... Ahhh, I see that.

And in fact, in my games, we do allow laser sights and smartlinks while dual-wielding. The base dicepool is split and then those bonuses are added after. Go play any Time Cop/House of the Dead styled game and take both guns - having the smartlink makes it easier per weapon.

I'd rather split the full dice pool, instead of dealing with all this twinkery. Ditto for multicasting.

Multicasting is unchanged, actually.

And even with our dual-wielding rule, nobody does it, so I guess it's a moot point.

As far as I know, it doesn't fly. It skims over the surface, including over the surface of water. According to Arsenal, it's a hovercraft.

Either: 1) I'm missing a rule. (likely) or 2) It's Arsenal (also likely). Everything should be available during chargen.

You can fit all that + non-conductivity on a chameleon suit.

Well, you *should* have it on your FFBA.

right.

I think someone earlier asked why anyone would prefer to use the listed tasers over S&S. In the short time I was a player and not a GM i had my wussy hacker wallop a heavy cybered troll with nothing but a Defiance Ex with a smartgun system and an extra battery pack mod.

See, the wires mean that once the gun makes a hit on the target the target has to pull them out... or they can be shocked repeatably without the need for an attack or avoidance test. I hit him with the taser, dropped it and ran like the rest of my group. Except that because it was smartgunned I could keep making him suffer 8S(e) each IP. And with his pain editor he just chased us dragging the taser along behind him, not noticing the thing before he had his stun filled up and overflowing into physical. By the time he got the 4 darts out he was already smoking.

Wow, a stick n shock thread pops up... AGAIN, and a day later it's already 7 pages long.

Can we get pattyhulez who always posts insane questions who is currently posting about inhabiting dragons to put a nasty twist on this please?

Mesh

That is all kinds of awesome, though I have to wonder how the wires didn't break.

I'm not entirely sure that's RAW, but it's definitely an interesting idea, and maybe that's how it should work.

Ooo, ooo, let me try!

Craft each SnS bullet into a Prepared Vessel, and increase the DV by the possession spirit's Force rating! If we fill the ammo belt with bound Force 8 spirits, that would be 4,108¥ per bullet (including the 100¥ for refined Iron)... now, which light machine gun would be best for this venture?

Don't forget the 4k each to bind the spirits...

Nah, just pick up a giant group of free spirits as a loyalty 6 group contact.

Fixed, thanks. (I originally had 3k¥ for mass Force 6 spirits, but then I realized that Force 8 is two better.)

Monofiliment?

omfg if a taser DID have monofilament wires between the capacitor and the darts, just imagine the possibilities. If you grab the wire to try and yank out the taser darts...no more fingers.

Thats a cool story, but isn't in any way supported by the rules.

Agreed.

And you use your prostitution ring backed by the Toxic Bloodmages to feed karma to the giant group of free spirits in order to keep them happy. In fact the profits from the prostitution ring can pay for the bullets.

Or, you could have the spirits inhabit a gernade, which would give the gernade ItNW, so the explosion would rebound inside the gernade at least once before breaking through the sides, that should be good for doubling the force (or am I remembering an old set of rules for rebounding explosions?).

That's what I'm talking about! NOW we have a topic!

Mesh

Reminds me of my plan for a version of the Walking Man (Nightside) with twin revolvers with silver bullets holding anchored spells at high force.

"And the Walking Man stepped into the street his duster flowing behind him as he strode towards his target. His vision held everything and nothing at the same time, but somehow you knew his attention was on It.

What once was a troll now twisted from its infection, stared him down but if the Walking Man noticed it didn’t show in his calm. Its muscles twitched and It bellowed in challenge, with arms and legs made strong by the corruption in its veins it started to charge.
Taking a shooting range stance the Walking Man raises his gun slowly with almost no regard for the thing thundering towards him. With a thumb he rotates the bullets until with a small smile he aims at his target, the bullet of silver forged and enchanted by the brotherhood for the smiting of things not for Gods world.

It's close now deadly close, claws reaching for him It grunts in anticipation. But confusion suddenly floods its small brain, No no It slashes at him but somehow It misses.
With a sudden flow of movement the Walking Man spins to one side, the thing rushes past and with a almost casual distain the Walking Man puts one single bullet into the back of its head.

For just a moment the thing keeps moving then suddenly light erupts from the bullet hole followed by a flash of flame as the thing is burned up from the inside out by holy fire."

Just curious, but what rule do you think was broken in my story?

I'm having a hard time finding the rule that says the taser keeps doing damage after you drop it on the ground. As far as I can tell it causes damage just once per shot and if you want more damage, you need to fire another shot, just like any other pistol.

Right. And I said the taser had a smartgun system on it. Allowing remote firing.

And for clarification, while I got to bypass attack and defense tests as the probes were still in him, the troll still got to resist the damage as normal.

AFAIK Smartgun systems do not allow for 'remote firing'?

When you remote fire (and I have no clue where that rule is), it should eject the current round and fire a new round. Is there some rule with tasers that you can keep "firing" but not use any ammo?

Well, Tasers that are inherently touch effect have no ammunition per se, and continuously shock as long as you continue to poke them with it (Until their charges run out, of course)...

I am not sure whether you could continue to use the connected darts to continue stunning someone, but I do think it is doable on real world ones... you jusy keep triggering the charge...

I guess it depends on whether the ammo is the needles, or if the ammo is the electrical charges held.

Maybe the more expensive models allow you to keep pumping juice through the needles you fired last time, just in case you tag a guy but don't drop him, and you want to keep hitting him without needing to aim again.

You certainly also want the ability to detach the previous wires and shoot a new set of needles, for the case when you drop a guy in one shot. I'd think that's the default case.

