I know this falls under the discretion of the GM but I wanted to hear from the community, see if I could get an intelligent consensus:

Do caseless gel rounds set off MAD scanners?
As in, would a Morrissey Elan loaded with caseless gel rounds set off a MAD sensor?

I know they would set off chem sniffers, and the weapon would show up in millimeter-wave scan.... but they dont seem like they would have any metallic elements that would set off a MAD sensor... right?

In my opinion they shouldn't, unless the gel is magneticaly charged.
My greatest doubt about MADs is: wouldn't a polymer gun with a mini faraday cage embended in it immune to MADs? If so it would shield any internal component making it a better than the MAD-proofing modification in Arsenal as it would avoid to have to apply the MAD-proofing to all the other modifications installed in the weapon.

A Faraday cage would just negate the effects of the magnetic field within the cage. A metal detector works by detecting the changes in a magnetic field that occur when you bring a metal object through them, so a Faraday cage would still set one off.

And as far as the OP, I'd say that a caseless gel round wouldn't set off a MAD. And isn't there a gun you can get that uses hermetically sealed magazines, so the bullets don't set off a chemsniffer?

Yes, the HK urban fighter, pg 23 Arsenal. My favorite covert ops/assassin gun.

I usually use a scent-masking cigarette to get ammo by chemsniffers. I was more concerned with being able to use gel rounds in my Elan instead of the plastic HiC rounds and still being MAD-proof.

I presume a chemsniffer works by detecting the presence of particulate matter that composes explosives. A scent-masking cigarette would be able to cover up the odor of such an item to a bomb-sniffing dog or something, but doesn't actually remove the particles, and consequently wouldn't fool a chemsniffer. I think you've got to have sealed ammo to get by chemical detectors. If you didn't want to buy a different gun, you could always get a vacuum bagging device, and seal up your ammo that way. You'd have to get it out of the vacuum bag to load it in a gun, but it'd do the job.

People try that kind of crap to fool dogs. It doesn't tend to work. You need a really tiny amount of explosives for a dog to detect. I'd assume chemsniffers are the same.

But as "gel rounds" and commercially manufactured nonmetal guns are some of the dumber ideas in SR, do whatever feels right.

Actually, if you replaced the firing pin and barrel of any real life Glock with ceramic ones, they would be nonmetallic. Also, there are several varieties of "less-than-lethal" ammunition currently used by law enforcement, just not caseless. So 70 years and a little imagination, and its real.

Actually in Arsenal it explicitly states the -4 modifier to any scent based perception test "includes artifi cial detectors, such as those used to
detect the presence of explosives."

Not even close. You should handle one some time.

And it makes no sense from a corporate basis. You, a large multinational arms maker with huge contracts with security and police forces all across the world, are going to spend millions to develop a weapon that will be primarily sold (in tiny numbers) to people who will use it to shoot your customers and the people they protect. Think that might have some interesting effects on next years sales?


And they fire from shotguns and have silly short ranges and are pretty darn unreliable.

Who says those weapons are mass-manufactured for sale to anyone? They're more likely developed for corporate internal security (and assassination) squads. Heck, one of the writeups in Arsenal specifically states that they were originally made for the KGB.

Polimer are being used for making weapons even today (mainly to reduce the weight of the weapon), and having dangerous people around means customers needing for protection, which means both security contracts and gear supply; you play both ends of the deal, you know in war the one who wins is the one who sells the weapons.

I have handled glocks, and you are trying to apply real-life logic to a role-playing game... the fact is, these in-game items (non-ferrous firearms and nonlethal ammo) bear a resemblance to real-life 2009 tech. this is SHADOWRUN not a gunsmithing forum... if you cant wrap your brain around the ideas of "suspension of disbelief" that in 70 years those things can be part of a RPG setting with some sembelance of realism, then why are you here? Besides, I dont know who you hang out with but all of the trolls and elves i hang out and work with use ceramic weapons and gel rounds when shooting at corp sponsored wagemages.

Go troll somewhere else and stay on topic.

Once more, Gel rounds: do they set off MAD scanners?

The gel rounds themselves probably wouldn't. But that's really up to you. One thing to think about is... would MAD scanners be designed and optimized to detect lead bullets or gel rounds? Letting a few gel rounds through the detectors probably doesn't carry as much risk as allowing some lead through.

I think the consensus is that a caseless gel round wouldn't set off a MAD scanner.

Cool thanks everybody

I don't know, I would wait for new from Horizon before making an opinion about the Consensus.

True. Then again consensus at our table is that taking gel rounds of any sort if sort of silly now that they are -1DV +2AP...