Cyberware-Scanner Houserule Options

[NiL_FisK_Urd]

What do you think about the following house-rule?

Net Successes:

0 Location and rough number of cybernetic devices, RFID-Readouts, location of weapons and other items
1 Category of cybernetics, type of weapon
2 Purpose of cyber devices (e.g. eye-mod), presence and number of sub-systems (eg. cybereye-mods), weapon model (if in database)
3 Type and Rating of the devices, purpose of Sub-systems
4 Exact model of the Cybernetic device (if in database), Type and Rating of sub-systems

Now, walking through a cyberscanner is not instant-doom for a sammy - if he got his permits to match the RFID-Tags on the ware, he should have no problem, but if he has no licenses, he is in for a bad day.

[BishopMcQ]

I'm a little confused here, since it looks like you want to make it harder to detect cyberware, but your table seems to just break down the details of what order information is given by net hits over the threshold. Is that what this table is supposed to be--a breakdown of info based on additional hits?

I don't see how the current rules are instant-doom for a Sammy. Can you expand on that for me? Are you rolling the Rating of the scanner, Ratingx2, something else?

[FriendoftheDork]

I never really liked rolling for a scanner anyway - they are usually reliant enough that they will not arbitrarily fail. If anything, it's the operator that should roll his skill+rating of the equipment to see if he actually uses it properly.

Imagine if having a pistol on you through an airport metal detector portal would not register 50% or even 20% of the time...

[kzt]

It gets reported about once a month that someone accidentally carried a pistol through security and onto a plane. And that is only from the people who are dumb enough to then report it. Though TSA did spot the pocket knife I forgot and French airport security at Charles de Gaulle got all excited about my two carabiners.

[Tanegar]

Carabiners? This kind of carabiner?

[tsuyoshikentsu]

That's a deadly weapon in France.

[Tanegar]

I suppose, if it were one of the bigger ones, you could use it as an improvised brass knuckle or something...

[kzt]

Carabiners? This kind of carabiner?

Actually this kind. I was using it to lock my carry-on backpack to the big backpack Swiss made me check.

[Tanegar]

Same thing. Still not seeing how the French looked at that and automatically thought, "weapon."

[Halinn]

Same thing. Still not seeing how the French looked at that and automatically thought, "weapon."

It's the explosives concealed in the lock. kzt isn't telling us the whole story.

[FriendoftheDork]

It gets reported about once a month that someone accidentally carried a pistol through security and onto a plane. And that is only from the people who are dumb enough to then report it. Though TSA did spot the pocket knife I forgot and French airport security at Charles de Gaulle got all excited about my two carabiners.

Point is it is mostly human error, not the device being random. You could have the detector set not sensitive enough off course, but if it is calibrated properly, it works.

[FriendoftheDork]

Same thing. Still not seeing how the French looked at that and automatically thought, "weapon."

Well Carabine is a french word for a type of weapon, so if you explained "oh no, it's just a carbabiner!" they might have gotten suspicious.

In any case, golden rule is that if you don't know what it is, and it's made of metal, then you find out what it is.

[Tanegar]

Who the hell doesn't know what a carabiner is? They might not know the word, but I feel pretty confident that anyone manning a security post in a country sufficiently developed to have an airport has probably seen a carabiner before and has a rough idea of what they're used for.

[kzt]

She showed it being used as an improvised set of brass knuckles. I don't speak French and she didn't speak much English, and arguing with security officials in a foreign country over $30 bucks worth of aluminum didn't seem like a good idea. So I said, OK, sorry about that, and collected my bag.

[FriendoftheDork]

She showed it being used as an improvised set of brass knuckles. I don't speak French and she didn't speak much English, and arguing with security officials in a foreign country over $30 bucks worth of aluminum didn't seem like a good idea. So I said, OK, sorry about that, and collected my bag.

Good call.

I didn't know this was, but I would be wary of anyone coming with metal items of that size. If in doubt, put it in your luggage. I've gotten swords through customs with no problems.

[Iduno]

Point is it is mostly human error, not the device being random. You could have the detector set not sensitive enough off course, but if it is calibrated properly, it works.

I think part of the problem with them detecting successfully is higher success rates also come with higher false positive rates. If I remember correctly, the facial recognition software they started using at airports for frequent customers ended up letting people through who weren't registered in the system, because the other option was constantly creating more hassles for the valuable customers because their hair was slightly longer/shorter out than when the picture was taken or they'd cut themselves shaving, or they were standing at a slightly different angle. Point being that the calibration is choosing which direction you want your errors, not removing them.

The device not picking up the cyberware could be poor calibration, operator error, false positives, or false negatives. It's just easier to abstract it all into a success failure thing. Although understanding the system does make glitches/critical glitches (potentially) more interesting.