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Lilt
Can I get people's opinions on the following scenario?

A character has Small Unit Tactics 6, a Tactical Computer (+BattleTac mod), a tactical communications system (rating 4 master + 3 rating 4 personal units), an RCD, 4 drones with sensor ratings 1,1,3 and 4, and 3 teammates hooking 2 senses each (sight and sound) over radio, the teammates each have personal comm units and battletac receivers or cyberlinks.

He links the drone sensors from the RCD to the ports on the Tactical computer. By page 28 of R3, each point of sensor rating can be counted as an extra sensory feed (if applicable). He also links the senses from his teammates to ports. He sits in a van somewhere, occasionally commanding drones, and using small unit tactics tests to give his teammates extra initiative (or extra combat pool if you allow the rule from P106, CC).

Do you think it's possible? Is there any extra gear (router?) that he'd need? Does each drone (or each rating point of sensors) need a separate sensor program? Can he give commands to drones from captain's chair mode then, on his last initiative pass, use small unit tactics to give his teammates a bonus?
mfb
you'd want to replace the dedicated ports for the five base senses with general ports--you'll need one port per point of sensor rating.

other than that consideration, yes--you sick, demented, twisted bastard.
Lilt
Considering how hard it is to get hold of some (nay all) of the equipment (availability 18 on a battletac tactical computer, 12 for reciever components, 12 for tactical comm gear): this isn't a starting character unless you plead at the GM. A lot.
spotlite
Been there, done that, and yes it would work. Now put a snake eyes link in some wyverns who live in the area of the team's base and you've got free roaming large predators who contribute to your base security.

But remember - the tac 'puter only gets bonuses from the senses which are RELEVANT. For example, if something is invisible, none of the vision senses/sensors count. You might immediately half the rating of the tac 'puter because of something that simple. don't let them walk away from you if you let them do this in the first place. There's always something they've overlooked.
Lilt
That's an interesting point. If you're commanding a squad linked by battletac (and a tactical computer) in a big combat and there is one invisible enemy, what bonuses do you get? Let's assume that out of 8 sensors otherwise applicable, only one of them is ultrasound. What happens then? Does your bonus completely vanish due to one invisible guy (who you probably don't even know about) or do you just not count any of the bonus pool or initiative against the invisible guy? What about if you have 2 ultrasound sensors there?


By the sensors section, P135, SR3: even rating 0 sensors have ultrasound. Would that mean the full bonus from vehicle sensors applies (4pts from a rating 4 sensor suite) or only part of it?
spotlite
The FAQ has some ideas on how to handle, but oddly they are only ideas.

Here's what we do -

since sensors are only partly made up of visible spectrum sensors, and only partly made up of audio sensors, and have other stuff like U-sound, short range radar, EM sensors and that kind of thing, we have made and playtested the eminently sensible rule of only allowing those kinds of spells to function at half their effectivness against vehicle sensors.

Therefore, if you have invisibility and silence up, the sensors will be on +4 for the invisibility and +2 for the sound, to a total modifier of +6. Still very hard, but not +12 which is what it would end up as if you didn't.

We made a general rule because otherwise you have to start worrying about exactly what things a sensor package has a different sensor levels from the R3 book and work out which drone can or cannot see you etc etc etc...

They don't get resistance tests so it made sense to do it this way.

Where you have human security as well, remember they get a resistance test and may be able to pinpoint the character when no-one else can. Well, in that case, although the others still cannot see the target directly, so long as the character who can is feeding data into battletac, the rest can target them anyway. I would be inclined to use the same rule - spells at half effectiveness - to represent the difficulty in targeting something you can only see electronically and not overlaid on your vision (unless the guy doing the inputting is REALLY good, I reckon he's only going to be able to put in position, heading and speed and what the target is. You won't be able to get a proper real time tracking going unless the guy is actually fully jacked into the network and his cyber eyes or whatever provide direct feed for you to use.

