By RAW:
Combat turn order is:
- Test for surprise if applicable
- Test for initiative
- Go through Initiative Passes in order

The surprise test happens as soon as somebody tries to do something with the intent of surprising another. The sniper tries to surprise the victim, so he initiates the opposed roll, and starts "combat time". They're never made after an action has been used. The surprise roll is a normal initiative roll, with the sniper getting a +6 for ambushing, and the victim getting a +3 for having been alerted, IF he made the extremely hard Perception roll to spot the bullet, or got more than one (I'd say 2) net hits on the even harder one to spot the sniper plain out. One net hit on the last test would yield something along the lines of "you see the outline of a person standing in one of the second story windows of the house about a mile away." That would in no way be of any help as there is no cause for suspicion, other than the GM mentioning it. Three or four net hits might result in something like "the person is aiming a ruthenium coated rifle in your direction." The latter would rule out surprise.

Would the victim fail that roll, he is unlikely to survive the shot as he can't defend. If he does, they roll off actual Initiative, the sniper's action is shooting, the victim's options depend on if he wins initiative. If he doesn't, he can go Full Defense. If he does, he can do anything he likes, getting behind cover would seem smart. Through some flux in space/time he thereby probably prevents the sniper from shooting. Note that even a single step would be enough for the sniper to have to lock on his image mag anew. If Mister Perceptive would be properly geared, he could conceivably shoot back twice, then run for cover. He could give the victim a shove, or catch the bullet, if he wasn't the victim himself. Figuring out who is the victim might be handled by the perception roll made earlier.

RAW suggests he could drop prone if he is surprised, but wins subsequent initiative roll. I'd say this is reacting to the sniper's action though, which makes it unRAWful. I don't have a clue what that passage is doing there and how dropping could be construed to not be reacting to someone.

And no, I agree. It doesn't make much sense, but unless I'm doing more fail, that's how it's handled by RAW.

Very true. But nobody is going to be shooting at your character from the OP, because he's otherwise completely harmless and useless, having spent all his points on perception mods.

I would probably have to GM rule that you cant react to or therefore be surprised by things that are more than 1 second or 2 seconds out of dealing with you simply because I dont think there would be a decent chance to spot a sniper like that (thats where I believe RAW breaks down at ungodly DP like that).

Actually, not sure where you got your information from, but Firing to Impact takes just a little over 10 Seconds for a Thor Shot (in Theory anyways, really hard to test, but the theory, if I remember the research for it, is that they will have an impact velocity around 32,000 fps), barely even time to notice it...

Not really, most of that stuff isn't very expensive.

Well, for one, a Ghillie suit and ruthenium provide the same perception penalties. Second, a straight sniper has very little need to invest in anything other than Agility and Intuition as far as attributes go. The number of build points to make a hyper-specialized excessively deadly sniper is not that high.



And outlines. Movement, change, and outlines is what the human eye reacts to. Thus the advent of camouflage. The purpose of camouflage is to break up outlines so that when you're not moving the observer is going to pass over you unless you are moving. "Army cloth" as you have so eloquently put it is just an optical illusion to trick the eye into not seeing what it saw. It's completely different from what a ghillie suit does. Ghillie suits make snipers look like something else. A pile of trash, a bit of brush. You will see that pile of trash and it will look like a pile of trash. What really floors me is that people seem to believe that some things are just stuck at modern levels. As if the defensive and hiding skills and equipment for snipers isn't improving. It would improve. It has to improve otherwise the sniper would be an outdated and discarded concept. If they exist, then they must have ways of countering the advances of perception.

What most people don't understand is the difference between a sniper and a marksman/sharpshooter. The difference is huge. A marksman has to shoot from a distance. A sniper could kill a target from 10m away after traveling through the middle of a company of soldiers. Most people think that to be a sniper you have to be a fantastic shot. That's not the case. Being a good shot is the SECONDARY skill set of snipers. Infiltration and observation are the PRIMARY skill set.

