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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ The Corps and the riches of the Belt
Posted by: bibliophile20 Feb 24 2007, 05:16 AM
Ok, I was cleaning up/reducing the entropy level of my bookcase earlier when I saw some of my Ben Bova novels, which got me thinking:
Many of the corps have space-based assets, to the point where Evo has assets on Mars (which I hope we learn more about, myself being a hardcore space geek); from Mars it's a (relatively) short hop to the Asteroid Belt, the home of incredible riches.
To give an idea, it is estimated that, if you consolidated all of the rocks in the asteroid belt, you would get an object between half to two thirds the size of our moon. There are several types of asteroids, but the two most common are carbonaceous and metallic.
Carbonaceous are essentially rock, but with all sorts of goodies inside... like water in hydrates, chemicals of various sorts and other sorts of materials that are incredibly valuable in space (water in particular).
Metallic are just that--big hunks of metal. REALLY big hunks of metal. Mostly iron/nickel, but with some other bits and such inside, such as titanium, aluminum, and other such metals... and even a few percent of "impurities" like, say, gold and silver? 
So, now that I've said that, the smallest metallic asteroid that we know of (the last time I checked, anyway, about a year or so ago) was about 1 by 2 by 4 km... of pure metal, not oxidized like it would be on earth, or more metal than would be produced by the combined output of every single foundry on this planet in an entire year. It was estimated to be worth in excess of 1.5 trillion dollars, just in terms of the raw materials it represented, completely disregarding the fact that it was already in space and thus could be used there (as a point, rocket boosters are so costly that every gram you put in space literally has more than the price of silver tacked on to it).
So, when do you think the corps will decide to go after this wealth of untapped resources (that incidentally mean that they don't have to continue fouling their own nests), what do you think will happen when they do, and do you think that anyone is going to hire some runners to do 'roid claim jumping? 
Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 24 2007, 05:49 AM
Someone has been doing their research with those numbers.
There are asteroids much closer than the belt: the Trojan Asteroids that lead and follow the earth in its orbit. Not much research as been done on them though, so I don't know what they are made of.
The problem is that until effective, non-chemical propulsion is developed, commercial mining will be out of the question. Add to that the problems of deep space on humans and the matter of bringing the material down to earth without meteor grade crashes.
Now, if someone developed an advanced ion drive or a fusion rocket, you'd start to see the groundwork for that kind of a rush.
Posted by: Kyoto Kid Feb 24 2007, 05:57 AM
"...watch this space..."
--Aeon Technologies Ltd.
Posted by: bibliophile20 Feb 24 2007, 06:03 AM
| QUOTE (Thane36425) |
| Someone has been doing their research with those numbers. There are asteroids much closer than the belt: the Trojan Asteroids that lead and follow the earth in its orbit. Not much research as been done on them though, so I don't know what they are made of. The problem is that until effective, non-chemical propulsion is developed, commercial mining will be out of the question. Add to that the problems of deep space on humans and the matter of bringing the material down to earth without meteor grade crashes. Now, if someone developed an advanced ion drive or a fusion rocket, you'd start to see the groundwork for that kind of a rush. |
Thank you; I didn't take EES 106: Meteorites and Impact Craters my sophomore year for nothing!
There are Trojan asteroids, but not many; a better bet would be to go after the NEAs (Near Earth Asteroids); not only are they already in the neighborhood, but most of them already pose a collision danger; perhaps the Corporate Court could actually manage to organize the corps into cooperating on deflection if one was detected on a collision course; as a bonus, they could arrange it so that the corps could all exploit it together (each gets their own chunk, say) after it's in a safe orbit, which is when the runners get called in...
But as for propulsion, I thought they had engines of that sort already; don't tell me that Evo sent them all the way to Mars on inefficient rocket boosters!
Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 24 2007, 07:24 AM
| QUOTE (bibliophile20) |
| Thank you; I didn't take EES 106: Meteorites and Impact Craters my sophomore year for nothing! There are Trojan asteroids, but not many; a better bet would be to go after the NEAs (Near Earth Asteroids); not only are they already in the neighborhood, but most of them already pose a collision danger; perhaps the Corporate Court could actually manage to organize the corps into cooperating on deflection if one was detected on a collision course; as a bonus, they could arrange it so that the corps could all exploit it together (each gets their own chunk, say) after it's in a safe orbit, which is when the runners get called in... But as for propulsion, I thought they had engines of that sort already; don't tell me that Evo sent them all the way to Mars on inefficient rocket boosters! |
You might want to try Mining the Sky by John Lewis. Its been a while since I last read it, but it is all about mining asteroids and such.
Bringing an asteroid into orbit is one option, but is really dangerous. Even if the Corporate Court approved such a thing, the governments would probably get seriously pissed about it, maybe enough to actually do something for a change. Nudging it into a more favorable orbit and leaving an army of drones on it to do the mining. Every couple of years when the asteroid comes back around, the smaller load of mined materials could be sent to earth more safely.
Humans (dwarves? Lower life support needs and greater resistance to radiation?)would probably still be needed to oversee operations, but that could be handled by sending ships from orbit once or twice a year when earth and the asteroid are closest. That would probably be better than leaving an AI running things since it might decide to steer the asteroid into the earth.
Posted by: bibliophile20 Feb 24 2007, 07:46 AM
| QUOTE (Thane36425) |
| You might want to try Mining the Sky by John Lewis. Its been a while since I last read it, but it is all about mining asteroids and such. Bringing an asteroid into orbit is one option, but is really dangerous. Even if the Corporate Court approved such a thing, the governments would probably get seriously pissed about it, maybe enough to actually do something for a change. Nudging it into a more favorable orbit and leaving an army of drones on it to do the mining. Every couple of years when the asteroid comes back around, the smaller load of mined materials could be sent to earth more safely. Humans (dwarves? Lower life support needs and greater resistance to radiation?)would probably still be needed to oversee operations, but that could be handled by sending ships from orbit once or twice a year when earth and the asteroid are closest. That would probably be better than leaving an AI running things since it might decide to steer the asteroid into the earth. |
Read it, but that was several years back; I read one book last year that was on the topic of asteroidal mining, and the ideas there were intriguing. Did you know that there are enough raw materials in the Belt alone that we would be able to support the entire population of the planet at the level of the richest 1% for over two generations, assuming absolutely no recycling? That kind of thing just staggers my mind.
As for moving the asteroid, you don't have to; just pick one that already comes close and nudge it a bit so that it's in orbit beyond the moon; then it's relatively accessable, but remote enough that any issues will take a while to build to critical (capturing a asteroid is easy; all you have to do is redirect a bit of the orbital momentum. But crashing a roid onto the planet requires removing it's angular moment--in effect, braking it, and for a 2 km across sphere, that's alot of braking needed.
Posted by: Crakkerjakk Feb 24 2007, 07:58 AM
As far as life support goes, if you grab one of the smaller ones(asteroids) and a)make sure it's solid, not a "dust-pile" class m(metallic type) and b) mine from the inside out, you have a ready made space habitat. If it has about a 500m radius on it's spin axis, you can get 1 gravity of spin without making anyone sick from the coriolis force. Also, not only will the dense walls serve as an effective radiation shield for all but the most intense solar flares, the air atmosphere inside would further augment this.
An ice asteroid could be mined for the atmosphere and water, and either leftover hydrogen from the cracking process used to create the O2 or Helium-3 from the lunar regolith could be used as fuel sources, depending on your power plant type.\
*EDIT*
Also, carrying on with the possibilities of asteroids, if we turned every known asteroid in the solar system with a radius of over 500m into such a habitat, they would have something like 100 times the amount of the habitable surface area of the earth. Actually, I think it's more like several thousand times, but I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head.
Posted by: Garrowolf Feb 24 2007, 09:16 AM
You might have the very beginnings of that kind of thing but I think that it would still be out of the range of the tech level to focus on it much. It would also be out of the range of the setting as well.
Runners are completely wrong for this kind of thing. You would need scientists and engineers on something like that.
If you pushed to time line forward a good bit you would be getting into that but it wouldn't mix all that well with shadowrunners.
