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Chameleon Cloaks and Sound

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Wed, 2015-03-04 11:39
#1
Soviet Onion Soviet Onion's picture
Chameleon Cloaks and Sound
Here are the bonuses as described for the following 3 items: Smart Clothes/Chameleon Skin +20 bonus to Infiltration if standing still or walking. Reduces to +10 if running or incompletely covered by chameleonic effect. Works from the visible to ultraviolet range, ostensibly. Chameleon Cloak Invisible if standing still or walking. Reduces to +30 to Infiltration if running. Works from the microwave to ultraviolet range. Invisibility Cloak Invisible regardless of any circumstances. Works from the microwave to ultraviolet range. It seems as though these bonuses assume detection by solely visible means. It stands to reason that a person standing still, wearing an invisibility cloak, would still be detectable by sound, particularly if walking or running. Is there a rules clarification that I'm not aware of, or failing that some recommendations as to how people have accounted for widely differing degrees of concealability in different media? Aside from the obvious (and likely tedious for the player) option to roll two dice, one for each relevant sense. On a somewhat related note, are there any standard penalties related to running while Infiltrating?
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Wed, 2015-03-04 16:24
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
Those bonuses only apply to
Those bonuses only apply to tests which attempt to evade detection by visual means. They also work from microwave through ultraviolet, but that usually isn't very important. Assuming you're infiltrating a place with both visual and audio security the rules are a little vague, you could make two tests opposed by each system, but this is slow. Granting half the normal bonus, or in certain cases, only having devices which can see the infiltrator roll is probably the best way to go. Unfortunately I don't think there are a lot of tools useful for audio-footprint concealment, though I'm not sure what those would be beyond smart clothes and shoes. I don't know of any standard penalties for running, but the -20 which appears for people trying to shoot running targets sounds reasonable.
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Thu, 2015-03-05 23:25
SHDNick SHDNick's picture
I was wondering about that
I was wondering about that too. Given that you can get echolocation as a bioware upgrade, some ideas on how to evade or interfere with ultrasound and infrasound would be nice. Aside from smart clothes, there's a species of moth that uses ultrasound to interfere with bat sonar. Some similar bio or cyberware could probably mess with people trying to use ultrasound to lock on to you, but they'd obviously hear the interference, so more of an evasion than stealth.
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Fri, 2015-03-06 12:22
uwtartarus uwtartarus's picture
When in doubt, Overload
When in doubt, Overload grenades!
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Fri, 2015-03-06 17:40
ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture
As a person who can slightly
As a person who can slightly hear into the ultrasonic range, IE i can hear capacitors, It is incredibly difficult to direction find its source. the gait masking trait should give you a small bonus to making your footfalls not sound like footfalls
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Fri, 2015-03-06 17:49
UnitOmega UnitOmega's picture
ORCACommander wrote:
ORCACommander wrote:
the gait masking trait should give you a small bonus to making your footfalls not sound like footfalls
Would not agree. Gait Masking alters your skeletal and muscular system over a period of 20 minutes to alter your walking patters for the sole purpose of fooling biometric sensors. Hypothetically, you could use it to copy the gait of a person who's really sneaky, but even then that can't be too helpful. The only bonus the implant gives otherwise is a +30 on disguise vs sensors.
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Mon, 2015-03-09 16:03
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
One option for a piece of
One option for a piece of audio stealthing gear would be a sound canceling device. I'm thinking of a rig (might be a fully bodysuit might be some kind of MOLLE attachment) covered in microphones which can detect sound within a certain distance of the unit and rapidly play a 180 degree phase shifted version, largely canceling the sound. Rules wise this could simply be treated as a chameleon cloak for sound, as the technology can't really be much harder. This would likely cancel the screams of people near you, which has its bonuses. Something similar could be done for gunshots, firing an "anti-gunshot/anti-sonic boom" with every round. I'm not 100% sure what the rules for this should be, but I'm thinking of maybe an extra -30 on tests to hear gunshots from a weapon it is mounted on. A cost of moderate is probably a good ballpark, but such a device would probably be restricted and largely illegal most places with weapons control. More passive designs like slip pads on clothing parts which might rub together and smart material soles which don't make a sound could probably be worth an extra +10 or +20 on sound based infiltration tests, and could probably be adapted from standard smart clothing with a simple programming test.