So in your particular example, unless someone resists the spell or has sensors which can ignore it, no-one will see the guy. If one of those things bears out, however, I'd say apply a +4 modifier to everyone wanting to target the runner except the guy or drone which actually spotted him.

Does that sound fair and/or reasonable?
Lilt
Thanks. That makes sense. I'd apply a +4 modifier rather than +6, however, as that's the same modifier a character with ultrasound gets (1/2 of the +8 blindness).

Also: What rating are the tactical computer's sensors at if the sensors are only applicable to part of the fight? Your initial post implied that when fighting something invisible, the tactical computer couldn't use senses. I agree that that makes sense (sense, get it? wobble.gif) but the senses can still see (and be used to advise someone to duck behind a desk or hillock or similar).

I quite like sketching rules so I'll try this one myself:
There are a number of tactical considerations in a combat. These are the friendly characters/drones, enemy characters/drones, and anything noteable in the scenery (traffic, weather etc).

If your sensors can monitor all of the tactical considerations, you get the full bonus. This includes situations where a character resists the invisibility spell.

If not, due to invisible or hidden characters, roll perception tests to see if they notice the consideration. If they don't notice the consideration; divide the number of available sensors by the total number of tactical considerations before multiplying by the ones you can monitor. The resulting number, rounded down, is the number of sensors you effectively can apply.

Perception test are rolled by both the tactician and the character/drone. The character's successes add dice to the tactician's test (looking straight at & focusing on a hidden character is helpful). If the tactician still does not see it (but the character/drone does) then it needs to be communicated to the tactician.

How does that look?
spotlite
The +6 was including the silence spell, which imposes a +4 when at full effectiveness. divide the +8 from invisibility to get +4 and divide +4 for silence by two to get +2, total is +6. With just invisibility yes its only +4.

This is a very effective sensor cloak - use both spells on your craft and sensors are on base signature, plus the vehicle stealth roll's highest result, +6 if both spells are up. A sig 5 T-bird plus say a 7 on a stealth roll plus 6 is signature 18 without adding on ECMs or whatever. Add a masking ward to cover the spells and you really are damn near invisible. In Astral Space you can spot the grey shape of the T-bird but that's the only way you'll see it unless you get lucky.

Bear in mind that these are my rules of course. The FAQ provides ideas as well, I just don't like them.

What you've said regarding the tac 'puter's rating seems to work, but is awfully complicated. Yes, make the resistance test. If they succeed then only the drones would be on a higher target number. If they fail everyone is, but I would be inclined to use the full rating of the 'puter simply to keep the game flowing. It becomes a very irritating micro management excercise otherwise. Add another +1TN# for each sense that isn't applicable, but keep the dice. It will make the book keeping easier but make the test harder. This is IMHO, obviously. What you've suggested is probably closer to the way the rules are intended to work so its up to you.
Lilt
Ack. I misread the sound bit. Sorry but I have lots of deadlines right now and I've been awake for quite a while. I'm planning staying awake until monday, 9:30 AM, too.

Anyway: I don't even know if my system is all that accurate. The only thing that seems to matter is that the senses are applicable to the combat situation. The question is: how much does it matter that sensors are only partally applicable? What happens if a camera just can't see one character even though another can?

I'll stick with the first part of the system (if someone resists the invisibility) the tactician is at no penalties. The same applies if the tactician manages to see invisible subject with that +8 (or +4) TN mod. I'd then be tempted to just remove one effective sensor rating for each enemy (or scenery feature like traffic) not covered by at-least one of the sensors. If you have 8 sensors but 8 of your 16 enemies are invisible; the situation-analysing tactical computer would probably just get a headache (or give you one, or over-heat, or explode...).

Hmm. Do you think a cerebral booster's Int mod/task pool could be rolled for resisting invisibility? It's an interesting point that Cyberware has a good case that it would (as it's paid for with essence) but bioware is paid for with bio-index which isn't quite the same. Alternately you have the fact that bioware boosts are often considered more natural than cyberware ones.
mfb
given that bioware is considered a 'natural' increase, yes.
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