 More news of Origins, yeah..I saw the good stuff |
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 Jul 4 2005, 05:01 PM
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#101
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Shadowrun Setting Nerd  Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473  |
Meh. I don't see the point of wireless tech for anything that will remain in contact with your body or clothing 99.9% of the time, and that 0.1% of the time might as well be the same moment you needed to fire your gun from 11 meters away.
Say what? |
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Jul 4 2005, 05:15 PM
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#102
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
while its not coverd by any rules, wires have a bad habbit of getting caught on stuff or tangle and restrict movement. only if you say get clothing that have special fasteners on the inside and outside to channel the wires down specific paths are you removing that problem, but you still need wires that are long enough.
but if you want to get into that argument than you way allso ask why would one want to implant anything. just some oversized and thick sunglasses to act as a display for the smartgun info, some gloves to deal with the induction pads and a jacket to deal with the wires :P |
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Jul 4 2005, 05:29 PM
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#103
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Did you ever see a sammie in SR3 take the SL induction pads? Admitted i only saw it a couple of times, but i suspect that had more to do them taking extra essense. EDIT: Also i don't remember GMs usually strictly requiring that the PC take an action to jack in a different weapon, or to jack in a weapon that wasn't already obviously jacked in. It was one of those "we'll all ignore that logical requirement, for PCs and NPCs alike, to save the hassle". That would make the essense cost of the pads seem a lot cheaper, especially when quickdrawing that Predator 3 from the hidden holster. Since it seems to be the DNI that really chews up essense (cyberlimbs aside) wireless might actually end up being essense friendly compared to wiring up everything internally. As for the external wire harness have you ever tried this with cell phones and stuff IRL? Man what a pain, and i wasn't even scaling walls or getting shot at. |
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Jul 4 2005, 05:44 PM
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#104
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67 |
Well, there isn't a huge point to it. I don't think you're going to see everyone using wireless smartlinks. It's an option, and with it comes its own advantages and disadvantages. A wireless smartlink system will certainly be cheaper and more essence friendly than an implanted cybernetic system. If you use a wireless smartlink and wireless smartgoggles, there's no implantation at all. Now, you could also use an old school wired smartlink/goggle setup, which is likely also cheap and definitely essence friendly. But it also can be somewhat obvious (unless the wires are well hidden, there's a cable going from your gun to your glasses) and a bastard GM like me is going to have fun with your cables when you roll up a glitch. A wireless smartlink system can also be integrated easily into a network. You can bounce the data through other routers and to other users in the network (such as fellow runner teammates). Doing that with an old school external wired setup just isn't possible unless you shell out added cash for special wireless transmitters specifically for that purpose. Doing that with an implanted system requires additional implant tech, some sort of implant wireless transmitter. More essence loss. A wireless smartlink system may allow you to perform some neat tricks, depending on how much gun control is built into the system (something I personally don't know). Since it's wireless, as long as you're within range, you don't actually need to be touching the gun to do whatever it is you can do with a smartlink exactly. Probably not terribly useful (though I guess that really depends on what a smartlink allows you to do), but it's something you can't do with an implanted or wired setup. My characters, the ones who will use smartlinks, will go with implant. It's the safest, sure-fire solution. But a street ganger might not be terribly concerned about the safest, sure-fire solution. To him, a wireless setup is cheaper and easier to get, which is much more important. |
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Jul 4 2005, 05:58 PM
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#105
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MechRigger Delux Group: Retired Admins Posts: 1,151 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Hanger 18, WPAFB Member No.: 1,657 |
Magic is an attribute...it can be bought like a standard one from what I remember.. but it also means it caps at 6 ...I didn't read alot in the magic chapter (I'm more for tech stuff myself) I think Initiation just adds meta magic...and I don't know if you have the same 6/9 max roof that other attributes have with magic.
