[Gilberto Gambrollio]

Can you wear the shock gloves and use a bow at the same time?
IF not then I guess a character just has electric hands all the time?

[PiXeL01]

There's is nothing in the rules that says you can't wear shock gloves and fire a bow at the same time. The gloves come in all shapes and sizes so it isn't inconceivable.

That being said, no, firing a wear while wearing such gloves does not make your arrows do electric damage

[Imveros]

ive always envisioned them as regular gloves with special wiring int them. They are just plain old gloves until you activate them just before striking. Cant have them on all the time or they would run out of juice!

[8-bit]

ive always envisioned them as regular gloves with special wiring int them. They are just plain old gloves until you activate them just before striking. Cant have them on all the time or they would run out of juice!

Basically what Imveros said. They aren't on all the time, they are just gloves that can activate to go zap.

[Namikaze]

I'll second (third?) the opinion that shock gloves aren't always on.  That would be...  weird.

[MijRai]

I'll second (third?) the opinion that shock gloves aren't always on.  That would be...  weird.

Also hilarious, in regards to people unaccustomed to them.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

I disagree.  Shock gloves ARE on all the time - but you still need to reach their activation threshhold.  You CAN trigger their activation via wireless link, but otherwise you need to achieve a sudden impact that is at or above their activation threshold - typically a hard slap or a punch.  Nocking, drawing, and releasing is not going to achieve that required threshold, in part because it's not sudden.

[Namikaze]

Well sure they're "on" but I think most of us don't think of them as being "on" except when they're actively discharging electricity into something.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Okay, so that was maybe a bit pedantic.  My point being that you could fire your bow, backhand the mook trying to tackle you, then use the bow again without having to mentally flip the virtual on/off switch on the thing.

[8-bit]

Okay, so that was maybe a bit pedantic.  My point being that you could fire your bow, backhand the mook trying to tackle you, then use the bow again without having to mentally flip the virtual on/off switch on the thing.

I agree. It's just not constantly discharging, which you pointed out.

[Reaver]

I disagree.  Shock gloves ARE on all the time - but you still need to reach their activation threshhold.  You CAN trigger their activation via wireless link, but otherwise you need to achieve a sudden impact that is at or above their activation threshold - typically a hard slap or a punch.  Nocking, drawing, and releasing is not going to achieve that required threshold, in part because it's not sudden.

Speaking as someone who plays with electricity for a living....


If they were "on" all the time, then they would discharge as soon as something conductive (IE: just about everything) came across the contacts that line the outside of the glove. At the juice level they are talking about to cause this type of damage to a normal person would fry any electronic device you happened to touch (like... your smartlink in your gun, or your commlink, or deck, or your Rcc. There wouldn't be a "contact pressure" threshold, as the electricity could even arc off your hand to a particularly low resistance object (like say, a metal hand rail).

The ONLY way to stop such an accidental discharge would be to cut the flow the electricity to the contacts. Which means a relay or switch of some sort has to installed between the supply and the load (contacts). Now as to how these switches operate, there are 3 basic methods. Electric. Hydraulic, or Pneumatic. Hydraulic and Pneumatic  would require bellows and baffles to operate the relays, (which would give a great "Steampunk look, for sure) as well as holding tanks for the mechanical energy (water and compressed air). electric control however could be powered by the same source as the discharging shock, and the switching could be done by either a solid state device (most likely) or magnetic interlocks, which would be very small (easily mounted onto the cuff of the glove however. Control for the electric switch/relay would be handled by an outside source (like your commlink).

The only way to rig what you are talking about would be a TAC pressure mat, hooked up to a PLC, then from the PLC to the relay/switch. All being powered by the same supply as the discharge shock. (No problems there.) The issue comes in when you go to program the pressure that triggers an "on" response from the PLC. This weight would have to be set higher then your standard grip force.... and this gets tricky.

For example: It reputed that some strikers (notably Rampage Jackson) claim to strike with as much 2000psi
Grip strength ranges from 15 to 155 psi (depending on age and sex)
A Slap can generate a force of anywhere from 8psi to 300 psi. (mass, speed, yadda, yadda)

So you are playing with a very wide range of numbers to add in 2 extra (expensive) components that are really not needed in the wireless world of SR that could open the company up law suits from old lady's that zap Mr. Wiggles when trying to pet him    (BTW never give old ladies shock gloves OR hellpugs....)

So, in short, Yea, it makes more sense that they on/off as you need them and not just "always on"

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

And yet that isn't how they're described as operating.  They are described as operating by being triggered by a threshold-level impact - meaning your miniature pressure-mat-and-PLC (pressure ... I dunno, what's PLC stand for?) setup.  Since your grips are running under 250 psi, I dare say that'd be a good threshold, especially since you would also be able to trigger it wirelessly.  Please note that triggering something wirelessly does take an action, which means you have to take two actions to smack-and-zap instead of it being automatic on the smack.  (You could argue it'd take three, even - one to turn it on, one to smack, one to turn it off.)

Since shock gloves are, from previous editions' fluff, triggered on a punch/hard slap, I think requiring the person to toggle the thing on and off (wirelessly or not) as a basic requirement is counterproductive - and even MORE likely to get you sued.  "My husband woulda gotten out of there alive if they'd worked just on smacking someone.  Instead, despite hitting the gangers three or four times each, because he'd forgotten to turn it on (or had his commlink taken away) they beat him to death."