While tasers in 2010 can do the 'multiple shocks on the same wired darts', the ones in SR4 can't. Not a bad house rule, but I wouldn't let them stay in during even moderate movement.

Real world ones, yes, and I have no problem with the story being house rules. I just don't see where the story is "supported by the rules".

I'm also not sure it's supported by logic. I can't quite get past the troll dragging the taser behind him running and the thing not even having a chance to fall out.

Very True Indeed...

They do.

@ tasers: The prongs are remarkably hard to remove. They must be ripped out, which is painful, or they must be removed by trained EMTs. Watch COPS more and you'll see.

Also, I agree with Yeram about tasers in 2072. They have shots like pistols, not taser-trails like real ones, mainly because that's what the game mechanics say they have.

Define remote firing. You do not have to be physically holding your gun to fire it?

Where does it say this in the rules?

Smartguns can be fired without pulling a trigger(you can actually remove the trigger alltogether) and you can connect to the gun remotly over a wireless link, presto remote firing.

But what is the Signal range of gun? I assume it would be extremely low (so someone can't hack your smartlink over the matrix on top of everything else) so the example of the guy "firing" the taser again and again doesn't work on another level because he is out of the gun's signal range.

Of course it would work, at least if the troll has a commlink. Every wireless device, or by strict RAW every device (because all devices have wireless capabilities), functions as a repeater for wirelss signals. Unless the smartgun should have a signal rating of 0 (3m), it should work. Unless you turn off your wireless any smartgun can be hacked from all over the world.

The only remaining question is, whether tasers of SR4 have the energy for shots stored in the weapon itself or the ammunition.

In the ammo, except for the Defiance EX Shocker that was used in this example.
If it didn't store the energy in the weapon there wouldn't be any need for the wires.

I stand corrected by wikipedia. I was of the opinion that the whole package including the charge was to be replaced, but you wouldn't want to propel big block of batteries at a target if the weapon was supposed to be "less than lethal".

Still we don't know how it works in SR. It is not mentioned that you can shoot more than one shot through the same wires.

Hm, i never thought of the "SR Tasers" like the ones in our time. I always thought they are massivly more powerful and damaging and ALL throw a big slug with either pins or clinging gel. (And disregarded the description of the Defiance Taser)

The reasons i thought that:

They have a higher range than the ones at the moment but more "ammo" without being insanely bulky (So no 4-6 cartridges with spools, gas, etc.)
They are powerful enough to knock people out (or kill them), our tasers only incapacitate people as long as they are pumping current with little real damage. So i assumed a high-current, high voltage short time burst.

So i just assumed that in this bleak, dangerous world the limits on "non-lethal" defenses got a bit... broader and people run around with these babies now.

For a "real" taser i would say:
If it hits it does 1 Stun damage (unresistet), All armors with hardened components protect you (Can be ignored by a called shot as per rules though)
Any time the attacker chooses to "jolt" the victim, the victim loses 8(*)-body points of agility and reaction (and cannot move coordinated if one of these values fall to 0) for the combat turn and has a -4 dice pool modifier on all actions (doesn't stack).
Because of the advances in energy storage this taser can pretty much run for minutes.

(*)= Can be modified to other metatypes/ levels of augmentation Rating 6-12 should be available.

Yes and no. The rules are non-existent or vague at best on whether one-way communication is allowed with wireless devices. If it is allowed, then once you exceeded the range of the taser's signal, you would still be able to send commands to it (as long as it is within range of the signal of whatever you're using) but you would get zero feedback information from the device. You won't know when the device is no longer operational or useful and so you could be sending a number of commands that will never be executed.

The gun should be slaved to your PAN (commlink) so put a firewall on the commlink, slave all the stuff to the commlink (so they have to own it) and run encryption on everything (so they can't spoof it) and most importantly, just sit down and talk with your GM and the team hacker and iron out how paranoid you have to be at your table so no one has to put up with "Well, I think my character would have done this thing that I never said he did."

Note from sample devices. Handheld electronics have a signal of 1, range 40 meters.

Or by a skinlink for both the weapon and the commlink, problem solved.

I don't understand. A skinlink defends against signal interception or jamming while you're touching it. It does jack-all against hacking as far as I can see. What am I missing?

I believe that if you can't intercept the signal, you can't find the node to hack.

Or at least that's the way I'm reading it.

Right, the commlink the weapon and the eye/smartlink mod are slaved to has to have its wireless function switched off. Use another link for your communication.

If you turn off wireless for your commlink, then.. it's no longer acting as a commlink giving you access to the Matrix.
You /can/ turn it off, it's a valid tactic. You just have to deal with the other consequences of such a move.

Your commlink is your router/gateway to the matrix. All your PAN moves through it and connects to it.
And remember the team Hacker can start combat hacking /before/ the firefight starts. Soon as they're in mutual signal range he can start mucking.

If the skinlink has precedence over the wireless link of the gun (or better, the wireless is disabled), your only option to play tricks with it is to hack into the owner's PAN and access the smartlink through that, this giving a would-be hacker a hard time.

You can achieve something similar by slaving the gun to your comlink, but it leaves the gun vulnerable to spoofing.

You can increase your resistance to the spoofing by encrypting the signal between gun and commlink
You can also literally hardwire your gun to your commlink with optical cable.

I just wanted to say that critical systems like smart weapons should be on a separate network, which is not matrix capable. While the enemy may disrupt your communication, he can't disarm or blind you.
But I guess this should be discussed in another thread. It has nothing to do with SnS being overpowered.

@Dahrken: Isn't the commlink the hub of a person's PAN? aren't those to options the same?