jetpacks and personal shield generators, trck i want to see Options

[Straight Razor]

ok, i know we have the jetpack conversation before, but here it is again.
it dawned on me that jetpacks are mentioned in cannon the other day. in paranormal animals of Europe the flavor text for the minator mentions a runner using one. so lets see if we can get some rules for the things.
it will need its own drive skill or default to reaction.
lets assume that they are customized for the owner for balance and weight to thrust ratio. It can handle with the pilot plus half there weight again.
as for rules sake lets consider them a drone that can be operated, manually, VCR, or RCD
body: 1
start cf: 1
max cf: 3
handling: 4
armor: 0
autonav/pilot: -/1
sensor/sonar: 1/-
seating: 1* special
DP: 250
mark-up factor: 1.0
VTOL
base price: ??

OK second item. personal shield generators.
I have 2 versions for this idea

1st. the Dune shield.
5,000 per rateing, gives you 1/0 per rating. you can't shoot out of it ether.

2nd version
10,000 per rating, gives you 1/1 per rating, you can shoot out of this if you gun is sinked to the shield.

[Stahlseele]

shield thingie would probably be a bullet barrier spell anchored to you or something i'd sa . . with technology not doable in SR

[Kyleigh Wester]

I disagree. I think shields are very doable with SR technology if you can find a psuedo-scientific explanation for it's existence. As long as it's plausable scientifically then it can be used in SR technology I believe. At least to a reasonable extent. And 1/1 sucks anyway so it's not overpowered.

[Straight Razor]

i don't want magic to solve these. i want them to be 100% tech.
the jetpack is simple enough, nothing that far from cannon tech, hover-cars and all.

Hoge-Ellis field (Personal shield) generators comprise of two small devices that are worn at the waste or mid-body. It is important that they are worn polar opposite from each other. The underside of the devices are a bare metal contact which must contact the users skin. Approximately 4^2 cm of flesh must contact each device. There are a number of accessory devices commonly used with these devices, for more piratical usage. Most notably are Hoge-Ellis field limiters. These help shape the fields. There most common usage is terminating the field at the feet of the user, allowing the user to move naturally.

The Hoge-Ellis field is essentially an inertial dampener. The more kinetic energy an object has the more it is effected by the field.
The field is generated by first creating a coronal discharge of near-zero-point energy around the user. This energy field is held as a potential to generate larger bursts of negative energy at localized areas of the field. Once a Lager kinetic mass of positive energy enters the field-effect-area an inverse amount of negative energy is released into the entering mass equal to the potential difference of the field and the target.
Due to the amount of energy needed to sustain the corona it becomes increasingly difficult to effect objects moving slower that 75 meters per second.

game effects:
Hoge-Ellis field generators can be bought at various power levels, and in to configurations.

first configuration: Type I
this field generator provides 1/0 per rating of the device. coast = (rating * 2,000Y)

Second configuration: Type II
This is a much higher power demanding device and the price reflects it.
this field generator provides 1/1 per rating of the device. coast = (rating * 5,000Y)

field generators can cover the whole body or any half of it. The user can select full-body, left side, right sied, front, or back
rating 1 fields are considered to only cover 1/2 of the user, though they can choose what half, and change it as a simple action.
rating 2 or better normaly encloses the entire body, though it can be switched to 1/2 mode as a simple action. This reduces the armor it provides by 1/2 round down.

Hoge-Ellis fields apply to anything with in them regardless of it source. So that anything the user dose is also effected. in order to shoot out of ether field it must be set to 1/2 mode, In order to engage in melee the Type II must be set to 1/2 mode. Melee dose not effect the user of a Type I
Failure to adjust the field results it the power of the attack being reduced as though it went through a barrier of the fields rating.

All setting chances to to the device require a simple action.

It should also be noted that any attempt by sensors to see ,or lock-on to, the user of a Hoge-Ellis device gets a -1TN for every rateing of the field (round up) for the Type I, and -2tn for the Type II.

[Straight Razor]

bump due to my excessive editing of the above post. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

[Larme]

Dune is a setting thousands, even tens of thousands of years in the future. I don't see importing technology from there into Shadowrun. Shadowrun is, and always has been, a near future setting. Jump packs fit ok, they exist IRL even though they're not practical. But personal forcefields are not near future, they're more Star Trek era. The only field I'd expect to see in Shadowrun would be some kind of magnetic deflector field that can only be mounted on large vehicles and still isn't that powerful.

[Shrike30]

*missed the SR3 tag*

This post has been edited by Shrike30: Mar 29 2008, 06:33 AM

[Dr Funfrock]

1st. the Dune shield.
5,000 per rateing, gives you 1/0 per rating. you can't shoot out of it ether.

