I wouldn't go that far, but the binding they used was terrible (have later reprints been better?). I read through it once and almost half the pages fell out--dam annoying. After reading the rules though, I kind of have the same apathy for 5th that I do for third (Loved 2nd and 4th, 1st was well the first). I also don't like the limit mechanics on everything--especially in combat.

Back OT: Militaries probably run their comms via laser and directed microwave rather over radio as much as possible. The benefit is that unlike radio waves, those are much harder to jam, or intercept. Would they need all the wifi enhanced stuff? Maybe on the tactical level at very short range. So then it becomes a resource issue for deckers and riggers since the cost of the gear went up dramatically. Also, only the corps span globally, there is no superpower (only the corporate court and the toothless UN), so even strategic communications could be handled in this manner.

The problem with using jammers is that the jamming site/device becomes instant target by the OPFOR. By its very nature it can't hide its location, so the enemy knows its there and sends a drone/missle/EMP pulse to the jammed area to neutralize it.

For full on conventional battle this would most likely be SOP. For SpecOPs, they will most likely run silent (no radio emissions, all wireless off) or keep their comms to such a low signal range that they cant be detected until they are right on top of their targets. Naval warfare probably relies on the ECM/ECCM technologies of the participants, but given they have orbital weapon platforms I'd expect a naval action to be extremely short and bloody and the TO to be size of the gulf of mexico at a minimum.

That would actually be a hell of a flavour text for future introductions to the setting, especially when you are trying to explain the whole corp/common joe mechanism.

There may not be any full blown superpowers, but my recent reading seems to suggest Japan comes pretty darn close to being one.

A third of the megacorps, a top notch military, colonial holdings all through Asia, and little interference from dragons - despite their internal troubles, they're not doing too shabby, all things considered.

~Umi

Naah - Laser and Microwave require LOS and a Straight path (neither bend well for when the target moves around). They just use Tactical Radios, which are not on the Matrix Inherently.

If your defending the UCAS, put a bunch of Microwave towers or aerostats (Basically stationary balloons) strategically and all your territory could be easily covered without the expense/vulnerabnilities of satalite communcations. As for front line units at the battalion and lower, radio is the way to go. All comms could jump through those points as needed and then to a radio relay to the unit. The towers and aerostats would be vulnerable to attack though. Drone control might be tricky as well, I think it would mostly be in command chair mode rather than directly controlled by the rigger.

Balloons and other aerostatic vehicles are notoriously weather susceptible, and as you point out they're giant bullet magnets. Satellites are much more reliable, in that it's actually pretty hard to get missiles into space.

Besides, in the SR future they already have corporate run space stations - surely putting satellites into orbit can be accomplished cheaply and easily. Hell, in the modern day the price is dropping all the time.

~Umi

Plus, they have thor shots. Who says they can only be aimed at the earth?

Mass drivers kind of require a gravity well to impart extra kinetic energy. They also aren't terribly precise weapons, by dint of not really needing to be.

I guess you could shoot one at the moon or something, but no one in their right mind would try to shoot down satellites with a Thor shot.

~Umi

Bu Crazy breeds whole new ideas on how to use Thor Shots in Space.

They could take one of those low angle shots that make the projectile bounce away from the atmosphere, and pick speed as he does that.

And use that to... what... hit a target the size of a school bus orbiting the earth at a speed of 7.8 km/s? I seriously doubt anyone builds a mass driver to be capable of that sort of precision, especially when there are much easier ways to down a satellite.

~Umi

Though I would argue that we are capable of calculating that precision, just not sure we could execute accurately hitting it consistently.

They're also inside the manasphere, so it's trivial to tell an air elemental to go knock them down.

Well, you don't HAVE to put satellites into low earth orbits - they could just as well go into high earth orbits if you really want the anti-spirit protection.

~Umi

Does the manasphere extend high enough to reach low satellites? I was under the impression it didn't.

Nope. Sub-orbital flights go outside of it, in fact. I was more talking about dirigibles.



The upper mesosphere is well below LEO.

Well, sure, so far we don't have O'Neil stations but eventually they would become a real thing and I believe it would be far easier to bypass their many security measures if hit directly from space than from sending a rocket from the Earth's surface toward it.

For what it's worth, I don't think Aaron's rulings are RAW, either. I'm just a freelancer. I'm not Part of the Shadowrun Team^TM. I'm part of a team of freelancers, certainly, but not the team who makes the decisions about the game or the canon.

which is unfortunate, because sometimes i think we'd be better off with trained monkeys doing that job, and the current crop of freelancers are several orders of magnitude better than trained monkeys =S

I'm going with 'untrained monkeys, only capable of communicating by flinging poo at a glass window'.

I do apologize. I don't mean to make it sound like I'm ungrateful for at least a little bit of feedback on a possible interpretation of the rules. But in the case of jammers not being able to jam communications, it just doesn't make sense to me, and would very much limit the usefulness of jammers if you couldn't use it to cause at least a little chaos by jamming communications.

But I know that its not like your rulings are law. Its just one other person's interpretation. And while your opinion may have more weight than my own (in the eyes of the SR fan base at least), its not like the freelancers are are any more or less correct than anyone else...maybe unless it has something to do with meta plot events or something.