I am actually running a game that uses the basic SR4 rules for a setting several hundred years in the future where people live in the asteroids. You could do something like that.
Posted by: Trigger Feb 24 2007, 09:57 AM
Although you cut magic down majorly if you do anything in space, as space has no ambient mana and thus nothing to cast spells with. You would have to fill those habitats with regular and awakened plant life to even get a smidgen of the mana sphere that gaia has.
Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 24 2007, 10:09 AM
| QUOTE (bibliophile20) |
| Read it, but that was several years back; I read one book last year that was on the topic of asteroidal mining, and the ideas there were intriguing. Did you know that there are enough raw materials in the Belt alone that we would be able to support the entire population of the planet at the level of the richest 1% for over two generations, assuming absolutely no recycling? That kind of thing just staggers my mind. As for moving the asteroid, you don't have to; just pick one that already comes close and nudge it a bit so that it's in orbit beyond the moon; then it's relatively accessable, but remote enough that any issues will take a while to build to critical (capturing a asteroid is easy; all you have to do is redirect a bit of the orbital momentum. But crashing a roid onto the planet requires removing it's angular moment--in effect, braking it, and for a 2 km across sphere, that's alot of braking needed. |
I thought that it was just one kilometer long metallic asteroid that could that. I seem to remember something along those lines and that there were hundreds of them out there.
Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Feb 24 2007, 11:16 AM
| QUOTE (bibliophile20) |
| So, when do you think the corps will decide to go after this wealth of untapped resources (that incidentally mean that they don't have to continue fouling their own nests), what do you think will happen when they do, and do you think that anyone is going to hire some runners to do 'roid claim jumping? |
The same thing as everywhere else?
Target: Wastelands has a nice chapter about space and Corps.
Posted by: knasser Feb 24 2007, 12:59 PM
| QUOTE (bibliophile20 @ Feb 24 2007, 05:16 AM) |
| Ok, I was cleaning up/reducing the entropy level of my bookcase earlier when I saw some of my Ben Bova novels, which got me thinking: Many of the corps have space-based assets, to the point where Evo has assets on Mars (which I hope we learn more about, myself being a hardcore space geek); from Mars it's a (relatively) short hop to the Asteroid Belt, the home of incredible riches. To give an idea, it is estimated that, if you consolidated all of the rocks in the asteroid belt, you would get an object between half to two thirds the size of our moon. There are several types of asteroids, but the two most common are carbonaceous and metallic. Carbonaceous are essentially rock, but with all sorts of goodies inside... like water in hydrates, chemicals of various sorts and other sorts of materials that are incredibly valuable in space (water in particular). Metallic are just that--big hunks of metal. REALLY big hunks of metal. Mostly iron/nickel, but with some other bits and such inside, such as titanium, aluminum, and other such metals... and even a few percent of "impurities" like, say, gold and silver? So, now that I've said that, the smallest metallic asteroid that we know of (the last time I checked, anyway, about a year or so ago) was about 1 by 2 by 4 km... of pure metal, not oxidized like it would be on earth, or more metal than would be produced by the combined output of every single foundry on this planet in an entire year. It was estimated to be worth in excess of 1.5 trillion dollars, just in terms of the raw materials it represented, completely disregarding the fact that it was already in space and thus could be used there (as a point, rocket boosters are so costly that every gram you put in space literally has more than the price of silver tacked on to it). |
Knasser: Reads thread. Thinks back to wading through rack after rack of magazines in Smiths half and hour ago about which celebrities you'll never meet is are shagging which other celebrities you'll never meet and endless features on fifty ways to look good this summer. Sobs for the priorities of the human race.
We could be out there by now...
Posted by: bibliophile20 Feb 24 2007, 05:45 PM
| QUOTE (knasser) |
| Knasser: Reads thread. Thinks back to wading through rack after rack of magazines in Smiths half and hour ago about which celebrities you'll never meet is are shagging which other celebrities you'll never meet and endless features on fifty ways to look good this summer. Sobs for the priorities of the human race. We could be out there by now... |
*pats knasser* I know, I know... bread and circuses, the opiate of the masses, right? Honestly, some of these pop-culture-obsessed mono-synaptic organisms... I'm ashamed to belong to the same species.
