[Falconer]

Something of an idea here, think this is a great surprise for you GM's out there to pull on your unsuspecting players.

p59 of Arsenal we already have the "Camera Neutralizer"   Rating(1-6) X $500 cost...

It detects cameras including mini-cameras like those found in smartguns and automatically blinds them.  You would think this would have a big effect on the smartguns sighting and visual overlay.  Okay, in the case of a gun.. rating 6... think you're looking at 12 dice vs. a TN3 each round (erratic movement... etc).  That might be good enough to 'counter' reduce or blind the smartgun bonus as a surprise.

A variation on theme would be instead of only blinding cameras.  Simply warning the sensor's bearer which/when cameras are pointed at him.   

Combine that with a radar detector/laser detector.   Why?  Because by the book smartguns use a laser/radar rangefinder in combination with the camera to calculate their ballistics.   Use the two sensors and you have something which could provide an alert when someone has a gun pointed in your direction and possibly blind it as well.   It would eliminate the surprise element from say a smartgun sniper.  Toss in a little fluff that when hit with a rangefinder it automatically looks back in detail in that direction looking for the camera/gun image recognition... and you can come up with a fluffy/technical reason why it ignores range when smartguns light up the sensor.

Thoughts?  Mainly it eliminates surprise, especially from snipers... who might actually use a red dot sight or similar to avoid tipping off their prey.  Sort of a mundane 'extended detect enemies spell'.

Another idea for a smartguns themselves is to eliminate the the electronic rangefinder in preference for binocular vision.  Make it cost an extra [1] mod over a normal smartgun (essentially it's adding an extra guncam).

[Blue_Lion]

Um with every thing from cars to some people having radar how whould you know the radar is coming from a smart gun or a car in the area?
Also look at how lasers points/sesignators work with low light vision such as NVGs laser pointers are plainly visble, with every one and there moma having low light vision (ok not every one but most) a constaint laser out put whould be visible.

Now with those let me point out the cyber eye light system it is normal light that every one can see but can only be seen shining if you ae directly in its line looking at it.

If that technolgy is applied to a laser pointer the sensor whould need to be within a few inches of the laser target spot.
The other option whould be micro burst laser pointers or even other types of sensors to measure the guns angle direction and tempure. (maybe gyroscopic sensor.)

As the smart gun is also a vsion enhancment  part of it happens in the cyber eye/ glasses/ camera. Might be comparing the two cameras I don't know the game mechanic writers are not always top notch scintest that know every thing about the subject that they include in there game. It realy boils down to gm has a right to make calls based on what he belives to be corect.

[Falconer]

Blue... did you read what I said.   The point is this is a sc-fi game.  So long as it's plausible (or even implausible) it really doesn't matter.  Half your arguments here and in other threads are also wrong and show you obviously don't know the technical capabilities of sensors or even how most things in today's tech actually work.


All you need do is have the computer's image processor look back in the direction of the source... if there's a camera present and/or a gun in your image recognition system... you've got a hit.  With a wide angle lens like a fisheye there's not even a need for moving parts.

The basic system itself is already good enough to automatically blind any cameras including all smartgun cameras without any help at all from any other sensors telling it where to examine in detail.  The only point of tossing that tidbit in was to make it more selective and look for things using both a guncam and a rangefinder.  So that the sensor user would get an alert.  (magical characters already have access to detect enemies spell... so think of this as a street sammy analogue).

[Crash_00]

I think you're the one that didn't bother reading something. Actually look into what he said for a quick second.
Standard Vehicle Sensor Suite is as follows:
• Atmosphere Sensor (taking up 1 Capacity)
• 2 Cameras (front and back, taking up 2 Capacity)
• 2 Laser Range Finders (front and back, taking up 2 Capacity)
• 2 Motion Sensors (front and back, taking up 2 Capacity)
• Radar (taking up 5 Capacity)

Think about how many vehicles are nearby on average in the sprawl. This is not a sensor you could use efficiently outdoors in a city at all.

[Blue_Lion]

Blue... did you read what I said.   The point is this is a sc-fi game.  So long as it's plausible (or even implausible) it really doesn't matter.  Half your arguments here and in other threads are also wrong and show you obviously don't know the technical capabilities of sensors or even how most things in today's tech actually work.


All you need do is have the computer's image processor look back in the direction of the source... if there's a camera present and/or a gun in your image recognition system... you've got a hit.  With a wide angle lens like a fisheye there's not even a need for moving parts.