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Tue, 2015-03-10 02:45
Soviet Onion Soviet Onion's picture
Sonic and indeed scent-based
Sonic and indeed scent-based stealth is all good and not a problem to include. My main difficulty here is in coming up with an accurate and elegant simulation of multispectral stealth vs multispectral sensors in practice. Example: the party's infiltration specialist is trying to sneak past an identified sensor. This sensor is multispectral visual (terahertz to ultraviolet) and audible (infrasound to ultrasound). Essentially, the sensor has the equivalent of Enhanced Vision and Enhanced Hearing. Stealth boy has a chameleon cloak (microwave to ultraviolet) and no sonic stealth aids. Moving at a walking pace, he should be completely invisible but still risk generating sound, and have to make an Infiltration roll against the sensor which, because it has the equivalent of Enhanced Hearing, should receive a +30 bonus on auditory Perception. So, which set of bonuses and penalties am I actually asking for on the opposed roll? The character is straight up invisible, but quite likely to be heard. Is it a case of "automatic success" or a straight roll for him, and a +30 roll for the sensor? Example 2: the next person to try sneaking past the same sensor has chameleon skin and some special shoes that mask infrasound but nothing else. She gets a +20 bonus to Infiltration, and logically this should ONLY apply to the visible/UV elements of the sensor; she does not have heat sinks and her IR signature should be no less visible. So, how much of a bonus should she get? Factor in audio now we've got a real problem, because here the bonuses and penalties are even more asynchronous and idiosyncratic. My instinct in the first case is to say make a normal roll, with detection signifying audio detection only. Had the character been running, and taken a (house ruled) -20 to audio on top of the +30 visual from the cloak, I could use a single roll tracking both media simultaneously. The infiltrator would have to achieve a +20 MoS to avoid being herd, but would only be seen if they failed by a -30 MoF. As to the second case, I've not a clue. Try throwing in body-odor masking vs biometric sniffers and the biomorphs electrical field, and it just gets incredibly confusing.
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Tue, 2015-03-10 03:43
Soviet Onion Soviet Onion's picture
Probably the easiest thing to
Probably the easiest thing to do is just work out some different bonuses and penalties for each media and treat the Infiltration roll as pertaining to all of them, just as if you were rolling against the Perception checks of multiple enemies with different skill. So for example one, lets say the player has a skill of 70. They are running, taking a -20 auditory penalty and receiving a +30 bonus vs visual. The sensor has skill 40 and a +20 bonus on auditory for multispectral. Target number for the player is visual 100, auditory 50. Target number for the sensor is visual 40, auditory 60. The player rolls a 40. They succeed on both counts The sensor rolls a 50. It fails to see anything, but hears a sound that it cannot positively identify. Its monitors know something is up, but not what.
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Tue, 2015-03-10 11:55
uwtartarus uwtartarus's picture
Soviet Onion wrote:Probably
Soviet Onion wrote:
Probably the easiest thing to do is just work out some different bonuses and penalties for each media and treat the Infiltration roll as pertaining to all of them, just as if you were rolling against the Perception checks of multiple enemies with different skill. So for example one, lets say the player has a skill of 70. They are running, taking a -20 auditory penalty and receiving a +30 bonus vs visual. The sensor has skill 40 and a +20 bonus on auditory for multispectral. Target number for the player is visual 100, auditory 50. Target number for the sensor is visual 40, auditory 60. The player rolls a 40. They succeed on both counts The sensor rolls a 50. It fails to see anything, but hears a sound that it cannot positively identify. Its monitors know something is up, but not what.
That sounds like how I would run it.
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