But getting back to the thread...
So, hypothetical situation here: Ares has managed to capture a 500 meter radius metal rock, valued at about 2 million nuyen plus because the material is already in space, and is planning on using the materials to construct several extremely large space stations and thus almost effectively cement its superiority in space.
How do the other corps react? Hijack the rock, hijack the metal shipments, what?
Posted by: Butterblume Feb 24 2007, 07:54 PM
What I always say, we could launch a spaceship with 10 million tons (about a 100 aircraft carriers) with todays tech with propulsion costs of less than one euro per kg. Of course, that would still be almost 10 billion euro, and thats just for fuel (actually a kind of fusion bomb), you still have to build the ship.
The drawback would be the 5000 tons or so worth of fusion bombs you'll need just to get into orbit. Built for a different purpose, they would have significantly less fallout then a fusion bomb built to be a weapon, but since thats more than 1000 bombs, that's still a lof radiation.
That said, I haven't placed shadowrun into space -yet-, but I will sometimes in the future. I am in no rush, it might be years until then.
Posted by: FrankTrollman Feb 24 2007, 08:23 PM
| QUOTE (bibliophile20) |
| But getting back to the thread... So, hypothetical situation here: Ares has managed to capture a 500 meter radius metal rock, valued at about 2 million nuyen plus because the material is already in space, and is planning on using the materials to construct several extremely large space stations and thus almost effectively cement its superiority in space. How do the other corps react? Hijack the rock, hijack the metal shipments, what? |
Million? Million? Please, this rock is 523.6 million cubic meters. That's 4.66 billion tonnes of metal. Now, Iron Ore goes for like $50 a tonne, but this is high grade iron ore that is essentialy already smelted through to an aceptable purity level. That stuff goes for about $900 a tonne.
Now let's consider this in
... It's already in space (which isn't nearly the concern it was back in 2006 and because you have movement and psychokinesis that can bypass gravity wells out to 70 km), and the demand for metals is even higher, and the supply of metals on Earth is lower (more reclaimed awakened lands, more defunct mines, more toxic contamination). So the price of this stuff is what? 1500 per tonne? 2000? More?Let's call it 1000 though, because it's easy to multiply by. That means that you have a rock that is over 4.5 trillion
- that's a crap tonne of money.That being said, what are you gonna do about it? Metals in space aren't actually worth anything, because nothing is worth anything until you get it back into a gravity well where people live. You can have a mountain of gold the size of Texas and it isn't worth anything until you can sell it to another human being or use it to create something that you can sell to another human.
With Evo's bases already placed in defensive positions in the trenches of Mars, an orbital bombardment is unlikely to remove them. And with land-based static personelle, Evo can probably fight off an incursion of more than a few people. A pile of several billion tonnes of steel is all well and good, but it doesn't actually give them victory on any planet...
-Frank
Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 24 2007, 08:32 PM
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman) |
| Million? Million? Please, this rock is 523.6 million cubic meters. That's 4.66 billion tonnes of metal. Now, Iron Ore goes for like $50 a tonne, but this is high grade iron ore that is essentialy already smelted through to an aceptable purity level. That stuff goes for about $900 a tonne. Now let's consider this in ... It's already in space (which isn't nearly the concern it was back in 2006 and because you have movement and psychokinesis that can bypass gravity wells out to 70 km), and the demand for metals is even higher, and the supply of metals on Earth is lower (more reclaimed awakened lands, more defunct mines, more toxic contamination). So the price of this stuff is what? 1500 per tonne? 2000? More?Let's call it 1000 though, because it's easy to multiply by. That means that you have a rock that is over 4.5 trillion - that's a crap tonne of money.That being said, what are you gonna do about it? Metals in space aren't actually worth anything, because nothing is worth anything until you get it back into a gravity well where people live. You can have a mountain of gold the size of Texas and it isn't worth anything until you can sell it to another human being or use it to create something that you can sell to another human. With Evo's bases already placed in defensive positions in the trenches of Mars, an orbital bombardment is unlikely to remove them. And with land-based static personelle, Evo can probably fight off an incursion of more than a few people. A pile of several billion tonnes of steel is all well and good, but it doesn't actually give them victory on any planet... -Frank |
Even if it isn't pure, it would be easy to refine. With solar mirrors focussed on a crucible, the heating and smelting of the metal would effectively be free. If the temperature could be precisely controlled, it would be possible to cause an aggragate lump of metal to dissolve into layers, each layer a different metal. Then you just skim off the different layers to get refined metals. Don't forget also all the higher metals like gold, platinum and iiridium.
Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 24 2007, 08:36 PM
| QUOTE (knasser) |
| Knasser: Reads thread. Thinks back to wading through rack after rack of magazines in Smiths half and hour ago about which celebrities you'll never meet is are shagging which other celebrities you'll never meet and endless features on fifty ways to look good this summer. Sobs for the priorities of the human race. We could be out there by now... |
More comisserations. I have been disgusted this last week or so with the 24/7 coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith trials. Just shows what we have to look forward to with Brittany Spears shortly.
Bread and Circusses indeed. Keep the people distracted so they don't noticed just how badly the elites are screwing them. That's one thing in SR that carries over plainly from the real world.
Posted by: FrankTrollman Feb 24 2007, 09:15 PM
| QUOTE (Thane36425) |
| If the temperature could be precisely controlled, it would be possible to cause an aggragate lump of metal to dissolve into layers, each layer a different metal. |
I don't think so - it's essentially at zero gravity, so molten metals don't really go anywhere. To get a separation you'd need to provide acceleration of your own (ex.: centrifuge). That hurts, but remember that this works for you going the other way - you can make any alloy you want just by putting the appropriate materials together and letting them cool.
-Frank
Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 24 2007, 09:19 PM
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman) |
| I don't think so - it's essentially at zero gravity, so molten metals don't really go anywhere. To get a separation you'd need to provide acceleration of your own (ex.: centrifuge). That hurts, but remember that this works for you going the other way - you can make any alloy you want just by putting the appropriate materials together and letting them cool. -Frank |
It shouldn't hurt too much. If you got the whole rig spinning that problem should be solved. There probably already are solutions to all these problems, I just don't have the time to reread the books on the subject right now.
Posted by: Kyoto Kid Feb 25 2007, 07:47 PM
| QUOTE (Thane36425) | ||
More comisserations. I have been disgusted this last week or so with the 24/7 coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith trials. Just shows what we have to look forward to with Brittany Spears shortly. Bread and Circusses indeed. Keep the people distracted so they don't noticed just how badly the elites are screwing them. That's one thing in SR that carries over plainly from the real world. |
..to quote from Shadowbeat:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..."
--another satisfied [simsense] customer.
Posted by: tisoz Feb 25 2007, 09:27 PM
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=12002&hl=asteroid to a previous dicussion about space mining.
Posted by: Cray74 Feb 27 2007, 01:08 PM
| QUOTE (Crakkerjakk) |
| As far as life support goes, if you grab one of the smaller ones(asteroids) and a)make sure it's solid, not a "dust-pile" class m(metallic type) and b) mine from the inside out, you have a ready made space habitat. If it has about a 500m radius on it's spin axis, you can get 1 gravity of spin without making anyone sick from the coriolis force. Also, not only will the dense walls serve as an effective radiation shield for all but the most intense solar flares, the air atmosphere inside would further augment this. |
Speaking as a materials engineer: You really don't want to spin even a metallic asteroid. They're so full of crap and impurities that habitat air pressure would blow them apart (well, pop a seam) if they didn't rip apart under spin. Hell, even pure iron would probably pull apart under the rotational strain of its own mass.
You're better off using the asteroid material to build a separate, rotating habitat on the surface or inside the asteroid. For radiation shielding, blocks, bins, and sandbags of asteroid soil should do fine. Or water tanks. If you're lucky, the asteroid will have plenty of water. From that perspective, a "dustball" stony-iron asteroid would probably be a better start-up project for mining than a purely metallic asteroid.
