far, 2 Blitzen 2050, 1 eurocar westwind 3000, 1 small truck, 1 medium truck, 1 americar e several drones and thus the base must be large enough to accomodate all these vehicles and allow for then to enter and leave with easy and discretly...

The problem is that I and the players dont have a clue on where to build such place and the costs involved.

So I am coming here to look on advices and hints on good places in the metroplex where we could build our "Runner Cave" 

Any input is appreciated

[Jack_Spade]

Abandoned train tunnels sound like the cheapest option.

[farothel]

Abandoned train tunnels sound like the cheapest option.

Large storm drains can also be used, although you have to be really sure they're abandoned or you can be in for a big and wet surprise.

what city are you playing in?  Some cities have more options than others.

[Nightmaster]

Seattle of course 

[Tecumseh]

Is neighborhood important? You could set up base in the Ork Underground. That saves some of the construction costs. You'll have to pay a protection fee to the Skraacha. Price it out like a separate Lifestyle.

Alternatively, you might be able to use some of the lava tubes in Puyallup / Carbonado. Protection fees go to the Chulos in that case. Again, you could price it out like a Lifestyle instead of scratching your head over construction costs. Note that you'll be out on the very edge of the city limits, for better or worse. Very discrete, but takes forever to get anywhere else.

[Nightmaster]

Is neighborhood important? You could set up base in the Ork Underground. That saves some of the construction costs. You'll have to pay a protection fee to the Skraacha. Price it out like a separate Lifestyle.

Alternatively, you might be able to use some of the lava tubes in Puyallup / Carbonado. Protection fees go to the Chulos in that case. Again, you could price it out like a Lifestyle instead of scratching your head over construction costs. Note that you'll be out on the very edge of the city limits, for better or worse. Very discrete, but takes forever to get anywhere else.

Yes neighborhood is important. As you said yourself Puyallup / Carbonado is way too distant to be of any use for the group. Infact I was hoping for some place more "central" in the reggard of the city's geography.

[Dasher]

Find an abandoned underground parking garage and retrofit it with heat and sound dampening?  Maybe add a secondary entrance for the bikes.  But you would have to be exceedingly careful when entering or exiting the base to avoid attracting attention.  The further away you are from high security districts, the easier it will be to maintain the base's cover.

[Danos]

I would look for a map of old mines in the Renton district, or an abandoned storm drain in the civilized edge of Redmond. Taking over an abandoned coal or iron mine would probably be best. You want one that was an open pit, that now has trees around it. You put a roof over the pit, camo netting or that stuff they use to conceal cell phone towers or both over the roof, and then set up a sump pump. The mine is already designed to allow trucks to carry the ore out, so you have a spiral road leading downward, You just need to build platforms for parking, and maybe hollow out spots to put pre-fab construction for living quarters.

Toxic rain is a concern. Drainage is a big concern. You will want to make sure that you aren't building in a toxic site, check the background count. Make sure it is truly abandoned, having Mitsuhama Ore Extraction Solutions (MOES) show up at your secret hideout with a new mining crew would be awkward. Having the city maintenance crews come around to check drainage in your supposedly abandoned storm drain tunnel would be equally bad.

Hire the mob to do the work.  You want the same people who build escape tunnels and safe houses for the Don. It costs a bit more, but the Mob can ensure silence. Or do the work yourself, but it will take a while, especially if you have no construction experience. Everything is much harder than you think it is. The workers make it look easy because they are pros and have been doing the work since they first apprenticed at 15-16 years old. Your runner is probably not a professional contractor.

Good luck, have fun!

[GloriousRuse]

So, sounds like you need about a half football field of space to park the vehicles and have a way to actually move them around and out in there. That is going to be cramped ish. And you need the width as much as the length - driving 5 vehicles into a subway station means that the vehicles need to come back out in reverse order because there isn't enough maneuver space. Which means for this to be an all purpose "base" you probably need a garage/parking lot/loading area/whatever of a structure rather than just a tunnel somewhere. Not going to to be cheap, not going to be cheap at...all..you are either buying real estate, or excavating a decent foundation that would probably fit a small apartment building. Or you are hanging out in the carbonado.

