Has anyone tried this yet? with the improved hacking in 4th ed the decker is finally more than the tag along for a team. but with the increased dependance on the net, a team is more vulnerable to a dead zone.

Now in eds 1 through 32 high tech stuff was stored off the grid meaning a penetration of the faiclity. so now in 4th ed could a corp create a blocked zone by trnasmitting a jammer? Yeah this would take their sec teams off line too but they could train for it and use hard wired phone lines to keep in touch, something the team might not even think of looking for.

Then again a cunning team might track down a big score by looking for such a dead zone. If they can overwealm the jamming would that show up to the sec teams showing they'd been breached?

I got the idea of thins watching the pilot of BSG. A tour guide comments that the Gallactica is an old ship with hard wired phone communication etc, The fact her systems weren't heavily networked was one of the reasons she was able to resist the cylon virus that crippled most of the lfeet.

Wouldn't a smart jammer backed up by an area jammer work better. The smart jammer would block out all but a set few frequencies allowing the on sit security to keep in touch but if that got hacked that could turn on the area jammer and block out every one.

Faradays cage... Unwired.

Jam the hell out of the environment inside the cage... you won't see it. Make sure your drones are either wired, laser linked, or really high autonomous pilot ratings. and watch enemy decker/rigger scream in pain when they try and break in. (laser link got a nice flushing out in unwired as well... the one in arsenal is rating 2... but goes rating 1-6 now).


If you REALLY wanted to be silly about it...
a faraday cage inside a cage... so that you have a clean environment to work in... but you have a hostile EW region between you and the outside world.

Also for most purposes... paint and wallpaper blocking materials is a cage. avail equal to rating... rating blocks all signals less than or equal to itself... so rating 6 is pretty effective.


I really do like the concept of the 'DMZ' jammed zone... that's a good one!

Actually silly stupid thought...

Have ultrasonic motion scanners... so that ultrasound doessn't seem out of place. Then issue ultrasonic earbuds to your mobile units... to turn ultrasonic signals into usable comms. Leaving the area stlil fully jammed.

Dogs would stay far away from that location :).


Smart Jammer was a good idea Domuri. Though chance that a competent EW type could get into your own bands if that happens.

Hench the back up jammer if you comms go down you hit the button resting the smart jammer and activating a high rating area jammer. Also the act of resettign the jammer is would sound a marirx and meat almar and call in any spiders. Also one other alarm system would to have a to wired comlinks in the smart jammers range that send a message to each other ever second if not received it activates the area jammer and sounds an alert.

Of course, a High Rated ECCM would make the jamming a moot point don't you think...

Actually jammers come in strength from 1-10 (both area and directional)... in this case area. Smart jammers only go to 6 IIRC. Jamming on the fly is a little wierd (but rather interesting IMO).

All your teammates aren't necessarily going to have ECCM6 running (system limitations... decker has better gear... etc.). And at that... ECCM6 won't compete against jammer 7+.


Look at the jamming on the fly rules... p105 unwired

Especially if you have someone dedicated to electronic warfare.

ECCM gives bonus dice to resist it... but as an opposed test... you can still wreak havoc. Yeah you might have rating 6 loaded on all your allies links and your own... but you can't be everywhere at once... and even at 18 vs. 12 dice... 12 dice will win often enough against a handfull of targets to make comms unreliable. (think about their effect on tacnets for example).

Quite frankly... this is a bit of a house rule... but that's for using unintentional jammers. If intentionally jamming, I don't see why you couldn't add jammer rating on top of the one side of the opposed test if you had an agent/EW officer actively making tests to jam, opposed by eccm program and EW skill on the other side.

I really like this, because I see a lot of the deckers/riggers comment that EW is a worthless skill... yet communications are at the heart of what they do. Basically treat ECM as a program just as ECCM is a program... a ECM node is just a node running an ECM program w/ a signal rating in that context... then you get an opposed test going.

And there's a lot of cyber/powers which affect mathematical and analytical type tests like EW and jamming. Which could tip the dice... (as well as having something like an agent automatically do it every round for you).

In a lot of ways I agree... I am that "EW" officer that you are talking about for our team... However, the ECCM Program adds itself to the Rating of the Signal it protects to determine the effects of Jamming (Page 227 of the BBB)... So assuming a Rating 6 Signal on your Comlink, and a Rating 6 ECCM Program, you now have 12 points of signal rating to resist the most powerful rating 10 jamming, leaving you with a positive value of 2, which would defeat the jamming signal... also note, the jamming is an effect that is all or nothing (though you could argue that it is a reduction in signal)... either it jams or it does not... There is NO TEST involved in SR4, it is a direct comparison (not sure about SR4A though)...

the point of the to jammers is to hinder as even with 2 signal left over the operational range would be much shorter.

