War! Gear & Rules, What's good, iffy, needs fixing or a complete revamp? Options

[sabs]

Jammer: This device floods the airwaves with electromagnetic jamming signals to block out wireless and radio communication. The jammer automatically jams any device with a Signal rating lower than its Device rating. The area jammer affects a spherical area—its rating is reduced by 1 for every 5 meters from the center (similar to the blast rules for grenades). The directional jammer affects a conical area with a 30-degree spread—its rating is reduced by 1 for every 20 meters from the center. Walls and other obstacles may prevent the jamming signal from spreading or reduce its effect (gamemaster’s discretion)

ECCM (none)
Electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) filter out jamming signals that attempt to disrupt a wireless connection. An ECCM program adds its rating to the Signal rating of the device on which it is running when defending against jamming (see p. 246).

Jamming on the fly is a Complex Action and requires some device with a Signal rating (such as a commlink, radio, or drone) to act as an impromptu jammer. Make an Opposed Test between the rigger’s Electronic Warfare skill + Signal rating and the target’s Electronic Warfare + Signal rating; the target adds the rating of any ECCM program she has running to her dice pool for the test. If the Opposed Test is successful, the signal is jammed; otherwise it is unaffected. Jamming on the fly is area jamming and affects a spherical area—the impromptu jammer’s Signal rating is reduced by 1 for every five meters from the centre.

So jamming is either: use a jammer:
Signal Rating + ECCM Rating - Jammer Rating = New Rating: Check the signal table for your new range.

OR

Jamming on the Fly
Electronic Warfare + Signal Rating + ECCM Rating vs Electronic Warfare + Signal Rating
The side to get more hits wins (ties go to defender)

[Rotbart van Dain...]

So jamming is either: use a jammer:
Signal Rating + ECCM Rating - Jammer Rating = New Rating: Check the signal table for your new range.

No. The range does not change at all. The ratings are just compared and the jammer needs to win.

[sabs]

Wow I was giving jammers to much credit.

That's not even a bad House Rule..

[Stahlseele]

Just came up elsewhere . .
Use the Target Spell to make yourself immune to guided weapons . .
Cast it at some rock you don't care about and watch the fireworks. .
Guided Weapons are expensive enough when they hit.
If they don't hit, it's literally tons of money being simply burned up . .

[Tzeentch]

-- I don't think the Designate spell can work like that, because Shadowrun lacks any rules for spoofing designators in the first place. They just "work."

POSSIBLE VEHICLE FIXES
-- Aside from their stats, which seem to have been chosen by throwing a dart at the wall (compare the Ferret cost to the Cuanmitztli), the vehicles look to need a polishing pass when it comes to standard upgrades. Here's a possible set of suggestions:

Ares Ocelot Assault Tank
* Add life support.
Standard Upgrades: Armor (smart), extra entry/exit point, gyro link, life support (Level 1), multifuel engine, personal armor (Rating 4), rigger adaptation, smoke projector, tracked vehicle, weapon mount (reinforced, external, heavy turret, remote), weapon mount (normal, external, turret, remote)


Aztechnology Cuanmitztli Main Battle Tank
* Add gyro link, drone rack, signature masking, smoke projector, ECM, ECCM.
Standard Upgrades: Armor (smart), 3 ammo bins (one for each weapon mount), small drone rack, ECM 4, ECCM 4, gyro link, improved sensor array, life support (Level 1), missile defense system, rigger adaptation, signature masking (Rating 2), smoke projector, tracked vehicle, weapon mount (reinforced, external, heavy turret, armored manual, remote), weapon mount (reinforced, external, turret, remote), 2 weapon mounts (reinforced, external, flexible, remote).

CI-131 Mobile Headquarters
* Probably would be better off upgrading a civilian or security vehicle.

KM-3103 Kreutzritter Mobile Support Gun
* Add ECCM.
* Doesn't come with a laser or howitzer so rewrote to be generic. Ammo bin instead of ammo "box" which isn't an option.
* Why doesn't a single vehicle here spell out the weapon mount options like it should?
Standard Upgrades: Ammo bin (fixed mount), ECM 6, ECCM 4, improved sensor array, missile defense system, rigger adaptation, tracked vehicle, weapon mount (reinforced, external, fixed, armored manual), weapon mount (normal, external, flexible, remote).

