[GiraffeShaman]

I do let intelligent plans work for the most part. I just would rather the invisible/silence combo didn't lead to an instant win every time they want to slip through a high secure entrance. I like to use chokepoints, since they let corps invest large amounts of money in one place, thus saving them money overall, yet getting a lot out of their security money. I'd like these chokepoints to be effective, so runners have to get creative and find other entrances in and the like. I'm not seeking to "beat" the players, but rather just make them think a little harder.

The dogs is an excellent idea, unfortunately one of the characters has a dog phobia severe. I already make sure some dogs appear to exploit this, but I also don't like to go too overboard and abuse a single player tons, heh. That does bring up scent based technologies. I already do use chem sniffers in entrance architectures. This is a pretty sly and lightweight group though, as far as carrying weapons goes.

I'm fairly sure silence spells shut down ultrasound completely, since I found it in the 3rd edit. man and machine book under the ultrasound cyberware area. The core 3rd book is vague on the issue, which is why we weren't certain before that silence could do that.

Yeah, spirits definitely work, but sometimes magic isn't available.

What I'd really like is some kind tech corps can invest in to handle invisibility detection reliably at chokepoints.

Easiest way to detect a magical infiltration is an astral guard. If magic is not available then GloMoss /GloWand based magic detectors at every door will be enough.

This does sound great. As does the mm wave radar idea. I'm running on a 2060 timeline though and I don't know when these techs came into the SR world. It appears mm wave radar exists now in 2012, but that is no gurantee it will be in SR with all the diseasters, etc.

I guess I could just let them "win" a few times to see what happens. I'm just worried about the situation where they do this ten times in a row and it's boring for everyone involved. I'm not concerned about them succeeding in a few runs and getting some money for it.

[Reaver]

I do let intelligent plans work for the most part. I just would rather the invisible/silence combo didn't lead to an instant win every time they want to slip through a high secure entrance. I like to use chokepoints, since they let corps invest large amounts of money in one place, thus saving them money overall, yet getting a lot out of their security money. I'd like these chokepoints to be effective, so runners have to get creative and find other entrances in and the like. I'm not seeking to "beat" the players, but rather just make them think a little harder.

The dogs is an excellent idea, unfortunately one of the characters has a dog phobia severe. I already make sure some dogs appear to exploit this, but I also don't like to go too overboard and abuse a single player tons, heh. That does bring up scent based technologies. I already do use chem sniffers in entrance architectures. This is a pretty sly and lightweight group though, as far as carrying weapons goes.

I'm fairly sure silence spells shut down ultrasound completely, since I found it in the 3rd edit. man and machine book under the ultrasound cyberware area. The core 3rd book is vague on the issue, which is why we weren't certain before that silence could do that.

Yeah, spirits definitely work, but sometimes magic isn't available.

What I'd really like is some kind tech corps can invest in to handle invisibility detection reliably at chokepoints.

Easiest way to detect a magical infiltration is an astral guard. If magic is not available then GloMoss /GloWand based magic detectors at every door will be enough.

This does sound great. As does the mm wave radar idea. I'm running on a 2060 timeline though and I don't know when these techs came into the SR world. It appears mm wave radar exists now in 2012, but that is no gurantee it will be in SR with all the diseasters, etc.

I guess I could just let them "win" a few times to see what happens. I'm just worried about the situation where they do this ten times in a row and it's boring for everyone involved. I'm not concerned about them succeeding in a few runs and getting some money for it.

Simple, cheap, easy way? Pressure sensors. They don't have to be floor mounted. A pressure sensor mounted on the wall or floor would sense the change of pressure in room, hallway, choke point caused by the entrance of a body.

[Wakshaani]

Simpler,cheaper, and even harder to avoid?

Stick a door there.

[Glorthoron]

Simple, cheap, easy way? Pressure sensors. They don't have to be floor mounted. A pressure sensor mounted on the wall or floor would sense the change of pressure in room, hallway, choke point caused by the entrance of a body.

I don't know about that.  Unless a room was hermetically sealed, I would think that the pressure change from the presence of a body would be less than the basic changes due to atmospheric pressure.  Heck, changes in air pressure caused by the HVAC system would be trouble too.  Mind you, you could have the pressure sensors calibrated to take those into consideration.

[Reaver]

Simple, cheap, easy way? Pressure sensors. They don't have to be floor mounted. A pressure sensor mounted on the wall or floor would sense the change of pressure in room, hallway, choke point caused by the entrance of a body.

I don't know about that.  Unless a room was hermetically sealed, I would think that the pressure change from the presence of a body would be less than the basic changes due to atmospheric pressure.  Heck, changes in air pressure caused by the HVAC system would be trouble too.  Mind you, you could have the pressure sensors calibrated to take those into consideration.

Exactly right. You calibrate for the variables you can control (HVAC, barometric, etc). Then any variable outside that you cover with a deadband setting for minor changes. However, the mass displacement of a meta human body is a significant amount and would trip the sensor. Doesn't help you to see or hear the people breaking in... But you know someone of XXX mass passed through the area.

[Glorthoron]

However, the mass displacement of a meta human body is a significant amount and would trip the sensor.

That would depend on the size of the room, and whether or not the area was hermetically sealed. 

