lodestar
Dec 22 2004, 07:12 PM
| QUOTE (mfb) |
botch, that's crazy-talk. guns and bows do the same thing, every time. all you have to do to predict where a bullet or arrow will go is figure out a simple ballistic arc, based on data that almost never changes. an arm, on the other hand, doesn't do the same thing every time even if you're a highly-trained professional with years of experience. that's why even pro baseball pitchers occasionally throw a ball, why NFL quarterbacks don't always get the ball to their man, and why even Michael Jordan and Larry Bird missed shots. no computer can calculate an accurate trajectory arc based on an arm's current position, because there are a million things an arm might do in between the current moment and the time of the throw.
yes, all projectiles are affected in the same way by gravity, spin, etcetera--but not all projectiles are fired the same way, when their motive force is an arm. your assumption is faulty, and you've reached a faulty conclusion.
siege, same for you. a=x does not mean x=y. the fact that gear exists in SR that hasn't been statted yet isn't carte blanche to just make up whatever 'ware you want, and claim that logic and the setting back you up. |
But what if you could have an arm do the exact same motiion every time? With a cyberarm or similar limited MBW system you could. Now you get a very predictable throw - one that could be represented by a target display on your eye. To do this though now you have to put your arm's motion outside of your onsious control of it and put it in the control of a computer. The advantages of the throwing accuracy of course are generally outweighed by the impracticality. While it might say give a -2 TN to a thrown item - if that item's ballistic qualities were loaded into the computer - but since the arm is unbalancing when it goes through its motion, it probably give a penalty, say +2TN to various actions in the round the projectile is thrown - the worst of course being if you have to make a dodge, jump or run check while doing so. The system might simply be simply too impractical to have ever been put into production (remember any piece of cyberware presented in the canon rules has probably been not only researched in is usefulness, but also its marketability) In most cases why throw knives when you can use a gun? Why be accurate with throwing a gernade when a gernade link is more efficient and offers more options to it? Given the option of having a -2TN to thrown items over -2TN to shooting guns, guess which most people would take? Simply put, the usefulness of such cyberware limits its marketablilty. Is there the possiblity it exists? Hell yes, with all the Megacorps in the SR world doing all sorts of research on bizarre, esoteric things, why not this? It might have some application somewhere - a present day example is that silly Robo-sapien toy that's out. It can throw certain objects with its mechanical arm - a throw that probably has very predictable qualities.
mfb
Dec 22 2004, 07:21 PM
i disagree. having a cyberlimb does not give you any inherent ability to repeat the same action the same way every time. if it did, cyberarms would give bonuses to firearms tests, thrown weapons, surgery tests, and any number of other tests that require precise actions.
i'm not going to comment on the MBW thing--the idea that you need MBW to take advantage of a smartball system is just plain silly. at that, the idea that you need a cyberlimb to use it is also somewhat outside the bounds of reasonable expectation.
a universally-applicable smartball link won't be as useful as a smartlink, sure. but it will still be very, very useful, and there will still have been lots and lots of people who will have taken it. it's not going to be some arcane, little-seen piece of 'ware that no one's ever heard of.
lorthazar
Dec 23 2004, 08:17 AM
Sometimes I wonder if it is ignorance or stubborness that rules these boards.
The question is not whether the SmartBall system exists or if there a practical use for it. Canon says it exisists and it is mentioned twice in ShadowBeat and at least Twice in SSG. Canon also say it greatly increases throwing ability, including grenades. So it exists and it is useful for throwing. Both are fact as far as anyone should be concerned. Now how it works is a different story. I have not seen a single set of stats or even a lengthy explanation. I can infer that the ball is not wired as the circuitry would not survive 10 seconds of dribbling or even kickoff.
if i were to stat it out i would do so as such
Smart Ball Sytem
Cost: 20,000
Availability: 12/1 week
Street index: 4
Essence Cost: .5
Game Effect: This dedicated microprocesser, skillwire, and simsense feed helps with the throwing skill. -2 to all TN's while throwing any sport ball, grenades, or similiar objects. +1 to TN for throwing knives, shuriken and objects unlike a ball. Can be turned off to avoid penalties as a simple action.
