Hey my player has been asking for EMP weapons after seeing RL portable EMP devices. He wants something that can knock out a small area of electronic devices including computers, commlinks, vehicles and everything else that relies on electronics and computers.

I couldn't find it in the BBB, does it exist in the game? If not, why not (apart from it possibly being broken). Did it exist in previous editions?

Everything is wireless, jammers work well.

Street Magic contains the Pulse spell which is a magical EMP.

Keep in mind that, per the text of the Pulse spell, most 2070 electronics are actually optical in nature and much less vulnerable to EMP.

But it does a real nice job of RFID chips in the area.

Jammers are powerful enough to disrupt communications, not to fry electronic components. There's a huge leap between these two.

Found this http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchro...opp/apjemp.html

apparently countries are able to create EMPs now without the nukes.

As of at least SR3, most electronics are now optics based, hence immune to EMP. However, reading SR4, it would appear to me at least that wireless equipment, including RFID, is vulnerable again. So you'll be able to do some damage to RFID equipment and to wireless stuff (probably just removing their wireless ability), but past that, don't expect it to do much to most stuff. You're not going to shut down cars or cyberlimbs with it.

It's nigh-impossible to do RF communication with only optical circuitry. So the wireless portion of a device would be susceptible to an EMP.

The main issue is power. The EMP weapons described were in comparison to conventional bombs, which weigh several hundred pounds at a minimum. Second, the weapons tended to be destroyed in the usage, being powered by explosives. Plus there will probably be some leakage or reflection. Does your player really want to carry a C4-powered one-shot microwave cannon?

It takes really big sources of energy to fuel EMPs. The effect of any non-coherent energy weapon is reduced by the square of the range. Meaning that if an EMP can impart 1 KJoule to a target at 1meter, it will only produce 0.25 KJ at 2 meters, .0625 KJ at 4 meters, etc. Coherent energy weapons are some form of laser, where the photons are synchronized and the beam is a line. EMP weapons may be directional with shielding, but they still produce non-coherent cones.

Thank for the responses, I didn't know about the optical computers and whatnot (and I have no idea how that works but it doesen't matter).

I'm very much content to say that EMP weapons in 2070 is extremly uncommon because modern computers and electronics are not affected by them.

I found the idea that optical computers would be unaffected by EMPs to be kinda funny.

These optical computers still use electrically based power supplies and electrically powered light or laser generation. An EMP would fry those parts quite handily.

Sure, the optical circuits themselves would be fine, but with no power or light to run the things...



-krma

Yes, EMP could effect the 'power source' for optical computers.

However what you generally fry is the few micron (or by 2070 likely sub-micron) circuitry that is the 'brains' of the computer. Frying that 12guage wire is going to take an actual atomic blast at ground zero

Frying that .2 micron 'wire' inside the silcon chiop would take considerably less.


A very large EMP might shut down / reboot an optical computer but is unlikely to fry the brains / storage.

Now EMP would stand a a reasonably chance of frying any transmitter / reciever. (especially small to micro scale ones (RFID, cyberware, GPS sensors, the like).


In short I would have no problem with making an EMP grenade that function like the 'pulse' spell.

Just remember unlike the pulse spell that aint no spell defense to help protected you, so better make sure you are out of the area of effect (though guess that applies to all grenades

No actually the electrical based equipment will be burned out. Yes the optical circuits unaffected by, but the electrical ones are a toast.

They do not get a chance to shut down. So basically unless one of your group of runners has a shop/facility etc, time to buy new gear.

Also unless you place the equipment in a Faraday cage, even powered down the electrical circuits get fried.

That is one of the wonderful things about EMP, and why both sides of the cold war planned on using to great effect.

Again the game designers lacked the information on this effect when they put in the Pulse Spell.

Things it would affect cybereyes, the link to the optic nerve is electrical. Pretty much the same for cyberears. Since I recall that cybereyes use micro electric motors to zoom and focus, those motors and circuits controlling them, toast.

All of the display functions of various image enhancements are gone...

Designing equipment to be resistant/proof against an EMP, despite what Hollywood portrays it, is very hard to do and bulky.

Scuffing your feet and getting a spark on the doorknob generates an EMP. It's a matter of magnitude. To get something that actually destroys electronics at a distance of greater than 50 meters requires quite a lot of power, like 50lb capacitors. To do it at ranges of 500m requires power sources measured in "tons of TNT".

Most of the EMP damage in ICBM warfare was to the grid, which is a giant antenna. The cabling within the zone of destruction can propagate some electrical surge before being vaporized. Even if it doesn't fry a computer outside the EMP blast shadow, it destroys the regional power network which essentially kills the systems. Killing the power grid, particularly the transformers which are basically antennas, is much easier than frying all the devices served by a particular grid.

The Pulse spell in Street Magic specifically says that most electrical equipment in 2070 is "optical based" (which in their universe means to be immune to EMPs), but an EMP will affect some archaic devices and power systems. Seems like the world got used to terrorist EMP's and builds hardened electronics as standard-issue.

