This is different from the topic about the drone cyberarms. PLEASE don't mention it here. What I'm asking is if there's any way I can have a tacnet with one member.

According to Unwired, a tacnet needs 3 members to 'function effectively'. However, earlier in the same paragraph it says a tacnet can offer 'interesting advice' to an individual user. What does this mean?

If I have a drekload of senseware (olfactory, ultrasound, radar, ultrawideband, plus all the usual cybereyes and ears, etc) giving me 8 sensor channels (for a rating 4 tacsoft), but I'm the only member, what happens? Do I get bonuses to any tests? Can the tacsofts analytical engine advise me on tactics?

Or is this just a stupid question?

That is a problem of "fluff" contradicting the rules.
In practice a tacnet is nothing more than an analytical programa showing you stuff through a HUD. If you are in a single tacnet, you still get the HUD, but the practical bonus you would get would be none. The tacnet could still highlight IFF, ammo, etc. but nothing else.

So it's a waste of money (or programming time) just to have all my various senses arranged in AR?

What about the analytical side? Could I get initiative bonuses? Would it give me any advice?

I can see how it would actually give dicepool bonuses based on the fluff, for example it would know from my cybereyes with thermographic vision that the bad guy is behind that wall, and it's analytical engine would hear, through my cyberears, him loading a clip, so it could tell me to find cover, giving me that split second advantage as it would also now where the cover was and AR cues as to it's direction.

Correct. And you don't get any bonus for the same reason that the mage, with only 6 sensor channels, can't ever join a TacNet 4.

What reason is that?

Because the Tacnet rules as written are STUPID.

The mage would not benefit from the tacnet 4 (not enough data provided). IMO it would have been sufficient to not count the mage as a contributing member for the tacnet.

Tacnet should have a skill associated with it for it's use.

The bonus should be based on the skill.

A Mage with 4 sensor channels, should not provide much to a tactnet, but he should be able to take part, and he should gain benefit from it.

So he doesn't have infrared sensors, the tacnet can tell him about the 3 guys behind the wall next to him that HE can't see, but that those 5 drones the rigger has flying around can. Isn't that the point, the Rigger provides information and overwatch that the tacnet assimilates, and sends to each individual member?

TacNets that rely on trained users are not sufficiently advanced for tech developed decades from now. I approve that there is no skill requirement. The largest advantage would go to the user that is not used to analysing a battlefield.

someone with no extra sensors, but only his eyes, ears, and appropriate interfaces should be able to join and get benefit from a tacnet.

You have to be able to read and understand the information being fed to you by the tacnet. And not freeze up.

Perhaps each member needs to run a tacnet agent, that's configured based on it's rating to facilitate the information flow.

Agreed. I've said a couple times that I'd prefer a TacNet rules setup that let you simply feed info in, and then distribute bonuses out, without regard to how the input and output matches up. But, that's complete not the RAW, of course.

Re: OP, it says, 'while tacnet might be interesting to 1 person, you only get bonuses for 3+'.

Me and Garou are finishing the Denver Missions Campaigns. And after that we will compile a document of house-rules. Tacnet is among the things that will be changed. I'll post the document when we have it.

That's what I'm looking for.

Also:

How could you do that fairly, though? What stops a player from saying, "I'm contributing to the tacnet, so I should get the full +4 bonus even though I'm only contributing 1 channel?"

Maybe it would be unfair, but realistic.

Set the scene. You've got a doss your target is hiding in, in an apartment with three guards. Your drone rigger is providing eyes through the windows with Flyspy drones on the visual and thermographic levels. Your hacker has sleazed his way into the coffee machine and redirected the proximity sensors to scan the kitchen for the mark.

Your infiltration specialist has a fiberoptic cable peeking under the doorjamb, leaving the sniper with nothing but the tac net and all he's contributing is a scope-eye view. With all the other info he can pull from, shouldn't he be getting the bonuses when he takes a shot with that anti-materiel rifle to even out the opposition?

Tanegar, in what way is that a problem? A TacNet isn't share and share alike, it's a tactical information system. Why should it matter if you're contributing at all? That's the *whole* point of my suggestion.

When I run tacnets I use senors per person but not even to guide for the bonus with negatives to it when deemed nessacrary. Why Ido it this way curently if you hacker hacks a buildings security systems senors. Curently you feed them in to the tac net. Your GM might if he's nice let you act of info they get but you still need X sensors your self. Where as how I do it I count the sensors involing you. Yes that gives a lot of over lap. How ever the need per bonus is expedentional and its easyer split across more than one person that a indevdual.

Personally the way I'd do it is that TacNet requires 3 contributing members. A "contributing member" is anyone with Rating x2 sensor channels into the TacNet.

The bonus that all members (contributing or otherwise) get is equal to (Number of Contributing Members -2) up to a maximum of the TacNet's Rating. So 6 people on a TacNet 4 (of which only 3 are contributing) still only get a +1, but if they can find 3 more people/drones that can put in 8 channels each, then everyone gets a +4.

