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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Dikote Question
Posted by: Fester May 21 2005, 01:25 AM
What kind of shop would you need to be able to dikote objects? How much should the shop cost? Would it take a skill check? If so, against what skill?
Posted by: Deuce May 21 2005, 01:43 AM
i believe it might be weapons b/r, armor b/r, or vehicle b/r....
i guess it depends on what you wanna dikote?
using those guidlines, just go with the shop price for said b/r skill then dikote seperate....
that's what i would do...
Posted by: Umbrage May 21 2005, 02:01 AM
I doubt any runners would be able to do dikoting themselves unless they had advanced skills in physics and material engineering. It also requires special plasma furnaces and access to raw materials.
Posted by: Mortax May 21 2005, 02:08 AM
I would say it would require chemistry, physics and engineering skills, along with the appropriate b/r skills. As far as equipment, I'm guessing you at least need a special dikoting shop, if not a facility. I've seen the kind of machinery that goes into that, and you are gonna have to convince me you can fit it in a van.
Also, prolly the shop or whatever for the specific task, ie a weapon shop for weapons, vehicle shop for vehicles. Maybe. It's more the GM's call on that note.
Edit:
Cost wise, I'd say its going to be expensive, what with the funace and all.
15 k if you're gm okays the shop, 100 or 200 k 
if its a facility.
I think 200 is excessive, but it is a specialised set of equipment that you can't go to walmart and buy. Hell, it might be restricted depending on you're area.
Then all you need to is summon an ally spirit, buy some condoms and.....
Posted by: Chibu May 21 2005, 03:39 AM
Well, my brother just got his pizza Dikoted.
Posted by: Smiley May 21 2005, 03:44 AM
Chemistry shop?
What about if you wanna dikote your ally spirit?
Posted by: Mortax May 21 2005, 03:46 AM
I was assuming the skill, not the shop. But you might be able to use a chem shop for the raw materials.
Posted by: SpasticTeapot May 21 2005, 05:27 AM
I thought it was only done in space by DeBeers.
Then again, my memory is garbage, so I would'nt pay any attention to my ramblings; however, making the one source of dikoted goodies orbital is a great way to keep PCs from munchkinizing, and you can create entire runs around acquiring a Dikoted sword!
Posted by: Cray74 May 21 2005, 01:11 PM
| QUOTE (Fester @ May 21 2005, 01:25 AM) |
| What kind of shop would you need to be able to dikote objects? |
You'd need non-standard equipment, not a typical shop. A dikoting furnace isn't exactly a normal item in a Car B/R shop.
| QUOTE |
| How much should the shop cost? |
When I worked in a (real life) lab that had a small dikoting furnace (working zone about the size of a CD), I talked to some of the senior researchers and they guestimated the price of a dikoting furnace able to handle a 1 square meter target as about $1 million (US $ 1995). What technology will do to that price...200,000 nuyen might be reasonable.
Operating costs will be high, just for the electricity. I operated an electrically heated furnace in that lab that made carbon-carbon composites. A 3-hour run consumed $500 in electricity, and that furnace was only about 40cm diameter and 80cm high.
Other materials (like methane and hydrogen) would be relatively trivial expenses from a good gas or welding supply store.
Of course, the simple way to handle those operating expenses is simply to say the furnace's operation has a price equal to the cost of dikoting the object in the furnace (without street index).
I'd also plan on 12 to 48-hour runs in the dikoting furnace irrelevant of target size. Using the microwave method described for dikoting, diamond deposition is SLOW.
| QUOTE |
| Would it take a skill check? If so, against what skill? |
Without creating a new skill, I'd either use Electronics, chemistry or the appropriate B/R skill. (If you're trying to dikote body armor, use armor B/R).
As a complementary skill, you DEFINITELY want chemistry, metallurgy, ceramics, and/or just "materials engineering" so you don't stick something stupid in the furnace, like plastic or aluminum.
Posted by: Cray74 May 21 2005, 01:19 PM
| QUOTE (SpasticTeapot) |
| I thought it was only done in space by DeBeers. |
Naw. Dikoting just needs some fart gas, some hydrogen, and a bad ass microwave oven. (That's over simplifying, but you get the point.) Zero-G shouldn't offer any benefit to dikoting.
Diamond deposition processes similar to and more advanced than Dikoting's machinery are commercial products today. Try googling for http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2004-16%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=diamond+deposition+equipment
| QUOTE |
| however, making the one source of dikoted goodies orbital is a great way to keep PCs from munchkinizing, and you can create entire runs around acquiring a Dikoted sword! |
I find that a security guard at the far end of a hall with a submachinegun tends to trump swords, dikoted or not.
Dikoting's a nice edge (pun intended) for melee weapons and armor, but an extra point of damage or armor shouldn't be overwhelming. You can get an extra point of damage for a gun with standard explosive ammo and a little layering will get you a lot more armor.