The basic system itself is already good enough to automatically blind any cameras including all smartgun cameras without any help at all from any other sensors telling it where to examine in detail.  The only point of tossing that tidbit in was to make it more selective and look for things using both a guncam and a rangefinder.  So that the sensor user would get an alert.  (magical characters already have access to detect enemies spell... so think of this as a street sammy analogue).

Actualy what i said was nornal laser are visible to curent low light vision sensors, so any surpise using them agaist some one if it was a constent steam whould be imposible.  I then refered to two ways to over come it. One whould be traking the guns angle with a gyrsocpic style sensor the other whould be a focus like the one in the eye light system from agmention.

The focus systemrefence from shadow run is pg 38 agmention.

The tight beam and polarization minimize the beams scater, so the light can;t be seen unless the user is staring directly at the other person or the person is able to see the small spot illuminted by the eye light system.

Appling that type of focus to the a laser targeting system whould make detecting the beam verry hard the sesnor (rember the point on the eye light was the size of a sheet of paper while the laser is much smaller) whould have to be close to the beams line to track it back to where it come from. Seeing the laser dot whould be easer but whould not give away the point of orgin. Even with your wide angle lense if no light from the laser reaches it it cant see the laser.

Now as to what i said about radar is it not part of the sensors in most vehicles? And lets not forget all the other EM fields out there so yes you can detect the radar but in a envorment flooded with it might be hard to tell its source, is a smart gun or a car or random drone with radar unless you can find the point of orgin witch whould be simular to running a scan or track action. Now in the middle of a building with wii fii disabling sytems you can bet the radar is a smart gun (or even the jungle) and be resonably correct.

You assume that because i don't agree with what you think i don't understand but maybe it is you don't understand what i am saying.
You can blame it on my crappy lack of writing style most the time, I rush threw typing things so I don't loose my train of thaght.  But don't just assume some one does not understand something because they have a difrent point of veiw. I try to understand what other people are saying, but most the time just because I disagree with them they don't try to understand what I am saying.

By the way have you ever seen laser sights threw NVGs? You can see the beam at least i could when I used the two systems together.
How NVGs work is by converting a non visble spectrum of light to something you can see, witch in lack of light is augmented by a infred light build in to them for such times. The scater of a laser off the air particles is not vible to the naked human eye but within the levels of light that can be seen with NVGs and even invisble lasers such as MILES gear can be seen.

[PeterSmith]

Actualy what i said was nornal laser are visible to curent low light vision sensors...

Only if the laser operates at a frequency that the sensor can detect. If the laser is operating outside that range, the sensor cannot see it.

Appling that type of focus to the a laser targeting system whould make detecting the beam verry hard the sesnor (rember the point on the eye light was the size of a sheet of paper while the laser is much smaller) whould have to be close to the beams line to track it back to where it come from.

You can't apply the polarization used in the Eye Light System to a laser. A laser operates at a single frequency. Run it through a polarizer and you will have one of two things happen:

The polarizer is set to the same frequency as the laser and will allow it to pass.
The polarizer is set to a different frequency as the laser and will block it.

Now in the middle of a building with wii fii disabling sytems you can bet the radar is a smart gun (or even the jungle) and be resonably correct.

Motion sensors use radar. That sensor could very well be picking up the security system, and a smart runner will tweak his Smartlink to operate at the same frequency as the local security system.

How NVGs work is by converting a non visble spectrum of light to something you can see, witch in lack of light is augmented by a infred light build in to them for such times. The scater of a laser off the air particles is not vible to the naked human eye but within the levels of light that can be seen with NVGs and even invisble lasers such as MILES gear can be seen.

FYI...laser light does not reflect off of "air particles". It reflects off of dust.

[Blue_Lion]

you are right the scater is mostly based off things in the air.
And I said apply a simular technolgy to the laser, not exactly the same.
Does light not scater off the same particles lasers I was under the impresion that lasers are a type of light.

Also motion sensors in shadow run are ultrasound sensors not radar. (read page 333 SR4A)

The utlra sounds sensor can be set to pasice modee, in which it does not emit ultrasonic pulses but still picks up ultrasounds from out side sorces (such asmotion sensors or someone else's utlrasound sensors on active mode).

I think but not 100% shure that curent motion sensor devices are based off pasive IR sensors if I rember the IED class right. The switched to pasive IR motion sensors to defeat us jaming radio signals. Active IR sesnors are things like IR laser trip wires that we can see with some of our optics but you cant see the Motion sensors broadcast. Not 100% shure think it watches for sudun changes in incoming IR light.

