Stealth and Chameleon systems, Perception and Teleoperation

[Crystalline_Entity]

I'm trying to get my head around Sense rolls when one participant is using teleoperated drones with camouflage systems. For example...

Alice is walking down a street carrying a MacGuffin in her hand to deliver to her boss, the criminal mastermind Antonio. Special Agent Bob has been ordered to photograph the MacGuffin using a drone so the boffins can try to determine what the MacGuffin is and try and find a way to counter it.

Special Agent Bob is five miles away, teleoperating a Scout Robot with the Aerial lens (Ultra-Tech 80). The Scout Robot has a multi-spectral chameleon surface (Ultra-Tech 99) to help camouflage it, it is currently set to an appropriate colour scheme for the sky. Bob succeeds on a Piloting (Vertol) roll (at -2 for teleoperation – this comes from Transhuman Space 144 but I can’t find anything more recent) and brings the drone to the street Alice is on.

Alice gets a hearing roll to try and hear the Scout Robot. She has Per 11, and no other relevant skills. The Scout Robot has neither Noisy nor Silence, so I assume it makes the same amount of noise as normal footsteps when it moves. This is about the same volume as a normal conversation, but the Scout Robot is hovering sixteen yards above the street, which according to the hearing table (Basic: Campaigns 358) gives a -4 to her roll. She rolls a success, so she hears something.

Alice then looks around to try and find the source of the noise. This should be a quick contest of Alice's Vision against the Scout Robot's Stealth skill.

Sixteen yards distance is a penalty of -6 due to distance (Basic: Campaigns 550), and the Scout Robot has SM -4. I believe the chameleon system means that there is no bonus for the Scout Robot being in plain sight, so even with Alice’s Per 11, she is rolling at -10. She gets a failure by 13.

The Scout Robot has no stealth skill, so it defaults to DX-5, but it gets +8 against normal and IR vision due to its chameleon system. Final skill is Stealth-13. Bob succeeds by 2.

Alice looks around suspiciously but can’t see anything, so she continues walking. Bob now needs to photograph the MacGuffin. The distance penalty is -6, the MacGuffin has SM of -4, however this time it is in plain sight, so +10, and the Scout Robot has Telescopic Vision 2, which gives a final bonus of +2. The Scout Robot has Per 10, and he succeeds in his roll by 1. He has Photography-12, and succeeds in that roll, photographing the MacGuffin. He pilots the Scout Robot away from Alice, as the photograph of the MacGuffin is transmitted to the boffins in the lab.


I’d like some feedback on a few things here:

1. Am I applying the “in plain sight” bonus correctly? Do camouflaged things not benefit from this?
2. Hearing rolls seem a little fuzzy to me. How do you deal with interference from other sounds? On a busy street it seems there should be some penalty to try and detect a quiet drone over the noise of the traffic, but I can’t see anything in the rules to cover this.
3. Are there any rules on teleoperation I’ve missed? Am I applying the rules correctly by using the Scout Robot’s statistics rather than Bob’s for stealth and Per?
4. Is my assumption that something with neither Noisy nor Silence makes the same amount of noise as a human would doing the equivalent task reasonable?

[Boomerang]

The drone seems to be getting the chameleon bonus twice. Once as a +8 bonus to stealth and again denying Alice her +10 bonus for spotting something in plain sight.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

The Scout Robot has no stealth skill

Why are you caring about the bot's skill if the bot is being teleoperated? The operator's skill should matter.

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

Am I applying the “in plain sight” bonus correctly? Do camouflaged things not benefit from this?

Officially? Anything that so much as tries to hide (whether using Stealth, Camouflage, or just a default) is officially removing the Plain Sight bonus from all enemies trying to see it. Note that not all people agree with this ruling.

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

Hearing rolls seem a little fuzzy to me. How do you deal with interference from other sounds? On a busy street it seems there should be some penalty to try and detect a quiet drone over the noise of the traffic, but I can’t see anything in the rules to cover this.

Side noise usually provides penalties. HT158: "Background noise: -5 for busy street; -6 for blaring TV set; -10 for fireworks".

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

[*]Are there any rules on teleoperation I’ve missed? Am I applying the rules correctly by using the Scout Robot’s statistics rather than Bob’s for stealth and Per?

Use the robot's physical attributes, but the operator's mental attributes and relative skill levels (applied to the bot's attributes when necessary).

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

Is my assumption that something with neither Noisy nor Silence makes the same amount of noise as a human would doing the equivalent task reasonable?

That's the default GURPS assumption - that if you have a noteworthy dis/advantage compared to the generic average human, you take an appropriate trait, and conversely lack of such a trait means lack of a noteworthy difference.

Also check out Kromm's answers on matters of detection.

[Crystalline_Entity]

Thanks!

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Officially? Anything that so much as tries to hide (whether using Stealth, Camouflage, or just a default) is officially removing the Plain Sight bonus from all enemies trying to see it. Note that not all people agree with this ruling.

I can see why that might be controversial, though I'd probably say it's fine as long as there's a way for you to blend in with your surroundings (either things to hide behind, or some sort of camouflage, etc).

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Side noise usually provides penalties. HT158: "Background noise: -5 for busy street; -6 for blaring TV set; -10 for fireworks".

I never noticed that before (sound suppressors aren't something which comes up often for me), but it's really helpful thanks. Looking at this, the "listener distracted" modifier might also apply.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Use the robot's physical attributes, but the operator's mental attributes and relative skill levels (applied to the bot's attributes when necessary).

