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Nanoswarm defenses?

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Fri, 2011-02-11 17:50
#1
Lauguz Lauguz's picture
Nanoswarm defenses?
Greetings and welcome to my firs post, thanks for stopping by. I'm new to EP and feeling a little overwhelmed by the vast amounts of setting. And that was before I took a look at Sunward. Man, this place has a metric assload of setting. Kind of exhausting but I'm pacing myself. One of my players is nutzo about nano and has dreams of personal nanoswarms and Earthcrashing to treasure hunt amongst the rumors. Although that sounds like fun there's plenty of evidence that its a quick way to a re-sleeve, especially with all the grumpy TITANic nanowarms floating around waiting to wreck your day. Anyone have ideas about how one protects oneself from the little buggers? Please feel free to point me to primary or secondary sources or older threads. One idea I had is to use your own personal nanoswarm as a defense. Your billions of micro-bots against the enemy's, in a sort of micoscopic air to air battle of epic proportions. It would probably create an annoying buzzing sound and you'd be surrounded in a constant dust formed by the aced nanites, but I think we can agree that's a win compared to what the nanoswarm would be doing to you otherwise. Of course this would only protect you from a direct attack by a nanoswarm, and would not protect you from something like the nanoswarm forming itself into a and you. Thoughts? -Lauguz
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Sat, 2011-02-12 08:05
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Nanoswarm defenses?
I think having a big Guardian nanoswarm is a must. Howevever, do not discount other anti-nano systems: EMP devices, the electron beam/ultrasound weapons I wrote about in the unconventional weapons thread, not to mention the useful if disgusting snotsuit. As a GM, I would make the biggest threat the intelligence of TITAN nanoswarms. They have pretty high EGOs and know nanotech themselves. So after a few failures they will retreat and come up with something evil... Some suggestions: Guardians are essentially subtracting their nanomachines from the other nanoswarm - two nanites go in, none leaves. This means that the side with the most nanites will eventually win. If one side has stockpiled a lot, or have more hives, then they will likely win (unless their feedstock runs out - how much did you pack?) So a TITAN swarm might just call in everything in the local environment to do a massive attack, or start building lots and lots of hives to overwhelm the enemy. Hacking: infosec is your friend. If you can hack the enemy hives they can be turned against him. TITAN nasties (and military/security nano support AI) know this, and will be trying to beat each other's firewalls and other security. A player who is too cocky might find that his amazing nanoweaponry suddenly begins to work for the enemy. Traps: sure, that nanodefense is impenetrable. But it will not help against falling into a deep hole (with diamond punji-sticks and neurotoxins on the bottom) covered with quickly nanofactured realistic ground. A quick disassembly of a beam and a skyscraper may fall on the enemy. Nerve gas is easily made if you are a nanosystem, but tends to mess up biomorphs beautifully. Or why not just nanofacture a laser array on a nearby hilltop and grill him? Nanowarfare can be exciting, but it is more like immunology in fast forward and scaled up to the macroscale. It can be very unfair.
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Sat, 2011-02-12 17:52
nick012000 nick012000's picture
Re: Nanoswarm defenses?
The best defense against TITAN nanoswarms is being sleeved a Reaper morph with four Launcher Rifles filled with plasma grenades and Nanoscopic Vision. The moment you see one, you fly the other way and open fire. You'll need about four grenades to kill each nanoswarm; Guardian nanoswarms are all-but-useless, since they just do a bit of damage to the swarm but don't actually stop it from infecting you.
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Sun, 2011-02-13 04:23
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Nanoswarm defenses?
nick012000 wrote:
The best defense against TITAN nanoswarms is being sleeved a Reaper morph with four Launcher Rifles filled with plasma grenades and Nanoscopic Vision. The moment you see one, you fly the other way and open fire.
Ah, thinks the nanoswarm, then I just split and have an obvious nanoswarm approach from the opposite direction while I place myself in a nice ambush position. The reaper will be shooting at my decoy nanoswarm while I lob blobs of concentrated nano goo at its shell from concealed positions. It will be fun to see if it turns the rifles on itself... Nanoscopic vision is after all not long-range. It will tell you that there are nanites here, but you cannot tell whether they are over there.
