Hi everbody,

on page 60 in Arsenal a "Static Scene Laser Monitoring System" is described. But as fas as I can tell, it is never mentioned anywhere else.. I can't find a price or availability for it.

Does anyone know, if this was fixed somewhere? It's not in the Arsenal errata I know of...

Thanks in advance.

-CJ

I don't remember which book it is described in atm but I know what it does.


Basically it involved bouncing lasers (IR mostly) off of special reflective tags on parts of the environment. If the beam is disrupted, either because the object the tag was attached to is moved, or something moves through the beam, then an alarm goes off. Mostly used IRL in museums or other collections where individual objects are tagged so that they cannot be moved or disrupted without someone knowing.

Unlike the other sensors, I don't think it's meant for the player to purchase but as a GM tool.

What a shame. It's the perfect tool to secure your hideout when you're away.

-CJ

Not really. Halflife's description doesn't match the book's description. The book's description just tells you when static objects (objects that should NEVER be moved) are moved. So it isn't going to help with someone opening doors, walking through, and placing proximity bombs everywhere. You can easily blow up a museum that's using the system. It's stealing from it and not triggering an alarm that's difficult.

The big issue with alarming your hideout/safehouse/vehicle is if you are a skinlinked/wireless-off/cannot-be-hacked runner, how does your hideout/safehouse/vehicle tell you the alarm has gone off? On the other hand, if your hideout/safehouse/vehicle can communicate with you, how hard is it to connect you to the hideout/safehouse/vehicle if someone gets your commlink or sniffs enough of your traffic?

Edit: It's funny for me to see all the hassles of the technological solution and know that a couple people are saying to themselves, "Why aren't you just summoning a watcher?" There's a reason Lurker calls this game "Magicrun". Be a mage, get off the grid, save your Y until you can buy a perm high lifestyle...

A door is a static object when not in use. I'm quite certain that the system could be set up to monitor the door, and have the door monitoring part of it disabled when you're at your base (or when the museum is open in that example).

I could totally see a mechanic that it highly paranoid/grumpy tagging all her tools to make sure no one touches them while she is away.

I don't get the "have a watcher" mentality. The things have 1s in all their stats. There's no way they're noticing anyone even remotely capable of stealth. SR4A made the things mostly useless except for annoying people . Heck, they can't even use their Search power, since it's an extended test that they don't have enough dice to possibly succeed at.

They'd notice a door open.

OK now that I am not running out the door I can actually go read the passage in the book...


The shadowrun sensor described involves scanning the entire room using a laser or series of lasers and interpreting what is bounced off special laser reflecting tags in order to map the position of every tag. The scanning of multiple lasers would prevent it from being set off by someone interrupting the beam and I assume reduce the rate of false positives when people are expected to be passing through the room. It seems that the shadowrun system could be used contemporaneously with, say, an open exhibit to prevent objects from being disturbed while people are milling about.

Real world systems would use static lasers pointed at specific targets that would be disrupted by interference and would only be useful in circumstances where the LOS would not be disrupted under normal operation (eg after hours in a museum) in order to avoid false positives.

Theoretically speaking you could use the second system just as easily as the first with less or equal cost since there is no scanning and lasers used for it are cheap already. Both could also be used to tag a door that you do not want to be opened since a static laser system would not bounce correctly as the door opened and the scanning laser system would detect the motion of the tag.


As far as using a watcher over a laser system. Some people don't understand/like/trust magic enough to allow a watcher to take over security. I know that I would be hard pressed to trust a system that I cannot see or even hope to understand to guard my most precious valuables if I were the typical conservative museum curator/recluse/criminal who would be securing a valuable collection. There are also people who don't trust human security enough to hire a mage (this would not necessarily be widespread but could happen). There is also the final option that magical security can be defeated with enough planning and/or magic of your own, say, an illusion spell (which that all 1s Watcher isn't going to resist worth a damn).

However, it is almost impossible to defeat an entirely optical system of static lasers bouncing off physical tags through hacking or magic. Unless you are really good of course, got to give the runners some chance.

