Another thought - Radar pulses are basically just bursts of radio energy. You send one out, listen to the return,and compare the reflected signal with the original to determine information about the surroundings.

Most modern day radar detectors operate by scanning a very narrow band of radio frequencies for activity, as trying to scan for ALL radio activity in all bands would be kinda overwhelming and counterproductive.

Police radar detectors scan for activity in the police radar bands, airplane radar detectors scan for activity in the commonly used aircraft/military bands, etc.

However, in theory you could use almost any radio signal to generate a return echo.

Is there anything preventing someone from, say, recording the 'normal' radio chatter in an area, and re-broadcasting it, using that to get the return echo?



-karma

I think that's called Secondary Source something something, or maybe I'm just making that up. But yeah, no real reason that couldn't work, but it'd likely require a bit more computing power to figure out, especially since the other sources might not be constant. Would likely also be issues with movement and all kinds of other stuff. Best to leave having to emit your own radio thing as a weakness of the systems.

That's the 'cell phones find B-2 bomber' trick, but it seems like kind of a pain for Shadowrun. And it wouldn't work nearly as well at ground level, high resolution (vision), or through walls.

http://tech.mit.edu/V121/N63/Stealth.63f.html

So, instead of getting a UWBR installed in a person then hooking that person up to the tacnet, we just use everyone's normal comm signals, process how we receive them... the only problem would be that the comms would have to be hot -- constantly broadcasting. As a side benefit, we should be able to triangulate the position of anyone using a comm.

I still think it'd be too messy at ground level/for high resolution/through walls.

Emphasis on the "overlays" part. I would say it replaces when there is no other input source (completely dark room and you don't have Thermo)


Why can't you use the signal processing power to make an "Enhanced Imaging" setup. You use your commlink to combine the different sources of sensory data into one display.


Why not use the different sensor software packages to interpret the data. I mean Weapon Watcher can use the radar image to find out what kind of gun the target is carrying. Gait Analysis can tell if they're running to intercept you or just on regular patrol. Etc, etc,

Run these on a commlink (or commlink cluster) and you don't need to make a perception check, the software can do it for you and then display the data as an ARO.

Thing is, it can see through people just like it can see through walls. It can detect cyber, electronics or guns just like millimeter wave radar "x-ray" machines. Until people start making ray guns disguised as baby skeletons, I doubt there would be too much confusion. I mean, it can't tell a ball of mozzarella from a wad of plastique, or a wage mage from a cube jockey, but most mundane threats shouldn't be hard to suss.

Why wouldn't there be? Why shouldn't you be able to turn the sensor on without the scanner?

Yeah, but you couldn't make any real sense out of the relevant data. Known out results in measurable in. Unknown in resulsts in "LOL I Dunno ¯\(°_o)/¯"

Because by RAW, Ultrasound specifically states it has a passive mode and what to use it for, and UWBR doesn't, but has a Signal by RAW, thus using EW rules.

Because Ultrasound is tuned to a fixed frequency (or narrow range), while UWBR shifts across a wide range of frequency. And it uses frequencies occupied by WiFi.
So contrary to the first case, the frequency the sensor is tuned to at any given moment is dependant on the one it just emitted. Otherwise you would "see" mostly the background noise of WiFi.

Hmm. That's nifty, but not really what I was getting at.

I was thinking about disguising a radar 'pulse' to look like background WiFi signals, perhaps just a bit stronger.

Not really about detecting a stealthed object, rather about stealthing the radar itself.

So, the radar would send out a pule, but the detector in the facility you're infiltrating only sees what appears to be normal wireless chatter.



-karma

That is the point about UWBR.

Oh, KarmaInferno, I see. IMO, the fact that it uses pulses means you can't do as you suggest, but I'm not convinced radar counter-detection is a big problem, either. So, if you were going to use one of those concepts in your own game, it *would* make sense to allow the other.

I disagree with this. The rules don't state Radar works like X-Ray, it says Ultrasound. And Ultrasound doesn't see skeletons. Have you ever seen a sonigram (sp?)? The see-thru part isn't literal like X-Ray, it just means you can see the stuff behind the person or wall.