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Extropian
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Sun, 2011-02-13 17:53
nick012000 nick012000's picture
Re: Nanoswarm defenses?
Arenamontanus wrote:
nick012000 wrote:
The best defense against TITAN nanoswarms is being sleeved a Reaper morph with four Launcher Rifles filled with plasma grenades and Nanoscopic Vision. The moment you see one, you fly the other way and open fire.
Ah, thinks the nanoswarm, then I just split and have an obvious nanoswarm approach from the opposite direction while I place myself in a nice ambush position. The reaper will be shooting at my decoy nanoswarm while I lob blobs of concentrated nano goo at its shell from concealed positions. It will be fun to see if it turns the rifles on itself... Nanoscopic vision is after all not long-range. It will tell you that there are nanites here, but you cannot tell whether they are over there.
Reapers have the 360 Degree Vision mod, don't they? Even if they don't, it's not like it's expensive. Besides, you're talking about what happens if you fight two seperate nanoswarms; that's what the other party members in their Reaper morphs are for.
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Mon, 2011-02-14 05:29
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Nanoswarm defenses?
nick012000 wrote:
Reapers have the 360 Degree Vision mod, don't they? Even if they don't, it's not like it's expensive. Besides, you're talking about what happens if you fight two seperate nanoswarms; that's what the other party members in their Reaper morphs are for.
And why should a TITAN nanoswarm just stay in one piece? If I were a nanoswarm I think I could do some pretty good stealthy flanking movements - keep low, use my distributed visual sensors to figure out your field of view exactly, sneak through very narrow channels and holes. My point is that nanoswarms could be far more deadly than merely wandering monsters. They are potentially an intelligent enemy that can make all sorts of weapons, that can change shape, turn nearly invisible, split and merge, poison you and your equipment, make use of basilisk hacks or other surprise mechanisms... if the GM wants to. I would likely start by having PCs encounter bumbling nanoswarms, just doing simple "if enemy, then attack" straightforward tactics. But once they have defeated them, the signal goes out to nearby nanosystems (unless they defeat *every single nanite* and prevent them from ever communicating) that there are capable enemies around. The next nanoswarm will be much smarter, and try some more sneaky strategy. If that doesn't work, then the next one will be even better (or at least, not make the same mistakes as the previous two). They learn and adapt. "Our EMP grenades kept us safe until the foggies began to communicate with ultrasound. We were lucky Doc was carrying a full sensor suit and noticed. Caught them in a thermobaric field instead. The next time we were not so lucky. The fog stopped at the edge of the field, and then *it* ignited the fuel. It ignited it like a shaped explosive, never seen anything like it. It sucked the fog straight at us, mixed with smoke and hot debris. It was too dilute at first to hit with anything, and our personal guardians swatted any foglets attaching to ourselves. But we were now surrounded, and it began to make some kind of nerve gas... my poison filters handled it fine, but it got the rest. I just ran away, and it let me... since it has tagged me. I know that somehow it always knows where I am, and now it is following me at a leisurely pace. When I sleep I see those last moments when it began to dissolve the rest of the team into more fog. I know it wants to collect the full set."
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Mon, 2011-02-14 09:38
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Nanoswarm defenses?
Run. Nanoswarms by their small size are going to have a difficult time getting any real propulsion. Your air is like a turbulent ocean to them. They won't be flying. Like thrips, they swim (or sail). You can also manipulate this to your own use. A strong counter-pressure will simply blow them away. And if you feel a strong wind blowing the other way? Run faster.
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Mon, 2011-02-14 19:07
nick012000 nick012000's picture
Re: Nanoswarm defenses?
Arenamontanus wrote:
nick012000 wrote:
Reapers have the 360 Degree Vision mod, don't they? Even if they don't, it's not like it's expensive. Besides, you're talking about what happens if you fight two seperate nanoswarms; that's what the other party members in their Reaper morphs are for.
And why should a TITAN nanoswarm just stay in one piece?