Ok, I know this is nitpicking (and I've just been browsing 4Chan, so this will be rantier than usual), but you've really missed the point of the Dune shields. Bypassing them required you to very carefully pull your blow; they very clearly offered massive amounts of impact armour otherwise.
That said I'll be fair and assume that you were just using Dune as an illustration, rather than directly attempting to model the shields from Dune.

If that was your intention, however, I'd suggest very different statting. Dune shields would basically make you immune to kinetic attacks (hit it with a laser and you e'splode), unless an attacker in melee takes a... oh, let's say +6 TN# called shot to bypass the shield. Combat would involve a lot of misses, just like in the books.

I'll also agree with the point made earlier that attempting to bring any sort of forcefield into Shadowrun definitely qualifies as a bad idea.

[Straight Razor]

Mmm yes, a total tech drag-over of the dune belt-shield into SR would be harsh and would require a massive rule set just for their use. not that massive rule sets for small modules of SR are out of the norm.

But i was just using the dune reference as an illustration for a device that only works on high speed objects. Seeing as the up-grade version works on all moving objects.

I don't think the devices i have described are that too far out of the tech range. and they don't even introduce a new game effect. i is just a cyber version of the shield spell, and heavily flawed too.

[Lionhearted]

Hmm.. I would rather think a personal shield generator as a movable cover with a certain barrier rating and structure rating before it breaks.. With smaller variants supplying themselves with power.. from i dont know, sunlight.. acid rain, frickin' japanese satellite power.. and then we got the larger more powerful variant complete with a Batterypack.. rechargeable .. for your convience (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) (Im not going to stat something up, cause im still pretty green and i dont know a bit 'bout balancing, just throwing balls in the right direction .. catch?)
"Hi d'ya got any shield generators?"
"What?"
"Yeah.. you know, like a field that covers you and stops bullet"
"Why would you need that?.. you can always hide behind a wall or something.."
"Right.. d'ya got any brick walls with handles?"

[Stahlseele]

i remember a run, where a certain troll did something similar . . just more or less ripped off a door from an armored transport and used the window made of armor-glass(??) to see through while he carried a big as tower-shield of hardened armor . .

[hermit]

The Dune shield uses something called the Helmholtz effect (whatever that may be) that bends the universe in an interesting way to make fast stuff go slowly in the shield's proxmity and stop, eventually, though retaining it's kinetic energy. Stuff that is slow enough hardly feels that effect, but the faster something goes, the more it slows down, using up it's knietic energy on itself (crushing and/or heating). Following that, photons and their infinite kinetic enegry don't really take this shield too well. Thus, the Dune shield has this nice feature of exploding on the two-digit kiloton scale when fired at with a laser. Arguably, this would only take strong flashlights or even targeting laser devices, or sunlight, as I see little real difference between phase/frequemcy-synchronised and phase/frequency-asynchronous photons when it comes to kinetic energy, making this gear rather useless, unless you really want to be at ground zero of what effectively is a little supernova the instant you turn it on. I seriously doupt anyone would develop such a dumbass technology to usable prototype stage. Aside from the fact that it seems to require space-bending hyperspace jump technology, which argaubly isn't present in SR.

Now, Star Trek Shields work on a "it's magic technology, because some smart person once said the more advanced technology is ahead of your own the more it's magic. Well, magic, SR can do. A Star Tek-y personal deflector could easily be achieved by having a potent armour spell anchored to a small commlink pin that will go beep when you touch it and call the captain, too, at no additional cost! And if you have an elf do this, you can even claim it's Vulcan technology. Now how leet is that?!

Personal jet packs also are great and perfectly doable with Sr tech, even if not really discreet as a levitation spell would be. But you get that nice Rocketeer feel, and that's worth a lot, too, I can see that. Just don't turn them on when using the deflector, unless you'd really like to burn to death on your own turbine's exhaust.

Hmm.. I would rather think a personal shield generator as a movable cover with a certain barrier rating and structure rating before it breaks..

Yes. Anchored physical barriers rock. I recommend dressing in a milspec fullbody with mirrored face plate or heavy biomodding including raptor legs and a facial resculpt adding predator-y jaws and calling that character either Master Chief or The Arbiter.

Now, the Covenant Needler would be something neat to have. Homing arrows. Mmmmmh. And you can dual-wield it too!

[hobgoblin]

i remember a run, where a certain troll did something similar . . just more or less ripped off a door from an armored transport and used the window made of armor-glass(??) to see through while he carried a big as tower-shield of hardened armor . .

now that sounds like a hardened riot shield to me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[hermit]

Improvised, no less. Now that's Style.

