Or go the Deus Ex route, run the device using bioelectricity. Just keep a handy supply of candy bars and the like on hand.

Forget the bookkeeping. Just make the batteries going dead a rsult of a glitched roll. If they don't have a glitch then they are fine. Saves a lot of headache when I run wilderness stuff.

Okay, so now it can't broadcast any data, but it's still collecting it and storing it in the camera's own memory chip, safe and sound for later retrieval.

If I'm going to be using any sort of gun againt a camera rather than actually safely hacking it, I'm gonna want one that can destroy the camera or otherwise prevent it from recording. Even if you have cameras "behind armor-glass domes", you can still obscure the camera's field of vision by shattering the glass into a messy wall of cracks, splinters, and flattened, embedded bullets. Or you could just use paint rounds. All a HERF gun does is fry the antenna.

~Umi

No, the LEAST the HERF gun will do is fry the antenna - if the Camera isn't EMP hardened (and I seriously doubt it is), then the whole camera is fried too. Not even a Faraday cage will protect it - if the antenna is working, it's outside the cage, and provides a path down which the EMP can travel, right into the camera.

And, even better: from the outside, the camera will look completely intact. So if the local security forces send a drone or warm body to see why the camera went out ... they'll almost certainly assume it's just an equipment malfunction, and NOT necessarily a group of shadowrunners about to infiltrate the facility.

Which is not something you can say if you've been shooting it up with bullets.

Actually, since almost all modern electronics in 2070 are optical, not electrical, EMP does nothing except against old, outdated systems.

That's half the reason the effects of the HERF are left up to the GM. Most electronics are immune to the effect, especially things like security cameras, which would be purposefully hardened against EMP in any remotely modern security system.

EDIT - My bad, I seem to have missed the part about things connected to antennaes or power cables being vulnerable. Honestly that doesn't make any sense to me, though, since it instantly makes anything plugged into a wall socket or anything with wireless capabilities vulernable, which is just about everything, and that doesn't seem like what was intended.

As a GM, I'd strictly limit the effects to "power supplies, anything linked to an antenna or electric cable, or older/cheaper devices with integrated circuits, transistors, inductors, or silicon chips" by making only those specific portions of devices fail. So yeah, you can knock out the antennae to prevent it from communicating wirelessly, or you can knock out the power cable or the PSU and force it to operate off battery power or other backup energy. As for the internal components, if it isn't integrated circuits and silicon chips, it's fine.

~Umi

The computing chips may be optical - but the power systems aren't. Also, a CMOS or similar sensor, is not an optical device in the sense of being EMP immune. A HERF gun should be able to burn out the sensor ship, just fine and dandy.


Sure they're vulnerable;their power supply hardware can be burnt out. Doesn't mean the memopry already stored on their chips is dead, or that the whole unit is junked. As for making sense? Laws of physics, man. EMPs do hella bad things to antennae, and to power systems.

Just means, it's not going to work until those parts are replaced.

Oh, also, another thing vulnerable to EMP, even without an antenna or external power connection: somethign has to generate the light used in the optical circuits, and that something is very probably EMP-vulnerable.

Which is why I am of the school that just doesn't buy "it's all EMP immune now, ha ha" for SR. Not even with 2070's tech.


The batteries would be just as fried. Current surging through them is very very bad - they could even catch fire, and THAT would do for the optical-based systems in turn.

I just don't see how a handheld device can create a directed EMP effect powerful enough to do what you're saying despite all the insulation these electronics ought to have. (Not even EMP-hardening, just regular insulation and housing.)

If you had a massive lightning gun or something, maybe I'd believe you. But a handheld device that uses no ammo whatsoever, not even peak-discharge batteries? It cannot possibly be strong enough to do the sorts of things you think it can. Especially when a mage casting an actual fucking Lightning Bolt at the same device will, at best, cause it to reboot.

Your interpretation of the HERF gun seems to be "it breaks all electronics ever", which is absurd. EVERYTHING has antennae. EVERYTHING has a power source. A magic device that takes no ammo to use, that doesn't create any noise or light, and that works against all electronics that aren't specially hardened against EMPs is somehow hunky-dorry with you?

Frying things like antennae, exposed wires, and outdated electronics is already pretty fucking useful. There's no real reason to insist on making the HERF gun game-breaking.

"A corporate security team? No problem! I use my HERF gun on their commlinks, their smartguns, and their cyberware! The one with cybereyes is now blind, the one with the cyberlegs is now crippled, their guns modded for Electronic Firing are now useless, and they can't call for backup! TOTALLY BALANCED."

~Umi

Have I missed a description somewhere, then? I was under he impression that the HERF gun was two-handed, and as big as an Assault Cannon or LMG.

Glancing at it now, no, there doesn't seem to be a description. Typical of them to ignore matters like Concealability and how detectable something is...

