That is the primary point. Point #2 is that you have to connect from your smartgun to comlink via the matrix. Without a connection to the matrix, no connection to the smartgun.

That, however, is in direct contraction to the advice above not to use your SIN and sleaze your way on.

Yes. Gunfire would definitely be rare enough, even in Shadowrun in say A -> AAA neighborhoods to get the attention of Overwatch.... and a great way to locate illegal activity.

Remember that there a lot of SINless running around, and the corps don't have any stake in keeping restricted goods out of their hands -- especially when it's the corps themselves who are making and selling these things.

GOD is specifically designed to stop Matrix attacks, so you can't really say they care if someone in the Barrens hooks up a Smartlink to help them shoot their neighbor.

Lone Star and Knight Errant don't really have the resources or profit motive to track down every illegal or quasi-legal device that pings the network. Sprinting through the streets of Downtown Seattle with all of your forbidden and restricted gear running hot in active mode might get their attention. Law enforcement in Shadowrun isn't really into quietly apprehending people, as that does nothing to increase their profits or public image. Sending squads out to collect 500 nuyen fines for using restricted gear is a huge waste of resources, and so is making the required payments (data isn't free) to get providers to identify and locate minor offenders in the first place.

Likewise it's inefficient to send squads of matrix specialists out roaming the streets looking for restricted gear set to silent running.

Please remember, SINless only get on public grids.

We are talking about runners here. Military weapons, explosives, black ops, sabotage, espionage, illegal cyberware, document forgering, theft, kidnapping/extraction ... that usually should be enough to trigger every security matrix system. But it doesn´t, as long as you don´t hack, everything else is ignored, because for non-reason except that it would break the world. So it´s not done.

SYL

Grid access is determined by Lifestyle. Plenty of SINners would be on the public grid, too, if they're sufficiently low lifestyle.

As I said, the new Matrix system breaks suspension of disbelief... BADLY!

Show of hands here: If YOU were in charge of the military would you run THIS kind of wireless security?

I know that I wouldn't even think of it. I'd tell the eggheads at R&D to come back when they're serious or to pack their bag and leave.

The 100m radius isn't about signal ranges. There are no direct connections any more, unless you're either a) directly connected or b) the only two devices in a Faraday cage.

The core rulebook doesn't go much into network topology, partly because it's a game and doesn't need it, but mostly because it's boring for most folks. The short version is that if the computers are superfast, then the wireless medium is the chokepoint. The best way around that is to take your packets and split them into as many frames as you have devices in a reasonable range (which is really big when you're talking speed of light, but let's call it 100m for simplicity) and send them all at once along different routes. Any farther than that 100m and it takes a bit longer, because there's more hopping for some of the frames. Aside from the various privacy and efficiency advantages you get, you also get a 100m range that has no dice pool penalty for distance. So the mesh is still there, everywhere in fact, but it's not explicitly explained.

As for the Signal system, aside from it being somewhat cumbersome, it only really applies when you've got one device talking to another one directly. Every device talks to every other device, or to none. If you're a device and cooperate with routing the Matrix (and storing a bit of it if we're talking data-centric networking), you get free computing power from your neighbors. If you don't cooperate (wireless off), you don't get the extra power.

As for security, GOD keeps the Matrix secure enough to advertise that it's as safe as walking Downtown. Which it is; a hooligan with a gun can randomly kill a few people, even dozens, but will eventually get caught and punished. Same deal with hackers. Come to think of it, hackers have a harder time causing mayhem than a magician with a ritual or two. So I guess the bottom line there is the Sixth World isn't safe.

Guess this is SR4 related, but I think smartgun systems on a weapon and smartlinks in something like eyewear / eyeware can directly communicate, and don't need a commlink to "mediate" ?


You missed the point of what he said, I think. It's not about SINners being on the public grid, it's that the megacorps SHOULD be caring about smartgun systems and other forbidden devices popping up on their non-public grids, because only SINners (and shadow runners too, natch) are on these grids, and megacorps have an incentive to care about SINners.