But jamming on the fly does add a test to the rules.

And quite frankly... if you're decked out w/ bonuses to EW (math SPU, analytics adept powers... etc.)

You might be better at jamming w/ a commlink than a jammer... as that's now an opposed roll and it's not an automatic.


I like that, as now jamming isn't an all or nothing... some rounds they'll get some crackly communications through, other rounds nothing but the white noise. Also remember that test doesn't go just against their hacker (who has an EW skill). So if that's the case, now you're going against the EW skill of each player and his commlink (and he probably has low/no EW skill), in which case you're just rolling signal + skill + bonuses, vs his signal + ECCM.

That's why I suggested taking it a step farther for dedicated jamming modules... and treating ECM as software (this is where it's a house rule suggestion, everything else above is RAW).

Reminds me of the time I tried no-tech security. Out in the middle of nowhere, no wifi, environmental hazards, parabeasts and magic. You could try warping in a wifi-less alchera in the middle of a run, even in a high tech area.

Hey Falconer,

Where is the opposed test located... which book? I have considered using jamming via comlink, but it never seemd like a viable option... I would like to show the GM this tidbit, as it would work wonders for our team...

EDIT: Never Mind... Found it, all I saw originally was the fluff, I missed the Crunch... I really like this..., But I do have a question... the crunch says the jamming Signal Rating degrades by 1 per 5 Meters from the center of effect... I assume it is the center of effect for the Jammed Signal (i.e. the Target Origin?)

Or you could just use off the grid storage?

Seriously nothing has changed.

Except that per RAW, a Jammer with a rating less than the devices' Signal + ECCM does nothing. A rating 10 jammer doesn't subtract 10 from the effective signal of all devices in range; it stops those with an effective signal rating (signal + ECCM) less than its rating. And for area jammers, its rating degrades by 1 for every 5 meters you are from it.

So, setting up a rating 10 area jammer means the guy with the run-of-the-mill Signal 3 commlink and no ECCM is going to need to stay at least 35 meters away to get a signal, but once he's at that radius, he's still getting his full broadcast range. The guy who's got Signal 5 and ECCM 5, however, can sit right ontop of the Jammer and not have it interfere at all.

Another possible (and potentially much cooler looking) way of reducing/eliminating attempts at wireless broadcasts into and through your facility can be found in the "landscaping for signal attenuation" of Unwired.



So, replace the walls with a foot thick aquarium filled with salt water - feel free to add fish and seaweed or coral to make this more decorative - and you now need an effective signal rating of 30 to just get a wireless broadcast from one side to the other (and it's arguable whether ECCM would work for this at all). That means even the best signal ratings paired with the best military ECCM cannot get through this. This means that two Technomancers who both have Resonance 7, have taken the Amplification echo the full 3 times allowed, and thread their ECCM (assuming it's allowed to work here) can just barely get signals to each-other through that wall, if they both are sitting there with their heads pressed against the glass.

Note however that this scheme won't actually interfere with wireless signals within a single room, and doors that aren't built the same way create holes in this signal attenuation scheme, potentially allowing some signals between rooms as well (though if you don't put them in straight lines, any Runners will need to put wireless hubs in every room to ensure they can get better than intermittant connections to people in the next room).

Do keep in mind, this sort of a system can work in favor of the runners as well. Most security teams, even if they do proper training, are going to be used to having their coms available. Even a wired facility won't be very effective if they can't communicate the intelligence to the roaming security forces.

Set up a big distraction on one side, get the jammers to kick in, then sneak in from the other.

What someone really needs to design is something you can plug into the wired system and basically fry it, like if you were to take a camera feed right now and plug it into a wall socket (actually, I have no idea what would happen if you did that - if it would kill all the monitors, or only that camera feed or nothing at all). Anyone have any thoughts on how someone could cause system-wide damage to a wired system?

Faraday cage is the way to go here. For the drones however laser link is problematic because you can only use them when you are stationary.

I recommend going with Rail-propulsion. Run rails through the entire facility and not only is your Steel Lynx hack-proof but it has an unlimited duration and never suffers from recoil.