Though, the more I read this thread, the more I think Radar needs a bit of fixing itself in the rules.

EDIT... Did not see Karoline's response... so the below is basically saying the same thing... Sorry

Why would you be tracking employees with Radar?
Just Curious...

Wi-fi Inhibiting materials on the outside of your facility walls, and you can still track those employees within the walls with the Wi-fi capabilities you may have... I was strictly referring to Radar in the conversation... and you could even have a ground antenna that could be used to track things from teh outside and bypass the walls through a hard wire...

Keep the Faith

However, the Cyberware Scanner is essentially a Very Short Range UWB Radar... and if you look at the description of the Ultrawideband Radar, it says it can be used to detect cyberware, right there in the text itself... Page 60, Arsenal.

So, there you go...

Keep the Faith

Indeed. It explicitly states that UWB radar is the do-all super awesome sensor.

It is a nice system, to be sure, but it does have some drawbacks as well...
The ease of detectibility is big one in my opinion... though it may be somewhat mitigated by the sheer number of signals that are present most of the time...

Keep the Faith

Won't disagree with this except for interpretation. Detecting cyberware isn't necessarily seeing skeleton like features. I would think that radar bounces back off of cyberware differently than it does organic material.

But now we're at the point where we're trying to pin down scientific specifics for another SR item that just "magically works" and I don't know enough behind the science to make a good argument for how the details should actually work implemented in game space.

Hey, no worries... you just have to go with the flow at that point... it is indeed often maddening to try to reconcile the Shadowrun World with the real world... I quit trying, and am much happier for it...

Keep the Faith

Most of the skeleton isn't organic.

Basically, what the user will be able to see is density and layer seperation. Density reflects gradually, layer edges become pronounced.
So a brick wall might seem transparent, but that doesn't mean you can't distinguish the bricks, mortar and wiring – and if there is a cracked brick, that crack will be visible as well.

It's not like you need to see their bones, anyway. We're really talking about seeing cyber, guns, knives, etc. Maybe your medic could want an emergency X-ray, but we don't care too much about skeletons apart from that.

Actually, I dispute that point. The skeleton is not flesh and it is not an "organ", but it is organic.

Thanks for that... Saves me the Rant...

Keep the Faith

Always glad to help. @=)

Just pulled this up to demonstrate my point. Bone is also called osseous tissue. Hardened osseous tissue, but still tissue. There are three types of cells that make up the structure of bone.

The definition of "organic" from Dictionary.com, BTW:



There are plenty more definitions, but these are the ones that cover the point in question.

The term you are loking for is "mineralized tissues", which combine organic and inorganic compounds. The latter being the hard parts. That do show up on backscatter technology.

Your comment indicates I was having difficulties expressing myself. Sorry, but no. I was not "looking for" any term because I knew exactly what I meant to say.

Organic.

Which is only a part (soft) of the skeleton, the other (hard) being inorganic.

Of course, both flesh and bones show up distinguishably, like bricks and cables in a wall.

Why would a UWBR be easy to detect? Radar signals are practically ubiquitous, so if you have a detector that just detects radio waves, it'll go off constantly. Ultrasound on the other hand is much less common, and putting a detector for that inside a facility is much more likely to be useful.

This is very true, if you are within an area that is heavily saturated by such signals... but in a Zero Zone, which MAY NOT be inundated with such signals, your UWBR will indeed stand out...

It will not come into play all the time, no doubt, but it could cause you issues if you do not think about your environment from time to time...

I do agree with you, though, that radar is exceedingly ubiquitous, as every vehicle has a radar sensor attached to it, which will result in a lot of activity in the spectrum... I usually do not worry about it most times, but on occassion, it has been an issue.

Keep the Faith

FYI, RAW isn't exhaustive - it is ok that you think for yourself.

It is okay to admit that you are inventing house rules.

edit, erased due to technical definition being provided.

So hook it up to a radar sensor, so it will alert you when it can function in a radio signal rich environment with minimal fear of detection, and when it is an a signal poor environment, and risks detection.

I don't tend to worry overmuch about that, but I agree that it is a way to limit your exposure...

Keep the Faith

Bonus points if the radio sensor manifests as a little image of a gem in your AR vision that gets darker the more radio chatter is present.