Would I want to run this kind of wireless security? Probably not.

But the actual question here would be if this is the kind of wireless security in public domain, how much do I need to spend to run an alternative wire security?

A penny pinching civillian who is more interested in cost cutting might make you run this kind of wireless security, or you can pack your bag and leave.

they only care if you go to a place that has a high enough security rating.

if you go to one of those places broadcasting that you have a gun and no license, then you can expect a police response. if you're in a Z-zone, they quite frankly don't care at all. there's nobody that they care about there, and it's not worth the cost of mounting an expedition to a Z-zone every time someone turns a smartlink on.

Self righteous indignation can be checked at the door. You are simply wrong here. Several paragraphs would have gone a long ways towards answering questions from a number of threads.

You can't have it both ways. Either it can or it can't be done, by hackers if no one else.

And you've lost me. Downtown (massive amount of nodes/devices/whatever) and the Barrens (few and far between) are the same? Yep. Lost.

By requiring the grid, you invalidate the mesh and the freedom it provided. Your hole is really getting deep here.

... not to everyone....

And we end with a contradiction. Overwatch was keeping it safe, but they seem to miss a simple opportunity of dealing with people with illegal weapons simply by noting where they exist without permits? Are you trying to destroy my suspension of disbelief on purpose?

Disclaimer: As I've stated elsewhere, I like the premise of the grids, the Overwatch, & noise. I like the return of hardlines and getting rid of passive mode (too clunky, too poorly understood). Some of these other poorly thought through mechanics are killing me though.

This really several simple fixes, the easiest of which is drop the stupid mechanic where weapons appear different in AR/VR.

Except not only SINners will be using the nonpublic grids. I haven't seen anything that says grid access is restricted except by lifestyle.




Direct connection = wire. You can't otherwise communicate between two devices without making those devices part of the Matrix.



What? Since ever?



Overwatch doesn't exist for physical security, they exist for grid security. What's their incentive to monitor potentially illegal physical activity?

Let me start by saying I like the new Matrix rules. Our group is still in the process of testing out SR5, but so far I am the most knowledgeable on the system as a whole. Something to do before cracking open your SR5 book however is this: Forget all of the crunch you know about SR1-4 (SR5 isn’t any of those). Ignore what you know about modern technology, Shadowrun has moved past most of that.

Once you do those two small steps, SR5 is pretty good, making exception for a couple of flaws (wacky wireless bonuses, watcher being nerfed even further into uselessness, etc).

I think Aaron did a nice job of explanations. There was a post on another of Redjack’s threads that explained it all very nicely too.

As for radio waves… They travel at the speed of light in a vacuum and are only very slightly slowed in the air.
See this physics forum for some fun reading.

Now you're contradicting Aaron's Faraday cage example. Which is my point: If you can ever make a direct wireless connection, then the capability exists.

In the heat of the moment my head was wrapped around ground to satellite communications and lag inherent therein. Chalk one up to a long day.

Perhaps contract with local law enforcement. Mandates from their own corporate masters to integrate with physical security. How about those for starters?

Aaron's Faraday cage example was to show that the only situation where two devices could talk to just each other with no other devices potentially getting involved would be if those two devices were by themselves in a Faraday cage. "Direct wireless connection" is meaningless in a standard context, because everything is passing communications along through everything else.

And again: at which range? Because if I am in the desert (or in a very large faraday cage) the signal range between items matter. 100m? 1km? 10km?

SYL

Given the right conditions (and subject to noise), 62+ miles.

-------------
I understand some people want to toe the party line and hand wave past this one, broken (or at least ill explained) mechanic. Fine, that is your right. I'm not saying this breaks the game or SR5 sucks. All we're (Apple, myself and some others) trying to get at is additional details here would allow us, as GM's, to present a consistent picture to our players (and perhaps yours under the right conditions). Every player wants things to function the same from GM to GM. Every player playing a specific type of character and their gear appreciates not having to relearn specifics from GM to GM. The better written the rules are, the more consistently this occurs. The more left for us to assume, the more the street definition of that word becomes true.