[north]

Do you have a mage in your group?  If so the spells shape steel and shap concrete make making and hiding a base so much more do able.  The knowledge skills of engineering and architecture are equally usefull.  Find you tunnel and dig out a place for 1 or some of your stuff, then put up a wall of concrete to hide it and repeat.

[Jack_Spade]

Magic can indeed make this whole thing a lot cheaper: Binding a bunch of F2 Earth Elementals gives you an untiring workforce with STR 6 - ideally suited to excavate.
Likewise, Homunculi can clear a lot of space as long as you give them precise directions.
Shape Earth doesn't specify how large the volume is that you can move, so by RAW you'd only need a minute or so to excavate a whole mountain.

[maxcarrion]

Magic can indeed make this whole thing a lot cheaper: Binding a bunch of F2 Earth Elementals gives you an untiring workforce with STR 6 - ideally suited to excavate.
Likewise, Homunculi can clear a lot of space as long as you give them precise directions.
Shape Earth doesn't specify how large the volume is that you can move, so by RAW you'd only need a minute or so to excavate a whole mountain.

Well, Shape Earth is an Area spell, so has a Radius of effect equal to Force - so Mountains would still take a while - it's also
1 - Generally connected to other bits of Mountain, so you would need to force it apart
2 - Generally made of different materials, you might be able to get most of it with lots of castings of Shape Earth, Shape Stone and Shape Metal and then whats left can be handled by mechanical, biological or spirit brute force
3 - Moving mountains would probably annoy local spirits - even if no meta human notices

[farothel]

I would do it with the advanced lifestyle rules.  I'm now going to give an example from 4th edition, as I don't have those rules in 5th.

take your categories as usual, depending on what you want exactly.  I might force the players to take security at High, since it's a quite secure location.
positive qualities as GM I would make you take:
-Inconspicuous Housing +2 (physical, as it's difficult to find)
-Workplace +1 (the garage needs room, and workplace explicitly specifies it can be used for a garage)
-Escape Tunnel +3 (how else would you get out)
and one I made up: -underground +3 (I've put there a +3 to put it in line with other qualities, but feel free to modify it).

negative qualities I would maybe not enforce, but strongly advice.
-Network Bottleneck –1 (you're underground, so almost no wireless due to the rebar on top of your head)
-Unsound –2 (if you take over an abandoned parking garage or something like that, it's probably abandoned for a reason)
-Pest Magnet –1 (as above, try to keep vermin out of an abandoned parking garage)
-maybe: Green Plan –1 (where does your electricity comes from when you're in an abandoned underground structure).

As you can see, it's not going to be cheap (a +5 to your LP cost is quite a lot).
Other qualities can also be taken if you want of course and if they don't interfere with the compulsory ones.

[Jack_Spade]

@maxcarrion
Yeah, that was a bit of hyperbole, but not much:

A typical Magic 6 mage can create a sphere of 6³m*4/3 pie=904m³
A few reagents and/or edge to boost the successes to a guaranteed 6 or more successes ensures that you only need to combat turns to reduce typical Structural or Heavy Structural Material to 0 Structure.
A combat Turn takes 3 seconds.
In a minute you are now able to excavate 9043 m³ of natural stone

So maybe not a mountain, but certainly a hill and most definitely an underground base   

[Magnaric]

Not strictly related, but just a consideration when you pick a location. Make sure you check the surrounding area/get Intel from locals, as things like ghouls(especially the feral variety) tend to make their lairs underground. Probably not an issue when you guys are in your base with all your hardware, but a hungry pack of ghouls waiting in your new base would be a pretty nasty surprise to come home to.