And i was not aware standard radar gave the operator the abilty to tinker with the band width thaght it was set at manufacturing setting your radar to the same frequecy some one else is using whould create allot of back ground noise on both systems when they broadcast making imaging and tracking abilities verry unrelible. It whould be akin to two radios tring to broadcast and recive the on the same frequency at the same time they whould basicaly jam each other.


Also why add a second camera for bifocal on the smart gun when 1 camara can do trideo/3D. Whould it not make more sense for the device to get the same info by compairing the incoming image from the guns camara to you your optical device with smart link?
But then again I guess acorording to some people i dont understand how they work.

[Falconer]

Good to see you're still kicking around Peter.  Haven't seen many of the old BT guys around in a while.

Small point... lasers by definition are polarized.  (and additionally the photons are also in phase... it's possible to have monochromatic light which is polarized and not in phase).

They have LASER detectors which look for light which exhibits these two qualties through a wide angle lense.  They're not necessarily tied to a specific wavelength... and they're very good at picking up on pulse patterns (when someone is lasing the target).


If you run a laser through a polarization filter one of a few things will happen.
1. nothing... polarization matches the lasers polarization
2. attenuate... depending on how much off it is (at 90degrees you get full attenuation)
3. depending on power... laser may burn hole through polarizer attenuating it.


Why do polarized sunglasses work:
Because reflected light gains polarization... they attenuate/block most of the light bouncing off horizontal surfaces because they have the polarization set to vertical blocking most of the reflected glare.

The reason the eyelight is silly is because... yes the light may not reflect if the polarization angle is wrong but it'll still be blocked by particulates.  Other people with the polarization will still see it.  The only people NOT to be able to see it is if they have polarized lens exactly at 90degrees of the right angle.  (45 degree off is still 70% makes it through).  So there we already have a tech which ignores physics in a sci-fi game!!!  See it's all good... but blue of course insists on using it as part of a scientific argument.  (why I'm laughing)


In any case, all this is irrelevant to the original idea.   A guncam pointed at the recipient would still cause the basic camera detection system to blind it with a laser automatically (12dice vs a threshhold of 3).  To do so it would have to know what way to shoot the laser.   If it knows which way to shoot the laser I can do an observe in detail and look to see if image recognition software recognizes a gun.  Which should be a great way to alert the user to hostiles.  The bit about radar/laser etc.  was mostly a nice extra to tie into a full-fledged sensor package.

[PeterSmith]

The reason the eyelight is silly is because... yes the light may not reflect if the polarization angle is wrong but it'll still be blocked by particulates.  Other people with the polarization will still see it.  The only people NOT to be able to see it is if they have polarized lens exactly at 90degrees of the right angle.  (45 degree off is still 70% makes it through).  So there we already have a tech which ignores physics in a sci-fi game!!!

The Eye Light doesn't bother me, simply for the reason that the polarization will cut back on the amount of light emitted in the first place. That right there will make it very hard to notice it in the first place, unless you're looking right at the source or the target.

[Blue_Lion]

Good to see you're still kicking around Peter.  Haven't seen many of the old BT guys around in a while.

Small point... lasers by definition are polarized.  (and additionally the photons are also in phase... it's possible to have monochromatic light which is polarized and not in phase).

They have LASER detectors which look for light which exhibits these two qualties through a wide angle lense.  They're not necessarily tied to a specific wavelength... and they're very good at picking up on pulse patterns (when someone is lasing the target).


If you run a laser through a polarization filter one of a few things will happen.
1. nothing... polarization matches the lasers polarization
2. attenuate... depending on how much off it is (at 90degrees you get full attenuation)
3. depending on power... laser may burn hole through polarizer attenuating it.


Why do polarized sunglasses work:
Because reflected light gains polarization... they attenuate/block most of the light bouncing off horizontal surfaces because they have the polarization set to vertical blocking most of the reflected glare.

The reason the eyelight is silly is because... yes the light may not reflect if the polarization angle is wrong but it'll still be blocked by particulates.  Other people with the polarization will still see it.  The only people NOT to be able to see it is if they have polarized lens exactly at 90degrees of the right angle.  (45 degree off is still 70% makes it through).  So there we already have a tech which ignores physics in a sci-fi game!!!  See it's all good... but blue of course insists on using it as part of a scientific argument.  (why I'm laughing)


In any case, all this is irrelevant to the original idea.   A guncam pointed at the recipient would still cause the basic camera detection system to blind it with a laser automatically (12dice vs a threshhold of 3).  To do so it would have to know what way to shoot the laser.   If it knows which way to shoot the laser I can do an observe in detail and look to see if image recognition software recognizes a gun.  Which should be a great way to alert the user to hostiles.  The bit about radar/laser etc.  was mostly a nice extra to tie into a full-fledged sensor package.