-karma

Heheheh... Bravo...

Keep the Faith

Well, organic can mean lots of different things in lots of contexts, but the majority of a bone is non-living mineral deposits. Yes, there are osteocytes, connective tissues, red and yellow marrow and various veins and arteries within bone, but they comprise less than 30% of the overall matter of the bone itself. The lion's share of any bone is matrix consisting of Calcium and Potassium, and that is just as alive as a rock. The real issue to contend with is not whether or not it's organic but whether or not it is sufficiently different in terms of density than soft tissue. To that, I can't imagine any answer but yes. As such, it's just as easy to differentiate from the wet tissues as a piece of metal or whatever.

It's like the "sonar" from the hostage scene in "The Dark Knight". In fact, it's exactly that, and I can't believe that no one has brought that scene up yet.. But, the waves travel through things and bounce off objects in differing amounts based on the density of the material. Fewer waves are reflected by the soft tissues, so they would show up as ghostly shadows around the much denser bone and metal. So, what you end up with is largely a bunch of pictures of skellingtons and metallic jim-jams. I suppose you could use this against players by having an adept/bio hitter come at them every now and then with mostly plastic/ceramic weapons. That way, they're more likely to miss a real threat than to misinterpret a non-threat.

If the non-metallic weapon modification would provide any bonus against cyber scanners and thus, UWBR, that would help.
Unfortunately, it doesn't – and even fluff (RC) mentions how a ceramic knife will show up on them.

Cyber scanners are still the Win-Button of security.

Well, there's always disguised and disassembled weapons..

Glass weapons maybe? You see them in fiction as being radar-invisible but I've not been able to find any real world confirmation.




-karma

Given that UWBR sees through walls, I'd imagine a glass knife would look exactly like a metal knife to an UWBR, though I could be wrong. There isn't anything that I remember reading about how UWBR interacts with windows, but it doesn't say anything about it interacting with them poorly like ultrasound does.

There are ceramics that are transparent to terahertz radiation. Just… Shadowrun didn't notice.

Like nobody noticed that it's pointless to have three levels ceramic substitution for weapons when the second already makes them undetectable and they all occupy the same amount of slots… leaving just the money aspect. It would have been a great opportunity to just compact it down to one single level.

I didn't realize that a -4 DP made them undetectable. Is there somewhere that I'm missing that the largest DP it is possible to have for a MAD system is 4? I guess because the only MAD scanner listed in the core book only goes up to rating 3?

Personally I have trouble believing that the most effective metal detector in existence in SR only has a 66% chance to detect a large metalic weapon passing through it, compared to modern day metal detectors that (AFAIK) have a 100% chance to detect even a small amount of metal passing through them.

Yeah, I tend to set off the more sensitive Metal Detectors due to the 2 small rods in my back... not all of them mind you , but enough to be a hassle...

Keep the Faith

I certainly wouldn't call that house rules - it is obvious how the tech works, and what would happen if you ran an UWBR in passive mode. The idea that you can't do something unless it is RAW or houseruled means you end up with:

Player: "I want to turn only the sensor in my UWBR on, and leave the transmitter off."
GM: "You can't do that, there's nothing in RAW that describes how that would work."
Player: "There's a sensor, like an eye, and think of the transmitter as a flashlight, and..."
GM: "You can't do it, it isn't RAW".

How's that for cyberpunk for you? GMs that rigid and unimaginative should be playing board games, not RPGs.

You'd have a hediously expensive radio. Because it doesn't know what the outgoing signal looks like, it can't really interpret the incoming signals except to say radio waves are showing up.

The issue isn't really whether or not you can interpret the other guy's reflected signals, you just have to be able to pinpoint the emission source. Two very different things.

Ah. Well, pinpointing a radio source isn't going to work either, without multiple sensors. The facility you're attacking would likely have that, but your team may not (in the right position, etc.).

And Smokeskin, that's the definition of a house rule. I said, it is *okay*.

I agree that pinpointing other radar source locations is beyond the scope of most personal scale radars.

However, just leaving the receiver on should tell you if other folks are using standard radars in active scanning mode.





-np