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Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

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Wed, 2010-01-13 12:12

kraken

Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

There seem to be several different rules for chameleon type effects through the rulebooks:

Chameleon Skin (Biomod, pg 303: Gives a +20 mod to sneaking, so long as you're not moving faster than a slow walk.
Chameleon Cloak (Covert, pg 315): Makes you impossible to spot while sneaking, unless moving faster than a slow walk. Gives a +30 mod to sneaking if moving faster.
Smart Clothing (Everyday, pg 325): Gives a +20 mod to sneaking, so long as you're not moving faster than a slow walk. +10 if you are.

Which of these is 'correct', or are they all correct and just give different bonuses? Does it, in people's opinions, at least make sense to make Chameleon Skin and Smart Clothing produce the same bonuses?

Thu, 2010-01-14 03:27

Scion

All correct

I think that they all give the indicated bonuses. this is because they're all built to different specs and different qualities. The reason the bio-mod gives such a low bonus compared to the others is probably because the skin is only as effective as the cells it uses, whereas the clothing is made of the nanotech that permeates the setting. This would make it a lot more effective, but it requires a power source and processing power :S

Fri, 2010-01-22 16:28

RobBoyle

Re: All correct

The chameleon cloak is indeed supposed to have better capabilities, thanks to the active sensor scans. The chameleon skin and smart clothing were updated in the errata. A +20 bonus to Infiltration is applied as long as the character is fully camouflaged (nude w/c-skin, using both, or covered w/smart clothing) and still or moving slowly. If not fully covered, or if moving faster, the modifier is only +10.

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Fri, 2010-01-22 17:00

kraken

Re: All correct

Thanks for the clarification. It was more the difference between Smart Clothing and Chameleon skin which struck me as odd. Is the Errata just in the thread on the other forum, or is there a more collected source?

Fri, 2010-01-22 17:45

RobBoyle

Re: All correct

Sending the errata to Adam today so he can update the PDF. He'll put it together in a nice PDF that we'll post on the blog and Resources page soon.

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Fri, 2010-02-26 06:47

chissene

Re: Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

Do these bonus stacks ? common sense would say not, just because cloak its an upgraded version and like smart clothing are requisite to let skin work correctly with wearings .. It also say that when the wearer is stationary he become invisible, except to radar etc., this mean that, not augmented , perception rolls on him fail automatically ? (same for invisibility cloak ?)

Fri, 2010-02-26 07:57

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

My house rule is that armour modifiers can only stack when they make sense, and usually you can have only two. The order matters also because damage can impair their effects: chameleon coating is reasonably outside the damage-reducing material, so a hit will wreck it. Apropos stealth, one interesting insight from my debate over at the quicksilver thread: stealth coatings based on metamaterials ought to be very vulnerable to EMP or focused electromagnetic waves at their resonant frequencies. Metamaterials are after all crystals of nano-antennas/resonators and ought to be seriously damaged if the right (strong) signal passes by. It might be that the standard EMP pulse has little effect since it misses their resonances, but one could imagine an anti-invisibility device that sweeps part of the spectrum, detects suspect resonances or absorptions and then ramps up the power (a bit like the gadget someone came up with a while ago that detected lens flares from CCTV and blinded them with an IR glare).

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Fri, 2010-02-26 16:59

RobBoyle

Re: Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

chissene wrote:
Do these bonus stacks ? common sense would say not

Yeah, I would say no to the stacking.

chissene wrote:
It also say that when the wearer is stationary he become invisible, except to radar etc., this mean that, not augmented , perception rolls on him fail automatically ? (same for invisibility cloak ?)

Yeah, visual Perception tests automatically fail. Interesting point on the EMP vs. metamaterials, I'll look into that.

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Sat, 2010-02-27 08:32

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

RobBoyle wrote:
Interesting point on the EMP vs. metamaterials, I'll look into that.

I found this paper (pdf) that suggests that most EMP energy from a nuclear blast is below ~1 Mhz. Presumably EMP bombs can go higher, but it all remains in the radio spectrum. This is likely good news for the optical metamaterials, since they would be sensitive at much higher frequencies than can be achieved. But I guess radar-stealth metamaterials would be vulnerable to burning out if subjected to a vanilla EMP. The big question is of course whether nanostructures are extra vulnerable (as per the calculations in the old EMP vs swarm thread) - although the metamaterial units are not resonating strongly with the EMP they might still get local faults due to being nanoantennas. I would imagine a chameleon coating misbehaving in visible ways if subjected to intensive light, such as an optical laser.

