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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Non-lethal technology

Posted by: KarmaInferno Jan 21 2004, 03:51 AM

I was watching a History Channel show about nonlethal weapons and two in particular caught my eye.

The first was pretty simple, a low powered visible light laser mounted underbarrel to an assault rifle. It was rigged with a prism of some sort that made a near solid cone of laser light in the direction you were aiming, the intention being that anyone looking your way would be blinded by the light spray and be unable to target you with any effectiveness.

The other was a paintball gun delivered variety of pepper spray. Which I have to imagine could be adapted to capsule rounds in SR parlance.

It got me thinking - with all the other technologies available in the sixth world, why aren't there more non-lethal ones in SR? I mean, most of the tasers are pathetically weak against any sort of meaty character, and there isn't a whole lot else besides knockout gas.

What non-lethal tech would you like to see in SR, or have come up with?

Posted by: danbot37 Jan 21 2004, 03:56 AM

gel rounds... narco-jet... flash mortars and grenades...
some powerful options, if ya ask me

Posted by: KarmaInferno Jan 21 2004, 04:07 AM

Yes, I probably overstated the paucity of the tech a bit, but still, it's all mostly stuff we already have today. How about over half a century of technological development? Surely there must be some.

Even with today's tech you have some pretty cool items just being developed. Sonic lances. Millimeter-wave heat guns. Air cannons.

I dunno. I was expecting more, um, nifty gadget type stuff.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 21 2004, 04:07 AM

10D Stun pathetically weak?
Eheh... no.

~J

Posted by: kevyn668 Jan 21 2004, 04:39 AM

I remember seeing the "Splatgun" somewhere. In the CC, maybe? I know we have some prototypes now but...I dunno, seems "gagety".

Also, there is the "Stun" line of spells. Thats a fairly new nonlethal resolution.

Posted by: mfb Jan 21 2004, 05:05 AM

the splatgun was in M&M, in the 'Chemestry' section.

Posted by: Zazen Jan 21 2004, 05:06 AM

Bola rounds, superflash bulbs/grenades, freeze foam, splat glue, taser darts that aren't on wires, shock hands/gloves, stun batons, electro-shock car alarms, zapper strips, etc. are all pretty futuristic-feeling forms of nonlethal combat. I think SR does ok with it.

Anyway, me and my players have cooked up a few nonlethal toys in the past. Capsule rounds filled with a bit of freeze foam liquid that will expand to the size of a golf ball or so on impact (gunking up things like triggers, button panels, nostrils, faceplates, etc). Capsule rounds filled with DMSO/LSD . Shock "grenades" (they are inert, but shock anyone who touches them trying to get rid of them). Similar "grenades" with spring-loaded blades like those of the firearm system. I'm sure there are more, but that's all that comes to mind.

Posted by: Luke Hardison Jan 21 2004, 05:10 AM

One problem, Zazen. Bola rounds do physical damage, not stun. At least, I don't see anything in the description that suggests that they do stun. They're metal slugs connected with monowire, which sounds like physical to me.

Posted by: mfb Jan 21 2004, 05:16 AM

i don't think anything which stabs people technically counts as being nonlethal. i mean, yeah, it's intended for hands--but someone could just as easily trip and land on if face-first.

Posted by: FlakJacket Jan 21 2004, 05:25 AM

Ah well. That's just god's way of telling you you're dead.

Posted by: Zazen Jan 21 2004, 05:41 AM

QUOTE (Luke Hardison)

I'll be damned, they are. I've been doing them wrong for years!

Thanks for catching it

As for the stab grenades, yeah, they're not nice, but they're unlikely to ever kill anyone (at least in game terms). They disable the primary hand so that it can't hold a weapon, often obviating the need to shoot them. I really just mentioned them for completeness since I was already mentioning the shock ones, though.

Posted by: mfb Jan 21 2004, 06:17 AM

indeed. personally, i'd make them CS grenades that shocked or sprung blades; not everybody tries to grab a thrown grenade and throw it back. some people, oddly enough, run away from the grenade!

Posted by: Zazen Jan 21 2004, 06:48 AM

For a while my players always threw the damn things back, so when this gadgeteer-type NPC came along they got a bit of a surprise. One of them thought the idea was cool and made a few of his own.

Haven't seen 'em since that campaign, actually.

Posted by: The Jopp Jan 21 2004, 08:05 AM

QUOTE (Luke Hardison)

Why isn't there a Non-lethal version of the bola round? A non-monowire version? Give it the same damage code but Stun damage instead and cut price/SI in half.

