[Digital_Viking]

Ok I can buy a rating 4 Smart Jammer OR for 500 nuyen more I can build a commlink that gives me 11 dice for jamming on the fly (EW4 w/Jamming spec + Signal 5)

If I'm reading it right the smart jammer works at its Rating x2 or 8 dice for a rating 4. My question is - is there a reason I shouldn't have a commlink dedicated to jamming on the fly?

[_Pax_]

You've misunderstood the description.

Smart Jammer: Smart jammers improve on the ability of area
or spot jammers (see p. 329, SR4A) to selectively jam and target
specific frequencies while leaving others unjammed. Smart jammers
can be instructed to jam specific nodes (or any nodes in range that
are not identified as friendly), and will continue to jam those nodes
even if they change to a different frequency. If a targeted node is
hidden, the smart jammer makes a Rating x 2 (4) Test to detect it;
once a node is detected, the smart jammer will jam it.
[/hr]

There's a couple things going on here.  Normally, when you initiate jamming-on-the-fly in a wide area, you're pretty much blanketing the entire EM spectrum as best you can.  Every channel, every frequency, no discrimination.  The Smart Jammer, however, leaves carefully-selected "holes" in it's jamming efforts - reflected, in SR terms, as being able to NOT jam specific nodes.  (Like, say, your own, and your friends' ...!)  That is the primary benefit of a Smart Jammer.

Also ... should a node you wish to jam be in Hidden mode, the Smart Jammer has a built in "Scan" functionality, giving it a DP of 2xRating to find that node.  It will do this on it's own, without any input from you - like, say, if someone drops their drones into Hidden mode mid-combat / chase scene, in order to duck your jamming.

[Falconer]

Pax, as of SR4a all dedicated jammers are effectively smart jammers.  They got rid of the blanket area jammers in the main book.

That said, I can think of a big reason I'd want to do jamming like this... or task an agent to do it.  With a high rating ECCM programs... most jamming is completely pointless.  Unless the jammer is sitting right on top of the target with the range degradation.  Normal jammers are simply... a matter of whats the signal + ECCM - ECM (including barriers like shielding paint)... what's the signal leftover look at the range chart... are both devices still in range of each other or 'repeater nodes'.



However with opposed checks.  It's always possible to knock a connection down now and then.  Which breaks connections and such.   For example... I could have a bust-a-move with an upgraded signal rating and gecko tips.  Get a good pilot program with ewar autosoft.  Now have it latch onto some larger vehicle and have it's brain start jamming... turning off at some random interval to get instructions.  Get it attached to say a rigged drone... and all it takes is one successful test to dumpshock the rigger.

I think the sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't mechanic works a lot better than the it's perfectly working all the time eccm software.

[_Pax_]

Pax, as of SR4a all dedicated jammers are effectively smart jammers.  They got rid of the blanket area jammers in the main book.

  uuuuum, no, no they didn't.  My PDF copy - bought directly from Catalyst through the Battleshop, and kept as up to date as Catalyst permits - still lists normal Jammers, both Directional and Area, on p229:
Jammer: This device floods the airwaves with electromagnetic
jamming signals to block out wireless and radio communication.
The jammer automatically jams any device with a Signal rating
lower than its Device rating. The area jammer affects a spherical
area—its rating is reduced by 1 for every 5 meters from the center
(similar to the blast rules for grenades). The directional jammer affects
a conical area with a 30-degree spread—its rating is reduced
by 1 for every 20 meters from the center. Walls and other obstacles
may prevent the jamming signal from spreading or reduce its effect
(gamemaster’s discretion).

  Smart Jammers are from Arsenal, found on page 58:
Smart Jammer: Smart jammers improve on the ability of area
or spot jammers (see p. 329, SR4A) to selectively jam and target
specific frequencies while leaving others unjammed. Smart jammers
can be instructed to jam specific nodes (or any nodes in range that
are not identified as friendly), and will continue to jam those nodes
even if they change to a different frequency. If a targeted node is
hidden, the smart jammer makes a Rating x 2 (4) Test to detect it;
once a node is detected, the smart jammer will jam it.
[/hr]

Notice the difference in functionality, there?  The Smart Jammer is selective, the basic Jammer is all-or-nothing.

That said, I can think of a big reason I'd want to do jamming like this... or task an agent to do it.  With a high rating ECCM programs... most jamming is completely pointless.  Unless the jammer is sitting right on top of the target with the range degradation.  Normal jammers are simply... a matter of whats the signal + ECCM - ECM (including barriers like shielding paint)... what's the signal leftover look at the range chart... are both devices still in range of each other or 'repeater nodes'.

  That's if you just "fire and forget" by turning the switch on, then ignoring the Jamming hardware.  A skilled operator - or an Agent with the right Autosoft - can greatly improve a Jammer's efficacy.  That's what the ECM autosoft, and/or the Electronic Warfare skill, is all about - the skill wouldn't have a Specialisation in Jamming, if it never got used for it!    Especially since you can use the EW skill to jam with any transmitter at all ... just, without the bonus efficacy an actial, discreet Jammer would give you.

[Falconer]

Nope you're looking at the wrong page... the page which describes the action taken to activate the jammer..   You'll find I very very rarely get rules wrong... and when I do I'm the first to admit it typically.

p231.
Jam Signals (none)
You start a jamming device. You may choose any number of known
devices to be excluded from the jamming when you initiate the jamming,
and may change the list with another Jam Signals action. When
the jammer is activated, every device with a Signal rating less than the
rating of the jammer (with modifiers given in the description of the
jammer, p. 330) are jammed and lose wireless connectivity. Note that
a device running an ECCM program adds the rating of that program
to its Signal for purposes of countering jamming.