In order to be a "leech" on the TacNet you have to submit at least 2 sensor channels (the 'Net needs to know where you are, two channels should be enough to provide an accurate triangulation calculation) and be within range of one contributing member.

Additionally, for every Rating x2 channels* from non-contributing members, there is 1 "virtual" contributing member, for the purposes of the bonus only.

So those same 6 people (3 contributors) on the R4 tacnet, of the other three there are a guaranteed 6 sensor channels. If those three can pony up an additional two channels then everyone's bonus is +2, rather than +1.



This would make TacNet more useful in general, as well as less powerful. 3 SWAT guys with tacnet 4 aren't going to pwn ass because they all have a +4 to [f*ck everything], they'll pwn ass because they have a chopper in the sky, two cars, a van, and eight drones surrounding the place they're busting (getting their bonus up to +4).

*I'd have made it unique, but it gets a little ambiguous, hairy, and confusing. If it would go that route, it would be Rating unique channels per virtual contributor. The other Rating channels would be visual of some kind (eg. smartlink). Those eight would then make a virtual contributor. Eight more, say another 4 people with 1 visual and 1 "already used for the existing virtual contributor" you'd get a second virtual contributor.

The idea being that a virtual contributor would have to qualify as a contributing member as normal, though allowed some overlap in sensor channels (eg. four identical ones) as you'd be pulling from multiple people as long as you still got some level of breadth of data (the four unique sensors).

I think that's close to my perspective, but I'd simplify it for actual use as a rule. Something like X sensors in divided by Y users out, and so on. Include some limits for balance (different senses versus duplicate senses, max bonus, that kind of thing).

The idea is that a dozen Fly-Spies or a wired facility or whatever should contribute a *lot* of useful info, even if the infantry aren't inputting 12 channels.

I agree that you have to at least have a GPS/whatever so the TacNet knows where you are, etc.

As a GM, I've never had my players try to really take advantage of a TacNet, which makes me sad. It seems to me like the TacNet is marketed as offering the following four functions, correct me if I'm wrong:

• Expert System offering Tactical Advice
• Battlefield Awareness
• Threat Prediction and Avoidance
• Optimal Approach and Attack System

Now, just to get some definitions out of the way, the Expert System is basically a simulated military advisor on overwatch. It has a detailed compilation of military history and all the declassified tactics manuals the programmers could get, along with some real-world advice from a salty old veteran who has been in this noise before. It's probably a pretty well-polished interface, which means as a GM I get to do an impression of R. Lee Ermey or Patton whenever they ask for advice. In game terms, I would let players use this as a knowledge skill for military and tactical questions at 2+TacNet Rating. Questions like "Can that gun shoot through this desk?" and "Is that a frag grenade in his hand?" are all fair game, if the player thinks to ask them.

Battlefield Awareness means that the system is getting whatever information it can from everyone and everything connected to the system. If your spy-drone is sending data back to your commlink, it is entirely reasonable that the TacNet knows where it is at. By extension, it should be able to tell you where your team members are at, give you updates from their biomonitors, flash a warning when somebody hears gunfire...these are general information that your team members could easily communicate to you, but the TacNet does it automatically with a slick UI. The rules say that based on wireless connectivity, players are allowed to communicate freely amongst themselves, so having the TacNet keep all the members aware of what the other members know is not giving the players an advantage; it just saves on some back-and-forth.

Threat Prediction and Avoidance refers to the ability of a TacNet to get you out of harm's way. It does this by building a sophisticated model of the battlefield and mapping the enemy's probable angles of fire, and analyzing a melee attacker's fighting style to predict where the next attack will come from. The trick to making this useful is getting an accurate prediction to the user early enough to be a tactical advantage. There are all sorts of ways the enemy might give himself away, and tracking them all with different sensor systems gives the system a better ability to make strong predictions; that's why the best TacNets require as much data as a command center to work properly. In order to get this information to the user early enough, it needs not only lots of sensors with a lot of angles to make the prediction, but enough processing power on the network to analyse all that data before the bad guy finishes pulling that trigger. The better the prediction, the earlier the warning, the better the defense bonus the TacNet provides.

Optimal Approach and Attack System uses the same information as the Threat Prediction and Avoidance above, but focuses on where the enemy will be standing when the bullet gets there. Anybody can hit a stationary target in full view, but professional soldiers use cover, concealment, and movement to increase their survivability. With a powerful enough system and enough data, these evasions can be predicted and overcome. As with Threat Avoidance and Prediction, it takes a lot of data and a lot of processing power to get the information to the user fast enough to provide a real bonus.


That said, my reading of the TacNet is that it can provide the Expert System and Battlefield Awareness bonuses just by running - it's a very expensive bit of software, and those are useful functions that should be available. The defensive and offensive bonuses, on the other hand, rely on having a certain amount of power and information to be effective. If the TacNet is understrength, those bonuses should be reduced or unavailable, but that doesn't mean that the team can't use the TacNet to coordinate an assault or let them know when the Mage gets KO'd by drain.