Also, if you have the budget, you'd want to increase the spin radius so you can get 1G from 1rpm or less (which starts at about 1700-1800m diameter). Some people are nauseated in 1-3rpm environments, and many people get ill when they move in 3+ rpm environments.
| QUOTE |
| That being said, what are you gonna do about it? Metals in space aren't actually worth anything, because nothing is worth anything until you get it back into a gravity well where people live. You can have a mountain of gold the size of Texas and it isn't worth anything until you can sell it to another human being or use it to create something that you can sell to another human. |
Metals in space may not be worthwhile to people on Earth, but they're very useful in space. You could avoid all that headache of launching new space station materials if the material was already in space, and SR megacorps build some BIG space stations.
Posted by: Crakkerjakk Feb 27 2007, 01:29 PM
*Shrug* I'll trust your judgement, since you're the professional(or at the very least a hell of a lot closer than me currently.) The point remains(and I think you're agreeing with me on this one, so I'm not directing this at you) that there are lots of resources in space, and within a few decades it may become cheaper to exploit them than to try to lift everything out of earth's gravity well.
As I understand it, the two chief health hazards to space-dwelling humans with current technology is a)calcium loss(among other problems) due to long exposure to microgravity and b)lots o' radiation.
Asteroids offer a much cheaper path to solving these problems than lifting all building materials off of earth, especially once the technology becomes available to smelt, produce, and assemble structures in space. It also loosens up building constraints, since the structures don't have to be designed to endure gravity in the first place, unless humans are going to be living, and maybe working, in them.
Not to mention the ridiculous amount of metals, period available in a chunk of high grade ore. A few mirrors and a centrifuge and you've got your very own refinery. A few molds and you have a manufacturing center. Hell, if you wanna be paranoid, perhaps the easiest first products would be Thor-shot bundles. All they basically are is steel I beams with rudimentary sensors and a small pair of thrusters. Build the sensors and thrusters on earth, then attach em in orbit.
Posted by: Cray74 Feb 27 2007, 01:59 PM
| QUOTE (Crakkerjakk @ Feb 27 2007, 01:29 PM) |
| *Shrug* I'll trust your judgement, since you're the professional(or at the very least a hell of a lot closer than me currently.) |
I used to like the idea of Cole habitats until I took my first metallurgy course and learned about the impact of impurities on metal strength.
| QUOTE |
| The point remains(and I think you're agreeing with me on this one, so I'm not directing this at you) that there are lots of resources in space, and within a few decades it may become cheaper to exploit them than to try to lift everything out of earth's gravity well. |
Yep.
| QUOTE |
| As I understand it, the two chief health hazards to space-dwelling humans with current technology is a)calcium loss(among other problems) due to long exposure to microgravity and b)lots o' radiation. |
Yep. Hence the value of a rotating habitat with a thick casing of asteroid material. You need about 10 tons per square meter to equal the radiation shielding of Earth's atmosphere.
Though, borrowing from GURPS:Transhuman Space, a way around the calcium loss would be a genefix. Shadowrun now has the biotech and genetech necessary to duplicate that, though muscle mass loss would remain a problem.
| QUOTE |
| Asteroids offer a much cheaper path to solving these problems than lifting all building materials off of earth, especially once the technology becomes available to smelt, produce, and assemble structures in space. It also loosens up building constraints, since the structures don't have to be designed to endure gravity in the first place, unless humans are going to be living, and maybe working, in them. |
Yep. They'd be enormously useful means of building those big space stations SR seems to have, and a better choice than the moon (which is starting to look rather depleted in life support-critical materials and has an obnoxiously deep gravity well.)
| QUOTE |
| Not to mention the ridiculous amount of metals, period available in a chunk of high grade ore. A few mirrors and a centrifuge and you've got your very own refinery. A few molds and you have a manufacturing center. Hell, if you wanna be paranoid, perhaps the easiest first products would be Thor-shot bundles. |
You'd have to rename them. Regrettably, Shadowrun decided to define Thor shots as big mass drivers firing "space garbage" in Target: Wastelands.
