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kenny26
the other day, one of my players came to me and asked me "what would it cost to cover an ares citymaster (to my knowledge this van is pretty simular to a SWAT team's van) with ruthenium polymers?"
and i couldn't give the guy an answer...
one of my friends know alot about cars and when i asked him about the surface of a van, he could only tell me how many liters of paint it would take to cover it, but the statistics for ruthenium polymers in the M&M are measured in square meters.

so my question is now: how big is the surface of the van (or any other vehicle) when measured in square meters?
i'm, completely lost here, help me out... ohplease.gif
Siege
Ummm....eerrrrrr....

Ya know, that's a damned good question.

That fact he could afford enough of the stuff to cover an APC is pretty impressive.

-Siege
kenny26
well, you can afford it at character creation with a million bucks to spend and no street index...
Tanka
Supposedly...
Aramus
Let say.... around 6-8 square meter per side... 4 for the rear... 5 for front..

IMHO, around 25-35 square meter.
252
A good picture of the Ares City Master can be seen on the color picture pages in Rigger 2. I particularly found it funny that somehow a friend of mine started with one of these beasts at character generation. Okay so I have no idea why my GM allows for so fragrant use of heavy handed stuff, however maybe because he is a good GM and it would have soon been destroyed because of Minchism, or some such thing. I think the player got wise though because a week later he had a new character who wasn't anywhere near as bad.

Then again he has a predator like tenchno-invisibility device. I'm not sure how much it costs but crap, and I think that's all I wrote.
nezumi
252 - Unfortunately, I don't recollect the main book having any other vans, so I buy a citymaster whenever I just want something big. We did a gang campaign and that's effectively what we bought. They need a schoolbus listing...

Kenny, don't forget, ruthenium doesn't work especially well for characters when they're running, and may actually make it easier to find them (M&M114). It works up to 1 m/s. A van going at 60MPH is approximately 220 m/s. This means the check to spot the van has a modifier of about... -109 (or -2, if you follow the next line : P).

But that means the polymers are great if you spend a lot of time parked. If they're driving around with the stuff on, they're going to get a LOT of unwanted attention. If they just want a disguise, there are cheaper methods. I seem to recall some sort of paint which changes color, but can only store a few colors (I know they had that for clothes in CC, and I'm pretty sure they have the paint in Rigger).
Zazen
QUOTE (nezumi)
A van going at 60MPH is approximately 220 m/s.

Actually it is about 26 m/s. For rough mental calculations like this, I like to use 1 m/s = 2 mph. It's pretty handy.
cykotek
Note: This calculation is based off of the size of a UPS "Brownie" package delivery car (yeah, I work for the Brown Army).

22ft long, 10ft high, 10ft wide (give or take a little). That comes out to about 7m x 3m x 3m.

Front and back: 9 sq m
Sides: 21 sq m
Top: 21 sq m

Total = 21 + 21 + 9 + 9 + 21 = 81 sq m

This is really rough, but it's the method that I've generally used. That would be about right for a Bulldog Stepvan or so. For an Ares Master series (Road, City, Mob, etc), I'd consider the size a little closer to 8-9 x 4 x 3. Those vehicles I've always seen as very large cargo vehicles. They're large enough for 10 - 12 armored troopers, plus gear, 3 - 4 crew. Or 1000+ CF raw cargo. They're not small. 1000 CF is roughly 125 cu m, and that's not counting crew space, engine space, etc.
tisoz
It looks like city masters are future "straight trucks". The "straight trucks" "normal" dimensions are 40' x 8' x 12.5'. So about 13m x 2m x 4m.

13m x 2m =26sq m
13m x 3m x 2 sides =78sq m
2m x 3m x 2 sides=12sq m

26sq m+78sq m+12sq m=116sq m

White Knight
Ruthenium polymers on vehicles are in many ways not that useful. The biggest issue I can see is what I call the 'Helicopter Problem': A vehicle's roof could either be made to display an image of the road beneath it or some amalgamation of the area viewed around it. With the road option a helicopter looking down would have a hard time spotting the vehicle but from a pedestrian's point of view this would clearly stand out. With the surroundings option the vehicle would be less obvious to a pedestrian (although more camoflaged than invisible) but a helicopter would clearly see it.

Other problems include:-

Vehicles are big - shadows are much more noticeable.

Vehicles have roughly large, flat sides - the image projected on to them would only be accurate if viewed at a certain angle (more or less dead on). This may casue the vehicle to stand out if the surrounding terrain has any significant differences in it.