In my humble, every tactical team should be running a TacNet just to cut down on Fog of War - the bonuses are just a nice touch.

Oh yes. Me like.

Ditto.

So MikeKozar, if my Chaos Mage who has 6 Sensor channels (Radar, Ultrasound, Cybereyes with Thermographic, Cyberears with Audio Enhancement, Olfactory Booster*, & Orientation System) and has Cyber Commlink cluster** [two rating 4 'links], would he be able to run the Threat Prediction & Avoidance and Optimal Approach & Attack System portions of the TacNet software?

* == Olfactory Booster is so underrated when it comes to TacNet. I mean if the enemy is carrying a gas grenade you might be able to know what it loaded with. How about knowing how much explosives they are carrying. You can know their emotional state and know if they are on to you. You can also know if they're high on some combat drug.

** == the reason my mage is running a commlink cluster is that he has the flaw "Lost Loved One" and that person is his sister, a technomancer. Being that he has Logic 6, he reasoned that since you're going into a situation where hackers are common that you had best have the best defenses money can buy... and those defenses take processor capacity. Since he has a cyber lower leg and has space... why not use it.

If he has two other people contributing, then yes!
(I.e. those two comlinks don't count)

I don't think smell is underrated; everyone always mentions it in these Tacnet threads. It has some potential, occasional uses.

Alone, I think you could say the Tacnet software functions as a Knowsoft for 'tactics' or whatever, per Mike's above. I dunno if Rating+2 is the right level, but perhaps.

I was asking about Mike's interpretation of TacNet and not RAW. I know the RAW has that you have to have 3+ members.

Actually, no... There is the rule that AR can give up to a +2 Bonus in the Main Book. The Tacnet replaces that if you have a group... in our games, if there is a single person doing something, and he has access to AR and various sensors that can interact, he can net himself a few dice from time to time, when it is advantageous for him to do so...

You can just use the generic AR bonused presented in the Main book (which are a GM call for what you can use the bonus for) or you can use the Tacnet Rules in Unwired and benefit from a Tactical Netowrk... They both work...

Keep the Faith

Actually, if he joined the Tactical Network, he would downgrade the network to a +3 Bonus... The Tactical Network functions at the capabilities of the lowest contributor...

Keep the Faith

No, no, we're *not* talking about RAW, guys. At least, we hadn't been.

Oooohhhhh Kay...

So... Interpretation then... I have absolutely no problem with a fully functional Tacnet (with 7 Members/Drones aprticipating) providing additional members (beyond the requirements for the Net, and with less channels than required) with the Tacnet Bonus (+4) that is currently available... this could also work for lesser rated Tacnets as well, of course...

In fact, I do not see why you would not do that... You satisfy the rules for the bonus, and you have/provide additional personnel that can provide additional channels in other locations to actively use the Battlefield Data... That whole Fog of War thing that was mentioned earlier...

Keep the Faith

My guideline for rule-bending has always been that anything that does not alter the balance of power, but is more cinematic, dramatic, or amusing, should be allowed. In this case, let's consider how far off the standard rules we really are: You're running TacNet on 3 nodes, with (collectively) access to 6 (Or is it 8? Standard Video and Audio count, right?) sensor channels. Your nodes are carried, instead of drone-mounted, which means you only have one location's worth of data. If we consider 8 to be the most channels you will have access to, and each node is using 2 channels for a three-member TacNet1, you might get a +1. There aren't enough channels to run a TacNet2 (3 members @ 4 channels) per RAW.

Furthermore, your limited battlefield perspective means that the TacNet can only analyse things that are within your line-of-sense; enemies taking cover may be able to escape your knowledge because of your limited point of view compared to a traditional TacNet. As a GM, I would try and bring this up fairly often, since your TacNet is kind of crippled compared to a real TacNet. Any time the enemy is firing from concealment, you might lose that +1.

So, would I allow a +1 if you brought three commlinks and the enemy was in your field of view? Sure. You paid for it, and it's not gamebreaking. As Tymeaus pointed out, using AR is listed as a discretionary +2 bonus, so giving you a +1 is really a compromise. I would feel obliged to point out that for a modest investment in spydrones, you could get up to a +3 TacNet fairly easily, and with greater battlefield intelligence. In fact, I would probably have the TacNet berate you in character for having Inadequate Operational Intelligence!




That's kind of an interesting point: If he had two Ferret drones tailing him, he'd be a three-member TacNet, right? If those drones were riding along with him, strapped to a belt prior to deployment, for instance, wouldn't they still count? If the drones were those immobile sensor balls that you chuck out into the field, that would still count, right? Per RAW, it requires enough members and sensors to earn the bonus. The way I see it, if drones are allowed, then 'members' is easy. A one-man TacNet just has very limited perspective, and won't always be effective; more to the point, there are less expensive ways to get a +1 and less troublesome ways to get a functional TacNet.