Mitsuhama Okami Infantry Fighting Vehicle
* Vastly overpriced (or the tanks are underpriced, I think the latter).
* Add ECCM and life support.
Standard Upgrades: ECM 3, ECCM 3, 6 gun ports, gyro link, life support (Level 1), personal armor (Rating 4), rigger adaptation, signature masking (Rating 2), smoke projector, tracked vehicle, weapon mount (reinforced, external, heavy turret, remote), 3 weapon mounts (normal, external, flexible, remote).

Shiawase Hephaestus A-2 Fast Attack Vehicle
* Modify a civilian vehicle. Armor Rating power creep in action.

Wuxing Ferret Heavy Mortar Carrier
* Laughably overpriced.
* Add ECCM and life support.
Standard Upgrades: Ammo box (heavy mortar), ECM 4, ECCM 2, life support (Level 1), rigger adaptation, weapon mount (reinforced, external, heavy turret, armored manual).

YNT Pushka Okne Tank
* Actually sucks more than it appears because it doesn't have smart armor (which is a big deal).
* Remove rigger adaptation (it doesn't even have smoke projectors in the original writeup, why rigger adaptation?).
Standard Upgrades: 2 gun ports, tracked vehicle, weapon mount (reinforced, external, heavy turret, armored manual)

[Nath]

Shiawase Hephaestus A-2 Fast Attack Vehicle
* Modify a civilian vehicle. Armor Rating power creep in action.

The way I understood it first, the A-2 is not similar to the Chenowth Fast-Attack Vehicle, but rather to Panhard VBL or even LGS Fennek, which you can't treat as upgraded civilian vehicles.

[Stahlseele]

-- I don't think the Designate spell can work like that, because Shadowrun lacks any rules for spoofing designators in the first place. They just "work."

Well, arguably, the spell tells guided weapons what to hit.
Nowhere does it say how and why it works and why should it be limited to friendly fire?

[Tzeentch]

The way I understood it first, the A-2 is not similar to the Chenowth Fast-Attack Vehicle, but rather to Panhard VBL or even LGS Fennek, which you can't treat as upgraded civilian vehicles.

-- I dunno. If I didn't need to do further modifications something like the COP (12 slots; p. 114, Arsenal) could do everything the Hephaestus does.

Ammo bin [1]: 200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)
Armor (normal) 16 [1]: 3,200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)
Weapon mount (reinforced, external, turret, remote) [5]: 9,500 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)
= 7 slots, +12,900 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)

End up with slightly worse Accel, Body, Pilot (didn't both upgrading it), but better Handling, Speed, and a massively lower pricetag (140K (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for the Hephaestus, a budget 30,900 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for my SuperCOP).

Like I said, I think they just threw darts at a board to get the War! vehicle stats. Certainly no effort was made to compare them to existing craft that I can see.

[Sengir]

Well, arguably, the spell tells guided weapons what to hit.
Nowhere does it say how and why it works and why should it be limited to friendly fire?

As said over at the CGL forum, the same is true for electronic designators. So Designate really emulates target designators, including the lack of hard rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

By RAI, you need to comunicate with the firer so the fireworks start when the target has been painted, the same channel can be used to establish the "targeting code". A commcall, a preplanned scheme like "firing commences at 1230, munitions will scan for guidance code ABC", semaphores...

[otakusensei]

As said over at the CGL forum, the same is true for electronic designators. So Designate really emulates target designators, including the lack of hard rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

By RAI, you need to comunicate with the firer so the fireworks start when the target has been painted, the same channel can be used to establish the "targeting code". A commcall, a preplanned scheme like "firing commences at 1230, munitions will scan for guidance code ABC", semaphores...

That's confusing two different rules. Rules which ignore reality, unfortunately.

Information-Based indirect fire uses telemetry gathered by a spotter and shared via wireless to the weapon to guide the shot. Spotter makes a sensor test and adds successes to the weapons attack, attack looses the -6 blind fire penalty.

