Alright, I'm running a military/tactical bad ass, small unit tactics sort of game. Everyone is clambering for Tactical Computers, Battletac, etc.

I never really got into what this shiznite was due to the fact that I saw a taccomp costing 400,000 and just gave up. Now it's come to haunt me as I can't even find where Battletac and all that good stuff is.

Essentially:

What is Battletac/Tactical Computers/That IVIS rigging crap?
Where is it in the books?
Is it even remotely worth it/have you played with it before?

Thanks!

I know its spread over at least two, probably three books if not four books. The CC, and M&M, for sure. I would assume there's a snipet in the SRC as well, but IIRC, thats only a reference to the Small Unit Tactics skill. I would also assume there's something in R3, but I don't have it so can't tell ya. I'm in pretty much the same boat as you, for the same reasons.

I have only the slightest idea of how it all works and would love it if someone would explain it all...

Battaletac/IVIS is simply a way of exchanging information between soldiers/vehicles/ships/planes/cats/etc. Basically before this everyone had to be told on the radio: where the enemy was, what they were doing, where friendly forces were, what they were doing, what you are supposed to be doing, etc. While people are shooting at you it is difficult to say and hear all this stuff. The idea of the IVIS system is that you tell 'your' IVIS box what you see, then you don't have to clutter up the radio that much. So if you scout platoon spots the leading elements of an enemy division (or whatever) they tell thier IVIS box (which is basically a wire-less networked computer) and the computer tells all teh other IVIS boxes. This means that the scout platton has to 'say once' and it it tell all friendly forces about the spot report. As opposed to them telling the recon commander, the recon commander telling TF commander, the TF commander telling the subunit commanders and the higer ups (air, arty etc).

For small units that operate in close proximity and without higher support (ie specops/runner teams) it's not as useful.

The rules appear in Rigger 3, but are slightly whack.

IIRC, Battle tac also allows you to know the wound levels, current firearm ammo capacities, current locations of you networked teammates and drones. Also if your drones are equipped with additional Fire Data Direction System (FDDS) they or one of the runners can act as spotter/targetter for indirect fire or vice-versa.

The BattleTac system is incredibly powerful for any team, when correctly used. Basically it makes the information that one teammember has available to all members of the team. With a BattleTac FDDM target lock, any weapon properly equipped can fire on the target and only suffer the modifiers from sensor enhanced gunnery. The BattleTac cyberlink allows matrix users to transmit targeting data to individuals operating in the real world. Linked to a tactical computer, the BattleTac system feeds the user information in real-time, requiring no actions to reference. It allows a unit of soldiers to operate as a single entity; seamlessly blending vehicle, infantry, and matrix into a precise weapon.

Applicable references are Cannon Companion: pp. 53-54, 99-101. Rigger 3: pp. 42, 94, 96. Man and Machine: pp. 22-23.

My groups current team has a sniper in it. She carries the equivalent to a Berret .50, Smartgun II link, tac comp and battletac. The rest of the team also has battletac (with guncam's) on them, as well as the rigger's drones. The sniper can effectively engage a target even behind a wall... thanks to the battletac data. She gets a bonus to combat pool for every two "sensors" in the field, which she can then use in taking someone down. All in all, it's a good system, and the best I can recommend for the bad guys is jamming the signal.

Orientation = 2 senses.

Orientation System: 2
Internal GPS: 1
Thermographic Vision: 1
Low-Light Vision: 1
High-Frequency Hearing: 1
Low-Frequency Hearing: 1
Ultrasound Vision: 1
Olfactory Booster: 1
Thermosense Organ: 1

There's 10 senses right there.

Each additional input via Battletac/drone/teammate counts as an additional sense, I think.

Oh, right you are, silly me for not reading the "fluff" part of the item first... Yeah, it implies that each additional sensor counts as a new sense. In this case, it is quite a lot more useful than I thought.

One thing I don't quite agree on: LF&HF Hearing. Does it say somewhere that those both count as a sense for the Tactical Computer? It's a bit like having both natural Low-Light vision and natural Flare Compensation (though no such thing exists, AFAIK). I can't see how those could possibly be considered 2 separate senses, unless the books unambiguously state so somewhere.

Still, tack on all those mods to all members of your team, get everyone BattleTac and high-rating commgear, and you'll be guaranteed a rating-4 TacComp always.

Not to forget the sensor input (rating = # of senses) (R3, p.28) of a rigger's vehicle, if he's equipped with the TacComp

But, as always, there's a catch. The RAS.....

Ooh, Fun.

I had to use CC, M&M, and R3 to get the needed info. Some of the following had to be inferred or extrapolated.

BattleTac is a information-sharing network for combat. It uses whatever communications gear you've got, generally radio-based. As a guess, a person with BattleTac gear needs to have at least 2 communications channels (1 input, 1 output) devoted to serving the system. Maybe more if you've got a master unit.