Because presumably dividing itself would split its DUR in half, the same way two flexmorphs combining doubles theirs. Then you'd only need two plasma grenades to kill each one, and it'd be a lot easier to knock them out since they'd only have a wound threshold of 10, so doing two at once is entirely possible.
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If I were a nanoswarm I think I could do some pretty good stealthy flanking movements - keep low, use my distributed visual sensors to figure out your field of view exactly, sneak through very narrow channels and holes.
Opposed test, Infiltrate vs Perception.
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My point is that nanoswarms could be far more deadly than merely wandering monsters. They are potentially an intelligent enemy that can make all sorts of weapons, that can change shape, turn nearly invisible, split and merge, poison you and your equipment, make use of basilisk hacks or other surprise mechanisms... if the GM wants to.
Well, yeah. Turning invisible's only effective against biomorphs without tactical software, though, since any Firewall synth or bot with any sense will have nanoscopic vision.
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I would likely start by having PCs encounter bumbling nanoswarms, just doing simple "if enemy, then attack" straightforward tactics. But once they have defeated them, the signal goes out to nearby nanosystems (unless they defeat *every single nanite* and prevent them from ever communicating)
That's what happens to the nanoswarm when they hit their Death Rating, yeah.
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that there are capable enemies around. The next nanoswarm will be much smarter, and try some more sneaky strategy. If that doesn't work, then the next one will be even better (or at least, not make the same mistakes as the previous two). They learn and adapt.
Well, yeah, but it's not like combats last long enough for fancy tricks to be viable. If the PCs see the nanoswarm, the nanoswarm dies. It might be able to
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"Our EMP grenades kept us safe until the foggies began to communicate with ultrasound. We were lucky Doc was carrying a full sensor suit and noticed. Caught them in a thermobaric field instead. The next time we were not so lucky. The fog stopped at the edge of the field, and then *it* ignited the fuel. It ignited it like a shaped explosive, never seen anything like it. It sucked the fog straight at us, mixed with smoke and hot debris. It was too dilute at first to hit with anything, and our personal guardians swatted any foglets attaching to ourselves. But we were now surrounded, and it began to make some kind of nerve gas... my poison filters handled it fine, but it got the rest. I just ran away, and it let me... since it has tagged me. I know that somehow it always knows where I am, and now it is following me at a leisurely pace. When I sleep I see those last moments when it began to dissolve the rest of the team into more fog. I know it wants to collect the full set."
Why on Earth would you use EMP grenades? They do only a fraction of the damage of plasma grenades to nanoswarms, and plasma grenades don't knock out your communications. Besides, what kind of Sentinel goes somewhere where there's TITAN activity without an environmentally sealed suit, anyway? That's just stupid. It's not like Eclipse Phase combat lasts long enough for fancy tricks to be useful, anyway; I don't think I've ever seen a combat last more than a single Action Turn. Also, guardian nanobots aren't actually capable of doing meaningful damage to an enemy nanoswarm, and by the time the enemy swarm is close enough for them to do anything, you're already infected with the Exsurgent Virus. About the only thing they're good for is giving you false confidence.
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Tue, 2011-02-15 04:54
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Nanoswarm defenses?
nick012000 wrote:
Arenamontanus wrote:
And why should a TITAN nanoswarm just stay in one piece?
Because presumably dividing itself would split its DUR in half, the same way two flexmorphs combining doubles theirs. Then you'd only need two plasma grenades to kill each one, and it'd be a lot easier to knock them out since they'd only have a wound threshold of 10, so doing two at once is entirely possible.
Assuming you know where they are. Splitting your forces is rational when you can take advantage of your terrain, surprise, pincer manoeuvres and so on. Besides, it can't be that hard for a nanoswarm to replicate to make more DUR. It is certainly easier for them to make more nanoswarms than it is for explorers to get more plasma grenades. Hmm, maybe one nice strategy is to make decoy nanoswarms - little more than clouds of fog and special effects herded by a few nanites. The PCs destroy them with a few grenades. The next one appears, and the next, and the next... meanwhile the main nanoswarm is building and waiting.