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Mon, 2010-03-01 22:27

#10

Scottbert

Re: Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

What about it being cheaper to mod armor with the effect of a chameleon cloak than to actually get a chameleon cloak? What's up with that? I'm guessing they're probably supposed to be the same price?

Sat, 2010-03-06 21:49

#11

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Re: Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

Arenamontanus wrote:
I found this paper (pdf) that suggests that most EMP energy from a nuclear blast is below ~1 Mhz. Presumably EMP bombs can go higher, but it all remains in the radio spectrum.

There are a couple of papers out there (and a few magazine articles going back to 1992 or therabouts - Pop.Mech. did an article on the possibilities of electronic terrorism around then if I recall correctly) that hypothesize that EMP-only bombs are probably easier to construct as explosively pumped microwave emitters (around 1-2 GHz in frequency) than as 1 MHz or lower emitters. I think those would work better as jammers than anything else. Plus, a massive pulse of RF on the hydrogen line would likely not do good things to biological material within range.

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Mon, 2010-03-08 16:30

#12

killj0y

Re: Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

If you have a cloak assume that it will have a hood, good coverage and at least floor length to cover movement. Meaning that moving only entails the delay in the cloak updating to match the surroundings. IE: Predator ripple. Chameleon skin and armor are going to suffer from the Sue Storm problem in that while YOU might be invisible your clothing is verymuch not, and vice versa. If you have Skin + smart clothes you could get a similar effect to the cloak but you're not having your profile broken by the drape of the garmet so your outline could be more distinct than the shadowy effect of a full drape cover. If you have a cloak on then it should cover over any other skin or armor mods you have making their bonuses moot since they would not be visible. As always unless these items include white noise generation or something similar you're only visually concealed and something as simple as augmented smell or hearing is going to reveal your position fairly quickly. In additon there could be other visual mods that render these kinds of camo somewhat moot. IR sensors, light refraction sensors, and any number of other items might reveal the difference between you and the surrounding terrain enough to obviate their effect. Some of this can be accounted for which would give rise to bigger and better versions of some of these items. The cloak is going to be king in most cases as the fabric could be impregnated with all kinds of heat dispersion, light mimicing and sound supression technologies where skin and armor would be limited by space and complexity. As to the EMP vs. metamaterials, a normal EMP might not be able to perform the task you set out but other directed EM technology could make something like this possible. Employing it in any wide scale might be problematic due to the quantity of metamaterials construction used in some habitats as well as the levels of EM exposure that inhabitant would be subject to on a regular basis. Maybe it would be best operated as a grenade or temporary use security emplacement rather than an always on constant projection.

Thu, 2010-10-14 06:44

#13

Veini-san

Re: Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

So, I have Ghost morph with Ch-Skin. And I bought (Gear) Body Armor (light) with Chameleon Coating mod, and Smart Clothing. Now my idea is, that my character is wearing Body Armor and Smart Clothing on it, as a Coath. Body Armor (light) is flexible and "close to body" (sorry, I dont know appropriate word), so my character wants to hide it easily (and weapon) behind full coath. So my question is: how much bonuses my character has if I will "turn on" full stealth mode (Ch-Skin +30, Body armor Chameleon Coating +30 and Smart Clothing +20). All of this gives 80! but this is too much I think. So what bonus should be added to Infiltration? Thanks. PS. Another quick question. Does Silencer has any sense for railgun weapons? They are silent, and fire with almost no sound, but bullet is flying with 6+ mach speed, so it creates very laud sound (almost like high roar I think). So silencer is useless. You can not mute bullets.

Thu, 2010-10-14 07:26

#14

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Re: Chameleon rules - Which are correct?

IMHO: You are correct about the silencing railgun weapons. wrong about 'stacking' the stealth bonuses. It's best to assume that similar bonuses do not stack in EP. In your stealth clothes example; all this gear is doing is taking a picture of what surrounds it and displaying that picture on it's surface. So, Your skin looks like the inside of your armor, your armor looks like the inside of your clothes and your smart clothing looks like your surroundings. :D You'll have an effective cammouflage of +20 to Infiltration. (note: The subtext here, that Smart Clothing does not grant as good a bonus as Chameleon Coating or the Chameleon Cloak gear, indicates that Smart Clothing is not as good at cammouflage because it is not specifically designed to do that.)

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.