[psycho835]

Wait, don't all smartguns have a smartlink? Why on earth would a gun with laser sight even HAVE wireless capability? Unless of course you slapped laser sight on a smartgun, for some unfathomable reason...

Also, smartguns are, what? Small computer with wireless capability, that downloads data on weather, recognizes ammo types and crunches the numbers for you, numbers given to it by camera, laser rangefinder, possibly an altimeter. And some wireless controls, but that's beside the point. See, the way I see it, that rangefinder is critical for the targeting aid to work, and while it may be out of the visible spectrum, these days everyone and their mother has the capabilities to see it. So a sneak attack in a well-lit area, when targets have no reason to suspect anything would give you the upper hand, that advantage goes out the window as soon as they switch to infrared (whether thermo or low-light). And now that my rant is over, could anyone with actual technological know-how tell me whether or not I'm wrong?

[Reaver]

Both?

Depends on the sensor and how and what it is measuring and how.

Most tech sensors nowadays are solid state devices hooked up to generic PLCs. As a result, they are fairly small, yet still sizeable, given their generic adaptability, hookups, and powering.

however, specialized self contained sensors for use in extreme environments, are actually very, very small (8 to 12 inches total length) and extremely accurate. (I've seen sensors that can detect micro particles, or the change of a billionth of an atmosphere.)

How they do this is dependant on the sensor and just what it is sensing. The 3 most common for range are:

Sonic
Light
triangulation (a combination sensor)

Sonic sensors work by bouncing a sound wave off objects and waiting for the bounce back. Not very good in open spaces, but works well inside. No, you can't hear it. No, a dog can't either. The frequency used is either well bellow or above heard frequencies for all animals.

Light sensors come in 2 types, wide and narrow. And then in both an active and a passive.

Wide or narrow is the angle of recieption of light, and active or passive describes its light generation.

The more narrow the reception, the more accurate the sensor.
Active light means it emits a light source, be it in candle power (like an LED) or in rads (as in infra red radiation)

Passive sensors either use amibiant, availabile light, or thermal radiation detection.

[Xenon]

Reason to connect your smartlink and smartgun wireless while working in concert with your DNI is because now the system get to actively help you aim. It is no longer Jay passively giving you extra information. It is actually ordering your brain to move your arm to compensate for wind shifts. You get both accuracy limit increase as well as a dice pool increase at the same time when you use take aim (normally you only get one benefit). You get a dice pool modifier to all your attacks with the weapon (the system now actively help you to aim). You can now mentally eject the clip or change fire mode as a free action rather than using a manual simple action (this one is actually a wireless bonus that all firearms have, not just smartguns). The on board camera let you fire around corners without exposing yourself and without having to take a -6 environmental modifier (you get this bonus if you connect the system with a wire as well) and it will display an assortment of passive information that might help an expert shooter to land extremely accurate shots; this include information about material stress, ammo type and count, exact range to the target etc -which game mechanicwise increase the accuracy of your firearm (you also get fed this passive information and you also get this particular bonus even if you connect the system with a wire).

[Neal Allen]

If bricking a smartgun makes you unable to shoot, so should bricking a laserpointered smartgun.
[/quote]

Well, not necessarily.  The laser sight could be completely separate of a gun as all it does is project a dot.  This bonus is equal to +1 accuracy and +1 DP (if wireless).

None of that requires connection to the gun.

But a Smartgun System allows you to
1. switch gun modes mentally
2. eject a clip
3. fire the gun without pulling the trigger
4. calculate trajectories and high precision over any distance

And many other things that actually require it to go wireless with the gun itself. 
Laser sight *just* projects a dot.

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

Why are people's Smartgun getting Bricked??? Even before Data Trails that is fairly easy to protect against... now??? You gotta be kidding me... for less than 10k you can have a DR 7 DP 3 FW 11 Commlink!!! So 17 dice throwing against the hackers Sleaze/Attack with a constant Diagnostic Program running. Your Primary weapon should have a Weapon Commlink slaved to your PAN... so not only do they have to roll against your primary Commlink but they should have to get through a ridiculously high Firewalled one in your gun as well!!! If the enemy decker can waste time on doing that, your decker is either busy doing important things and not being bothered while he does them or he just sucks. Hopefully it's the former & yelling at the player to do his job should take care of the later.