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Well, yeah. Turning invisible's only effective against biomorphs without tactical software, though, since any Firewall synth or bot with any sense will have nanoscopic vision.
Which is only short range. Ever tried to watch a bacterium across the room with a microscope? The writeup on page 311 misses this, but it is obvious from an optics standpoint. If your morph is *covered entirely* (from head to toe) with visual sensors your range is still merely going to be one or two meters at most (the diffraction limit trickery mentioned does not scale well over macroscopic distances). The numerical aperture is simply too low. Then there is the obvious problem of motion. Any vibration or motion and the target object is lost. Try doing that with a moving nanoswarm while fighting. Nanoscopic vision is great for telling you "they're heere!" and maybe looking at caught nanites, but it won't tell you what that mist across the valley is.
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I would likely start by having PCs encounter bumbling nanoswarms, just doing simple "if enemy, then attack" straightforward tactics. But once they have defeated them, the signal goes out to nearby nanosystems (unless they defeat *every single nanite* and prevent them from ever communicating)
That's what happens to the nanoswarm when they hit their Death Rating, yeah.
No, that is merely the game system making it simple. I prefer to use a bit of common sense instead. If you destroy a nanoswarm composed of a trillion nanites, it is very unlikely that you destroyed the function of every single one unless the entire area they were in was thoroughly incinerated. It is enough that a few gets blown out of an explosion or survive in a crack for the swarm to retain some information it can report back to whatever it reports back to.
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Why on Earth would you use EMP grenades? They do only a fraction of the damage of plasma grenades to nanoswarms, and plasma grenades don't knock out your communications.
Maybe because you want to knock out *their* communications? Besides, the blast radius of EMP is wider and hence has a better chance of catching a moving, widely dispersed nanoswarm. In fact, the 50 meter number on on p. 341 is probably a tad pessimistic, since the pulse (in a non-metallic environment) does not decay as strongly due to physical friction as a pressure/heat pulse.
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Sat, 2011-02-19 04:42
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Nanoswarm defenses?
nick012000 wrote:
Well, yeah. Turning invisible's only effective against biomorphs without tactical software, though, since any Firewall synth or bot with any sense will have nanoscopic vision.
Which is so short-ranged that a distant-yet-obvious nanoswarm would be completely invisible to you with your nanoscopic sensors at full alert. They are also so narrow, that a shift of even a meter would make it impossible for you to keep track of any individual component of said nanoswarm. Think I'm not telling the truth? Try keeping track of all the bacteria in a room by holding a microscope on your head. Try to keep track of a moving target a couple meters away through a telescope. It's very... very... hard.
nick012000 wrote:
Why on Earth would you use EMP grenades? They do only a fraction of the damage of plasma grenades to nanoswarms, and plasma grenades don't knock out your communications. Besides, what kind of Sentinel goes somewhere where there's TITAN activity without an environmentally sealed suit, anyway? That's just stupid. It's not like Eclipse Phase combat lasts long enough for fancy tricks to be useful, anyway; I don't think I've ever seen a combat last more than a single Action Turn. Also, guardian nanobots aren't actually capable of doing meaningful damage to an enemy nanoswarm, and by the time the enemy swarm is close enough for them to do anything, you're already infected with the Exsurgent Virus. About the only thing they're good for is giving you false confidence.
You forget about the extreme adaptability of TITAN nanoswarms. If you bomb a nanoswarm with plasma grenades and somehow let even one nanite flee, it will return hours later with a new swarm, completely immune to plasma grenade weaponry. For the record, it probably wouldn't be hard for the nanoswarm to do that either. At the moment it encounters a new menace, it likely allows a tiny portion of its mass to leave the battle anyways, at least to inform other neighboring TITAN machines of your presence. During the battle, the swarm you combat is likely sending data to the already distant swarm, so it can adapt itself to your weaponry. The swarm that is present will fight to the death, taking more and more data about your strengths and weaknesses, while the small swarm that fled is already preparing itself for a second wave, which it already knows that you do not have the means to defend yourself against. When it comes to the TITANS, if you think you have the upper hand... then you've played right into theirs.
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