Posted by: Kyoto Kid Feb 27 2007, 06:43 PM
| QUOTE (cray74) |
| Metals in space may not be worthwhile to people on Earth, but they're very useful in space. You could avoid all that headache of launching new space station materials if the material was already in space, and SR megacorps build some BIG space stations. |
...Welcome to HighStar.
Owned and operated by the Olympus Group Consortium.
Please take time to review the safety and security precautions while you are waiting for customs processing...
Posted by: Moon-Hawk Feb 27 2007, 06:54 PM
| QUOTE (Cray74) |
| Though, borrowing from GURPS:Transhuman Space, a way around the calcium loss would be a genefix. Shadowrun now has the biotech and genetech necessary to duplicate that, though muscle mass loss would remain a problem. |
Or, if you're restricted to the core book, bone density, muscle toner, muscle augmentation.
Or you could go with the cyber route, if you'd rather, and just get muscle replacement and bone lacing.
But yeah, there will probably be a more "genetic" version in Augmentation, similar to what we saw in SOTA2063 (was it '63, or '64? 63, right?)
Posted by: Cray74 Mar 1 2007, 02:09 PM
| QUOTE (Moon-Hawk) |
| But yeah, there will probably be a more "genetic" version in Augmentation, similar to what we saw in SOTA2063 (was it '63, or '64? 63, right?) |
I ferget which book.
I do recall that the opening section of Genetech encouraged GMs and players to think of other new Genetech, so something innocuous like a "calcium hack" (to borrow the GURPS term) sounds reasonable.
Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Mar 1 2007, 02:17 PM
Both SotA63 and SR4 already offer a bio-enhancement that improves bone stability.
Posted by: Kyoto Kid Mar 1 2007, 04:27 PM
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) |
| Both SotA63 and SR4 already offer a bio-enhancement that improves bone stability. |
...My ex cosmonaut Capt. Markova had Ceramic Bone Lacing.
What really bites in SR4 is that the Cyber version of BL now has an "F" legality while the Bio version is only "R". I switched the ratings around since Bone Density is much more stealthy.
Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Mar 1 2007, 04:31 PM
| QUOTE (Kyoto Kid) |
| What really bites in SR4 is that the Cyber version of BL now has an "F" legality while the Bio version is only "R". I switched the ratings around since Bone Density is much more stealthy. |
Not really.
While a treatment against osteoporosis is quite plausibly legitimate for Joe Average, armor-plating your bones isn't.
Posted by: Moon-Hawk Mar 1 2007, 09:01 PM
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) |
| While a treatment against osteoporosis is quite plausibly legitimate for Joe Average, armor-plating your bones isn't. |
QFT
R legality is for things that not everyone should have, but that some people have a legitimate need for. F is for things that no one short of paramilitary has a reason to have, ever.
The lowest grade of bone lacing should also realistically be only a R legality (I'm taking KK's word on all the legalities, not looking at a book), since that's also probably a useful treatment for similar disorders and/or injuries, whereas no one short of the military can come up with a good reason why they NEED titanium bones.
It's not about stealth or shadowrunner usefulness, it's about whether or not it has legitimate applications.
Posted by: knasser Mar 1 2007, 09:26 PM
| QUOTE (Moon-Hawk) |
| injuries, whereas no one short of the military can come up with a good reason why they NEED titanium bones. |
Various sports spring to mind... rugby, boxing, mad skateboarders and motorcyclists. Also people involved in a few dangerous occupations, perhaps firemen, the police or private security services. And remember, in Shadowrun, there are a lot of private security services. I'm sure other people can come up with legitimate reasons for having them.
Posted by: Moon-Hawk Mar 1 2007, 09:31 PM
| QUOTE (knasser) | ||
Various sports spring to mind... rugby, boxing, mad skateboarders and motorcyclists. Also people involved in a few dangerous occupations, perhaps firemen, the police or private security services. And remember, in Shadowrun, there are a lot of private security services. I'm sure other people can come up with legitimate reasons for having them. |
I think you and I are using very different definitions of the word "need"
I don't disagree that all of those people would desire and have a legitimate use for bone lacing. But do they absolutely require the absolute best bone lacing possible?