Spells are learned with no force rating now...and can be cast at any force from 1-12. Anything above your magic rating still does physical damage. |
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Jul 4 2005, 06:02 PM
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#106
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,512 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 392 |
Any more info on hacking rules? From what I've read so far it sounds like it hasn't really changed all that much--just rolling a lot more dice while making programs. It is essentially the same? Does that mean there is still code/value/ACIFS? BEMS? Do these new things such as drones being on essentially the same network as wireless devices mean that it will be less expensive and cumbersome to conduct electronic warfare? I can just see two man teams--hacker and mage--becoming the be all and end all.
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Jul 4 2005, 06:02 PM
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#107
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 442 Joined: 23-April 04 From: Pennsylvania Member No.: 6,280 |
Suppose there will be any new mortality rules to reflect the cancer that all these radio waves inevitably cause?
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Jul 4 2005, 06:08 PM
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#108
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
Thanks for the [almost] confirmation.
Since when did this become about YOUR desires and preferences? 8)
Whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this "9" you speak of? Is that the limit in total you have after factoring artifical sources like 'ware and such? Or just a post chargen limit like SR3 had, where every point is really expensive?
So more of a free-form than before for selecting how much punch you put in your spell. At first blush i like that tact. P.S. I guess that means some big changes in the area of hermetic libraries and such. |
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Jul 4 2005, 07:14 PM
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#109
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 293 Joined: 27-January 03 From: Kentucky, USA Member No.: 3,958 |
Suh-weet. I have a feeling this means that spells in general are more "expensive" to buy, but at least it gets rid of that annoying "why buy Spell X at more than Force 1?" problem. |
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Jul 4 2005, 07:13 PM
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#110
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,978 Joined: 26-February 02 From: New Jersey, USA Member No.: 500 |
Actually, low-power RF doesn't cause an appreciably higher cancer risk. |
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Jul 4 2005, 07:26 PM
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#111
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 437 Joined: 11-April 05 Member No.: 7,318 |
And certain tests seem to prove that low levels of radioactive background radiation actually negates development of cancer.
I guess it keeps the immune system on its toes, more than it kills off cells. |
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Jul 4 2005, 07:39 PM
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#112
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 511 Joined: 19-August 02 Member No.: 3,139 |
Just depressing. These changes to magic are drastically affecting the setting, the feel of the game. Now, these changes are kinda cool - if they were introduced say, several hundred years into the cycle, when magic is getting easier. But not now, and not this fast. (IN fact they do help me - I've been toying with a setting just before the Horrors come over, and looking for ideas to make magic easier, reflecting the rise in mana) As far as hacking guns, clothes, etc - think of this - How many home networks are called MSHome, and How many routers still have the default login/passwords. And how many have had the WEP actually activated. The average joe on the street will not have taken his new toy, accessed it's system and changed the settings - if they even knew how. And range? If your inflitating a corp facility, you'll be surrounded by WAP's. Once you are detected insystem, the corp decke can start in on your weapons, by the time the guards get there, you have no guns. And if your team is sharing data on some sort of network, well it's just that much easier. ***************** A question for the player at orgins: - any word on the Technomancers? Do they need any hardware at all to access the Matrix? |
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Jul 4 2005, 08:42 PM
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#113
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,278 Joined: 15-April 05 Member No.: 7,336 |
I think that the changes to hacking will, without a doubt, make decker/riggers a much more playable (in the sense that they can be integrated) set of characters, which tickles me pink. I think that the concerns of gun hacking could be negated by an appropriate mechanic -- technical spell defense or some similar nonsense.
I am mildly concerned about the changes to summoning because they seem to remove the distinction between hermeticism and shamanism. However, the alteration of spell force is a welcome change which I believe will make the game much stronger and far less confusing. |
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Jul 4 2005, 08:54 PM
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#114
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Grumpy Old Ork Decker Group: Admin Posts: 3,794 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Orwell, Ohio Member No.: 50 |
Everything electronic has protiection on it to avoid getting hacked. Better quality offers more protection, and there of course will be ways to imrpove the "Store Bought" protection systems.