The camare neutliser does not fully go into game affects, but how much of the bonus is tied to the gun camara. Most of what it is doing is sniper math, analising wind conditions gun temp and other envirmental factors along with gun angle. Alsmost all can be detected with the radar.

Now the real problem is are you applieing real tech laws or game ones.
If you use real tech laws then yes laser can be detected (not that the game setting is not flooded with them.) but if you applie the game laws using the eye light as an example then lasers whould be hard to spot.

[Falconer]

Blue:
Where does it say a smartgun includes wind sensor and all the rest of that?   I haven't seen it anywhere... it only includes two things.   Guncam (the 'iron sights') which it uses as an aiming aid... remember a smartgun user doesn't necessarily hold the gun right... he can even fire around corners by looking through the guncam and using his AR visual overlay.   Smartguns are the easiest to understand demonstration of the +2 augmented reality bonus.

The only things listed in the description of the smartgun are the gun automation allowing you to electrically change it's settings using mental commands.   A gun camera, and a rangefinder.  That's it... that's the only things listed in the book's own description of the smartgun.

You're making things up after that.

Now you could probably get away with saying an 'improved rangefinder' modification includes some of that extra stuff.
Or enhanced vision mod for smartguns.  Both of those gun modifications from arsenal which enhance the smartgun.



Lets toss out a fairly common situation... your character has thermographic vision and the lights are out.   You're using a smartgun...  the smartgun ONLY has the basic normal vision.   Does it give it's full benefits?   It shouldn't... without the guncam the gun doesn't know where it's pointed to draw the crosshairs on the users vision.  Remember the smartgun replaces the gun's iron sights with an optical trajectory overlay based on the guns own camera.

[Crash_00]

The only things listed in the description of the smartgun are the gun automation allowing you to electrically change it's settings using mental commands.   A gun camera, and a rangefinder.  That's it... that's the only things listed in the book's own description of the smartgun.

Same exact page, next paragraph, "The system makes use of advanced calculation software..." This tells us there is at least a software package for running the ballistics.

It doesn't need a "wind sensor". As you pointed out, it already includes a camera, and it also has software. It can easily use the same methods that, you know, old school snipers used and calculate based on what is observed in the environment. It doesn't say it does this, but it also doesn't say that the entire system isn't just powered by a miniature pink bunny either. Anyone who's played the game for more than just SR4 knows that the main component in a smartgun system is the ballistics processor. It's what separates the system from a laser pointer (laser pointer shows where the gun is pointing, smartgun shows where the bullet will hit). The calculations he's mentioned have been heavily implied in past editions/fiction.

Now you could probably get away with saying an 'improved rangefinder' modification includes some of that extra stuff.
Or enhanced vision mod for smartguns.  Both of those gun modifications from arsenal which enhance the smartgun.

Imp. Rangefinder just tacks on a microwave and radar rangefinder. Camera Upgrade just let's you add a vision enhancement to the smartgun camera. If you maintain that the calculations cannot be pulled off by the smartgun because it isn't stated, why would it be pulled off by either of these when it still...isn't stated? 

Now the bulk of the situation is that wind speed and such does not matter because it isn't counted for SR4. In the favor of a KISS system they didn't include anything similar (although most RPGs don't). The book just doesn't cover many of the simple checks that a sniper would usually make. Having it/Not having it makes absolutely no difference.

Lets toss out a fairly common situation... your character has thermographic vision and the lights are out.   You're using a smartgun...  the smartgun ONLY has the basic normal vision.   Does it give it's full benefits?   It shouldn't... without the guncam the gun doesn't know where it's pointed to draw the crosshairs on the users vision.  Remember the smartgun replaces the gun's iron sights with an optical trajectory overlay based on the guns own camera.

Would the laser sight cease to function in the darkness?  According to the book, the function of the camera is that it "allows for targeted shooting around corners, without exposing oneself to return fire." All that's needed for computing ballistics (disregarding the factors that Blue mentioned that aren't taken into account RAW) would be the range and ammunition information (powder load, bullet weight, etc). Just because the camera is black doesn't keep it from drawing a crosshair on the black image.

[_Pax_]

Just because the camera is black doesn't keep it from drawing a crosshair on the black image.

Or tracing a dotted line through 3D space to show the bullet's expected trajectory.