I wouldn't bother with the water tanks, faraday cage is better, but I would use a similar idea which is reservoirs of FAB II (?) in all the walls, ceilings and floors. Add a sprinkler system that pumps FAB II into any corridor that you think contains active magic and your Rail-guided Steel Lynx's can unleash Vindicator death into the 'holes'.

Faraday cage the whole facility and each individual room. Dissolve something else nasty in with the FAB II, Lael and DMSO springs to mind, to stop folks cutting or drilling through the walls.

Actually I'm going to shut up now before I give to many of my GM's ideas.

Arg!!! How did I not notice that? Curses, back to the ECCM drawing board.

Actually I REALLY like tha aquarium idea, mostly for the visuals, toss some dual natured "eat your soul" seaweed into the mix and you've got a visually appealing, completly legal and near totally covert astral and matrix security... I see this more being an organised crime trick, the Traids perhaps in one of their 'classier' fronts. It's not perfect but then what is? At least its pretty.

That is bloody brilliant! You can route the ultrasound transmission through the motion scanners, I don't see any reason why a modulated frequency couldn't still function to locate movement. That way, not only do you reduce the transmission output, you can tell where security is broadcasting from, and you can route the transmission through the electrical wiring of the building! Very, very cool!

Where does is state that laser links must be stationary... I quote:
"Laser Link: A Device equiped with a laser link can communicate to other devices via an infrared laser, though this requires clear line of sight between the device and it's receiver. At the GM's discretion, fog or smoke may interrupt the link. The advantage of laser links is that they cannot be jammed or eavesdropped on. The laser link has a maximum range of 100m."

They added an enhancement to the laser link in unwired... the one described above is the rating 2 version. Giving it ratings from 1-6 (which I believe corresponds to normal signal ranges (easiest way to rule it IMO)... and they reworded that the visibility mod degrades the optical signal rating. (since it's an IR laser... that pretty much would require thermal smoke visual mods or heavy particulate or rain conditions).

Nowhere does it say it has to be stationary. I'd like a page reference please for this one.


On the jammers themselves... if the jammer is directional, it only loses strength every 20m. And frankly if you're in a shielded cage, things get stronger (it's actually a problem w/ aircraft... the fuselage turns the inside into a fairly nasty EMI environment). Or they could just use leaky coax like they use in tunnels to carry cell phone and radio signals and disperse them throughout the tunnel. And I don't really see any issues w/ someone 'sculpting' the hallways and such to act as waveguides, even further reducing range attenuation of relevant signals.


If the jamming on the fly rules are used by lets say an agent. This is an improved version of the smart jammer actually... have it run a sniffer looking for unauthorized nodes. Then make checks to jam them. Use a signal 9 or 10 power. In this case, agent is rolling it's 10signal + 4 electronic warfare, 14 dice... vs. the targets signal + EW + ECCM pool. If an actual decker/rigger augments the agent... that pool can go higher. But if we have an equivalent dice pool... then jams can be assumed roughly half the time against the hardest targets, and virtually all the time against weak targets. (like those little iBalls everyone is carrying to render them elgible for the tacnet). Also I don't remember which book had it, but there was a directional antenna improvement... which directionalized your signal but gave it +2 signal strength.

If you go a step further and rule, that if ECCM software can add dice, they can write ECM software to add dice to their side, it gets nastier.

So yeah, I think you could create an exceptionally hostile EW dead zone.


Also, I'm note quite sure how a 'static zone' would work... but that might have some repurcusions as well.

Unwired p51 Beam Links

Where are you getting that from?

Best you're ever going to manage is Signal 8 from a Satellite Uplink and that is arguably only for communicating with the Satellite, Jamming on the Fly is area jamming so you need an omni-directional antenna.

Typical... a fast moving vehicle/drone has zero problems locking onto an even faster moving LEO w/ a microwave beam.

But god forbid, someone use a phased array, mechanically aimed antenna, or other stearable beam to transmit data shorter distances.

Sometimes, I wonder what idiots write this stuff.


Thanks for the page cite though.


The jamming on the fly shadowchat, literally has the guy taking over a broadcast station (signal 9) and using it as a jammer to harass a nearby military base.


Jammers come w/ rating of up to 10... so I suspect they have a signal chip which goes from 1-10... though the signal chart in the core book goes from 1 to 9 (9 being broadcast station, or military radar). Commlinks are necessarily limited (no more than signal + 2 over original)... but if you're purpose building a facility (especially a heavily shielded expensive one)... I see no reason they couldn't pump some serious signal into their dead zone, do you.