Here's the problem I see,  and maybe someone can expand on it or clear it up:

You open a door, and enter a room.  The pressure sensors would definitely pick up the change due to the door opening.  However, as the metahuman walks in and closes the door, his presence has already displaced the air out the door, so a pressure sensor wouldn't notice a change until the metahuman body temperature began to increase the air temperature, in turn increasing the air pressure.

[GloriousRuse]

Or just have a ward with a camera pointed at it. You either go through the ward with your enchantments up with the resultant "hey" or drop them in front of the camera. Either way, your nicked.

[Reaver]

However, the mass displacement of a meta human body is a significant amount and would trip the sensor.

That would depend on the size of the room, and whether or not the area was hermetically sealed. 

Here's the problem I see,  and maybe someone can expand on it or clear it up:

You open a door, and enter a room.  The pressure sensors would definitely pick up the change due to the door opening.  However, as the metahuman walks in and closes the door, his presence has already displaced the air out the door, so a pressure sensor wouldn't notice a change until the metahuman body temperature began to increase the air temperature, in turn increasing the air pressure.

you'd be amazed, there are several properties of air that would make the system faisable. the first is that air is "soft", meaning a door opened at the end of the hallway would not have that much effect on the sensor (wouldn't trip it due to your deadband allowance) however, walking right by the sensor, you displace the air around you, just creating a pressure wave that could be measured. the trick is the area of the room.. a small to medium sized room would be more likely to trip a false-positive then the cross hallways of a large office building floor. But with careful measurementation of the total volume for the building, factoring in the mass of the legit employees, you COULD expand the system to cover an entire building during it's off hours (no outside doors opening, and recirculated air flow to keep the air fresh, without introducing a pressure variance.. but this would get expensive qiuck)

[JustADude]

Or just have a ward with a camera pointed at it. You either go through the ward with your enchantments up with the resultant "hey" or drop them in front of the camera. Either way, your nicked.

This, right here.


Also, a remotely monitored "airlock" that has to be opened via a hard-line switch located on the far side. Can be scaled from a simple pair of sturdy doors monitored by a "mall cop" at a security desk, through blast doors and guards watching from behind bullet-proof glass, to an actual airlock with a HTR squad dedicated just to monitoring it, backed up by popup turrets and gas vents.

[GiraffeShaman]

Simpler,cheaper, and even harder to avoid?

Stick a door there.

Hah, I really should have thought of that. I was in a thieve's guild in an online game that used doors to detect invisible people attempting to come spy on guild business.

Thank you for the excellent suggestions everyone. It's good to not be stuck with the basic old bag of flour to scatter around.

[raggedhalo]

I'm pretty sure 25m per turn does not apply to "straight up the stairs for 15 stories" at least not without some serious athletics tests.

I quite agree!

We also houserule movement rates down quite a bit, to be a bit more in line with the real-world!  So humans, elves and orks walk at 4m/turn and run at 12m/turn; dwarves walk at 3m/turn and run at 10m/turn; and trolls walk at 6m/turn and run at 18m/turn.  It has the side-effect of a) making melee harder  (except from surprise) but b) making pistols and other short-range weapons useful for longer.

We likewise reduce Critter movement, but leave vehicle movement where it is.

[Glorthoron]

I've always liked the "flock of geese" from the SR card game.  Geese that are trained to remain on site (how?  I don't know).  If you sneak onto a property that has the grounds covered with geese, they will panic and cause a ruckass, alerting sercurity.

[Glorthoron]

Something I have used before was a Threshold based security tally similar to SR3 Matrix.  Everytime the players did something that might be construed by security as a quirk in the system, rather than an obvious security breach, I made a test using their Security Procedures skill.  Once they managed so many hits, they would send someone to investigate.  If the guard failed to find the runners, the threshold would reset, and the test would proceed again.  The Security Procedures Test would get a dice pool bonus because security is on alert, and once the threshold was reached again, they would assume a full out breach.

It was a nice way to streamline all of the possible security responses, rather than trying to think how each guard might react.

I found it quite effective.

[Wakshaani]

I've always liked the "flock of geese" from the SR card game.  Geese that are trained to remain on site (how?  I don't know).  If you sneak onto a property that has the grounds covered with geese, they will panic and cause a ruckass, alerting sercurity.

Geese are crazy territorial and quite aggressive. Combine this with their being LOUD and you have a darn good security system that goes back to Egpytian times.

[ArkangelWinter]

I'll admit I didnt thoroughly examine every post, but I kinda wanted to say this from page 1.

I've worked for some good private security companies, and the most effective mundane security I've seen used low-level employees (not necessarily armed or trained at all) who were reliably perceptive and serious about their jobs. Either by camera, radio, or preferably LOS, every guy is regularly visible or in communication with 2 other guys. They may be able to neutralize threats on their own, or cause a cascade of rushing nearby security, but the primary purpose is that someone is still moving and able to signal the better equipped and trained team, which is either sitting ready in a supervisory capacity or patrolling. That second group never commits everything to a disturbance, because one incident breeds other incidents, even if it's just employee panic or a small fire or electrical outage or something.

And meanwhile, the secondary supervisor (in SR, probably the spider), takes over contacting higher authorities for backup or cleanup, because your primary supervisor needs his eyed focused on the disturbance and protecting his team as well as the objective.