While I'm not sure if Fanpro is going to work up any sort of "In game" resoning for the changes to magic. None of the other editions did (Spells always get reworked... 1st-2nd ed, you not only bought specific force levels, but also bought different spells for different damage levels. 3nd did away with grounding, changed the interaction between auras, and made it so you could change the damage level of a spell). I'm basically chalking it up to an aferteffect of the magic spike from YotC, and simple SOTA. Mages have access to a little more power now that the mana level has risen again. Thus they have a little more control of their spells, and can alter them a bit (aka, throw different force levels). As for spirits, I think a group of Shamans and a Group of Mages just finally got together to dicuss their different tradtions, and realized that with the inmcreased mana level, they could each do what the other used to. <shrug> Neither of these seems to have an apprciable aspect on the game beyond a little streamlining. And neither changes the feel anymore than taking away individual damage level spells did in 3rd ed. Bull |
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Jul 4 2005, 10:00 PM
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#115
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Guests |
Drain, stims, and magic loss.
It has been said that magic loss for deadly wounds is no longer a risk. What about potential magic loss from continued or over use of stim patches? For that matter, no one has come out and said anything about drain, so perhaps stims wont even come into play to back stop an over zealous mage. Any of you non-NDAers have some inside insight into this? |
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Jul 4 2005, 10:10 PM
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#116
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
another thing about wireless hacking. sure you can get in contact with a signal on the other end of the city if you want but there is picking up the signal and there is getting past the security.
irl wireless security to date have either worked on the security by obscurity rule or had some very flawed designs. how about we say that those AAA tech corps have some SKs on call that have one job only, crank out security systems and test them for flaws. then you add a feedback loop and let the SK sit in on a offline host and ponder its own creations. in the end you will be getting some interesting designs im sure ;) kinda makes me think of the fact that in count zero, gibson talked about it only being ai's that made icebreakers as they where the only entitys that could keep up with the ice development, again done by other ai's. |
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Jul 4 2005, 10:24 PM
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#117
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
I only give that Schleprock impersonation a 7.6. But a well placed "wowsy wowsy woo woo" would have likely gotten you into the high 8's. |
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Jul 4 2005, 10:48 PM
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#118
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 778 Joined: 6-April 05 Member No.: 7,298 |
That's right. Vibration modes of water are usually good frequencies to pick, although your signal will be better masked in the tropics than in the desert.
It's not that hard to get electronics that give you 100-1000x more sensitivity for detection, and an antenna 100-1000x larger than you have in a tiny RFID-reading device. So someone can snoop RFID from 100-1000x farther away than you'd expect. (That means four inches becomes ten meters, and an arm's length becomes a kilometer!) Also, you can send signals using a r^2 law also, so the same thing applies if you use your larger and more powerful transmission antenna along with your receiver. Basically, any radiation that decreases as r^2 is not particularly secure. Something that decreases as r^2 * e^(-r/s) is much better (taking advantage of atmospheric opacity) because exponentials drop off really fast; normally, you'd set up your system to operate within 1-2 characteristic lengths s; for someone to operate just 10x further away, they'd need to have a detector 100*e^10 = 2,200,000 times more sensitive. So there you're pretty safe outside of 10 characteristic lengths. I think there are bands where s is single-digit meters in the atmosphere.
Yes, the setting was changed for magic quite a bit. I almost didn't switch to SR3 because there were a number of ways in which the magic system was changed and dumbed down--anchoring, in particular, went from being powerful and versatile without (in my experience) being game-breaking, to being almost entirely useless. This was a big deal because my primary character got her Th.D. on topics related to anchoring, and that entire backstory (and a number of related runs) disappeared.