~Umi

Would also explain the lack of ammunition details. I'd probably have it spend power like an Ares Shockbeam, myself. Since that is, you know, almost literally "a lightning gun", ha!

Not saying anyone is wrong, but I wouldn't go beyond this for commlinks.

That's handy. But since your typical security camera isn't going to have a Signal higher than maybe 2, it basically goes offline, for all intents and purposes.

Signal 3. Which is entirely outside the realm of any response I'd expect when talking about commlinks and the question of whether or not they should be fried by EMP blasts.

I don't have my books in front of me, but I though Com Links and most small devices were powered by your bio-electric field. I recall reading that at some point or I'm making it up...

*Mungo comes back with half a ganger and a bloody HERF Gun* "Mungo haz new haxxorz tuul." "That's just what we need, Mungo with a portable EMP device."

I think I found a way to recharge.
Take this technology into Shadowrun, add motion-based batteries, solar cells, or just pulling off a human's bodyheat or blood flow, and I think you've got it. Or hell, plug into a wall for a minute, and you're done.

Yeah I've been following this. Guess they only get it to the point in SR where you can use it to charge commlinks though, as things like shock gloves and stun batons still need to be plugged in to recharge for more than a minute. I suppose it just seems weird to me that your cyberware and commlink can run essentially forever off your bio-electric charge but you need to plug in your shock gloves.

I figure the stun baton and such need a lot more juice to actually hurt someone than what's necessary to power a commlink or cyberlimb.

It really shouldn't. Current shock weapons run off of regular 9-volt batteries and the like.


-k

Yeah shock weapons rely on a capacitor to deliver the charge with the battery charging the capacitor.

But, current shock weapons CAN'T manage to hit someone as often as once every 0.8 seconds, 10 times in a row, without pause.

I'm surprised some Redneck County Mounty hasn't juryrigged up a Taser Gatling Gun. A bunch of Taser Pistols around a central shaft that goes off like a Rubber Band Gatling Gun.

At that point, why not just use a gun? People can die from single tasers already, getting hit with multiple in rapid succession is probably gonna be even more lethal.

~Umi

Yeah, um, I think CanRay and I were thinking more "target rich environment", and less "repeatedly taze the same unlucky S.O.B." ... hahaha.

that's what pepper punch grenades are for.

Sure, if you have ranks in Throwing Weapons.

But when you have Pistols 6, compared to Throwing Weapons 0 ...? Taser, thanks.

Also, if you're an Adept with Clubs 9, Specialised in Batons +2, and are wielding a Stun Baton that is also a Rating 4+ Weapon Focus ... yeah, the grenade isn't so helpful then, either.

i doubt your gatling taser qualifies as a pistol any more

although i suppose you can always suppress ^^

(and if you're talking about a baton, well, i don't think a gatling baton is a particularly useful invention, and am not in the least bit surprised that nobody has invented such a thing to my knowledge).

No, I was more referring to "taser, instead of pepper punch grenade".

"target-rich environment" says to me that you want to hit lots of things. hence, the pepper punch grenade.

if you've only got one person to shoot, that's not terribly target-rich.

i mean, the fact that you can come prepared to use it (ie chemical protections) while your targets only *might* have come prepared certainly mitigates a lot of the risks... if you've all got good resistance, you can just pop the danged thing in your hand when you get near your target, no throwing required

Maybe he's wealthy and/or named Richard.

I know it's not really the point trying to be made, but some taser guns can shoot twice. Two sets of prongs. Others you can reload somewhat quickly.

I think the point is though that Tazers can't just be shot and shot and shot and shot on the current batteries that they have. Also a slow gradual usage of battery power is vastly different from dumping it all in a second or two.

Tasers in SR don't really operate off batteries, though, except for the Defiance EX Shocker which trails wires and can be used as a melee contact weapon.

The other tasers shoot specialized capacitor darts. Each dart contains it's own power supply.

~Umi

But that's still different from the type of battery power you'd have in a comlink, right?

How about a taser gun which trails wires, but that you can retract, to use again? Wouldn't that be viable?

Not really, because retracting the darts would damage the prongs which keep the darts in the target.

Hey, this is kinda on topic, but not really: Can you modify a drone to have a built-in commlink?

drones basically already have a built-in commlink. where do you think the pilot program, autosofts, and other programs (including stuff like encryption, IC, etc) are run from?

My apologies. It was a stupid question. I will claim that I do work overnight and when I posted that question I just got off a 10 hour day.

KC:
It is possible to install a repeater node into/onto a drone.

All it does is repeat any signals from anything in signal range and rebroadcast them at signal rating 6.


There's another drone in Unwired which has a mobile nexus built into it as added equipment (my opinion is the drone's node and the nexus node are separate).

And if push comes to shove.. duct tape a commlink to the drone or stuff it in the cargo bay if you really need a commlink node separate from the drone.