• The point of the system is to give bonuses to Small Unit Tactics, in general. It also provides an excuse for characters to react to or shoot at enemies they can't see (but that someone else can), due to the information-sharing qualities of the network.
• The core of the system is the Master unit. This is basically a DNI-capable computer designed to crunch incoming data and turn it into a tactical situation map, real-time. The Cyber version is the tactical computer headware with the BTac Master upgrade (described in M&M). The Noncyber version is an external unit that only gives the bonus dice to Small Unit Tactics - none of the other bennies that are listed in the Tactical computer table in M&M. I would have to say that in the case of the Noncyber Master Unit, the number of extra dice would depend on the number of people actively providing data to the network. The Master unit can also act as a 'Slave' unit.
• The bit of the system that most people work with would be the 'Slave' units. These interface with the Master unit to make the network work. To be of any use, a display device of some sort would be nice, whether as a set of goggles, image link, flat screen, or whatever. To actively add data to the network, the Slave unit should be linked to a gun-cam, cyber-senses or the like, through a datajack. The Cyber version of this is the BattleTac Cyberlink.
• Drones are not normally capable of hooking into the network. They need to be specially modified. To hook into an existing network, the drone's Remote control deck needs to have some extra Master components (IVIS, FDDM) installed, _and_ the drones need to have the corresponding modules installed. Then the drone network as a whole can add data to and use data from the whole BTac network. If you only want one of the modules, think of the the FDDM as the data-delivery system, and the IVIS as an upgrade to make the drones use the system better.
• The basic rules on the use of Small Unit Tactics are in CC.
• The guy with the BTac Master is the one who has to take actions to do the Small-Unit tactics tests, if you are using the system.

So envision a platoon of high-tech troopers. The platoon leader has a BT Master unit and a Tactical Communications transmitter built into his armor, and monitors the fight through data transmitted from soldiers who are carrying Slave units and transmitters, hooked into sensors of various kinds. He makes a Small Unit Tactics test every Turn, giving everybody in his unit an intitiative bonus or extra combat pool (optional rule). His goons know where any spotted hostile is, no matter who did the spotting. And the Company Commander is getting data from the platoon leader as well, so that he can do the same thing on a bigger scale, etc.

For a real-life crude version, do a search on the Army's Land Warrior concept.

Does the master unit have to have a rating equal to the number of units it is receiving from, the number of units it is sending to, or both?

How come a full out external master unit does not have the full advantages as the implanted tactical computer in M&M? I do not have a copy of M&M handy, can some one clue me in as to what advantages the tactical computer offer?

Actually, it's only two more "sensors." But, by the example, it would help immensly. In other situations, it wouldn't. But one can never be too sure, right?

I'd be wary about handing-out 8 points of rating from a single character's senses. A sensor suite that could do that on a vehicle would take space equal to twice the size of a human (6CF, an above-average human is approximately 3CF).

OK, so you could hook things like the orientation system in to take the sensor rating needed down to 6 or so, but that's still a system larger than a human (4CF).

OK, so here are the senses and their respective cyberware counterparts for eyesight and hearing.

Normal hearing
-High Frequency
-Low Frequency

Normal eyesight
-Low-Light
-Thermographic
-Ultrasound

Why is Thermographic or Ultrasound considered an extra sense? It's not like you have to see their heat signature to know they're there.

Simple answer: I wouldn't consider Low-Light or Thermographic as separate senses either, but as modifiers that help to get the "Sight" sense in situations where you might not otherwise. Ultrasound I would, because it is so radically different from what you can normally see.

If you have L-L + Thermo + US goggles and a headset that transforms HF and LF sounds into frequencies audible to a human, would you get 7 senses from it?

According to canon: Yes.

By what I would venture to say: Depends on what sounds are coming in and out, and what kind of vision mods you have at the moment.

If there's a high pitched sound that seems to be moving as a human would, then it's a sense. If there's nothing worthwhile to hear in the high spectrum, then it offers nothing, and doesn't count as a sense. Same applies to the low spectrum, the heat spectrum, and if there is enough ambient light to see naturally.

Thermographic/Low-Light vision would just stop you from losing the vision sense in the dark. They are not senses of themselves. Note that only the senses applicable to the present tactical situation count for the computer rating, high and low frequency hearing provide little benefit if any with some possible exceptions that I'll go into later, otherwise the senses wouldn't provide their rating boost to the system. I also agree with AE that sight should provide more than one sense-worth in the first instance, but there is less of an effect if you apply senses more than once (IE: covering a fight from 8 angles isn't that much more helpful than covering it from 6)

The exceptions are where something not audable to normal hearing has some form of impact. Examples I can think of are the presence of a hovercraft drone, the sound from which is largely not audable, or the far-off approach of a helicopter (note that low-frequency sound travels further). When they don't provide any useful tactical info they are just the same as normal hearing.

