Started a GM's guide for the new players and GMs in the awesome server I'm in. This is a lot of stuff to read and only scratches the surface of GMing or understanding (at least my interpretation) of the Time of the Red. This is mostly geared towards newer people getting into Cyberpunk RED and looking for Campaign advice over One-shots or LC play. Enjoy, chooms!

Combat is an integral part of Cyberpunk RED and a hot talking point among many circles. We’re going to be splitting this chapter into two halves. The first half is going to be discussing the gameplay mechanics side of combat from statblocks, tips and tricks, to designing encounters and battlemaps. The second half of this chapter will be discussing the narrative weight of combat.

Combat and Plot

Sometimes, it happens. The plan went wrong, the intel was bad, someone messed up a roll, or Biotechnica has finally come to deal judgment in the aftermath of that big heist. Whatever it is, you've rolled initiative and are ready for combat. Before we dive into the mechanical things, we need to cover the why you're doing combat.
Action reveals what our characters are really made of. In Cyberpunk RED, combat is not about what happens; but how the characters are reacting and making choices to what’s happening. Your goal as the Game Master isn't to try your hardest to murder your players (unless you plan to never see them again), but to challenge them. Put them in situations where they have to decide how to strategize, use their abilities, and overcome the encounter. That being said, combat should never be the end goal for your session prep unless there is some meaning to it - like finally hunting down that slippery fixer who sold your crew out or finally putting that pesky Solo in the dirt where they belong. Those examples, as climaxes to the story, are satisfying on so many levels to the players. If your session consists of "go here, kill some things, leave" your players won't feel the satisfaction of meaningfully progressing their story or goals because the combat was inconsequential. Sure, I know I'm being very general about it for the sake of getting you to the combat stuff but I wanted to leave you with: combat isn't the end goal, it's the means to an end. It's to drive the plot along, not finish it.

Prepared or not to be Prepared

Preparing combat encounters is no easy feat. Unlike Dungeons & Dragons and similar games, combat can be fast and deadly. Fatigue can set in from players who find themselves of what I call “Shoot, you hit”. This is a catch-all for every combat situation where PCs and NPCs stand in a room and just keep shooting and swinging at each other until someone drops dead or gives up. This is awful and no matter how many times you hear a "yeah that was fun" around the table, I assure you, it probably wasn't. Okay, I'm being nihilistic and a jerk for a moment but that's the point, I want to help you make all of your combat memorable, not just the big set pieces.

Unlike D&D, prepared encounters have a nasty habit of not going as planned at all. I remember in my early days of being a GM, I set up a cool encounter inspired by Dimension20's Unsleeping City where the PCs were in a room with several enemies, and every turn the water would rise and the players had to climb up on cover and platforms to effectively fight. Except, the whole thing ended before the fight even began with a stealth roll and a rocket launcher.

Combat in Cyberpunk RED is like murphy's law: if something can go wrong, it probably will. Players can get crafty, lucky, or all sorts of crazy that could uproot your encounter just like they could in any other Tabletop Game. Does this mean all your encounters should be random? Unplanned? Sure, that can work, but there's no meaning in a random encounter other than chewing up time. My personal belief is that every combat advances the story in some meaningful way; maybe that fight with the Bozos went well but next week in the middle of your heist, a clown car pulls around the corner. They seem to be going by till the car stops, backs up, and the Bozos realize you're the crew that took down their guys a week ago. Oh no!
When your prep your encounters and maps, prep situations. Give your players a wide map, a floorplan, or a rough theater-of-the-mind estimate of the layout, and give them the freedom to do whatever they want. If they manage to get through the whole thing without interacting a single enemy, don't punish them by forcing them into combat. Reward them!
Don't prep a combat encounter with the expectation that there will be a fight. Prepare a room, think of its possibilities, what could happen, and go from there. Unless the fight is important to the plot, don't overthink it. If the fight is very important to the plot, use my below tips.