Never forget their bonuses... Obvious Things need no roll afterall, and active Searching adds +3 Dice. They are not useless.
But this is being beat to death in another Thread If I remember correctly.

Hack the controlling node. Turn it off. Tell it an object is being moved for cleaning, the exhibit is being changed, whatever. Own that node and the whole system is worthless.

At this point it just an arms race ending in such moves as "It's a wired only connection running through a Faraday cage buried in the concrete foundation to a control room behind which 50 troll SWAT officers lie in wait polishing their weapons".

To the players, the watcher is a much cheaper and much more reliable option than technology.

How you goint to hack it if it is not online in the Matrix or using Wireless communications?
You do not have to go the extremes that you gave as an example...

You could hack the security system to get it to not set off any alarms. There has to be some way to move the exhibit to make room for the next one after all.

Yep, Flip a Physical Switch to take the system down.... It is as simple as that... Not everything has to be so high-tech that it has multiple access points into the Matrix, or even the Security Grid. Old Style works very well, and has the benefits of not having issues with wireless technology, or even matrix security Hacks. This is why it often requires a Hacker to be WITH the Team rather than 10 miles away, in some bunker.

Then an infiltrator can also flip the switch. My point was that it isn't impossible to beat, because it has a built in point of failure. Also, unless all it does is sound an audio alarm, you could potentially prevent it sending out any sort of signal and alerting security.

Oh, and since the system has multiple lasers, those lasers need to be able to talk to one another so one getting broken doesn't set off the alarm. While it could be done via fiber-optics, it would be far easier to use wireless.

Agreed... There are multiple ways around any system, unless the Security Chief is absolutely anal. And even still, there are always loopholes. Mostly because the Security Division does not have an unlimited budget.

As for Wirelsss, yes, it would be far easier. And far less secure. You choose your options. Hard Secureity costs money. It is always a Benefit to Cost analysis. You buy what you can with the funds that you have available.

Woo, agreement on a forum, did you see that? Someone fill out the paperwork for a national holiday

Heh...

You can already do this. Put a camera facing the door on the inside. Make the camera not have a wireless connection (or rather, one that's off). All it does is monitor the door for "open-ness" and if it opens it activates its matrix connection and alerts the appropriate person (in this case, the team's hacker).

And you end up with the un-openable un-trapped unlocked door. Because the person standing outside the door doesn't know that the door is monitored, but it doesn't matter because the camera is unhackable unless the door is opened (at which point it's too late).

Indeed... Which is where that very useful Ultrawideband Radar comes in handy...
Still does not get you through the door without an alarm going off, but at least you know about it going in...

(continuing mandatory escalation)
Intruders use ECCM to keep the camera from connecting to matrix when wireless connection is activated.

I'm pretty sure that you mean Jamming... ECCM is used to counter Jamming.

You're right. Jamming. So now the camera is connected to a commlink with wireless off but ECCM loaded and an agent to handle turning on the wireless and using ECCM to prevent the people opening the door from jamming the transmission. And since the camera and commlink have their own power supply, cutting the power doesn't stop the signal.

Escalation continues. Watcher spirit laughs.

Which is basically where legwork comes in. Find out that there is a camera there and you can find a way to defeat it. If you don't know what's there your gonna walk right into it. Your infiltrator can have some means of seeing on the other side of the door without setting off alarms. that leaves magic or some technology of your own (like one of those snaking camera thingies, can't think of what they are called at the moment). But there may always be some other sort of detection mechanism to counter it and without doing your legwork there will always be that other security measure that you DON'T know about.

Edit: left out one important word that changes the meaning of what i was trying to get across

Heheheh... That is the nature of Shadowrun, however. You will face what the opposition can afford.

Can't the watcher be traced back to you though? For 7600 nuYen, you can get 4 milspec drones with built in weapon mounts to hide in your base and eliminate any intruders. Set them up with level 2 tacnet and a few smartgun systems. They'll be golden (well, gold is expensive, but they will be rock-solid).

Ninja'd.
It's undefeatable unless you hack it.