It still has windows and tyres which are hard to cover in ruthenium plymers and still be useful.
kenny26
i know the van has to be parked in order to have the camuflage effect, actually it can move up to 6 m/sec. but that's hardly to consider.

and the ruthenium doesn't give the camuflage effect unless you also purchase imgaing scanners, which can be told to display the surroundings in more or less appropriate angles for pedestrians and choppers alike. but of course, as a GM i'll ask the player "who do you want to target with the camuflaging effect?

and they can be more efficiant than only showing the surroundings correctly from a dead-on angle. because, unless i've misunderstood something, there should be this thing called trideo, which is a more advanced kind of 3D graphics (i know this isn't entirely correct, but i hope you know what i mean anyway). it's not that hard to imagine that this trideo technology could be used to give a correct display across the van from multible agles (which the book must be hinting at since the visibility modfiers are quite high).

but also, the ruthenium whithout the imaging scanners still have the ability to change colors with the push of a button. and it can also upload images, which in a special format can project a new licence plate onto the car. smile.gif
this is very efficient (but the images would have to be custom made for the car, i guess).
Stonecougar
Actually, if y'all will check Rigger 3, it'll give you prices and all that shiznat for Ruthenium Polymers AND photovoltaic chameleon paint, that stuff mentioned with the more limited ability. I consider chameleon paint standard issue on any vehicle I use, with a big library of colors, as well as for vans things like "Dunkin Donuts" or "UPS" or "Domino's" on the side. Nothin' says lovin' like a Dunkin' Donuts guy with a shotgun...

Rutheniums aren't all they're cracked up to be. In fact, the only time I've ever found them useful for the invisibility effect was as a cloak, a la Harry Potter. Personally, my cyberzombie decker has ruthenium dermal sheath, but when he wants to be sneaky, he uses it like instant body paint... look, suddenly I'm dark grey and wearing black clothes... sure, spot me in a shadow at night. I dare ya. Unless you're using low light or thermos, in which case you're cheating. nyahnyah.gif On a vehicle, the things would be bloody useless, IMHO... Go for the chameleon paint, it's cheaper and just as effective. Me, I like motorcycles... easy to hide, maneuverable... good stuff.
Game2BHappy
QUOTE (kenny26)
actually it can move up to 6 m/sec.

6m/turn.

On the viewpoint...

I have always imagined the ruthenium as clusters of directional color and/or light projectors -- each cluster being possibly only a millimeter or so wide. It could project one color one direction and a different color another direction based on what the sensor on the opposite side was picking up.

Greatly simplified -- something akin to those little images on toys that have pictures that change when you turn the card maybe making someone's mouth seem like its moving or a batter taking a swing.
Zazen
I've always assumed that as well. It's inconcievable that ruthenium would provide the bonuses described in the rules if it didn't.
BitBasher
Actually ruth poly as the book explains it just shows the developers didn't think it through... because of a plethora of problems created by it. Shadows, Parallax, Luminosity, and an infinite hunber of images both recieved and transmitted in an infinite number of directions just to start. It's pretty well bullshit.
Lilt
QUOTE (Stonecougar)
Actually, if y'all will check Rigger 3, it'll give you prices and all that shiznat for Ruthenium Polymers

Where? I can't find it in my version of rigger 3 (admitantly not the revised version). The main thing I want to know is: Are they compatible with radar-absorbant materials.

[edit=so sue me]OK. I think I've solved the Radar Absorbant Materials & Ruthenium thing:
QUOTE (Ruthenium Polymers @ P114, M&M)
Since these polymers are also very durable and can be applied in layers less than about .1 micron thick, they can be put on any surface without any appreciable loss of flexibility or function
(Emphasis mine)

As for the way ruthenium works; I reckon that ruthenium is actually the fermented jiz of a dikoted ally spirit.[edit]

Dr Vital
QUOTE (BitBasher)
Actually ruth poly as the book explains it just shows the developers didn't think it through... because of a plethora of problems created by it. Shadows, Parallax, Luminosity, and an infinite hunber of images both recieved and transmitted in an infinite number of directions just to start. It's pretty well bullshit.

Everything in SRun is bullshit btw. But I'll agree ruthinium is just a little outside of the scope of normal SR tech.

But to help: what if Ruthenium was a self organizing distributed computing/fiber optic system? You could have the each individual "units" provding one of 3 services:

Input:
Acting as a tiny collector to grab random light distributed across the surface.
Processing:
Using algorithms to organize data and information such as parallax and luminosity then dynamically building a light transmission network. Self routing fiber-optic cable.
Output:
Releasing that light on the other side of the surface.

That would allow you to account for shadows, luminosity, and parallax since the light itself would be funneled through and out the other side.
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