Ah, okay. So if Bob has [4] points in the Stealth skill giving him it at DX+1, the robot would have DX+1 in stealth when teleoperated by Bob, using the Robot's DX. Similarly, it would use Bob's Per attribute for spotting and targetting, with the Robot's bonus for Telescopic Vision.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Also check out Kromm's answers on matters of detection.

That's handy, thanks. It never occurred to me that there'd be an equivalent for "in plain sight" for hearing, but +5 for normal hearing makes sense (I did wonder the exact same question about how you hear a person one yard away from you talking!).

Thanks!

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

I can see why that might be controversial, though I'd probably say it's fine as long as there's a way for you to blend in with your surroundings (either things to hide behind, or some sort of camouflage, etc).

I'm not sure you do.
The main unofficial opposing view point isn't "stealth should stop negating the Plain Sight bonus", it's "the Plain Sight bonus should never ever go away, no matter how many other penalties are applied".

Originally Posted by Crystalline_Entity

Ah, okay. So if Bob has [4] points in the Stealth skill giving him it at DX+1, the robot would have DX+1 in stealth when teleoperated by Bob, using the Robot's DX. Similarly, it would use Bob's Per attribute for spotting and targetting, with the Robot's bonus for Telescopic Vision.

Yeah. Also consider being stealthy about your noise level, not just your visibility.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

The main unofficial opposing view point isn't "stealth should stop negating the Plain Sight bonus", it's "the Plain Sight bonus should never ever go away, no matter how many other penalties are applied".

I'm not familiar with this controversy. Is this position essentially that Vision should get a +10 modifier all the time, and never mind "in plain sight" or not? And never mind light/dark penalties and cover and so forth?

I can see an argument that humans have some pretty decent vision, and effectively have "Discriminatory Vision" on our racial template, but that would mean that we need a "non-Discriminatory Vision" disadvantage and probably to re-visit the price of Blind if you have non-Discriminatory Vision. Which gives me a small migraine.

Can you link to this discussion? I don't want to clutter up this thread reading up on it.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I can see an argument that humans have some pretty decent vision, and effectively have "Discriminatory Vision" on our racial template, but that would mean that we need a "non-Discriminatory Vision" disadvantage and probably to re-visit the price of Blind if you have non-Discriminatory Vision. Which gives me a small migraine.

I have a non-discriminatory vision disad in GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses; it's a new form of Bad Sight. And I'd call it a partial form of Blind; the limits it inflicts on you are lesser forms of the limits that Blind inflicts on you. So a fully blind creature would take No Bad Sight as an advantage, and then Blind as a disadvantage; no need for special rules, I think.

(Humans, raptors, and most cephalopods have incredibly good vision; the generality of mammals have in the range of 20/200 vision, I think. And insects, with compound eyes, are even worse; the very keenest sighted insect, the dragonfly, has much worse resolution than, say, a cat. In effect, human vision sets the standard for Discriminatory, which amounts to "is a viable substitute for human eyesight for such purposes as navigating the environment and recognizing individuals"—or at least for a subset of them suited to the sense.)

I don't think the proper antithesis to what Vicky is talking about is that you always get +10 to vision. If the person you're looking for is hiding behind a wall, or under a bed, they aren't "in plain sight"; in fact you probably don't even get to roll. If they're crouching behind a chair (or standing behind a lamppost like a cartoon character!), you should get a Vision roll, but you do have to spot them, as they have some concealment. On the other hand, if they're standing against a wall or lying on the floor in an otherwise empty room, they have no concealment and are "in plain sight." You could still apply penalties to Vision if it's dim, or of they're wearing an outfit that matches the color of the room, or have chameleon powers, or if the room is full of smoke, or if it's a big room and they're far away, or if they're tiny—all sorts of things that fall short of outright Invisibility. But even a mouse would be handicapped in hiding in that big open room.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I'm not familiar with this controversy. Is this position essentially that Vision should get a +10 modifier all the time, and never mind "in plain sight" or not? And never mind light/dark penalties and cover and so forth?

Rather than there being an 'in plain sight' modifier, your raw Vision roll would just start at Per+10 and you'd apply additional modifiers from there. This is actually the way it worked in Vehicles for 3rd edition.

The main argument for doing this is that failing to spot someone at 2 yards distance is an exceptional result, not an average result.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I'm not familiar with this controversy. Is this position essentially that Vision should get a +10 modifier all the time, and never mind "in plain sight" or not? And never mind light/dark penalties and cover and so forth?

Yes. Thus in a case of -9 darkness, you'd be rolling against Vision+1 (for a target 2 yards away, SM+0 etc.).

Originally Posted by Bruno

I can see an argument that humans have some pretty decent vision, and effectively have "Discriminatory Vision" on our racial template, but that would mean that we need a "non-Discriminatory Vision" disadvantage and probably to re-visit the price of Blind if you have non-Discriminatory Vision. Which gives me a small migraine.

Can you link to this discussion? I don't want to clutter up this thread reading up on it.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...66&postcount=4
https://gamingballistic.com/2013/08/06/in-plain-sig/
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...4&postcount=66

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Officially? Anything that so much as tries to hide (whether using Stealth, Camouflage, or just a default) is officially removing the Plain Sight bonus from all enemies trying to see it. Note that not all people agree with this ruling.

I as well disagree with that... but...

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...66&postcount=4
https://gamingballistic.com/2013/08/06/in-plain-sig/
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...4&postcount=66

Thanks from me as well!