Posted by: blakkie May 21 2005, 01:50 PM
| QUOTE (Cray74 @ May 21 2005, 07:19 AM) | ||
Naw. Dikoting just needs some fart gas, some hydrogen, and a bad ass microwave oven. (That's over simplifying, but you get the point.) Zero-G shouldn't offer any benefit to dikoting. Diamond deposition processes similar to and more advanced than Dikoting's machinery are commercial products today. Try googling for http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2004-16%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=diamond+deposition+equipment |
That's current tech.
But suppose an entirely new process was developed. Roughly speaking the sword was coat with thin layer of material. Then nanite level machinery was used to transform the coating medium into Dikote, molecularly bonding it with the sword surface. The material coated would dictate the nanite required, which would limit what materials were coated to those that the process was developed for.
If the coating medium was liquid, and the process worked better with a coating of even thickness, weightlessness would aid there.
EDIT: This might make it terribly expensive, much higher than the current. Plus if it needs weightlessness that'll give a very long delay to custom Dikoting an item.
P.S. This is just a random thought that popped into my head reading your post. It never really occured to me before, so obviously it's not that well thought through.
Posted by: Critias May 21 2005, 01:51 PM
Don't forget, in addition to adding +1 Power to a melee weapon, it also adds +1 to the damage rating of edged (and piercing, I guess) melee weapon attacks. That's the biggie.
Posted by: Eyeless Blond May 21 2005, 02:56 PM
Honestly it shouldn'e be *that* difficult to put a thin film of diamond on something in 2060. Don't they use dikote to make scratch-resistant coatings on eyeglasses now?
Then again, that weird magic dikote that somehow awakens the inner rage of all edged weapons and increses their Damage Level... *that* kind of Dikote should be horrifically expensive. 
Posted by: Cray74 May 21 2005, 04:06 PM
| QUOTE (blakkie) |
| That's current tech. |
Yes, it was current tech. I was just making the point that it doesn't call for exotic technology to put diamond on a surface.
| QUOTE |
| But suppose an entirely new process was developed. Roughly speaking the sword was coat with thin layer of material. Then nanite level machinery |
You can control the deposited diamond grain size, morphology, surface roughness, film thickness, and bonding strength by altering the process variables in the described microwave/methane treatment. Apparently, Dikoting tweaks the current processes just right (because the microwave method of diamond deposition is kinda dated otherwise).
| QUOTE |
| and the process worked better with a coating of even thickness, weightlessness would aid there. |
Conventional chemical vapor deposition, or plasma-assisted CVD, can generate very even coatings under gravity. And as magical as nanites are, I'd feel disappointed that those wondrous mini-bots can't maintain an even coating thickness.
| QUOTE |
| EDIT: This might make it terribly expensive, much higher than the current. Plus if it needs weightlessness that'll give a very long delay to custom Dikoting an item. |
I guess I don't see the need to impose such delays on dikoting items when mundane options are available, like backlogged dikoting furnaces, requirements for 48+ hours to properly dikote something, and being able to say, "the object will be destroyed by the dikoting process."
If you're worried about someone getting a dikoted Real Samurai Katana, just say the dikoting process will frag the sword's heat treatment and turn it into soft (or over-brittle) steel.
| QUOTE |
| Don't forget, in addition to adding +1 Power to a melee weapon, it also adds +1 to the damage rating of edged (and piercing, I guess) melee weapon attacks. That's the biggie. |
Kinda like adding a burst fire option to a pistol?
Except burst fire adds +3 to power to a weapon that can reach out and touch someone at 50 meters, unlike the dikoted melee weapon.
| QUOTE |
| Honestly it shouldn'e be *that* difficult to put a thin film of diamond on something in 2060. Don't they use dikote to make scratch-resistant coatings on eyeglasses now? |
I've heard Gilette coats its Mach 3 razor blades with diamond-like carbon. I don't know if that's correct.
Posted by: Rory Blackhand May 21 2005, 06:47 PM
My opinion:
I don't think you need physics, chemistry, or any of those skills. You need the equipment to accomplish the task is all. If it is like modern factory machinery, any chimp can learn to operate it. It is the expense of the gear that limits you from dikoting a bunch of shit on the cheap. To prevent munchkinism I would make the machinery so expensive it would be a waste of time to pursue getting it.
Posted by: Umbrage May 21 2005, 07:12 PM
When dikoting was introduced in the Street Sam Catalog, one of the comments posted in the BBS-style banter was that the coating eventually wears off. As a GM, I might play that up a bit.
Posted by: Mortax May 21 2005, 07:18 PM
I think it was shadowtech.
But reguardless, we use a variation of this as well. Makws play more interesting, more so for the people with dikoted cyber weapons. 