Posted by: Thane36425 Mar 2 2007, 01:16 AM
Another game system had a variant where you could just get our knuckle plated with titanium or ceramics. The idea was to allow the person to hit harder. I could see that if you also included toughening the skin over the knuckles and deadened the nerves a little.
Posted by: Crakkerjakk Mar 2 2007, 09:01 AM
mmm.... seems like it could be a good way to damage whatever joint comes after the part thats plated. Or just use brass knuckles.
Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Mar 5 2007, 05:19 PM
| QUOTE (Moon-Hawk) |
| R legality is for things that not everyone should have, but that some people have a legitimate need for. F is for things that no one short of paramilitary has a reason to have, ever. |
BTW - SR already is quite lax considering 'legitimate need'
Apparently, there's a legitimate need for silenced automated handguns...
..to, uh, shoot the big rat's in the basement... without the neighbors noticing.
Yeah.
Posted by: d'Ark Mar 5 2007, 05:24 PM
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) |
| BTW - SR already is quite lax considering 'legitimate need' Apparently, there's a legitimate need for silenced automated handguns... ..to, uh, shoot the big rat's in the basement... without the neighbors noticing. Yeah. |
The alternative view to that one is that things have become so screwed up that silenced automatic handguns just aren't viewed as a huge priority. I mean, given the choice between pulling over the (numerous) suspicious types on the street to check for weaponry or stopping the psychotic mage from levelling a nearby building, which would you devote more time to?
Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Mar 5 2007, 05:45 PM
In that case, bone lacing wouldn't be an issue, either.
So it's pretty much the power of lobbying.
Posted by: Moon-Hawk Mar 5 2007, 05:53 PM
Hmmm, true. With extraterritoriality it's tough to make cyberware forbidden.
If the UCAS wants to make it illegal to implant a certain type of cyber that's fine, but if someone already has it it's tough to say "You can't enter this country for any reason, ever!". It's not as if they can check it at the door with their guns.
Requiring certain dangerous cyber to be registered and a permit obtained (R rating, as opposed to F) would make a lot more sense for just about all cyber.
Posted by: Ravor Mar 6 2007, 01:53 AM
Well, thats why I personally tend to be rather lax with the various F Grade implants. In my games what happens is that you can get a fake permit, but it gets checked at least twice, and in most places you have to submit to having a tag implanted at the check point and are subjected to a much greater chance of 'random' security checks while in the country as well. (Of course most Runners pop out the offical tag and replace it with one that they can turn on/off as soon as possible, but getting caught doing so is a very, very bad idea.)
Posted by: Kyoto Kid Mar 6 2007, 02:26 AM
| QUOTE (knasser) | ||
Various sports spring to mind... rugby, boxing, mad skateboarders and motorcyclists. Also people involved in a few dangerous occupations, perhaps firemen, the police or private security services. And remember, in Shadowrun, there are a lot of private security services. I'm sure other people can come up with legitimate reasons for having them. |
...Urban Brawl
...Docwagon HRT personnel
In my setting I have dropped the rating for Bone Lacing to "R" Based on the rationale that Bone Density (which is harder to detect) also has a legality of "R".
I kind of miss the old Shadowrun legality ratings which were more flexible and often varied based on gear/implant rating. Now it's pretty much all or nothing.
Posted by: nathanross Mar 6 2007, 05:41 AM
| QUOTE (Kyoto Kid) |
| I kind of miss the old Shadowrun legality ratings which were more flexible and often varied based on gear/implant rating. Now it's pretty much all or nothing. |
Amen Sister, let us return to the land of milk and honey that is SR3.
But seriously, back to the meteors (remember that thread?)
Does anyone here actually run a space campaign? I think it is a cool idea, but much like all those other quasi-runner campaigns, the focus has to be all on that one subject. I have never even seen a delta clinic, much less a cybermantic ritual, both of which have been around for at least 20 years.
Sure Evo has people on Mars, but are you ever going to be one of them? Maybe in 50 years (sorry orks
), but with the complete reliance on life support systems, you have to be in the top .0000000001% of all criminals in the galaxy to get in, get out and live to tell about it.
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