Designator-Based indirect fire uses a spotter with a target designator of some kind to "paint" the target. The attack by the weapon must have a seeker head of some kind so it can find the paint, but it doesn't cover a link between designator and weapon or define clearly how the seeker knows which target it is intended to hit.

That's a fault of the mechanics in Arsenal for making the rules too basic and not compensating for a modern battlefield where outfitting everyone on the team with a collect of designators is cost effective and a clever tactic to try to fool enemy guided weapons. Advanced rules for indirect fire would have been a great idea in a book about war, but, well.

Compound this misunderstanding with Aaron posting here and basically getting things mixed up by suggesting that a designator, which is only used in Designator-Based indirect fire, would have anything to do with encryption, which is only a factor in Information-Based indirect fire.

[Draco18s]

Like I said, I think they just threw darts at a board to get the War! vehicle stats. Certainly no effort was made to compare them to existing craft that I can see.

Sounds like the Bing search engine.
(No really, a friend of mine works at a place that does SEO and no one, and I mean no one has been able to figure out how Bing prioritizes results and they've decided that Microsoft throws darts)

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Sounds like the Bing search engine.
(No really, a friend of mine works at a place that does SEO and no one, and I mean no one has been able to figure out how Bing prioritizes results and they've decided that Microsoft throws darts)

Or perhaps they play poker under the rules of my sig (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[Draco18s]

Or perhaps they play poker under the rules of my sig (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Could be.

[Sengir]

That's confusing two different rules.

I didn't say you need to send telemetry, I said that spotter and gun crew need to synchronize so the cannon cockers know when the target has been painted and they can start firing. And no matter whether this is done by preplanned fire mission or calling 0-800-BIGBOOM, one can simply assume the codes (the ones used to distinguish different designators) are transmitted the same way.

[otakusensei]

I didn't say you need to send telemetry, I said that spotter and gun crew need to synchronize so the cannon cockers know when the target has been painted and they can start firing. And no matter whether this is done by preplanned fire mission or calling 0-800-BIGBOOM, one can simply assume the codes (the ones used to distinguish different designators) are transmitted the same way.

No, I'm with you. Real world that's how it works.

I'm just talking the rules out of Arsenal. They basically set up Info-Based as a method that can be hacked and jammed and is basically susceptible to all the things you would think a system would be susceptible to in Shadowrun. But then present Designator-Based as just working automagically as long as there is a designator in play. No explanation is given for how the weapon knows which target to hit, it's all hand waived as long as the weapon has a seeker head.

Matt on the official forums was talking about codes and such, but that's wrong. There's no code in the rules. It's fucked up, but designator based indirect fire under the rules can't be stopped or fooled.

If I didn't know any better I'd say they made the spell because designators are already magical.

[Sengir]

No explanation is given for how the weapon knows which target to hit, it's all hand waived as long as the weapon has a seeker head.

OK, once more:
1.) The firing crew does not know when the target is marked
2.) Therefore the spotter has to tell the guy at the trigger "target is painted, go get'em" (or do the equivalent with an automated platform). Yes, this is not mentioned in the rules, but should be extremely obvious.
3.) If communication is taking place anyway, it may as well be assumed that the whole technical information exchange is taking place behind the scenes, without the players having to act it out.

No sweat, no further gameplay complications, no fundamentals of magic touched.

[Semerkhet]

If I remember correctly, it is described as having "hundreds of meters of monowire" inside it and it costs 150¥.
Meanwhile, monowire costs 1000¥ per meter.

So 150¥ and a wrench nets you 100,000¥ worth of monowire. Actually more, since "hundreds" is plural.

It might also do to mention that monowire and microwire have the same 8P damage effects, while monowire is 10F 1,000¥/m compared to 4(fully legal) 50¥/100m for microwire. Though, I suppose microwire never mentions any AP effects..

Not that I've tried this at home, mind you, but my impression has always been that mono-molecular filament wire gets its particular slicing capabilities precisely because of the "mono" part. If you change it to "micro" then you get the equivalent of garroting someone with piano wire, i.e. really damned gruesome and effective when you have a metahuman applying direct torque. I haven't done the math but my instinct is that if you took piano wire and put it in a grenade with tiny weights (perhaps depleted uranium for max weight/volume ratio) spaced every meter the explosion still wouldn't impart enough momentum to the weights to pull the microwire with the same force as the person in my garroting example. In contrast, the mono-molecular line is a whole different order of magnitude in terms of its ability to cut through solids with very little force necessary.