[Rooks]

Sorry how are you getting 11 firewall?

[Top Dog]

Yes, wondering that as well...

You can only switch a point around once. Or, you know, just build in the Firewall +1 program and get 8 Firewall that way - but that also takes up your one modification slot. 8 Firewall still gives you a decent defend pool though, but it's not unassailable. Diagnostics is neat, but (without any decent description of what it actually does) I doubt it actually warns you of an attack in progress until there's actual damage done - at which point it's likely too late. (Or a Sleaze roll is failed, or attack roll is made, but then you'd know anyway).

By the way, now that I'm looking at it...
The game says that Matrix Defense uses the owner's mental stat (Int or Wil, depending on the action), unless it's unattended, in which case you use Device Rating (of the device in question, so 3 for most, up to 7 for a commlink). That would mean that, if my Commlink is attacked, it'd never use the Device Rating (my commlink doesn't count as unattended per the description - even if you're not actively using it, it still depends on how you used it earlier, so uses your own stats). But slaved devices explicitly mention under PAN that you use the highest of your mental stat and the Device Rating. That wouldn't apply to commlinks, though, since they're (usually) not slaved - they're the masters. Am I missing a separate rule somewhere that states you can substitute your Device Rating, even for non-slaved devices?


Anyway, regardless of the above, your Smartgun's defense pool will be around 11-13 (with Firewall 8 on your commlink), since Intuition and Willpower rarely go over 5, and the device rating of the smartgun is 3.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Not to mention that deckers don't need to hack multiple firewalls to brick a slaved device, Zhoul, unless you're talking about SR4.

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

Sorry how are you getting 11 firewall?

The best way to get Broken things..... by selective reading of the rules. I mean who really needs to read the last sentence of a paragraph anyways... never any pertinent information there!!!! 

[Rooks]

Sorry how are you getting 11 firewall?

The best way to get Broken things..... by selective reading of the rules. I mean who really needs to read the last sentence of a paragraph anyways... never any pertinent information there!!!! 

you mean increase matrix attribute x 4-5? should I guess you could  take a transys up the fire wall five time and have one box of matrix condition

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

Sorry how are you getting 11 firewall?

The best way to get Broken things..... by selective reading of the rules. I mean who really needs to read the last sentence of a paragraph anyways... never any pertinent information there!!!! 

you mean increase matrix attribute x 4-5? should I guess you could  take a transys up the fire wall five time and have one box of matrix condition

Only 1 Mod per device... that's why I said it was from not reading the rules. It's the last sentence of the paragraph & who ever needs to read that?

[DWC]

If I was a decker and I hacked their smartgun first thing Id do is eject clip

Yet another reason I swear by external smartgun systems.  If it gets bricked, you ignore the chunk of dead weight hanging off of your weapon and keep firing.  It's not in the internals of the weapon, so it shouldn't have any bearing on firing the weapon.

[Herr Brackhaus]

DWC
Wow. If anyone tried that kind of logic at my table, I'd be forced to reach for the rulebook... That's beyond powergamey, in my opinion.

Just because the modification is external to the weapon does not mean the system is not inherently linked to the weapon in any way, shape, or form differently from an internal system.

If you have any sort of reason to believe there is a difference in how an external system varies from an internal system that is actually based on actual game mechanics besides cost and availability, I'd love to hear them. If that's your opinion you are more than welcome to it, but I for one couldn't disagree more with you on this.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Well, if he uses the smartgun system like that, you simply disallow a whole bunch of stuff that you'd normally get - like ejecting the clip via smartlink with a free action as compared to a simple action, checking how much ammo is in them, etc.  Smartguns are useful for more than just targeting; they always have been.

[Novocrane]

Wireless: The weapon displays an ARO that tells you ammo levels and ammo type loaded. If you have a DNI, you get two additional benefits. First, ejecting a clip (for weapons that have them) is a Free Action rather than a Simple Action. Second, changing fire modes (on models that have more than one) is a Free Action rather than a Simple Action.

It's not that hard to do those things without a smartlink & smartgun system. You just need DNI.