You're also talking about something that's been part of the thing since they came out, as well as something that makes sense; clearly by this point, the tech has been advanced, miniaturized, and it ain't like you're not paying 550¥ for the pair.  You punch them; they get zapped.  If you want to grapple, and then zap them as you're holding them, that's fine, that's what a wireless 'trigger switch' would be for.  But since you'd be setting your threshold high enough to not worry about frickin' Mr. Wiggles being petted, it only makes sense that its default state is 'ready to be triggered on sufficient impact'.

[Reaver]

oh I get what you are saying with the fluff and such, and, there are also some rules that contradict that fluff (As well as the laws of Physics*).

Most notably the "hits on a graze" rules...
If contact is needed at that level (260lbs), that is not exactly "non-damaging", and more along the lines of "seeing stars and hearing bells". But they do tack on that little "or a graze" to that sentence.

And that is where they first violate the laws of Physics.

As I stated before about the pressure levels, if they are too low and/or the glove is charged, Electricity will ALWAYS seek the path of least resistance to ground. What this means is, IF the gloves are charged, and anything comes with in it's field that has a lesser resistance to ground then the air gap between contacts, the gloves discharge. So, that literally means if the cuff of your shirt gets within that field AND has less resistance then the air gap, you just got electrocuted. Your hand passes too close to that gun on your hip, you just got electrocuted. The exact moment they go live, if you break that field and have a low enough resistance, they discharge.

 Now, we are talking about a very small field (without number crunching, 0.2-1.5mm) So yes, you could almost consider it touching at those distances.

The second law of Physics they break is Energy. What they are proposing for a wireless bonus of induction doesn't work that way. If it did, Shock Gloves have solved the worlds energy needs! You could power tens of thousands of apartment units off of the energy produced off of a crate of inducing shock gloves!

The amount of energy being discharged by these gloves is an unknown, but we can make some basic and simple theory and math here:

First, this is a DC discharge (stored energy): The output, measured in WATTs is made up of 2 parts: Voltage (E) and Current (I) (P=I*E... PiE). We don't know the voltage, but we can guess the current: anything under 5mA is a tickle. anything over 4omA is damage inducing (burning, heart problems, nerve damage,) anything over 100ma is death. So call it 20mA for the argument.

If we know the current, then we can figure out the voltage through the resistance of the load (the person getting shocked). The formula is Voltage (E) = Current (I) x Resistance (R) (E=I*R. EIR... what we call the PIE EIR laws form the basis of electricity and electrical theory)
Now this is where things get mirky. The surface resistance of a human body varies wildly! Even the same body will have a huge difference depending on a huge host of factors (how much water and waste IN the body VS on the surface, wrinkles in the skin, yadda, yadda). My personal resistance (because I have actually had to place myself into circuits, and to safely do this, I have to balance the load.... thus account for the added resistance I am placing on the source!) has been as low as 159kohms and as high as 6.7Mohms. That's huge. But that is also a flash suit (think, Bomb suit) So lets use that.

Voltage (E) = .20 mA x 6.7M ohms. or around 134000 volts (if my drunken math is right)
which means a wattage range of 2680 (approx)

Now, I could totally see this if all it was, was placing the gloves on an induction charging mat (much like you can buy today). But no, they imply that you can WEAR them and gain induction charging (you see where this is going yet?).

Well, Induction works off magnetism and lines of flux. As you cut the lines of flux with a conductor, you induct volt into the conductor..... the more lines of flux you cut and the faster you cut them, the more voltage you make.. Now if you are walking down the street, cutting enough lines of flux to generate 2680 watts (and probably more!) of power in an hour... you are very probably dead.

Now the math here could confuse an electrical engineer for his entire career, but trust me, it's a HUGE amount of flux pass through the air to charge your gloves. And the car next to you. And your Commlink. And your Cyberware. And your gun. And the bullets in your gun. And you. But hey, the very worse case is that those lines of flux just magnetize the iron in your blood, causing it to clout so die of stroke (and probably pretty quickly too).

And then there is the source side to consider. Do you have any idea the amount of energy needed to generate lines of flux that would extend out far enough to cover a city to saturation? I don't. But it would be in the "stellar event" category. not to mention MASSIVE. (like Arcology sized plus).


I chalk things like this up to "lack of writer's knowledge" and is not something they can easily research, so I forgive them for not understanding things when they cover things from the electrical/instrumentational world. I have 15 years practical knowledge under my belt, and I learn new things every day. Electrical Engineers spend entire careers (30+years) crunching numbers and playing with live models to improve the effieciency rating of a transformer or motor 0.003% And if they actually do it, they win awards for it.

I totally get that to the lay person "induction" sounds like a perfectly reasonable bonus. An I get why 99.9999% of the SR player base can glance over it. But MY table (who are ALL sparkies, mudders, ironheads, rodders, and mechs) just cringe  when we see these things.

****
but your right about wireless activation. TBH I always treated it a free action (the connect is there, waiting for input, "ON" isn't that hard to think...),

RAW/physics/RAI is never a good one.


PS;

Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) is a specialized computer system designed solely for automation of processes. With them, you can run anything from anywhere. Be that your house from your phone, or that Nuclear power plant from the control room. Currently they come as small as quarter to as large as a cargo container. generally speaking, for cost and efficiency, industrial applications run off dedicated banks of dozens of  PLCs that are cabinet sized (4ft to 8ft tall. 4ft to 6ft wide, 2ft to 6ft deep). those cost anywhere from $2500 to $5million, all depending on configuration and set up (that includes what could be thousands of man hours).

To run your house and maybe a small work shop. (lights, windows, blinds, TV, voice control, motion sensors, etc) at residential voltages and control? About $50 on E-bay.


edited; but one of the things I have not learned is spelling while drinking.