So I'm saying that I don't think "micro" works in the kind of grenade we're talking about. Of course, my solution to the "grenades worth their weight in gold" problem is equally simple. Mono-filament wire shouldn't cost 1000¥ per meter. If you have the technological capability to mass-produce mono-filament, I find it hard to believe that the actual production costs would be very high at all. 1000¥/meter stinks of a meta-game attempt to keep it rare in actual play. I'd prefer to keep it rare by emphasizing consequences, making its use by shadowrunners a very serious escalation from the point of view of law enforcement and corp security.

[Stahlseele]

Well . . Seeing how a snapping cable from a crane or something can slice people in half today, i think a flying cable with weighted ends that is thinner would have no trouble doing such a thing either.

[Doc Chase]

Right - though propelling such with an uncontrolled explosion isn't going to do the job.

Frankly, the whole monofilament grenade needs to be redone. They've got too much wire packed in too small a package with the expectation that it's going to deforest six square meters or so in the penultimate antipersonnel grenade, but I'm pretty sure exploding wire like that won't work that way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Cut it to a larger grenade or a remote-detonated mine, pack it into a Bouncing Betty, and let the DU ends run the spools out to cut everything apart in that kind of area. Then when the battery's expended, the spools slide right back in like a weed-eater.

[Draco18s]

Well . . Seeing how a snapping cable from a crane or something can slice people in half today, i think a flying cable with weighted ends that is thinner would have no trouble doing such a thing either.

F = MV^2

Microwire / monofilament wire -> Extremely low mass
Grenade explosion -> Moderate Velocity

Flying bridge cable -> Large mass
Snapping after being forced taught -> Extreme velocity

A 400 pound cable snapping has far more potential energy than a mere grenade.

[Semerkhet]

Well . . Seeing how a snapping cable from a crane or something can slice people in half today, i think a flying cable with weighted ends that is thinner would have no trouble doing such a thing either.

That's because crane cable is, compared to mono-wire, incredibly heavy and therefore carries a great deal of momentum when accelerated by release from a very high-tension state.

That's where this issue breaks down into whether I, or anyone else, is willing to spend some time to do the physics. How thin does the wire have to be to fit hundreds of meters of it into a grenade? How many and what size and made of what material are the weights? What is the explosive force produced by the grenade? How does that explosive force translate into imparted momentum of the weights? What velocity does the wire attain in the first fractions of a second and first meter of travel distance? If we did that math we could probably get an idea about whether or not you needed *actual* mono-filament or just micro-wire.

[Draco18s]

How thin does the wire have to be to fit hundreds of meters of it into a grenade?

Actually, that's an easy question to answer. The human DNA molecule is 3 meters long (in each and every cell in the body).

So the answer is "not very." 100 meters of DNA would be the volume of a single cell, possibly less (and as we all know, DNA is not a terribly thin molecule).

[Doc Chase]

Actually, that's an easy question to answer. The human DNA molecule is 3 meters long (in each and every cell in the body).

So the answer is "not very." 100 meters of DNA would be the volume of a single cell, possibly less.

Yes, but can it slice someone to ribbons?











Don't look at me like that. I couldn't help it.

[Draco18s]

Obviously monofillament wire is a brand of carbon nanotube, nor "1 molecule thick." (Even a chain of double-bonded carbon atoms wouldn't have the strength to actually cut anything)

[Sengir]

Obviously monofillament wire is a brand of carbon nanotube, nor "1 molecule thick." (Even a chain of double-bonded carbon atoms wouldn't have the strength to actually cut anything)

Monowire is a brand of Handwavium, of course it has the strength and mass to cut stuff (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Oh, something I recently saw: Microwire, used for climbing and available for 50NY/100m. In the BBB section for climbing gear. So different brands of ultra thin handweavium wire are completely RAW, one which is cheap and dissolves shortly after air contact sounds not far-fetched. Now I don't believe the devs thought about that, but it's a convenient explaination to stop players from making infinite money (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)