Scanners
The difficulty in reading and using scanners varies, depending on the severity of local conditions. Successes indicate how well a person can interpret the scan. If conditions are ideal and the scanner is advanced, no roll is needed when the user has at least a score of one in the Scanners Ability. Otherwise, each rolled success represents a percentage of the available information from the scan, which becomes available to the user. The percentage per success indicates how severe the conditions are (intensity of interference). Very advanced scanners (the more detailed and long ranged, the more advanced the scanner) can take thirty seconds to a minute to calibrate, while the simpler ones just take a second or two to read.
Signal Scanners: When conditions are poor, the Scanners Ability and the system are also used when sending and receiving radio transmissions. The devices used are called signal scanners and are vital when it comes to deep space exploration. They are used to detect, jam and strengthen signals. If someone wants to jam another signal, he must first be in range and locate the signal in question. Once that is accomplished, there is a contested roll between the two scanner operators (often the navigators), Brains + Scanners vs. Brains + Scanners. For every success by which the “jammer” beats the opposition, he will jam the signal for 20 seconds. Each success by which the sender beats the jammer will give 20 seconds of sending time. During this time, the active parties can’t concentrate on much other than managing the scanners. When the jam/sending time is up, new rolls are made if one party is still trying to jam another’s signal.
Chasing the Dragon: This system is employed when trying to hide or leave the dragon’s tail (see piloting the ghost). If one wants to leave a dragon’s tail, every success allows it to linger for another 20 seconds, and the successes add a positive modifier to the attempts of anyone that wants to follow. If the navigator wants to hide the dragon’s tail, every success will act as a negative modifier to tracking attempts by others, and will shave off 20 seconds from the time it lingers (minimum 1 minute linger time). Tracking a dragon tail takes thirty seconds per roll.
When employing the rules listed under Signal Scanners and the Chasing the Dragon section above, a negative modifier applies instead of the percentage system when affected by disturbance:
Slight Disturbance -1
Bad Conditions -2
Intense Disturbance -3
Extremely Bad Conditions -4
Good Luck! -5
There are many ways that a ship can try to avoid scanners or confuse them. Powering down a ship, hiding within a highly magnetic asteroid field or slipping in behind a moon are all things that can help a ship stay off the grid, in a pinch.
Example 1: Science Officer Allison Cheng is using the bio- scanner on her Archimedes survey ship to scan an odd-looking system of caves down on the planetary surface. However, there’s an electrical storm in the area which messes up the readings. The AI decides that this constitutes Bad Conditions. Cheng has a dice pool of 5 in Attention + Scanners. The player makes the roll and gets two successes. The AI tells her that she can read up to four separate life-forms inside the structure. The player has no idea of exactly how bad the conditions are and is unaware that she only has seen about 60% of what there really is to see. In reality, there are a total of seven life-forms in the caverns.
Example 2: Boris Diral is the communications and navigations officer on a deep space survey ship. The crew has just discovered a raider ship and want to blow it out of the sky before it calls for backup. Boris has a score of 5 when it comes to Brains + Scanners, while the raiders have 5 as well. Boris’ player rolls the dice and gets two successes, while the raiders fail. Since each success gives 20 seconds of interference, he has now effectively jammed them for 40 seconds (roughly 15 segments). Hopefully they’ll be able to blow the raiders to pieces during this time. However, if Boris was to stop calibrating the signal scanner, the raiders would be able to send.
Intensity of Interference = Percentage of information available per success
Ideal Conditions = 100% with no roll if simple scanner, or with one success if advanced
Slight Disturbance = 50% per success
Bad Conditions = 33% per success
Very Intense Disturbance = 25% per success
Extremely Bad Conditions = 15% per success
Good Luck! = 5% per success
Signal Scanners: When conditions are poor, the Scanners Ability and the system are also used when sending and receiving radio transmissions. The devices used are called signal scanners and are vital when it comes to deep space exploration. They are used to detect, jam and strengthen signals. If someone wants to jam another signal, he must first be in range and locate the signal in question. Once that is accomplished, there is a contested roll between the two scanner operators (often the navigators), Brains + Scanners vs. Brains + Scanners. For every success by which the “jammer” beats the opposition, he will jam the signal for 20 seconds. Each success by which the sender beats the jammer will give 20 seconds of sending time. During this time, the active parties can’t concentrate on much other than managing the scanners. When the jam/sending time is up, new rolls are made if one party is still trying to jam another’s signal.
Chasing the Dragon: This system is employed when trying to hide or leave the dragon’s tail (see piloting the ghost). If one wants to leave a dragon’s tail, every success allows it to linger for another 20 seconds, and the successes add a positive modifier to the attempts of anyone that wants to follow. If the navigator wants to hide the dragon’s tail, every success will act as a negative modifier to tracking attempts by others, and will shave off 20 seconds from the time it lingers (minimum 1 minute linger time). Tracking a dragon tail takes thirty seconds per roll.
When employing the rules listed under Signal Scanners and the Chasing the Dragon section above, a negative modifier applies instead of the percentage system when affected by disturbance:
Slight Disturbance -1
Bad Conditions -2
Intense Disturbance -3
Extremely Bad Conditions -4
Good Luck! -5
There are many ways that a ship can try to avoid scanners or confuse them. Powering down a ship, hiding within a highly magnetic asteroid field or slipping in behind a moon are all things that can help a ship stay off the grid, in a pinch.
Example 1: Science Officer Allison Cheng is using the bio- scanner on her Archimedes survey ship to scan an odd-looking system of caves down on the planetary surface. However, there’s an electrical storm in the area which messes up the readings. The AI decides that this constitutes Bad Conditions. Cheng has a dice pool of 5 in Attention + Scanners. The player makes the roll and gets two successes. The AI tells her that she can read up to four separate life-forms inside the structure. The player has no idea of exactly how bad the conditions are and is unaware that she only has seen about 60% of what there really is to see. In reality, there are a total of seven life-forms in the caverns.
Example 2: Boris Diral is the communications and navigations officer on a deep space survey ship. The crew has just discovered a raider ship and want to blow it out of the sky before it calls for backup. Boris has a score of 5 when it comes to Brains + Scanners, while the raiders have 5 as well. Boris’ player rolls the dice and gets two successes, while the raiders fail. Since each success gives 20 seconds of interference, he has now effectively jammed them for 40 seconds (roughly 15 segments). Hopefully they’ll be able to blow the raiders to pieces during this time. However, if Boris was to stop calibrating the signal scanner, the raiders would be able to send.
Intensity of Interference = Percentage of information available per success
Ideal Conditions = 100% with no roll if simple scanner, or with one success if advanced
Slight Disturbance = 50% per success
Bad Conditions = 33% per success
Very Intense Disturbance = 25% per success
Extremely Bad Conditions = 15% per success
Good Luck! = 5% per success
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