Crusher Bob
Dec 23 2004, 08:33 AM
Probably better to reduce that to -1 TN and with a rangefinder, reduce scatter. The 20K is a bit steep too, consider that a math SPU 3 only clocks in at 11K. The only part that is likely to be different between a smartlink (gun) and a smartlink (ball) is the processor, all the other components would probably be the same. Assuming that the smartlink (ball) processor costs more (say, 3K) than makes the price of the smartball system around 4,500 (without a rangefinder)
mfb
Dec 23 2004, 03:44 PM
aha! yes, SSG does mention "Sure Shot" technology, on SSG page 34. it also calls it "new", which indicates to that it hasn't been around for the past decade and a half. maybe i just have a strange definition of the word, but cyberware that's been around for fifteen years doesn't qualify as "new" to me. besides which, "Sure Shot" has a slightly different spelling than "Smartball", which is generally an indicator that they're not quite the same thing. Sure Shot cyberware and Smartball cyberware are, it seems, two different things--related, yeah, but Sure Shot isn't the cyberware that was mentioned in Shadowbeat.
so, it's mostly what i've been saying already: Smartball technology, the implant mentioned in Shadowbeat, is a sports-only implant. Sure Shot technology--probably descended from Smartball--is a universally-applicable piece of cyberware.
this means that combat types the world over haven't been using Smartball technology to throw grenades and knives for the past decade and a half, which has been my major point of contention all along.
if you're going to include a low-end, dedicated skillwire, i'd go ahead and give it a -1 TN to non-ball thrown objects.
Fortune
Dec 23 2004, 03:56 PM
I never contended that it was in use for any particular amount of time. I just support the idea that with the availability of SmartBall tech, it is possible, and even probable that someone would adapt that technology for a more martial use, and that it could exist in game (which it basically does ... the fact that it has a different brand name is purely semantics). I then went on to give an off-hand, personal estimate of its game mechanics, which may of may not be correct.
mfb
Dec 23 2004, 04:50 PM
you weren't, but others were. the brand name isn't semantics, though, i don't think--it says, in SSG, that Sure Shot is new technology. maybe Sure Shot is a brand name for Smartball-2, or something, but it's clearly not the same technology (or, at least, not the same generation of the technology) that's mentioned in Shadowbeat.
Crimsondude 2.0
Dec 23 2004, 06:28 PM
Bah. No stats. No dice. Anything else is just homebrew.
Botch
Dec 24 2004, 10:51 AM
| QUOTE (mfb) |
botch, that's crazy-talk. guns and bows do the same thing, every time. all you have to do to predict where a bullet or arrow will go is figure out a simple ballistic arc, based on data that almost never changes. an arm, on the other hand, doesn't do the same thing every time even if you're a highly-trained professional with years of experience. that's why even pro baseball pitchers occasionally throw a ball, why NFL quarterbacks don't always get the ball to their man, and why even Michael Jordan and Larry Bird missed shots. no computer can calculate an accurate trajectory arc based on an arm's current position, because there are a million things an arm might do in between the current moment and the time of the throw.
yes, all projectiles are affected in the same way by gravity, spin, etcetera--but not all projectiles are fired the same way, when their motive force is an arm. your assumption is faulty, and you've reached a faulty conclusion.
siege, same for you. a=x does not mean x=y. the fact that gear exists in SR that hasn't been statted yet isn't carte blanche to just make up whatever 'ware you want, and claim that logic and the setting back you up. |
No, guns and bow do not do the same thing every time they just have significantly less variation in their performance. Professional throwers do not miss because their arms suddenly work in a different way, their elbows don't suddenly bend the other way, they FAIL TO AIM and RELEASE CORRECTLY. That is being human.
There isn't a million things an arm can do between rest and release, there are 48 degrees of movement in a human arm. This means there are a combination of 48 seperate ways in which the arm will behave. Correcting the throwing process to maintain aim whilst throwing is going to be a skill all of its own, fitting a stripped down skillwire system to the throwers arm to "nudge" would be possible.
The projective upon release will behave extactly the same way, no matter how it was accelerated onto its current vector. Every projectile is effected by the same vector forces, some just count for more based on their physical properties.
I believe I did say,
| QUOTE |
| The only difference between a bow, a gun and a smartball system is the firing mechanism. |
I mean it to come across as only the mechanism that accelerates the projectile onto its flight path is different, not the calculations used to plot that path. The only addition necessary to the smartball system over smartlink-2 is possiblly additional 'ware to reduce variation in throwing movements.
