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Sound System augment

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Thu, 2017-09-07 15:43

Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture

Sound System augment

Starting with the equipment description:

Quote:
The character can emit sound through several concealed speakers in the morph. The sound system can go up to 200 decibels and reach a much wider frequency than standard transhuman hearing can pick up.

I've got to suspect that whoever wrote that didn't think about the consequences of large numbers on log scales, because this is ridiculous. 191 Db is the blast epicenter of something like a grenade (though a pretty weak bomb) ~194 Db is the point where pressure is oscillating between vacuum and double normal air pressure, and is the loudest sound possible before the serious distortion of a shockwave. 195 Db will rupture ear drums. 202 Db can kill with sound pressure. 215 Db, the pressure created by the space shuttle launch. (I used this for a reference http://www.decibelcar.com/menugeneric/87.html) It has a number of other interesting things which happen with sound on the road to 200 Db as well. Now, I don't know if this was a units mistake, or if it was just intended to be an exceptionally loud device which could function as a sonic weapon, but it means that it has a lot of uses. Deafening and disorienting an enemy is a good starter, especially with the sound system mounted on cheap drones with dazzlers attached. Also a pretty solid distraction. At short range treating exposure similar to an HE minigrenade is probably appropriate. It'd also be able to damage a lot of equipment, and could be a solid budget sabotage device. Seeing as it can generate extremely loud sounds outside of the normal range of hearing there's some other uses, like broadcasting infrasonic messages through the ground over long distances (which could be pretty useful in the boonies of Mars, or on exoplanets which don't have a good global mesh, or have weather which makes orbital contact hard). I think it could also be used similarly to that ultrasonic weapon which got used against the US embassy in Havana recently, but I think that would be much easier to detect and stop in EP, or as a more powerful ping source for a sonar augment, which should be able to extend the range fairly well. Anyway, are there any other interesting "off label" uses for gear in Eclipse Phase?

Sat, 2017-09-09 09:57

o11o1

You know what, I'm ok with

You know what, I'm ok with taking that 200 dB as listed. It does suggest the rules should talk about "able to damage normal ears with the sound pressure" but it's a really fun odd-ball attack vector many folks would miss defending against.

—

A slight smell of ions....

Tue, 2017-09-12 02:44

ubik2

I imagine whoever wrote that

I imagine whoever wrote that didn't realize each 10 dB is 10x as powerful. I suppose in play, you might say that generating more than 140 dB destroys the host body, presuming you wanted to rein in the power level. Adding the extra 60 dB of range means your sound system is a million times more powerful. You might instead choose to let the sound system act as a vortex ring gun, or even a point blank concussion grenade (that's going to hurt you), if you want it to be powerful, but then these would probably be restricted.