An EMP burst will disrupt all wireless communications while in effect, but all traffic can resume as soon as the pulse is over...so you'll get at most a single round of silence.

"Hardening" electronics from EMPs is very easy and cheap. Testing at Los Alamos showed that a few layers of tin foil would protect radios. If you'd like to read more about EMP hardening, here's something you might enjoy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

Well putting all your devices inside a Faraday Cage will work, but wait what about being able to send or receive signals, like wireless. A Faraday Cage by its basic design will block wireless signals from entering or leaving.

That means the Faraday Cage has a opening in its shielding to allow signal transfers. Basically the EMP can enter such devices via the Hole. The Antenna will act like a lightening rod to draw in the effects of EMP.

Also again the game developers did have a good grasp of EMP effects.

Depending upon the flux intensity, aluminum foil shielding may not be enough.

Again here is link but due to it being a Wiki, take with a grain of salt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_p...ssion_generator

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

"The effectiveness of a Faraday cage or shield is dependent upon the wavelength of the electric or electromagnetic fields it is intended to shield."

"Quality levels of shielding also depend upon the types of metals used in the cages as well as the thicknesses."

Carbon nanotubes make fantastic conductors so a nanomesh faraday cage could easily sheathe electronic components. Then all you need is a piezoelectric crystal to generate your wireless signals and poof, you have an EMP-proof electronics device ready for mass production.

If that doesn't work, just say "a wizard did it."

Did I say "faraday cage"? I meant to say "spintronium alloy envelope with dilithium crystal flux capacitors to modulate the quantum holographic matrices".

Skins, you can suspend your disbelief that it is possible to create all the various implements of cyberware but not that it is possible to have done so in a manner rendering EMP weapons virtually useless?

Since there is a Pulse spell, I would say there are devices, some even being portable enough to throw.

But as for the effects IG, I would say that devices that receive signals would be affected, but that would depend upon the successes on the object resistance table.

At the very least such devices would have to be reset to operate correctly after being affected but a Pulse spell. Kinda a safety interlock so to speak. A sensor could be built into said devices to trip the breaker so to speak. Now which is faster the sensor or the EMP affects.....

If as one has said that EMP attacks are common place(which I have yet to have read anywhere in all versions of SR materials), then devices would have shielding against most Pulse spells.

But Pulse spells can be designed to be sustained at not extra drain costs. Net result, all wireless comms etc, are not operational as long as the spell is sustained.

Well at least my player accepted the optical computers explanaition and hardened electronics.

BTW I noticed there is a electromagnetic stratosphere regulator... erhh, I mean electromagnetic device in the BBB already - it's called a Tag Eraser!

It only works on nonhardened electronics life common RFID, not optical computers.

Skins, if anything that uses electricity is disabled by an EMP, then a person would shutdown and their brain would stop functioning from one too. Since that isn't the case, AFAIK, then why couldn't computers be optical, with some minor biological processing in them, rendering them virtually invulnerable to EMP, except for, as noted, the wireless antenna, at worst, disabling communications until the pulse is over, at which point the antenna can be reactivated.

Your neural pathways transmit signals via a electro/chemical process. Yes those pathways can conduct electricity. But they are not the same as manufactured conductor like wires etc. My blood can conduct electricity but it is not a wire.

The EMP Flux induces a magnetic field etc, which when interacting with manufactured conductors wires, circuit pathways etc, induces a voltage potential, this voltage can be very great. It is this voltage surge that causes the equipment to receive more voltage etc that it was designed for.

Yes about your protecting optical computers, it would be one way. I would just say a item with an antenna would need to be reset to function again.

Ok, and anything prevent the software from sensing that an EMP went off, and resetting the antenna automatically, making EMPs basically disable wireless for a very brief period of time only? With no other effects?

Again which is faster the EMP pulse or the detector etc to react to the Pulse?

It is doable but then alot of surges would have the same effect, like lightening bolt/ball etc. A lightening discharge would be detected by the sensor as a Pulse to be protected against. If the detector waited to determine if it was a EMP pulse or a lightening discharge, it may be too late for the EMP pulse to be protected from.

So, you lose your wireless signal for what? A few seconds when lightning strikes? Big deal.

Yes but Pulse can be designed to be sustained at no addition drain.

So for as long as it is sustained, all wireless in the area of effect is non functional.

We were talking about EMPs, not the Pulse spell.

Read the description of the Pulse spell,,,,"brief, highly charged burst of ElectroMagnet Energy. That is a description of an EMP.

Sure, and the thread is about a EMP weapon. Which would functionally be the same as a non-sustained pulse spell. Which we've now agreed would basically just reset antenna's in the area, and burn out generic RFID tags.

Faraday cages are already all over SR4, they use the term "Wifi blocking paint".

Honestly, because there is a spell about it (which I think is stupid), there should be a hand held portable device which can achieve the same effect.

As for protection, cover your commlink in WIFI blocking paint/faraday cage/tinfoil, connect it optically to an external antenna. When the EMP goes off, toss your antenna and find a new one. Or replace the burned out parts if you've got the skills.

What about magical nukes? What kind of EMP pulse do they send out?