Posted by: kenji Jan 21 2004, 12:25 PM

it's not SR specific, but i remember some hypothesizing about a "stun gun" technology that used a high-frequency low-amp signal of some form (unforunately, i do not remember how the signal was carried to the skin, iirc it was a coherent transmit, no wires.) to stimulate the pain nerves near the target's skin. basically, a "big ouch no bleeding" gun. utterly useless on all those Damage Compesator customers, though.

of course, nearly every nonlethal takedown technique we could hypothesize can easily be replicated by magic. Reduce Str, Reduce Dex, Agony (or whatever it's called), Stunbolt/ball, et cetera. or just telling your Elemental "fetch!"

Posted by: Digital Heroin Jan 21 2004, 01:20 PM

Why go "gadety" when you can go with good old fashioned effective? Tear Gas baby... from experience I know is sucks... muchly...

Posted by: mfb Jan 21 2004, 01:23 PM

sure, unless your target has gas protection. the itchy skin is annoying, but it's not very effective as a deterrent alone.

Posted by: nezumi Jan 21 2004, 02:05 PM

There's a device that exists IRL and in Cyberpunk, some sort of ultra low frequency gun. Somehow it's supposed to cause the targets to begin retching to no end (which generally makes it very difficult to fire a gun). Hearing dampner makes it useless in CP, but I'm not sure if that's realistic.

CP also has microwave guns, which cause cyberware to malfunction (obviously, that wouldn't work in SR), but also makes the person feel very hot.

Use the water cannon mounted on that one truck at the end of the BBB.

Yeah, the goop gun is pretty cool. They have netguns (although netguns seem pretty useless if you can shoot THROUGH the net...) Drugs and gases are always fun. Maybe start using leghold traps (okay, they do physical damage and COULD be lethal if you happen to be walking on your head at the time).

Posted by: Deep Blue Jan 21 2004, 05:23 PM

Nezumi, to the best of my knowledge, no-one has successfully made an opperational 'brown-note' cannon IRL. Lots of theoretical development, lots of hypotheses about experimentation with said guns in WW2, but no actual, effective sick-guns (I'm sure police would use them if they DID exist). I think the problem may be that, while infrasound can make a person lose bowel control, the 'note' isn't the same for all of us, the volume needs to be pretty friken' high, and directed sound weapons would only really be effective over a short distance (and would have a 'shotgun' like spread). Maybe by Shadowrun times they will have solved some of these problems. However, in my games, sonic weapons designed to cause fear, heebie-jeebies, or sphincter release are limited to large-scale, short range weapons: even then, they tend to only be about 30-40% effective at best.

And bolas, as presented in Shadowrun, are based on Argentinian weapons of today/the past. IRL, bolas are designed to trip-up the thing you're hunting (like wild game), though blunt trauma and bone breaking are often side effects.

Posted by: Spookymonster Jan 21 2004, 05:50 PM

Bolas (the thrown weapon) and bola rounds (a type of shotgun ammunition) are two different things. Bola rounds are so named because of their resemblence to bolas (both weapons use connected weights spun by centrifugal force). However, the monofiber filament connecting the weights in a bola round are significantly shorter (a few centimeters at most) than the leather straps used in a bola (1 meter or more). The object of a bola round is not to ensnare your opponent, but rather to spread out the area of impact, thus maximizing the transfer of kinetic energy.
AFAIK, nothing like a bola round actually exists outside of SR.

Posted by: LoseAsDirected Jan 21 2004, 07:15 PM

Let's not forget that even modern non-lethal weapons can be lethal... Your typical bean bag round for a shotgun is lethal up to 25 feet.. Meaning that its uses are limited.

Rubber bullets can still kill a target up to 30 feet, and even further if it's a head shot.

The very fact that the SR books make no mention of these limits seems to warrant the belief that they are no longer lethal at close range, and that is an amazing improvement on our current technology.

Posted by: OurTeam Jan 21 2004, 07:38 PM

QUOTE (LoseAsDirected)

... that is an amazing improvement on our current technology.

I think it's because it's a game. The technology for hitting someone with a stick until they fall unconscious hasn't improved and it has no lasting damage either.

Posted by: gknoy Jan 21 2004, 08:35 PM

QUOTE (mfb)

indeed. personally, i'd make them CS grenades that shocked or sprung blades; not everybody tries to grab a thrown grenade and throw it back. some people, oddly enough, run away from the grenade!

