A video on RFID tags I made earlier.

So, RFID tags. At 20 per nuyen, they're without doubt the cheapest tool in the 'runner's toolbox. They're tracking devices. They're proof of ID. They're AR distractions. They're bugs. They can add nav points for your team to navigate your trap filled safehouse.

And as a GM you can use them to literally paint a target on your player's backs. So let's hear some stories of your best and most inventive uses of RFID tags.

I'll start with my latest escapade as a GM: Our new runner is being introduced as a prisoner escaping from a corporate holding facility that contains our team's rescue target. The team is using the usual tricks of thermal smoke, flash-paks, ect but no matter what Corpsec always know where to shoot and where the team is hiding. Turns out all the prisoners are implanted with a security RFID and when she escaped it painted a literal AR target on her for all corpsec to see. They could accurately shoot her through smoke, walls, when hiding overhead... the team needed to hold position and cut the damn thing out with a first aid kit to get away. They had to do the same thing with the target they were getting paid to rescue too.

Chaff.
Get some dozends or hundreds.
Get them into a flying drone.
Drop them out of the sky with interesting desctiptions:
"HE-Grenade" "Splash-Grenade" "AP-Grenade" "Incendiary-Grenade".
A.) makes finding the real nodes harder.
B.) are you gonna risk one of those actually being what it says on the tin?

Oh my god I love this so much.

Area denial: Scatter a bunch of RFID tags marked "land mine" around the place.

C) actually put one or two grenades in there as well. Drop those first and they are certainly going to believe you.

Extremely useful for logistics & inventory as well as tracking in closed environments. As they need a lot of Geo-referenced WiFi routers and telematics infrastructure software to work properly.

And essentially pointless for anything else, as they have to be within 40m of anyone who wants to read them for him to get data at all, depending entirely on the availability of local cell tower reference for GPS. Sensor tags are way more limited any only monitor predefined conditions, too.

If you really want to track somebody... you need a GPS device and really should upgrade the Signal on to. The normal max of Signal 5 for general personal electronics gets you 4km of range.

My RFID tags contribution was to research the custom spells Detect RFID Tags and Demolish RFID Tags and then publish them anonymously all over the Matrix.

Storage. They make great dead drops or can be attached to literally anything that moves at point A and then read at point B.


Isn't that just Detect [Object]?

I think you'll find you are incorrect, at least in 4E. Sensor tags can have any sensor you purchase built into them, which can include a microphone. More than that there are multiple mentions in the descriptions of tags about using them to track and monitor people at distances well beyond 40 meters. the security tag description for instance mentions the tags being used as a means of tracking in the case of abduction, tracking children by worried parents, and tracking criminals who are released on parole.

The mechanism they use to do this is, quote: "Tags can be used as tracking devices, periodically transmitting to local scanners or to the wireless matrix (along with the local access point's GPS data), though their limited range makes them useless in dead zones." -Shadowrun 20th anniversary edition core book. page 329.

If you're tracking someone within the sprawl, an RFID tag will do just fine.

I'm specifically referencing the rules for 4E 20th.


You might want to re-read-that:
So they are not general purpose sensors, but more limited than micro sensors.


There are general ideas, but nothing countermands the fact that they have Signal 1 and thus 40m of range to the next access point or Active Mode node in the mesh or become useless:
RFID tags have Signal 1.

Thus they have a Signal Range of 40m.
Thus they are able to transmit data if they are within 40m of a WiFi access point, scanner or meshed Active Mode node.

Average comlinks have Signal 3 and so do small WiFi routers - this is what the new world is designed for:
To always be at least withing 400m of the next coverage of the mesh.


The thing is that all of those are are tied to essentially geo-fenced locations, where the infrastructure is established as pointed out above. Except the abduction thing, which is pointless, as a rating 2 WiFi-inhibiting wallpaper will take care of them. Just bag the target... or using a rating 2 jammer, which does not affect anything outside a 10m radius at all, but will make even security tags pointless.


You noticed that 'useless in dead zones' thing there? Guess what... anything without either a WiFi access point or a node in active mode linked to one within 40 meters of the tag will make it a dead zone to the RFID & it 'useless'.


If you are tracking somebody in Downtown or Bellevue, where everything is shiny and all people are on active mode? Or through a prison, a school, a store, a corp facility or a factory? Sure, everything is peachy all the time. This is the kind of environment RFID tags are made for.

If you are tracking somebody in the bad neighborhoods in Renton, Tacoma, Everett or Auburn, where the WiFi coverage is intermittent and people run most things on passive mode? Good luck... it will become extremely unreliable at best, and faster than not cot out completely. If you rely on RFIDs there, you are a fool already.

If you go to the barrens, either Redmond or Puyallup... or even just the fields & forests of Snohomish or Fort Lewis? Well... the next cell tower or active node might be a kilometer from you. Not a problem for a Renraku Sensei... but a huge problem for an RFID.

Bottom line:
Are tags useful? Sure thing.

Are they reliable outside a very specific frame of reference? Sure not.


That is very sweet indeed. Especially the latter one.

The Non-Linear Junction Detector is a good investment, too.