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Yes, but they aren't going to be common. They are valuable assets that are either going to be deployed to support other valuable assets, such as an Ares Firewatch team.



Yes, in support of other high powered teams.



Which I ask you, which are you going to be more worried about? The Ares Firewatch team that is after you, or that Ares sniper that -may- be out there.



If I threw a high powered sniper at a team and the member shot did NOT survive he would in fact survive at that point where if he doesn't get medical treatment ASAP, he will die. No burnt edge necessary. If you took 12 damage from the sniper and at 10 you fall into that weird incapacitated state, I will tell you that you took 10 damage and are currently suffering a Class III hemorrhage from your leg.

Which is perfectly understandable, as a wound like that is going to ensure the team is pinned down until support arrives. I'd figure even Zero Zone security measures would go for this, since it's easier to fill the intruders full of holes when there's two dozen guys backing you up.

Also, very good point on the Infiltration. With all the swag you can slap on a rifle to aid in the skill, I'd rather have maxed infil and the camo to get me to the firing point. By that point, though, we get into the gray area of Infiltration vs Disguise(Ghillie Suit).

Well, I feel like a sniper should really have both.

Infiltration to move stealthy.
Disguise (with a Ghillie Suit) once he's there to stay hidden. Willpower+Disguise to create a threshhold. Every shot from the same location giving the guards a new perception test. Cumulative shots giving perception bonuses.

Willpower+disguise+ghillie suit rating+chameleon coating+fur+chameleon skin, what have you.

This is also where TacSofts should really shine.

Maybe an Agent Autosoft Tacsoft:

pilot+autosoft rating to analyze input and get likely sniper position designations.

maybe a knowledge skill: Battle Field Tactics.
Logic+BFT+math spu+enchephalon, etc.. use the hits scored to buy down the threshold on your perception test.

Myself, I would use that because I need to get the players captured and they have thus far managed to avoid letting themselves get captured. Snipers are plot devices in my opinion.



The rules are, at best, poor for the concept of a sniper. Infiltration vs Disguise is a -minor- issue for a sniper since they will jack Agility (Longarms/Infiltration) and Intuition (Perception/Disguise) anyway with the issue being more how easy it is to jack up agility compared to Intuition. It seems that the best way is to utilize a combination of invisibility and stealth to avoid being detected by the uber-perception characters who may not be able to resist the spells while having strong stealth skills for those that would succeed at resisting those illusions who probably aren't uber-perception characters. Of course, my knowledge of magic in Shadowrun is laughably poor, so I don't know how or if those spells themselves would leave an astral trace that makes them visible. Astral plane is also the reason why I believe snipers would be augmented with bioware over cyberware since bioware doesn't leave the same "hole" that cyberware does.

As they should be. Well, unless it's a PC.



I'm curious as to whether or not an astrally-perceiving character would be able to see a sniper's aura if they were in a heavily forested area, or surrounded by underbrush - surrounded by life, basically. I think the sniper-as-NPC also has the advantage that people wouldn't be constantly perceiving in the areas where he would be utilized.

What if his ghillie suit had that Awakened Ivy stuff woven into it?
Tht has its' own aura.. would that not mask his aura.

Of course, but I'm the type of person that will throw a party in jail as part of a plot. I'll keep sending them on a non-plot related jobs until I can capture them.



Pretty much. If I'm using a sniper, I'm looking from a concealability perspective and there will be one or two of them. If I want to put a barrett round through the player. I'll just plant a bunch of "SWAT" marksmen all around the location. Twenty should be sufficient.

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That's actually how ghillie suits are used now. They have a basic netting with a basic setup for the environment the sniper is going into. Many snipers will then take elements from the natural surrounding and incorporate it into the ghillie suit.

I've always felt that camouflage should be -2 perception when still and no penalty when moving. Ruthenium provides a constant -4 perception. Ghillie suits provide a -6 Perception penalty (or higher) with a +2 perception when moving.