This is why all PCs should carry lacrosse thingies or hockey sticks.

Posted by: Foreigner Jan 21 2004, 08:41 PM

DeepBlue:

What about gas grenades-- or an Ares SuperSquirt, for that matter -- loaded with a mixture of DMSO and the 2060s counterpart to Ipecac?

Not enough to cause actual vomiting, mind you; just disabling stomach cramps.

I doubt even a Troll (unless he was a Troll Cyberzombie, that is) would be able to do much when he was busy fighting a bad case of the dry heaves.

Sounds sadistic, I know, but it has possibilities.

I read something to that effect in one of Shapcano's stories which dealt with his counterpart to Jak Koke's "Ryan Mercury", known as "Owen Glendower". The character had developed a non-lethal gas grenade that used a combination of ordinary tear gas, pepper spray, and something else that induced VIOLENT stomach cramps. The result was a temporarily blinded individual who also ended up losing his lunch if he had eaten recently.

Is that the type of non-lethal weapon for which you are looking?

--Foreigner

Posted by: Moonstone Spider Jan 21 2004, 08:51 PM

The biggest problem in Shadowrun isn't that there aren't nonlethal options, it's that they seem to invariably either have a pathetically short range or else cost 10 times more than killing somebody would. Compare the price of gel/capsule rounds to ordinary bullets. . .

Posted by: Req Jan 21 2004, 09:02 PM

...and that's great, and tres cyberpunk. Life is cheap.

Posted by: OurTeam Jan 21 2004, 09:07 PM

QUOTE (Moonstone Spider @ Jan 21 2004, 12:51 PM)

Nonlethal options ... seem to invariably have short range or else cost 10 times more than killing somebody would. Compare the price of gel/capsule rounds to ordinary bullets. . .

Moonstone Spider, you're comparing elite non-lethal gear to ordinary ammo. That's like comparing a 3 passenger Ares Dragon helicopter to a 1 passenger Dodge Scoot electric motorscooter and saying that 3-passenger vehicles cost too much.

Instead I suggest you compare normal gel rounds to normal ammo. They do roughly the same damage, both can be obtained in a week, and the cost of both is negligible for a Shadowrunner. (Double-cost for something negligible is still negligible.) Just because there are more expensive ways of knocking someone out doesn't mean you have to use them.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Jan 21 2004, 09:12 PM

QUOTE (Foreigner)

[...] a non-lethal gas grenade that used a combination of ordinary tear gas, pepper spray [...]

That's a bit silly, because standard OC (pepper) gases generally include CS (tear gas). The pepper spray thingies that us MPs were taught to use were actually called OC/CS sprays. And you won't need to add anything to that stuff, it'll incapacitate quite nicely on its own -- though I suppose some cramping will always help.

QUOTE (Moonstone Spider)

Funnily enough, these are also some of the biggest problems of Real Life non-lethal options. Compare the price of decent-quality stun munitions for shotguns to that of common shot rounds, for example. Or the costs of buying and using a taser compared to a pistol. Not to mention all these wacky microwave- or infrasound-weapons that have been discussed. Heck, I bet lethal nerve gases are easier and cheaper to produce than immobilizing/stunning/sleep-inducing ones are.

A human being is so frail, you've got to work hard not to kill one.

Posted by: Lilt Jan 21 2004, 09:13 PM

In my games there are some fairly basic Pepper Punch delivery systems for the average joe/jess. The delivery systems are included in the price for the chemicals and are disposable (IE: peper-punch comes in a spray-cans).

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 21 2004, 09:18 PM

You can kill people with Shadowrun stun weapons. I once had some characters almost kick the bucket because I had some NPCs get too frisky with a stun gas grenade and then some narcoject to back it all up.

~J

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Jan 21 2004, 09:22 PM

It seems basic pepper spray cans with ~10 "doses" (1-second sprays) sell for $10-20, and you can get a 30-feet range canister/spray with 20-25 doses (includes UV ID dye) for $50. So the price of Pepper Punch is a bit high in MM, but not that much if you consider them to include the delivery system.

Got to remember to give a few passers-by some of this stuff every now and then... (In SR while GMing, I mean.)

Posted by: LoseAsDirected Jan 21 2004, 09:39 PM

QUOTE (Kagetenshi)

Yeah, if you take it too far, of course you can kill someone with enough stun damage..

But it's not like modern non-lethal projectiles, which can kill with only a single shot at less than 25 feet.