(Shakes head) One of my players has a pc named Logan with duel spurs, dikoted. sigh.
Posted by: hobgoblin May 21 2005, 08:51 PM
| QUOTE |
| (Shakes head) One of my players has a pc named Logan with duel spurs, dikoted. sigh. |
for every original, expect to see a million copys. or even more if said original is supposed to be the personification of gritt (invariably translated to cool by modern pop culture).
Posted by: Edward May 21 2005, 08:57 PM
Remember, you don’t need to know the details of the proses, just how to set the nobs on the furnace, I would require the chemistry skill and not a very high target number. If you have the furnace witch is ungodly expensive and not movable in any practical sense (say 1 week breakdown time).and requires an uncommonly powerful electrical supply (available to industrial clients only buy special arrangement)
If you wanted to build a furnace you would need chemistery, engenering and physics to design it as well as several BR skills to build it, computing to program it and some way do supply its power requirements.
Edward
Posted by: ShadowGhost May 21 2005, 09:04 PM
I'd make it a shop - transportable, but has to be disassembled for transport, and cannot be operated in a vehicle, as the power requirements are too great for any vehicle to supply.
Shop - Base Cost ¥5,000.
I'd put it in the same category as Electronic/Computer/Cyberware Work: Base Cost x 3
Street Index = 3
Cost - ¥45,000
I'd make Dikoting a skill, not a specialization of Physics, or Chemistry. (Just as Gyrojet Pistol is it's own separate skill from Pistols skill).
A TN of 6 + (surface area in sq. cm/100, round up)
So a knife blade with a length of 25 cm (10") and width of 3 cm (1.25") would have a surface area of 150 sq cm. (75 sq. cm per side). It would add 2 to the TN (150 sq cm/100 = 1.5, round up)
A katana (3'x1.125") would be 91.44cm x 3cm x 2 (sides) 548.64 sq cm, or add 6 to the TN, for a total of 12.
I'd also require a b/r skill for article being dikoted. i.e. if it's a knife, or katana, everything must be removed so that all you're left with is a bare blade to be dikoted, and then everything has to be re-assembled afterwards. The time to do this is not included in the base time for dikoting.
A base time = 8 hours + (surface area in sq. cm/200, round up) for preparation, dikoting, cooling, etc, plus the b/r time . Extra successes could be used to reduce the base time. Failure means the item is destroyed in the process.
The process cannot be stopped, or interrupted once started. If it is, roll a D6. On a 1-3 the item is damaged or destroyed, a 4-6 it must be specially cleaned (base time, 4 hours) and the entire process started again.
A base cost of ¥200 for materials, per sq. meter to be dikoted.
For game balance I would also not allow multiple items to be dikoted at once, even if they are the same
This makes it feasible for the player who really wants to do this, while putting limits on how much they can dikote, so they don't end up with a belt full of dikoted ammo, or other munchkiny sillyness.
Posted by: ShadowGhost May 21 2005, 09:05 PM
| QUOTE (hobgoblin) |
| for every original, expect to see a million copys. or even more if said original is supposed to be the personification of gritt (invariably translated to cool by modern pop culture). |
Yep. We had a phys adept based on Riddick.... lasted two game sessions before being blown away by a ten round burst.
Posted by: Cray74 May 21 2005, 09:26 PM
| QUOTE (Edward) |
| Remember, you don’t need to know the details of the proses, just how to set the nobs on the furnace, I would require the chemistry skill and not a very high target number. |
There's a risk to just button pushing without background knowledge, though.
I watched a US Navy supplier get flayed by the Navy because their products were coming out under-strength. It turned out one of their testing devices had been set incorrectly from the time the test machine vendor's tech had set up the device. The tech had just said, "set this knob to 10" and the USN's supplier did, consistently. Except the knob told the machine what size sample it was working on - 10 was for 10cm samples. When the supplier used different sized samples during quality control testing...
For someone interested in getting into the dikoting business, sure, you can hire an illiterate street bum to load objects, press the "go" button, and pull the dikoted objects out for a bottle of synthol a day.
But someone in the dikoting operation better know what's safe to put in the dikoter. The first genius who sticks an aluminum target in the dikoter will have a helluva time scraping the puddled aluminum out of the furnace, and any plastic target that goes in their will clog the furnace with soot. And, of course, no one wants to face the wrath of a Yakuza boss who's heirloom layer-forged katana just got turned into a brittle, rusty, diamond-coated piece of scrap by a poor heat treating cycle.
