I was making a a ninja-ish cyber NPC the other day, whom I gave Reuthenium Dermal Sheating. But then I thought, well crap, the PCs all have thermal vision, so what's the point? I kinda fudged on the spot a "rating 5 thermal dampener" for her, but I figured making something real might be better on the long term.

So, anyone got any ideas on how this might work?

My logic so far is as follows: in order to hide heat, you have to catch it as it exits the body, so you can't juts stick a heat-sink in the middle of the body. And generally, using a heat-sink probably isn't viable, unless you include the need to vent trapped heat every now and then (or face eventual combustion). A cooling system might be better. So the best I have right now, is a mesh wiring under your skin ciculating coolant. But would that be detrimental to one's health? I mean, if you lower your body temperature, you're going to die, right? So you'd need a system that lowers the visible temperature of your body, without actually lowering it...

Any other ideas? And don't say "make a suit with thermal dampening from CC". The point is to create useable cyberware.

Actually, it seems reasonable that dermal sheathing could be used to muffle or suppress a subject's generated body heat.

The problem would be to keep from over-heating as it builds up. Perhaps bleed the body heat slowly, in a controlled manner rather than a constant, unchecked rate?

-Siege

Just allow Dermal Sheathing to accept the armor modifications from Cannon Companion. Thermal Dampening has all the rules you need, including the venting of the pent-up heat. You'll only be able to put 1 (Dermal Sheath 1 and 2) or 2 (Dermal Sheath 3) points of it on by the rules, but it's still workable. If you don't want to call it that, just create a new implant that works exactly the same as Thermal Dampening. It has all the rules you need.

Regardless, Ruthenium Polymers do work against thermographic vision. It's just cut in half, so gosh, you only have a +6 TN penalty instead of the usual +12.

Yeah, same mechanism... I'd got with 3000 and maybe .1 essence per point.

I don't know about the limitations though... First of all, the concept of limiting modifications by armour points is retarded. I'm thinking it's purely a game mechanics thing to limit the number of mods on a piece of armour, but honestly, a better system could be thought out.

Also, I also find it incoherant than Reuthenium can give up to +12 to modifiers when Blind Fire is +8... You can't be more invisible than invisible.

Minor hijack: The way I run the Ruthenium "more invisible than invisible" thing is that, with 12 sensors, you have a +12 virtual modifer, capping at +8. This means that when you move fast, and the image has trouble, the extra sensors help keep that +8 for longer.

"When activated, the target numbers needed to perceive such a cloaked object are increased by 4. For each extra scanner beyond 4, add 1 to the final target number for detection. The maximum modifier attainable is +12."

Emphasis mine.

My interpretation has always been that the +12 is just to notice someone. If you're spotted, you're spotted. Say hello to my little friend and all that. But if someone is just told by their friend, "DUDE! There's something out there!" and everyone begins spraying the jungle in a manner reminicent of Predator, it's +8 because they're just blindly shooting. They aren't trying to find out exactly where you are, they're just shooting and hoping a bullet eventually finds its mark.

Well, meat eyes in pitch darkness only have a +8 to perception checks... so that doesn't exactly help