That is very hard to imagin. You are talkin about 20 time the speed of sound. The fastest airplane is able to reach 10 times the speed of sound.
An this airplane has an accelaeration of more then one g. (Terminal velocity is acceleration minus air resistance)

How do my dogs survive a sense of smell that can detect cancer at one part per billion, and hearing on the same order of magnitude greater than humans'? I will admit their sense of taste is indeterminate (considering the things they eat!!) and sight not so good.

A genetic predisposition to be happy, happy, happy?

Aircraft dynamics (Things that want to stay in the air) mean absolutely nothing to a fairly aerodynamic tungsten rod in a de-orbit trajectory (Which has absolutely no need to stay airborne). Since the Tungsten rods reach a terminal velocity in the 9,000-10,000 meters/second Range, maximum time from Orbit to impact is just over 10 seconds. They need this velocity to create the impact foce required to reach the generated explosive power in the KT range... (.7 KT if I remember correctly for a tungsten rod weighing 5,000 lbs).

Since we have no working models (at least publicly acknowledged ones, anyways), it is generally theoretical, but the science is sound. It is just Physics...

The theory behind the 'hypervelocity rod bundle' states it's running around 9km/sec, but it would still take a few minutes to reach target from deorbit.

If that's average velocity, then it would take just shy of 4 minutes for the rod to hit ground from the top of LEO.

It would take about 37.5 minutes from GPS satellite altitude (which means the thor station would come around potentially every 12 hours). I'm imagining that the Thor shot stations are at LEO so that they can "get on target" much more often.

From a hight of some 400 km, the LEO that space stations tend to maintain, travel time would be slightly over 41 seconds, disregarding the time it takes to actually reach terminal velocity, and keeping to Tymeaus' 32000 ft/s, which is the figure Google gave me as well. I'm not in the mood for (or capable of ) complicated physics to get an accurate measurement.

That's minimum speed for a Thor shot, or so theorized.

The top of LEO is around 2500-3000km I think..... so that's significantly lower.

The ISS is in an LEO, at an altitude of about 390 km, according to ESA's website.
Any weaponised satellite platform would be as low as they can safely orbit it, to be "in range" more often.

Also wikipedia defines the top of LEO as 2000 km.

From War!, p. 160.



I think you're referring to the time you have to keep the designator on the target, that's about 10 seconds overall and happens shortly before the impact, when the last corrections to the flight path are made.

I also have no idea why orbital weapons are the only thing in War! that i've given a closer read.

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Never said otherwise, but keep in mind that Firewatch is in the core book as an example for standard antagonists to be used against more experienced teams.
Fairly typical for a moderately strong group to face opponents on that level.



Almost all PC kills i've seen in SR so far where caused by a powerful surprise attack, not from going head to head with a group of relatively tough opponents.
Wouldn't generalize that, though. If you're better at small group tactics than me and the GMs i've played with, same for PCs that aren't highly combat-optimized.
Admittedly, we're deep into metagame territory here.



Fair enough. I'd leave a last chance for the character, but like i said above, a situation like that wouldn't appear out of thin air in a game i'm running.
When we're at the point where elite snipers could become an issue, some common sense should tell the players they have to watch out.

Oracle Reality Amplifier. Unwired p189
+2 physical Perception tests

Allready in there

damn-it, missed it. I'm building a Perception based character right now. He'll be a Changeling with Nocturnal and Extravagant Eyes (Owl Eyes). I'm not sure with what to fill the 30 BP positive metagenetic qualities, because it's supposed to be a theme. and I want the theme to be Owl
secondary tasks would be shotguns and sniping.

There are quite a few sensory improvements as metagenetic qualities - biosonar, broad auditory spectrum, electrosense, keen-eared, low-light vision, magnetosense, thermal sensitivity, thermographic vision, and vomeronasal organ would all fit the concept. You could also give him a raptor beak, if you really want him to resemble an owl (along with feathers as one of your negative qualities).