[_Pax_]

Use a little logic, here.

The Jammers presented in SR4A cost "Rating x 500".  Smart jammers, as listed in Arsenal, cost "Rating x 1000".  The only difference between the two, is that Smart Jammers specifically state they can jam specific nodes, or leave specific nodes unjammed.

Now, if you're right and that difference does not exist ... then why the difference in price?  Why the difference in Availability (Rx2 for Jammers, Rx3 for Smart Jammers?  Why are regular Jammers able to be bought at Rating 6 for 3,000 nuyen, during character generation ... but the best Smart Jammer you can get is Rating 4, and costs 4,000 nuyen?

...

Now let me answer that for you: "the Action description does not over-ride the Item description."

Jammers, in the core book, are indiscriminate; they go full-orchestra in their entire area.  Smart Jammers, from Arsenal, can leave "holes" or "windows" for specific nodes.  That's just how the rules work.

This must simply be another of those "rare occasions".

[Falconer]

I know what you're saying... but SR4a was published AFTER arsenal.  It's a newer source (and also the cure rulebook while the other is by definition an optional supplemental book).

They made the change to SR4a and specifically pointed it at the newly reprinted jammers in the newer core rulebook.


I'm with you if you want to do it that way.  Just saying the rules effectively changed to make all purpose built jammers smart jammers with the SR4a publishing.   I know you're new on the forums and all... but there was a lot of discussion of these and other changes found when the book came out.

[_Pax_]

Order of publication is irrelevant.

Also, the Core Rules don't trump supplements - it goes the other way around.  Always has, for the past thirty-plus years of the RPG hobby.

[Falconer]

You can keep telling yourself that... but it's not true.

Every supplemental book is an optional expansion of the rules.  And order of publication is important because newer printings obviously include errata/corrections/changes from older ones.   For example, practically every game I've been in has considered Unwired to be nonexistent (because it's so badly written and incoherent and badly playtested as a whole),  only pulling a few ideas here and there from it.

When the core rules clearly change something so poignant about jammers for example... then there is obvious intent that the change be made.

I'm with you for keeping the difference, just saying the rules effectively made the new 'area jammers' the same as the older expansion smart jammers.

[_Pax_]

Every supplemental book is an optional expansion of the rules.

I'm going to ask you to use some logic, again: what exactly are you paying for, when you pay the higher price for a Smart Jammer?

  And order of publication is important because newer printings obviously include errata/corrections/changes from older ones.

All my book are PDF copies, and are fully up to date.  Whie the SR4A core book was published in 2009, my copy of Arsenal shows a July 2011 date for it's last update.

So, again: what is it you're paying for, when you buy a Smart Jammer?  What warrants the extra money and higher Availability?

When the core rules clearly change something so poignant about jammers for example... then there is obvious intent that the change be made.

Third time: what is the extra money yu pay for a Smart Jammer for ...?

I'm with you for keeping the difference, just saying the rules effectively made the new 'area jammers' the same as the older expansion smart jammers.

... except, like I said: my copy of Arsenal shows a "last modified" date of July 2011, two full years after the SR4A book was published.

[CanRay]

Third time: what is the extra money yu pay for a Smart Jammer for ...?

Marketing? 

[_Pax_]

^_^  Hehehe.  "It's not just an Area Jammer, it's a Gucchi Area Jammer!"

[KarmaInferno]

Honestly, there should be no skill roll for using the regular area jammer. You flip a switch. That's all.

The Jam Signals action should require a Smart Jammer, even if the book doesn't actually say so. It's the only way things make sense.

I'm wondering if whoever wrote the Jam Signals text, and the device descriptions, simply never coordinated their work.



-k

[_Pax_]

I can see that, Karma.  Alternately, have the non-smart Jammer units (including the one-shot units) not get the full benefit of hits form the skill - instead of capping them at Rating, cap them at Half Rating, for example.

[CitizenJoe]

I'm going to ask you to use some logic, again: what exactly are you paying for, when you pay the higher price for a Smart Jammer?

You probably don't want to use the logic excuse when dealing with Shadowrun technology.  You can use 'Developer Logic' or 'Rules Balance Logic', but don't apply the blanket 'logic' because that implies real world logic.

Real world logic specifies that jammers only affect a very narrow band at a time.  In order for a jammer to work, it pumps a frequency or very narrow band of frequencies with enough random noise (energy) than the signal can't be picked out from the noise.  That's the signal to noise ratio.  To jam more frequencies, or broader bands, you need more power to spread out your jamming effects over the wider spread (frequency not range/area).  If you're trying to jam every frequency it is an enormous amount of energy, but that goes somewhere.  People do absorb that energy.  Normally it is pretty low level so we don't worry about it.  Narrow band spikes aren't a problem because although the power level is high, the band is so narrow that the net energy is still low.  When you spread that power over the whole frequency range, you're talking about thousands or millions of times more energy.  That's gonna kill everyone in the area like a 5 minute burrito.

Cell phone jammers work because cell phones work on a fairly narrow band.  Radio works on a much broader band, but the reserved frequencies for walkie talkies are pretty narrow too.  So a stock jammer works by the user picking a specific frequency or narrow band of frequencies to jam, then flooding them with static.  A smart jammer scans the spectrum looking for carrier frequencies and jams those (except for the specifically excluded ones).  In both cases, the number of frequencies jammed is pretty small.

And that is why radio nerds can't use logic for settling internet disputes.