Difficulty =/= Inflation

The biggest mistake I see GMs make is pumping numbers to increase difficulty. That's a surefire way for a lot of things to go wrong really fast. A big complaint I've seen is that the Players are "bullet sponges" and enemies can't hit squat. I've seen people throw hardened mooks at Hardened PCs and wonder why they're getting laid out on the concrete.
You need to play your enemies smarter, not harder. A sniper will get at optimal range, using the right cyberware and taking their time for a +1. Enemies will use their Conceal/Reveal to lay traps as they retreat from a group of Players who are easily more equipped and skilled than they are. Enemies will try to use their Stealth skills to move around Players and ambush them in the heat of combat.
Likewise, if your players are a Hardened Crew that is pretty legendary, of course, a simple Boosterganger won't do squat.

Quick and Expendable NPCs

If you’re wondering how you make meaningful enemies with minimal prep, such as the Players suddenly attacking an NPC Fixer and his crew or some random boosters, you need some NPCs and fast! You can see this advice bounced around the entire community about assigning Combat Numbers to NPCs. A Combat Number is the base STAT + Skill for an NPC without having to write down the entire STAT and Skill card. This way you can just roll a 1d10 + Combat Number without going down, finding the skill on the chart, then looking up at the STAT and adding them together, then rolling.
This is great for random obstacles or encounters because you won’t get sad when the Players waste that Solo you spent all night preparing (trust me). The only pitfall of Quick and Expendable NPCs is that they aren’t interesting. They’re just a card of numbers with some interesting weapons and armor. Yes, the GM can make these NPCs fun and unique, but you lose a bit of the special magic. Some NPCs have specializations and might not have a flat CN 14 to all skills. Getting to know your enemies adds a lot more meaning. You play them less as disposable mooks and more like real, intelligent people. Seriously, explore the skill descriptions and start making enemies that specialize in certain "non-combat" skills and you'll get some seriously interesting ideas that could turn a combat completely around.
When giving your NPC a skill base (STAT+SKILL) I use these guidelines:

+4 completely untrained (untrained civilian)
+6 very basic training (civilians with basic weapons/self-defense instruction)
+8 amateusome training (rent a cop, fresh boosterganger), Role Rank 1 (solo, Lawman, etc)
+10 trained (NCPD beat cop, veteran boosterganger), Role Rank 1-2
+12 skilled/extensive training (Veterans, elite boosters, new Solos), Role Ranks 2-3
+14 skilled and hardened (A typical Solo, professional, Roles Rank 4-5)
+16 Elite (An elite Solo, Militech Special Forces, Arasaka Ninja, Role Ranks 6-7)
+18 World class (A legendary Solo, Elite Mercenary, Role Rank 8+)

I prefer to make my own NPCs from scratch in a Foundry VTT, where I create a large pool of enemies to draw from and just drag into an encounter as needed. This gives me flexibility in encounters where I know what my enemies have including Cyberware that may enhance their abilities and I won't be sad when my players waste that Solo I spent all night preparing.
Quick & Easy enemies are a great way to get the ball rolling for one shots if you're in an LC or at a convention. All you need is a piece of paper, some HP and SP, and a Combat Number.

Scaling Enemies

As the Players get better, strong, and more well-equipped, adjust the world to reflect that. A Boosterganger from the Mooks and Grunts won’t do squat against a Rank 8 Solo who has spent thousands of eddies on equipment and weapons. Consider using RTalsorians Hardened Enemies but don’t just raise Skills and Stats. Give enemies better gear, give them tactics, lay traps and have them plan.
My biggest warning is don’t try to inflate enemy's STATS and Skills to try and match players. While sometimes this works effectively, if every Boosterganger suddenly has military-level skills, the Players will suspect something is up and feel like their progression is getting punished. There will always be little fish and big fish, and your players will always be somewhere in between regardless of their level and status. If you find your enemies aren’t putting a dent in your players, you aren’t challenging them enough. All enemies won't be fighting the same either. Boostergangers will stand out in the open and think they're crack marksmen trying to beat a DV20 with their Very Heavy Pistols because their 2 INT tells them so. A Militech Solo with an INT 7 knows engaging a crew of 4 borgs won't go well if he fights a pitched battle, so he's going to lay traps, use cover, and stealth. Try to play your enemies differently.
Also, don't forget that your enemies are people. Death is sort of scary when you think about it too hard, so having every enemy fight to the death just becomes stale and unrealistic. Have them run away, or better yet, call in reinforcements so they can retreat. They'll use Smoke and Suppressive Fire to cover their retreat.

Making it Graphic

Your enemies are living, breathing people and you need to remind the Players of that. The people they’re gunning down might have partners, children, friends, and extended family. When you shoot them, you don’t just “hit and roll dice”, your bullet slams through their thigh in gouts of blood! Yet (because the HP is now 20/30) they go “Just warmin’ up over here!” before moving onto the next player. You can use a random combat descriptor like the one I made like this to add more depth in combat. By narrating combat in a way that isn’t just “roll, you hit, roll damage” it keeps players engage, makes them feel like what they’re doing is real rather than shaving numbers off an enemy’s health bar.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w3eauTLfb_Sda0qpigWtPNTHad_BojODQ38bKigWuAQ/edit?usp=sharing

Using Humanity Loss Effectively

Again, your players aren’t just wasting statblocks called Boosterganger, they’re living people. Humanity Loss doesn’t just chip away from Cyberware but from traumatic experiences. Use this sparingly depending on the style of game you’re running such as a dark, slow-burn procedural or a gritty gutterpunk campaign. These are people you're killing, people with friends and family. People with dreams and motivations. They're laying there bleeding out choking on their own blood. They're crying, clutching the hand-drawn photo their child made them.

Using Maps

If you’re a theater of the mind person, maps are more like just drawing squares on a piece of paper just to keep things organized or track the positions of players and NPCs. You don’t need to get fancy on maps and whatnot, you can easily find battlemaps all over the internet but here’s the thing: not many battle maps are optimized for Cyberpunk combat. Battlemaps serve two purposes as a visual aid and as something to look at. Visual aids in combat are things like cover, room depth, or width. Let’s look at this map example:
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Map A
We have a good variety of symmetrical combat. When making maps, I usually try to offer two lanes of movement at the minimum. Zone A is called No Man’s Land, it’s a long distance of terrain that favors ranged weapons. There’s sparse cover like C but once that cover is gone, you’re caught out with your pants down.
Zone B are flanking routes that can have characters moving from cover-to-cover closing distance on each other.
Zone C allows for non-linear movement. Sure, if all the players advanced up Zones A and B, the enemies can move freely around Zones C and surround the players or come up behind them. I call this the merry-go-round effect.
What’s not featured on here are things like elevation which could be balconies, rooftops, or windows. In open areas, cover can feature dumpsters, cars, and bus stops. Having these zones and variety of cover allows for players to strategize how best to use their weapons or skills or for enemies to use the terrain to their advantage if all the players with melee weapons decide to rush Zone A.
If you make your own map, I highly recommend studying how maps are made for shooters.
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Map B
Even on this second map in the alleyway, we have plenty of options for Players and enemies alike to take cover. Let's take verticality into account. A player with a grapple gun can work their way onto the rooftops or be positioned there from the start, having line of sight on enemies, and thus rendering their cover useless - and the enemies can do the same to the Players. Here we have things like a stack of crushed cardboard which can provide some, but the meager cover, the dumpsters, the barrels on the left side, the jersey barriers, etc. In the center we have the familiar "no man's land" but still have safe flanking routes for the crafty players. Alternately, either side can just retreat and leave the combat by going through either side of the alley, top or bottom.
TL;DR: don't make your encounters linear and featureless. Even if you're running just theater of the mind, give your players some kind of cover or zone that allows them to use their skills, abilities, and weapons effectively.

Cover and Line of Sight

Cover in Cyberpunk RED is binary: you're either in it, or you're not. So what do you do? Here we have a Security Guard trying to get Viggo who's currently hiding behind the striped Jersey Barriers on the left side. The Security Guard cannot damage Viggo directly, but instead can attack the cover and drop it to zero. However, this leaves the Security Guard in a bad position since he doesn't have cover and when his actions are done, Viggo can just shoot him from safety. The Security Guard chooses to go around the cover and engage Viggo in close quarters to level the playing field.
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Map C

Visualizing Cover
When a piece of cover is reduced to 0HP, it doesn't just explode and disintergrate unless destroyed by an explosive. Let's use a wooden table for example. Think of your favorite action movies when the hero is hiding behind the table and you see holes being punched all around them until there's nowhere left but spot the hero is hiding behind. That cover is reduced to 0 HP because the next shot will hit them so they can either leave the cover or pray the enemy misses that next shot. If someone is using the corner of a concrete wall, the 0 HP is the cover being shaved down to the point that the legs or maybe the arms or shoulder are showing.

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Map D
Here we have a good example of line of sight and cover. Here's the scene: Players A and B are trying to kill NPC M. Player A is on the same ground level as M - who is currently hiding behind a turned-over table. Player A does not have line of sight of M unless they hold an action and wait for M to leave cover so they can shoot. Alternatively, A can shoot through the table until they hit M by dropping the table to 0 HP.
Player B, because of their positioning, and the fact that they are 4 meters taller than A and M, has a clear line of sight on M despite M hiding behind the table - because M is visible to B.
Goon M has clear line of sight on Player A because she is standing in the open, but doesn't have clear line of sight on Player B because they're both behind cover and 4 meters high.
Naturally, Player A can double back and go around the stack of bookcases and come out from behind NPC M. NPC M could also avoid Player B and go around the book cases, cutting player B out of the combat and focusing solely on Player A.
And people say there's no tactical options in Cyberpunk RED, ha!

Using Terrain

Tip #1: You have to make your combat dynamic. If everyone's in a flat, featureless room, the combat will just resolve to the age-old "you shoot, you hit/miss" until someone dies or gives up. The two easiest ways to add something dynamic to your combat encounter is Cover and Height. I think what everyone gets wrong about Cyberpunk RED is that there are no modifiers for positioning and combat. That's not true. Let's go back to Map D for a second. Player B is 14 meters away from NPC M (10 meters, +4m in height), so his Assault Rifle has to beat a DV15. NPC M's shotgun has to beat a DV20 to hit Player B. I don't need a written +1 for height differences in the Combat Modifier chart like in Cyberpunk 2020, the rules and the DV charts in RED, give me that by putting Player B in an advantageous position.
Tip #2: Hazards and interactable objects, whether it's theater of the mind or using battlemaps, are an easy way to add spice to an encounter. Whether it's a chandelier that could drop if an Aimed Shot is made, or it's a pool of oil/Choo2 that can be ignited with a well-thrown incendiary grenade. Try to think of things in the environment that can change the situation. Maybe an explosion from the PC's grenade brings down the roof of this old crumbling Hot Zone building, so everyone has to make Athletic checks to dodge the debris or take 6d6 damage.
Tip #3: Think about your players. What can they do, what can't they do? If they have a grapple gun, give them verticality to play with like elevated platforms, scaffoldings, rooftops etc. If your player has a high athletics, give them a body of water to swim through. You get the idea. Likewise, furniture can be manipulated. Turning over that table gives you 10 HP now, cutting that bridge will let the enemies plummet into the canal.
Tip #4: This continues to riff off tip #3, but don't be afraid to change the map/scene of the encounter. If you find things are getting a bit too stale, have something happen. In the middle of this fight between edgerunners, a NCPD beat cop strolls around the corner at the wrong time. Or in the middle of this heist, a Bozo-filled ice cream truck comes to a stop outside. Even simpler, we can have an enemy set fire to the room which can spread leaving the PCs and enemies with a choice: leave or die by burning and asphyxiation rules (CPR:180).

Using Roles for Enemies

Solos: are the easiest way to increase lethality and difficulty in a combat. Using Combat Awareness can make a room full of enemy Solos into a small army that can drop players like flies.
Rockerboys: The focus of a Rockerboy enemy is two-fold. The first is the distractor. I ran a session where the players needed to protect someone in the building across the street. An enemy Rockerboy summoned a moshpit crowd outside the entrance so the players had to make Athletics checks to push through the crowd to get to the lobby. If they confront the rocker, rather than fight, the rocker will have their fans fight the Players instead, with every turn using their Role Ability to call in more minions to hold the players back.
Netrunners: can have more uses than just being obstacles in Net Architectures. Hostile Netrunners can occupy emplacements or use a nearby access point to start manipulating the terrain like turning on sprinklers or the lights to expose the Player's location. My favorite use is a Netrunner carrying a Net Architecture in their Carryall and dispersing a Drone Swarm that was hidden in the trunk of the Nomad's car.
Techs: are the random variable of a combat. They have the ability to manipulate the environment in all kinds of cheeky ways. They can carry a net architecture in their carryall, use drones from their agent, counter PC electronics. They can also manipulate the environment during the combat. I like to use Techs with EMP grenades make a Cybertech check on the players, then chuck the grenade.
Medtechs: can be more than the healers of the combat. They can administer all kinds of drugs to allies and enemies included. A medtech with high brawling can easily race up to a player and hit them with Blue Glass, which could take a PC out of the combat through a drug-induced high. On the otherside, a Medtech can provide allies Speedheal or Black Lace (which is fun when the person goes cyberpsycho in the middle of combat).
Medias: like Rockerboys aren't mean to tank combat. Medias can easily be recording the whole thing and creating a lot of bad rep for the players. Medias can also use their Role Rank Ability to find out information about the Players.
Execs: are easily bosses of a combat. These are Lieutenants with 1-3 mooks accompanying them. If the boss goes down, it's likely their minions will run away.
Lawmen: are my favorite random factor. If the players get caught, outnumber the enemy, or things have simply turned for the worst - the lawman NPC calls in some backup. These aren't always cops or Corps, but can be Boostergangers simply calling in their friends up the street.
Fixers: can be the bosses of an enemy group but sometimes can try to end the combat before it begins. They could try to bribe the players or negotiate a deal. Take out a "fixer" and their goons will either scatter or give up.
Nomads: are simple. These are the drivers, pilots, etc. Not much more I can go into about this.

Narrative Weight

Combat can tell a story in itself. Players should carry the weight of their combat wherever they go, whether it's positive rep or not. Consequences loom around every corner for your Players and the GM needs to keep track of this. Waste some Militech soldiers? Well, Militech is going to have guys out on the street looking for you.

What You Wear, What You Carry

This is important. Weapons like a Medium Pistol seems like it just shouldn't exist because the 2d6 barely scratches SP11 and above because not every target has SP11 and above. Take into account your armor, if you’re wearing LAJ, NPCs will notice. If you want a proper undetectable disguise, clothing offers 4 SP unless you get it kevlar-lined at 7 SP. Is your character really always wearing visible head armor? Even to that dinner? The same applies to your enemies. Your standard lobby guard isn't wearing a Flak helmet, probably just a simple 0 SP hat. Having a Linear Frame or visible cyber will draw attention. You have to think about all these things because when combat starts, it becomes interesting. It's not a sponge-bath of chipping away at high SP and HP and combat dragging for hours. Not everyone is loaded with x50 assault rifles in their pockets. Realistically, when they went to the Bodega they probably just had their pistol.

Conclusion

I wanted to end this essay here. I could go on more about this but we've already covered so much and it's not nearly enough! I definitely wanted to get into the different uses for weapons (yes, medium pistols aren't USELESS) and whatnot. That's all the energy I've got and will expand on the later half of this in a new post. Thank you for reading this section of the guide. As I said, this only scratches the surface because the actual full-length section not in this post is more pages than I care to admit. This is also just my take on Cyberpunk RED based on context from the books and interviews. I want to flip this around to you, how do you make combat interesting and nail-biting? No wrong answers, have at it! What kind of combat advice would you like to see in the next part? Tactics? Armor and ranged DVs?
To find part one follow the links:
https://www.reddit.com/cyberpunkred/comments/xvkpkp/gms_guide_to_cyberpunk_red_115/
Part 2:
https://www.reddit.com/cyberpunkred/comments/y47do0/gms_guide_to_cyberpunk_red_215/