Arguably someone using thermographic vision to see someone in Ruthenium and seeing other things with ordinary senses might get two senses out of sight.

~J

Sure you could argue that. After all, some are arguing the absolute extreme situations -- "You will never get multiple Senses out of a sense, no matter the modifiers" (I guess that's me) vs "You will get additional Senses out of all enhancing modifiers whenever applicable" (I think this is tanka, but I might be wrong). The middle ground might actually be easier to argue.

I see it more as "If it would actually relay information that is of use to your teammates, it is a sense." Obviously this means my Ruth+Ultrasound guy sneaking up on a guy with HF and Spatial Recognizer would then be useful if he made a succesful Perception test and could keep a lock on the guy from then on in. Otherwise it would be a useless sense and would add nothing.

I guess it boils down to how much new stuff we think needs to be introduced to the system by the "sensor" for it to be considered a new Sense. I think it needs to be "quite a lot", and you think more "not very much".

For example, in my mind, in the Ruth+US vs HF+SR situation, HF+SR is unlikely to get Sight, but quite likely to get Hearing. Even if Ruth+US botched his Stealth checks and made a lot of noise, this wouldn't allow HF+SR to add a new Hearing sense if he already spotted Ruth+US with the hearing mods. If HF+SR didn't notice the US clicking on his HF, but heard Ruth+US stumble on twigs, then he'd again get Hearing, but if he then noticed the clicking, he'd still only get Hearing once. In any case, if HF+SR visually spots RuthUS he gets Sight as well.

(This is assuming nothing else of importance happens at the time.)

In my Opinion LF & HF aren't extra Senses, they make Hearing usefull in a wider Range of situations, same for Low Light, IR & UV for Seeing.

Optical or Accustic Input = Tac Comp Lvl 1
Optical and Accustic Input = Tac Comp Lvl 2
Orientation System w/ Map = + 1 Lvl
Add. Point of Sensory Input (Drone, Teammate, etc) = each +1 Level
Max Lvl = 4

According to Canon, normal sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste are the basic inputs to the Tac Comp.

Additional senses are anything other than these five senses. Strictly speaking low light vision, themographic and wide band hearing are all additional sensory inputs. However, it may be ruled that certain senses are not applicable in a certain circumstance. Ruling out low light vision a sense entirely is akin to saying low light is not a significant tactical stimulus.

We might not think that HF or LF is a significant tactical advantage but here in lies the crux. We do not have HF or LF hearing so we do not know what advantages if can confer. Dogs can sense human behavioral changes, somewhat more so than humans, why? They have better senses in certain areas and since we do not have those senses we cannot say for certain it is not useful.

The important point isnt "how insane could this be" but "whens it ever going to come up" and "whats the opportunity cost".

Start off with sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Now, of those Id say the first 3 are useful in a combat situation as normal ... conceivable you could use smell against a rat shaman or something (come on, show me a rat shaman thats ever bathed) but thats not the norm. Theres nothing to enchance the sense of touch, so thats 1.

Sight can be enchanced to include thermographic and ultrasound, with the rest of the mods like lowlight or flarecomp not adding new vision just preventing your normal vison from becoming inapplicable. So with the 3 sight ones youre at 4 total.

Sound can be enchanced to add low frequency and high frequency. This is one of those ones that falls into GM call land, but Im willing to give this one to the players. I mean all those times youre trying to hear breathing, or sneaking, or reloading, or anything that could betray someones position... sounds they dont know theyre making would certianly give you an edge. Like before the other sound mods like amplification just prevent your normal hearing from becoming inapplicable. So again you add 3 for hearing, now at 7 total.

Orientation adds another 2, straight up. So now youre at 9. Which comes out to the max use of the tac computer as shown in M&M. Some situations youll lose 1 or 2, some youll gain 1 or 2, but ballpark you can use the system to its full all the time. Especially if you set it up to use drones and such to confer even more senses, it gets less likley youll even need to worry about what adds and what doesnt, 90% of the time youll be operation at max.

However, for the 2.7 essence (ballpark for system and 10 senses and battletac, without even counting the orientation, other senses, etc) and nearly 450000 nuyen (base, it will be more on the street) how useful is the bonus it confers? The battletac system itself might be useful just for sharing information with the team, but if you factor in the cost of gearing everyone up with that just so they can share the small unit tactics bonus it gets pretty crazy. So in the end you sink all this cash into getting a team setup for what ... maybe 9 combat pool dice (tac computer adds 4, small unit tactics 6 plus 4 dice against tn 4 for radio communication with battletac cyberlink adds another 5) and the ability to use it on surprise tests? Certainly a nice bonus, but a bit low for the cost.