Posted by: Critias May 21 2005, 10:02 PM
| QUOTE |
| (Shakes head) One of my players has a pc named Logan with duel spurs, dikoted. sigh. |
You mean like the guy who's the published example of two-cyberweapon combat, right from the main book? It's kind of tough to blame your player, and your player alone, for that.
| QUOTE |
| Kinda like adding a burst fire option to a pistol? Except burst fire adds +3 to power to a weapon that can reach out and touch someone at 50 meters, unlike the dikoted melee weapon. |
Right. I know what burst fire does (and so do the hundreds of PCs and NPCs I've used it on, with various characters). You're preaching to the choir, trying to convince me that guns are cooler than swords in Shadowrun. I'm a gun guy, not a knife guy. I was just pointing out that it's not the +1 power on an edged weapon that people care about at all, it's the +1 damage code.
Posted by: Cray74 May 21 2005, 10:18 PM
| QUOTE (Critias) |
| You're preaching to the choir |
Oops, sorry.
Posted by: Mortax May 21 2005, 11:07 PM
| QUOTE (Critias) | ||
You mean like the guy who's the published example of two-cyberweapon combat, right from the main book? It's kind of tough to blame your player, and your player alone, for that. |
No, he also has the sense enhancments and personality/skills of Wolverine.
That was more of it.
Posted by: hyzmarca May 22 2005, 03:52 AM
| QUOTE (Cray74) | ||
Kinda like adding a burst fire option to a pistol? Except burst fire adds +3 to power to a weapon that can reach out and touch someone at 50 meters, unlike the dikoted melee weapon. |
But Dikote doesn't add +3 to TNs.
Posted by: weblife May 22 2005, 06:37 AM
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) | ||||
But Dikote doesn't add +3 to TNs. |
With gasvent IV and two points of recoil reduction, neither does burstfire weapons.
Posted by: hyzmarca May 23 2005, 03:47 AM
| QUOTE (weblife) | ||||||
With gasvent IV and two points of recoil reduction, neither does burstfire weapons. |
But dikote doesn't subtract at least 2 points from concealability
Posted by: Critias May 23 2005, 05:12 AM
Do either of you really have a point? If so, could we use our zany 80's sports car/time machine to fast forward to it? That'd be slick.
Posted by: hyzmarca May 23 2005, 08:29 AM
| QUOTE (Critias @ May 23 2005, 12:12 AM) |
| Do either of you really have a point? If so, could we use our zany 80's sports car/time machine to fast forward to it? That'd be slick. |
My point is that while dikote's bonuses don't match the bonuses provided by burst fire Dikote doesn't have any penalties. With burst fire you either gain substantial TN or lose substantial conceal.
However, I just had the most perverse idea. Dikoted flechette rounds. They don't even have to be fired from a sexually active ally spirit.
Who wants their Pedator to do base D damage?
Posted by: hobgoblin May 23 2005, 09:48 AM
it allready can, just mod it for burst and use fleechette 
Posted by: Cray74 May 23 2005, 12:23 PM
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| My point is that while dikote's bonuses don't match the bonuses provided by burst fire |
Right - dikote's inferior to burst fire.
The presence of a minor drawback doesn't make burst fire inferior to dikote, particularly when the concealability penalty isn't enough to necessarily make the gas vented weapon obvious (like a high concealability heavy pistol)...or the weapon already was obvious (like an assault rifle) and another concealability penalty won't matter.
In the end, dikote doesn't deliver the damage advantage of burst fire, and generally doesn't do so at long range. That, to me, says that dikote doesn't need a massive effort to balance it or otherwise discourage its use.
Posted by: Critias May 23 2005, 12:41 PM
So, your actual point(s) are "dikote is better than burst fire, and as such by extension melee is better than shooting," versus "burst fire is better than dikote, and as such by extension shooting is better than melee."
Am I the only one that sees this is a neverending discussion? There are advantages and drawbacks to both. An agreement will never be reached.
Posted by: Cray74 May 23 2005, 05:20 PM
| QUOTE (Critias) |
| An agreement will never be reached. |
Yes, but I can get a warm 'n fuzzy smug feeling from posting my side of the argument, so...
GUNS RULE! SWORDS DROOL!
Posted by: Kronk2 Jan 24 2007, 09:35 AM
so what would Dikote do to SR4??
Posted by: tisoz Jan 24 2007, 09:43 AM
Not the SR4 forum, but would add or subtract some dice.
Posted by: Kronk2 Jan 24 2007, 09:44 AM
oh sorry,wrong place. thanks l-]
Posted by: KarmaInferno Jan 24 2007, 03:40 PM
So, how does the end result of http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn11003&feedId=online-news_rss20 compare to traditional deposition processes? Other than it can be used on more types of material than before, of course.
More or less durable? Chemical / mechanical differences?
I'm kinda curious.
-karma
Posted by: Dakhran the Dark Jan 24 2007, 09:26 PM
The process describes uses a "cool" plasma to bond coal ions to the surface to diamondize it -- it can run at room temperature, so it doesn't require a "furnace", and it can be bonded to materials with a significantly lower melting point. Probably not as durable as the full baked-on version though.
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