Since there were a number of improvements to the magic system (anchoring was not one, nor was grounding, but changing spells to sorcery was okay, and the damaging spells having variable drain levels was good), as well as some improvements in other places (and no huge new flaws), I stuck it out and wrote a few custom metamagics to avoid having my primary character's background (including a good deal of in-game play) become impossible. I've seen a lot of downsides to SR4, and no upsides that couldn't have been had with a modification of SR3 rules, so the motivation is, at this point, rather less. |
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Jul 4 2005, 10:53 PM
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#119
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 527 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,118 |
Just because the gun's smartlink won't accept a safety or fire command from your wireless interface beyond a certain very low range doesn't mean that the random hacker, with a device capable of generating that same command with a much stronger signal, can't do it from across the room (or across the city, state, or continent).
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Jul 4 2005, 10:56 PM
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#120
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 511 Joined: 19-August 02 Member No.: 3,139 |
Heh, every once and awhile, Ares Macrotech sends out a signal from one of it's satelites, a code to all SL weapons to engage the safety - that is all the ones that the owner didn't read the manual and change their security settings.
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Jul 4 2005, 11:36 PM
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#121
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263 |
This "dumbed down" term i've found intreging. I've seen it used, by you and others here and others in very different circumstances, often to describe a situation where a established strategy that takes advantage of an aspect of the game rules is removed. With the strategy removed the strategy starts looking like it had become more of a crutch than anything since there are plenty of other strategies to be found and used. So the complaint with the "dumbing down" looks more like a complaint based on having to find another tool to leverage. Ironic that "dumbing down" is more a description of intellectual sloth in user of the term than anything in the system or the designers they speaking ill of.
I just wonder if you weren't saying similar things 7 years ago. Bemoaning the dumbing down of SR2 to make way for the vastly inferior SR3. Till you actually saw SR3 and decided maybe it wasn't so bad and it'd be too much hassle to redo SR2. :) |
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Jul 4 2005, 11:35 PM
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#122
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Karma Police Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 1,358 Joined: 22-July 04 From: Gothenburg, SE Member No.: 6,505 |
Thatīs an awsome picture you painted there. Any megalomaniac organization would give themselves that power if they could. 8) |
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Jul 4 2005, 11:56 PM
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#123
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 778 Joined: 6-April 05 Member No.: 7,298 |
This is a pathetic debating tactic. You didn't actually address the changes to anchoring, but instead seized on a term and speculated upon it, and then speculated further upon the intellectual sloth of people who use that term. If you don't very carefully explain that you're not intending to discredit the argument or poster with irrelevant remarks, there's little incentive for other people to read what you say. In this particular case, Anchoring was converted from something where you had control of which spells you linked, and how, and how long the anchoring lasted, and so forth and so on. There was a great deal of sophistication present in the way you could use anchoring. In SR3, this was dumbed down--you have a detection spell, a linked spell, you set it up and boom! it goes off, and we're all done now. That is dumbing down. That is taking a system of moderate complexity that allowed great variety in how you used it, and turning it into something really simple. So your intrigue and supposition of intellectual sloth is completely off-base. I posit that a retraction or clarification is in order. Anchoring became essentially useless with SR3 because quickening was almost always preferable.
I wasn't.
[edit](Of course, I had specific complaints, and I did complain about Anchoring then, but they were topical complaints, not systemic ones.)[/edit] |
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Jul 5 2005, 12:35 AM
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#124
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67 |
Yeah, but you need to get through the encryption too. Today's secure RFID tags use a challenge-response protocol, so you need the tag (or the smartlink) to talk back to you to complete authentication (so you need to read the tag from a distance, since the tag definitely won't have the power to reach you). You're going to need one hell of directional antenna to do that from a distance. |
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Jul 5 2005, 12:57 AM
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#125
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Resident Legionnaire Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,136 Joined: 8-August 04 From: Usually Work Member No.: 6,550 |
Ellery: 1, blakkie: 0 I don't even read his stuff anymore, personally. |
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