Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Find me in the fire
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Kanada Ten
The scenario is routine. Firefighters arrive at a hundred story hi-rise where the 30th and 31st floors are on fire. The building is evacuating, but they have to find any survivors still trapped inside. So they send in the Screw, a drone designed to stay cool, to search a building quickly.

What sensor systems (R3, pg 30) would be most effective at defeating the impact of fire on thermographic and quickly locate living targets?

Would you simply increase the themo sensors to a very high level, or does the fire negate it completely?

What about increasing the sonic sensors to detect coughing? How loud are fires?

Ultrasound would be very helpful in negating the smoke and fire penalties, but is it any good at detecting a life form?

Finally, what level of sensors would be both efficient in cost and security, but able to locate targets consistently?
Austere Emancipator
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
Ultrasound would be very helpful in negating the smoke and fire penalties, but is it any good at detecting a life form?

As good and slightly better than video is, because it can penetrate many light obstacles. Note that thermographic sensors wouldn't fare much better than ultrasound for spotting humans in a room-temperature building, AFAIK.

One obvious choice would be millimeter-wave radars, but they don't exist in SR. frown.gif

Because of the luvly Whateverindexthingamabob of 0.25 of Crawlers and Walkers up to Medium size, even Sensors-5 only cost 3,750 nuyen.gif for them, so that's what I'd go for. You don't have to get through ECM, so Sensors-6 isn't that much of a help and costs 5,000 nuyen.gif.
Arethusa
Ultrasound would actually be much worse, in reality, because of its incredibly short range and low resolution. In a normal temperature building, I'd definitely take thermal imaging. Of course, this probably doesn't apply to SR.
Austere Emancipator
QUOTE (Arethusa)
Ultrasound would actually be much worse, in reality, because of its incredibly short range and low resolution. In a normal temperature building, I'd definitely take thermal imaging. Of course, this probably doesn't apply to SR.

Exactly right, at least on the last part. wink.gif In normal lighting conditions and good visibility, neither Thermal nor Ultrasound have any modifiers. In Fog/Rain/Smoke Thermal is better, but in poor lighting conditions Ultrasound is better.

A burning building would probably count as Heavy Smoke, which causes +3 for Ultrasound. Fortunately, no such modifiers apply to Sensor Tests -- at least none specific to certain sensor types. This is just fluff, unless the GM makes some specific house rules.
Kanada Ten
RADAR is part of sensors, and I don't see anything forbiding Millimeter Wave as part of that RADAR. What's the range on Milimeter Wave?
Austere Emancipator
Beats me, but I'm guessing Far Enough. I'm thinking a few kilometers max, but that really depends on what kind of millimeter wave radar we're talking about. In practice, it would be restricted by the walls in the building: I think they have no problem seeing through a simple brick, stone, wood or similar wall, but a few dozen will probably start fuzzing up the signals.
Kanada Ten
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/...70929051444.htm

RADAR is the sensor to boost I think.
Smiley
Maybe a heartbeat sensor, Rainbow Six style? You wouldn't have to worry about visibility as much and you coul tell right off the bat how many are trapped and where they are (generally).
broho_pcp
Just call up your friendly neighborhood spiderman.
BitBasher
QUOTE (Smiley)
Maybe a heartbeat sensor, Rainbow Six style? You wouldn't have to worry about visibility as much and you coul tell right off the bat how many are trapped and where they are (generally).

Too bad for all intents and prposes it's a fictional device.
Raptor1033
don't firefighters today use thermal imaging scopes? they just adjust it to account for the higher temps they expect and look for the cooler areas that are human shaped
edit: Linky!
More Linky!

yay! i was useful! oh, and big fires are incredibly loud. the best way to describe it would be a roar
Lilt
Cool. I suppose thermo would work then. *gives the Raptor a cookie*
Cray74
QUOTE (Raptor1033)
don't firefighters today use thermal imaging scopes?

Yes, my brother's fire station uses thermal imagers. Very rugged, "fire fighter proof" video cameras, I'm told.

For the most part, smoke is pretty transpart to the thermal imagers, so it's great sensor in a burning buildings. Raptor1033 posted links to some good examples.
Snow_Fox
The other way to go is magic. send in a mage in astral form. she wouldn't be affected by the hostile environment at all and the energy of the living bodies would leap out at here.
Siege
Some well-funded criminal investigation departments now have a similar hand-held thermograph device that can detect body heat residue from a person sitting in a chair.

Spiffy stuff these days.

-Siege
Lantzer
QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)
Exactly right, at least on the last part. wink.gif In normal lighting conditions and good visibility, neither Thermal nor Ultrasound have any modifiers. In Fog/Rain/Smoke Thermal is better, but in poor lighting conditions Ultrasound is better.

Um, perhaps I'm reading my rules wrong...

Doesn't Ultrasound simply halve vision penalties, no matter what sort of vision you are using? That's what the blurb seems to say. On the table in M&M, they give happen to give specific modifiers for using ultrasound with normal vision. But by my reading of the rules, ultrasound vision overlays perfectly well with other enhanced vision types. They just didn't give the modifiers in a table because it would double the size of the table.

So is there anything wrong with using low-light with eyelights, for example, then halving the vision penalties with the ultrasound system?

It's not like Thermo and low-light, which have specific modifiers for different situations, and with which you tend to use the better of the two.

Bear in mind that ultrasound would still give problems due to white noise if it was stacked with other vision systems.
Austere Emancipator
I was referring to Ultrasound alone (cybereyes with nothing but US) as compared to thermographic vision alone (cybereyes with nothing but Thermographic). Not gonna discuss stacking or lack thereof.
Lantzer
Fair enough.
Bearclaw
A person at 98 degrees F would stand out brightly against a background of 250 degrees F. While in the US army in the 80's I used thermographic devices created in the 70's that had none of the problems associated with thermographic vision in the 2060's. The horrible, blobby crap from Predator is using 1950's tech at best. It's terrible. The stuff I used was just about as good as regular vision, and it could see through smoke, fog and darkness.
GunnerJ
QUOTE (Snow_Fox)
The other way to go is magic. send in a mage in astral form. she wouldn't be affected by the hostile environment at all and the energy of the living bodies would leap out at here.

Also, extended range Detect: Life.
Siege
QUOTE (GunnerJ)
QUOTE (Snow_Fox @ May 7 2004, 12:49 PM)
The other way to go is magic. send in a mage in astral form. she wouldn't be affected by the hostile environment at all and the energy of the living bodies would leap out at here.

Also, extended range Detect: Life.

Amplified Hearing: Just follow the screams. grinbig.gif

-Siege
Nikoli
Select sound filter on the drones, edit out the roar.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012