And there's zero reason you couldn't jam directionally if you had access to a directional antenna using the jamming on the fly rules. "Jammin on the fly is a complex action and requires some device with a signal rating (such as a commlink radio, or drone). to act as an impromptu jammer" Why not a directional antenna w/ a signal rating of 6 (+2 more directional)... that fulfills that criteria as a device w/ a signal rating.

Other than Unwired explicitly defining it as area jamming.

Of course, the text is in conflict with itself. "Any device w/ a signal rating"... a directional antenna can't create an area signal though, only a directional one by it's hardware description.

The purpose of that text, merely clarifies that a device used as such is almost no difference whatsoever from a normal jammer (uses same falloff and strength figures in fact). Actually.. I think it makes it more powerful than a normal jammer, because ECCM+signal is such a joke. At least w/ a diceroll and an action it's possible to disrupt some of the time instead of it being an assumed always on.

Common sense dictates that A. either you can't use it (in clear violation of any device may)... or B. just treat it as a directional jammer (which doesn't quite violate the second as it merely clarifies that an omnidirectional commlink functions as an omnidirectional jammer).


There's a drawback in there too though. I assume you're always running in stealth mode. And reading the hacking on the fly rules seems to indicate that you'd have to find your target node first (akin to the smart jammer rules). Only then could you target and jam it.

That was part of why I liked the idea as well (though I hadn't thought of the anti-magic seaweed). It's probably not the most cost-effective approach for blocking signals (as crizh points out, faraday caging each room gets much the same effect, with no upper limit to what rating of signal it can stop, and probably costs less), but it looks pretty.

Another minor potential advantage here: bill it as part of the decor, or as something to try to improve employee morale - and thus efficiency - or whatever, and ignore the fact that this is also intended as part of matrix security. While you probably can't keep a serious attempt at legwork from turning up that the aquariums are there - and if it's the entire facility, it likely doesn't even need a serious attempt - if it's never mentioned in connection to matrix security, hostile runners might not realize the implications until they're already inside. Not something to count on, but...

Its a must for a triad leader or for the Bondian villain use thick armored glass and arm your men with lasers and your set as in SR4 lasers don't refract. Add toxic fish and such in the aquarium as well so if smashed you've got some nasty stuff hitting you.

I sat at work and visualized an "aquarium security compound", then I tried to imagine the team having a go at it and them shooting up the glass/draining the water everywhere (which makes it even more interesting but kinda nullifies the point).

I think security wise as a legit "barrier" it would have to be in something other than glass. Maybe even better just to run salt water through special pipes inside the walls. Not sure how that would work for doors.

Makes me think of Scotty's need for transparent aluminum though.

Anyway, great visuals.

Armored glass is as strong as a security door. So with few inches of that on either side of the water should keep it safe. And that's why you have the critters in the water and a larger tank above each room so that if the glass is broken the room on the side that broke the glass floods.

Hardline sensors to detect fluid levels in the tank or damage to the glass, posionous fish, and I'm not really seeing a compound defended this way, more a classy suplement to a matrix secure backroom. Although EVO HQ with all that bio-engineered... stuff... Some sort of aquatics showcase room, it's not even intended to be Matrix secure, it just is. I'm stretching yes but it helps keep me limber.

"How do we know he didn't invent the thing?"

Yea, I guess armored glass and a little more counter thinking can make this work. I think you're right about the classy effect and a change a pace with a nice side effect too. I might have to steal this for a mall shootout or the "company showroom". I might actually prefer normal glass too, as I think the hostile environment of broken glass, moving water, and poisonous fish flopping around in a fire fight would just add to the chaos.

Good find.



Awesome =)

Why do you need all of this Jamming and fishtanks and cages? Couldn't you just... take the "wireless card" out of the the computer with the sensitive data? Wouldn't this solve all of your problems? Or like... make new comlinks for your facility that use a different frequency (really not that hard IRL: take cordless phones for instance 900Mhz and 2.4Ghz) and Jam the normal one.

Don't get me wrong, Fishtanks are much cooler.

"Steve."

"Ya Jim."

"The boss doesn't want to manually enter his voice verified 62 character password anymore, put the wireless back in so it can electronically verify him."

"But he's the one that said to take it out! Its a security risk!"

"Ya well, welcome to working the I.T. desk Steve."

*I have worked in the I.T. field on and off... mostly off if I can help it for this very reason*

Did someone ask for transparent aluminum armor?