[Stahlseele]

yeah, it fit to the improvised pole-arm . . a taken down lamp-post *g*
but jet-pack should be more or less totally viable in SR4 at least . . there's small vector thrust drones that can support the weight of a metahuman body, if i ain't mistaken . . at least since weight has been handwaved officially *g*
so just rebuild it to be attachable to your cyber-torso and have the vector-thrust go just into the general direction of your feet more or less . . you could even steer it by will with WiFi/rigging implant . . or if you're old-school, you could still place two steering hot rods onto the drone for throttle and balance *g*

[Straight Razor]

Just don't turn them (jetpack) on when using the deflector, unless you'd really like to burn to death on your own turbine's exhaust.

I'll be laughing at that mental image for days.


I'm really not looking to bring the dune shield in to SR just a Tech look-a-like for the armor spell.

[Daier Mune]

i just wanna throw this into the discussion here: while totaly sweet, a jetpack isn't a practical form of transportation. its about the same as strapping yourself onto a missile, with highly volitile fuels and all that. traveling at over a hundred miles an hour with nothing between you and the elements is actualy pretty dangerous. accelerating from zero to top speed in a few seconds would give you hella whiplash to most of your internal organs (rockets aren't known for controlled acceleration).

turbine powered personal mobility vehicles (as seen in SR4) are generaly a safer bet.

[Straight Razor]

Eaa, your bring down my fantasy with your reality

"Every time you try to drag real physics into a discussion about a fantasy story, God kills a catgirl."

[b1ffov3rfl0w]

i remember a run, where a certain troll did something similar . . just more or less ripped off a door from an armored transport and used the window made of armor-glass(??) to see through while he carried a big as tower-shield of hardened armor . .

An' if it gets too hot, I jus' roll da winda down!

[Stahlseele]

(rockets aren't known for controlled acceleration)

i ain't really sure if it's real, but i once saw realistic enough ooking video footage on some documentary on TV that showed somebody using a jetpack without trouble . . ok, he used it more like a harrier would, going up some meters then going forward a good bit of way then down again . . but in SR, especially 4th, they should have gotten the biggest problem of such things under control . . the damn limited fuel capacity only allowing little jumps . . you could probably jump over one buildingl, but not over a tall one . .

nah, window would not be rolled down because of heat . . he was too lazy to go anywhere out of his nice mediocre temperated town *g*

[Daier Mune]

"Every time you try to drag real physics into a discussion about a fantasy story, God kills a catgirl."

is that meant to dissuade me?

now, maybe...maybe you could have a jumpjet rig as a sort of vertical terrain assistance vehicle. probably look like a lunar lander that you'd wear, and would only be good for maybe fifteen minutes of flight at a time. the fuel tanks are still the biggest liability, since adding armor to the rig adds weight, which requires larger engines to lift, which adds weight...ect, ect.

a turbine powered setup could be run off electricity (reducing the number of volitile components of the vehicle), and wouldn't have superheated exhaust.

[Moon-Hawk]

Yes. Anchored physical barriers rock. I recommend dressing in a milspec fullbody with mirrored face plate or heavy biomodding including raptor legs and a facial resculpt adding predator-y jaws and calling that character either Master Chief or The Arbiter.

Speaking of which, more video-gamey shields could simply be a few boxes of regenerating damage taken before any normal resistance.
So, for example, say you have 10 boxes of "shields"
Someone shoots at you with a 5P attack, gets 4 successes, and you dodge for 2. You're hit and facing 7P damage.
Your shields eat it, and are now at 3 boxes of shields. The next turn, say 2 boxes regenerate, because that's the shield regeneration rate which I've made up just now, so the next turn your shields are up to 5 boxes.
You get shot again with the exact same rolls, to keep things simple. The incoming 7P damage meets your 5 boxes of shields, completely obliterating them, leaving 2P damage, which is now resisted by armor and body normally, but now your shields are gone. Uh-oh.
God damn it it's simple, it meshes with the existing mechanics well, and it's video-gamey.

Oh, and it totally doesn't fit in SR, but I maintain it's video-gamey sweetness.

edit: Remembered SR3 tag. It doesn't work as well with SR3 staging. Oops.

[thegreatbuddha]

Thus, the Dune shield has this nice feature of exploding on the two-digit kiloton scale when fired at with a laser.

I haven't read Dune in a really long time, but I'm pretty sure they weren't true lasers. I seem to recall something about atomic energy and them being called lasguns. Or I'm just really tired and misremembering the whole thing.

[Kyoto Kid]

...here at Aeon Labs we would love to give details of our new PPF (Personal Protective Field), but then we'd have to employ you. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)