From:	Paul Jonathan Adam <Paul@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject:	Re: Riggers
Date:	Wed, 27 Sep 1995 17:10:54 GMT

Gurth writes:
> That was the drawback I noticed too. It seems FASA assumes people only
> want to cross borders on foot...
> I haven't really got any suggestions apart from letting the sensors make a
> roll vs. the vehicle's Signature; if it succeeds you're spotted.

Being rather militaristic, I actually work out where the sensors are, where
any AWACS or JSTARS are, and what assets the country concerned has available.

For instance, if you trip a ground sensor on foot, and it takes ten minutes
to get forces to that area, they have to search a circle less than two miles
in diameter to find you. If you're barreling in fast and low in a jet or
T-bird, ten minutes can be a hundred miles! A lot depends on what's looking
for you, what its sensor range is, et cetera: looking for an aircraft from
an AWACS gives you a much wider search area than looking for a camouflaged
person on foot from a helicopter.

> > Does anyone have a descent method/price for players to get
> > passes and proper flight codes to enable them to cross
> > borders. *this is currently fuzzy in my game because I
> > haven't found any info on this and haven't written any.
>
> You could probably use the rules for fake IDs for this; OK, it's not quite
> the same but close enough, I think.

An Israeli trick, for the daring, is to start in airspace where you are legal
(e.g. UCAS) and in an area where ATC radar is near the edge of its range.
At long range, air-traffic radar doesn't use a skin paint: it interrogates
your transponder. If you don't answer, at short range you appear as a blip with
no ID: at long range you don't appear. Formate on an airliner and fly with it,
very close, six o'clock low. You are now hidden by the radar return of that
airliner, and only a visual ID will spot you.

Of course, this is only describing what happens when it all works well :)

> > Whow there... Really people are a sig 8.
> Yep, FOF says so.
>
> > So if a rigger is using
> > his sensors to shoot people his target # is an 8. And if he uses
> > normal vision (still rigged, but not using sensors) then his
> > TN# is a 4 (plus mods)

But for uninterrupted LOS he gets a -4 modifier straight off: and a lot of
the other (nasty) mods for visual work don't apply.

> But how does he use normal vision to aim at a target if he is using vehicle
> weapons? The rigger has to be behind the weapon to do that, I think.
> Unless he's firing tracers to see where he's shooting, and adjust his fire
> accordingly.

How about a simple camera boresighted to the weapon? Instead of marking a
target and letting the fire-control system kill it, you aim and fire
the weapon manually.

> > *I'm also guessing that characters with supra-thyroid/other should
> > only be a TN# 6 (they are alot hotter, increased metabolism)
> > and an even higher TN# if they have anti-thermal armor.
>
> Only if you say that vehicle sensors are thermographic systems...

They include thermal sensors, certainly, but also probably millimetre-wave
radar, acoustic, and others we haven't figured out yet :) But raising your
thermal signature would hurt you. I use the house rule that modifying one
source of input (e.g. -2 to detection by thermographic sensors) has half
effect on "multisensor" systems.

--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk