Skinlink jamming Options

[Garrowolf]

I was just thinking about a varient of the stick and shock rounds that jam commlinks especially skinlinks.
What about rotating frequency set jammer/thermosmoke/flash packs?
What about ultrasonic flash packs?
Or antivehiclular radar flash packs?

[Jack Kain]

The point of a skinlink is that it can't be jammed, its like asking to jam a wired device. There isn't a signal to jam.

[mfb]

there sorta is, actually. i mean, you're talking about an electromagnetic field created by the body, which is used as a transportation medium for skinlink devices. if you can screw with that EM field, you can jam skinlinks. i'm not enough of a sciencer to say what could do that, but i'd guess that sticky-shock rounds would probably work.

[hyzmarca]

It is very easy to jam a wired device. All you need are scissors. Barring that, a simple application of electricity will not only defeat communications but is likely to damage or destroy devices at both ends of the wire. The same principal is to be found with the skinlink. The most reliable method of jamming is to sever the appropriate body parts but high-voltage electricity should be enough to ruin the devices.

[mfb]

exactly! it's hard for a skinlink to work properly if you don't have any skin!

[Garrowolf]

Do you think that a high induction device, even without the shock part, would fry the devices on a skinlink?

What about the opposite? A inductive datajack pad in the gloop of a stickyshock that doesn't shock but it does transmit their skinlink traffic.

[Aaron]

[hobgoblin]

those cut offs usually work by directing the excess electricity into a grounded connecting. if not, it could potentially get enough of a build up to jump the gap between the contact points inside the cut off.

still, its mostly a question of least resistant way to ground.

so unless the runner was not in contact with metal or wearing non-conductive footwear, it would be less resistant to head that way then go after the batteries or other power sources of the skinlinked gear.

mind you, i have no education in this field so i may well be way of...

[DireRadiant]

If you want to have someone fire stick and shock rounds with the specific intent of disabling skinlink connections, I would simply apply a called shot modifier.

[Moon-Hawk]

Honestly, I wouldn't expect a stick-n-shock to mess with skinlink all that much. According to the general principles involved, it could or it might not, but that depends more on the specifics of the implementation of both technologies. I would have stick-n-shock screw with skinlink a little bit as a flavor effect (video's getting a little scrambly, but still watchable, data coming a bit slower as the skinlink loses a few packets here and there, but still making it) If someone wanted a round designed specifically to jam skinlink, though, that should be totally do-able. But I would make it a special stick-n-jam round which does little to no electrical damage, rather than making stick-n-shock even more powerful than it already is.

[lorechaser]

[kzt]

[Aaron]

[hobgoblin]

and isn't that what a stick-n-shock does? ie, damage the target?

or would one have to up the SnS so that it does lethal rather then stun?

ok, so we are probably talking watts or amps rather then volts as most likely a SnS round is basically a electric cattle fence in a small package.

high on the volts, low on the watts. nasty stuff (had my fair share of encounters) but not likely to be lethal unless you get shocked repeatedly (i have seen lambs get killed by getting stuck in a fence :() or have a weak heart or something.

[Garrowolf]

Actually I think that it would be nastier to up the amperage and drop the voltage but use piercing darts so the resistance drops from 100,000 ohms to less then 1,000 ohms. Then push the amperage up past the 1 amp mark - maybe 20 amps but drop the voltage to say 1,000 volts or even less will kill a person instantly without the wattage of the dart going too high.

Anyway, I was actually thinking of sending modified shock darks for the sticky shock designed to disrupt the commlinks. Just use the say delivery system.

[kzt]

If you used a large capacity dart, say .729 caliber, with a large battery, say an ounce that would help. Then if you got it going kind of fast. like say 1300 ft second? And to interfere with a "skinlink" it would have to touch skin, right?

And when you shoot them with this dart (which oddly enough is the same size and mass as a 12 gauge shotgun slug) I would tend to figure their skinlink won't help when they are lying unconscious in a pool of blood even if the fancy electronics don't work. It's not the super high tech shadowrun style, but it tends to work.

This post has been edited by kzt: Nov 9 2006, 05:01 AM

[Garrowolf]

yeah your probably right. If it is powerful enough to deliver the charge then it would be better as a bullet.
oh well - back to the drawing board.

Oh wait! what about a blade that does that?

[Aaron]

I'm not so sure about the viability of a skinlink jammer. I mean, at the amperages necessary to overcome any cut-out switches, the charge would just ground out through the body, anyway; there's less resistance in the soft fleshy bits (between a thousand and half a million ohms) than in the air in a gap between conducting parts (at least a million ohms), even under the best conditions. Which means you're back to stick-and-shock.

[Garrowolf]

okay things have gotten a little confusing here.

The skinlink jammer was not using a sticky shock to damage the target. It was just using the same kind of delivery system as the sticky shock. It was actually intended to send out em fields designed to interfere with the body's bioelectic field just enough to make the skin link feature nonfunctional. The human body can tolerate it's field being messed with by a bit but it wont be a very good carrier wave anymore.

It wouldn't be permanent, just a way of cutting down on the enemies coordination in combat.

Basically I was thinking about a whole line of electronic warfare rounds.

Another idea I had was a round that just broadcasted it's location to cancel out ruth suits. You hit the area a few times till you get a signal that still moves, then you switch to the AP rounds and kill them.

Maybe a sticky pop round. The sticky substance is corrosive and designed to eat through armor materials. Then a sharnel goes off after a delay.

Or a stciky slice round that has small monoblades that spin into the target.

[kzt]

[TonkaTuff]

I don't really see why the induction jammer would be outside the bounds of possibility in the game world. Regular stick-n-shock rounds can transfer incapacitating levels of electricity into the body, through a thick (I imagine) layer of glue as well as clothing and armor, without penetration. So having one that adheres to the target and, instead, emits lower-energy pulses of electricity or other EM to specifically disrupt skinlink induction makes as much sense as anything.

Of course, I doubt these would be mass-produced rounds. Most people shoot at targets to take them out, not inconvenience them (though, admittedly, having a sucking chest wound is very inconvenient, too), and production designs tend to revolve around this concept. But a trained Armorer with access to a shop (if not a facility) would probably be able to make the necessary adjustments to the bog-standard SnS rounds - given a suitably high threshold. Or, I suppose, they could be the product of the same sort of manufacturer that'd make Dragon's Breath or Compressed Spice shells - with a very high Availability to reflect rarity. The other theoretical rounds you suggested (trackers, cutters, etc.) would also tend to fall into this category. And with the (meta)human imagination being what it is, it's probable that someone, somewhere, would have at least made the attempt.

Though, really, stick-n-shock rounds already approximate this ability. All electricity attacks have the chance of incapacitating electronics devices with their secondary damage effects for at least two combat turns (p. 154 of the hymnal). In fact, that is the only way the stunning attacks can affect vehicles/devices, per the rules. And it stands to reason that skinlinked devices would be more susceptible due to their reliance on the body's conductance to function. However, since most devices don't have individual armor ratings (vehicles, excluded), I dunno whether they expect you to make the roll with the possessor's armor or some standard rating off-the-shelf devices are supposed to have. Personally, since the character is generally the target, rather than a specific device, I suppose it'd be the former (the electricity has to beat the resistance of their Impact armor before it can affect anything beyond the point of contact).

[Garrowolf]

Well the anticomm rounds would be good for forced extractions or silencing someone you have orders not to hurt.

[Aaron]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[hobgoblin]

so pugging the electronics of a white noise generator into the shell of a SnS round should to the trick?