I appreciate everyone's opinions, but they are just that, especially when you add details not in print and worse when you present details that to some contradict printed details. Your opinions on how to extrapolate details of the game world give RAW and the fluff are no less, nor more, valid than our own. We cannot *forget what we know*; our current knowledge is the basis for understanding new things. We can move past, but differentiating is a key element in understanding.

It's cute that you think military opinion matters when it comes to the gear they get. The real choice comes from the guys with the money.

I'll have you know I prefered equipment made by the lowest bidder!



Not really.

I'll be sure to pass that along to the guy who decided to leave the tech talk out of the core rulebook.


That's true, but I don't feel I have any particular obligation to spend my free time answering them. I do what I can, but Dumpshock isn't entitled to my free time.


It might be that there will someday be rules for private, peer-to-peer connections in the future. It isn't in the core rules, though.


No, they're not the same. Check p. 231.


You're absolutely right. The Matrix in SR5 is a dystopian nightmare compared to SR4. The SR4 Matrix was modeled after a net-neutral Internet, like we have today. The SR5 Matrix was modeled after a corporate-run tiered model that SOPA and PIPA were a move toward.

I'm not sure what you mean by "invalidate the mesh." A mesh network is one where all (or most) devices are connected to all (or most) other devices, and as I have already described, this is the case. The SR5 protocol uses this mesh a different way than the SR4 model, but there's still a mesh. When you say "mesh," do you mean "unfettered Internet?" If so, then you're right: the SR5 Matrix is not unfettered and definitely not free (free-as-in-speech, not free-as-in-beer; the public grid is free-as-in-beer).


It's true that some folks were able to navigate Signal ranges and their interactions with ease. It's also true that it was more work than the current model. Just because some players are smart enough for the extra work to be trivial doesn't mean that we should only allow smart people to play Shadowrun. I think any player should be able to play whatever they want, within the rules in the book and the rules at their table, don't you?


As for doing massive searches for weapon icons, I think you'll find that a) hunting down random icons and then finding their owners is more time consuming than you seem to think and b) most criminals leave their weapons' wireless off until they need it on.

That was actually for you and the manner you chose to start your reply, which in turn set me on an aggressive tone... In any case, tone or not, thanks for your replies.

Given your explanation of 100m, they not only are at 100m but 101m makes absolutely no sense to be that noisy.

I was just trying to pass along information, but I apologize if that's how I came off. And you're quite welcome! =i)


It's more like a continuum of signal attenuation, but when your dice are measured in discrete integers, you've got to round at some point. The 100m mark is just one of those arbitrary demarcation points. Kinda like how the (little-a) accuracy of a weapon is a cone of error that expands continuously over distance, but we still have range categories. If this was a computer game, I'd totally lobby for modifiers as double-precision floating-point numbers.

Also, the noise rating includes not just signal strength ("noise" in real life, for those who aren't techies) but also latency ("lag"), which probably confuses the issue somewhat for those of us who know the difference between noise and throughput in real life.

Do you really think that the military has NO say on what gear they get?

A prime example: http://www.businessinsider.com/congress-ap...spending-2013-5

Read up on the history of the M-16 as well, the "M-16 adoption" portion of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle is rather fitting.

Like sending troops into a warzone without body armor? Yes.

Especially in Shadowrun. The UCAS military is just an front for Ares to take even more money from UCAS taxpayers! If you think the UCAS government has any say at all in appropriation, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in. Call me.

Heh, or the Military telling congress, "We Don't NEED more tanks" but Congress going "You'll take them and LIKE THEM!"

Seriously tho, I'm not a fan of some of the changes, some of it seems made specifically so "The Decker has something to do". But eh, RAW will never be without flaws, I've never seen an RPG that hasn't messed up something (while improving other things) in changes in edition.