So in the end probably near 4 essence and 600k (per person mind you) for 9 combat pool and the ability to use them on surprise tests. Nice but Id spend the resources elsewhere. If youre a concerned GM to all this, my advice is dont sweat it. It can be fun for the players to "gear up" and run around in all their fancy tech to be all "tactical" but they wont come out of it being all unstoppable or anything. The biggest advantage here IMO is the bonus dice to surprise tests; if you want to counter that simply play the bad guys in a way such that its harder to get the drop on them. Thats your best bet.

The rest of the team doesn't need 600k worth of equipment to benefit from small unit tactics. At the most they'd spend 30k or so for a battletac cyberlink reciever. At the least, they just need a set of eyeballs.

I was actually thinking about using an off-site "tactical mastermind", a person whose only purpose is to use the data provided by the operators with his tactical computer and then use his SUT to provide the bonuses to the operators. If you consider the TN for using SUT on yourself to be 4, this is useful. If you consider that TN to be 2, it isn't...

Why? Because this way none of the guys in the action have to use up all that essence for the Tactical Computer and other stuff neccessary for it to function well.

A decker who is doing overwatch from the Matrix is also very deadly with BattleTac. Every sec camera he decks into or any other device can be an additional sense, if you are talking about a building or a city, maxing the Tac Comp is not a problem.

Originally I thought more along the lines of a "brain in the box" kinda guy, perhaps akin to the seers in Minority Report. Basically someone who has spent most of his life learning the finer points of small unit tactics, and not much else. Because if the guy doesn't have a very, very high SUT skill to begin with, the advantages of such a set-up aren't all that great.

Here is a previous thread on this topic we're getting onto.

Adding thermo and low-light vision, even if they were natural abilities, would take-up 2 additional ports by the description on page 22. Wether or not it would be possible to gain 2 senses applicable to the Tac Comp rating level from doing this is dubious. Why not just get a guncam and hook 6 copies of the feed up-to different ports? Does that count as 6 senses? It says that the sense only applies if the Tac Comp can use the sense provided, and it's a reasonable argument that if one sense duplicates another sense almost exactly then it is not useful. Thus: I doubt Low-Light would count as a sense until it is too dark for normal vision, thermographic vision wouldn't either unless the additional thermal information (how panicked someone is or something?) could be processed effectively by the port.

Consider also the fact that the character wearing the LL+Thermo+US helmet is feeding information to the port it's not designed to deal with. The port hooked-up to normal vision expects just that, normal vision, and would probably be somewhat confused by the glowing people and contour map. When applying low and high-frequency hearing to the single hearing port, it expects for all sounds it hears to be normally audible sound and would not understand the tactical significance of these sounds. It may even make tactical errors based on that assumption.

But normal vision is not hooked-up to the nessecary programs, If the other senses from the helmet are hooked-up to generic ports then it's fine AFAIK but I was talking about all of the sensory data going through inappropriate dedicated ports.

Data through generic ports still need programs, dedicated ones already have programs fixed.

What I was talking about was your statement that it was canon that someone wearing a headset that piped 3 extra senses (LL, Thermo, and US) onto normal vision would get 3 extra senses out of it. I am saying that if you wanted the bonus from thermo and LL then they would need to be piped through other ports.

There is still the question though wether or not a character with all of these senses ported-in should get the full bonus. It's still dubious that things like Thermographic Vision, Low-Light vision, Low Freq Hearing, and High Frequency Hearing, and Touch would be useful in most combat conditions. It's all fine having the ports connected-up but what benefit, if any, would having low-light vision (normally in monochrome AFAIK, so you lose detail) in normal light levels have?

This is all GM's disgression, but it does say on P22 of M&M that senses should be carefully weighed before applying them. Simply applying everything every time (except in exceptional circumstances) isn't really in the same spirit as that statement.

Hmm. I think it would keep giving SUT bonuses. You need to keep adding more ports ETC, and some rules against sensory duplication too many times (is having 20 sets of vision really going to help any more than 18?) would be good, but it dosen't max the cap for SUT like it does for combat pool and max pool on surprise tests.

the problem with the tactical computer is that they dont properly defin the barrier to when you can say that its a new sense. that sayd i hardly think you will ever get more then 2 senses into play unless you have a orientation system. HF and LF replace normal hearing when applyed, thermo replace normal vision and low light just enhance normal vision.

now if you have some remote audio or video pickups that you feed in by radio and know the location of then you can in theory get them into the mix as they give you a diffrent viewpoint on the action so that you more accuratly know where stuff is. (like say triangulating the sound of a gunshot by the time it takes to reach audio pickups and its direction pr pickup).