Wireknight
Dec 24 2004, 04:56 PM
I don't remember the specifics of it, but I'm pretty sure that the combination of 48 things, i.e. C(48,48), is a rather large number. Far larger than a million.
mfb
Dec 24 2004, 05:20 PM
my calculator program ran out of digits, and gave me the following when i asked it how many possible permutations there were in a set of 48:
| QUOTE (Windows Calculator.exe) |
| 1.9803151064283734974946984908905e+61 |
you're right Botch, there aren't a million possible movements for an arm. there are 19,803,151,064,283,734,974,946,984,908,905,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, give or take a few 0's (i had to type it out by hand, so it's possible i added or subtracted one or two of 'em by accident). (edit: there are enough 0s that i can't get the damn number to fit on one line. there's something profound about that.)
now, if we're talking only about arm movements that will move an arm in such a way as to make it propell a baseball at a catcher's mit, we might pare that down to about a million--that's just a wild guess, understand; it could be closer to 10 million or even 100 million.
the point of all the mathitization i just did is, that Smart Ball thingy has to figure out which of those million (or ten million, or a hundred million) movement combination your arm is going to make, when you start your throw. oh, and pitching permutations 1-50,000 are exactly the same for the first 0.0001 seconds of movement, and permutations 1-10,000 are the same for the first 0.001 seconds, and permutations 1-5,000 are the same for the first 0.01 seconds, and so on.
the mechanism that accelerates a thrown ball is wildly, insanely, unbelievably more complex and unpredictable than the mechanism that accelerates a fired bullet or arrow. and that doesn't even get into the problem of calculating the ball's point of impact (based on those million+ movement combinations, plus gravity/spin/etcetera) and getting it painted on the thrower's retina fast enough to do the thrower any good. he's in the middle of his pitch, and halfway through it (or more), a little blinky pops up and tells him he's going to to throw a strike. wow, that's handy.
Rev
Dec 24 2004, 08:38 PM
I bet all 48 of those are continuously variable. Just one continuous variable gives an infinite number of configurations (unless space is quantum, like energy).
Anyhow I have two reasonable mechanisms for a smart ball system that reduces target numbers:
It could work by predicting based on the current motion of the ball where the ball would land. Basically a ballistic processor. The thrower's task would then be to align the trajectory calculated by the smart-ball link with the target over the course of the throw. This sounds like a reasonably learnable reflex. This would also require knowledge of the properties of the ball. Ideally the ball would have sensors to track its own location during the throw and velocity and onboard stored information about its properties (ie mass, aerodynamic drag). Alternatively the sensors could be in the hand, and the properties of the projectile programmed into the processor, but that would be a bit less accurate. The thrower might also be able to simply ballpark these stats by eye and set the properties. I would be inclined to give -1t# to the sensor equipped ball version, and only around +2 dice to the throwing of a normal projectile.
It could also work only with smart projectiles. Upon release the smart projectile would store the target trajectory and use something like fins to match that trajectory. This I would give -2, and the projectiles would be some kind of single use attachment to a mini-grenade. Those projectiles would be quite a bit more expensive and less available than normal ones.
With aerodynamic projectiles the fin option is the only one I think I could suspend my disbelief of.
Another very reasonable mechanism exists to greatly improve throwing ability in shadowrun that would be even easier.
It could work like an air timed grenade launcher. The smart grenade link would gather target range information and throw speed/angle information and program the grenade to go off at the time when it should reach the target greatly reducing scatter. Maybe automatically half it, or something. The grenades for this would probably be mildly more expensive than normal grenades, but with something like 4x the base time of a normal grenade given that they are a fairly rare item that some techie might have to actually make from a normal grenade.
Anyhow I don't think it would be a very common combat implant anyway. Soldiers and security forces really don't use that many grenades. They are heavy and dangerous compared to bullets so not nearly as usefull as a smartlink.
That is also why this sort of thing is a good bit of additional cyberware for a sourcebook, or for a gm to make up. It gives new abilities that (if properly balanced) don't increase the overall power level of the game unlike say a new version of some existing thing which is can be indistinguishable and pointless (eg half the guns in the cannon companion), better and making the old version obsolete (eg smartlink 2), or worse and unused (eg move by wire which is balanced by high essence cost then made almost useless to pc's by being quickly fatal).
mfb
Dec 24 2004, 09:05 PM
i was going to mention that, but 19,803,151,064,283,734,974,946,984,908,905,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 has more impact than "infinity".
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