[Ultra Tech] Shortening Range

[Blood Legend]

In my high tech operatic games I use a reflexive velocity hard-light shield which is easily accessible and perfectly legal to everyone except convicted felons. While they're legal, committing a crime while in possession of one acts as a penalty enhancement. (What is considered 'low velocity' I've yet to expand upon beyond hand-waving.) A micro-computer detects incoming objects of a particular mass traveling over a particular velocity deemed to be harmful. If it was set to 0 mass/velocity, the shield would push pots and pans (even those currently in use), notebooks, papers, pencils, clothes, and even furniture around. Basically anything that wasn't nailed down or composed mostly of fire. Factory models cannot be set this low. Extremely low-mass low velocity units can keep dust, bugs an other irritants out, these are the size of keychains. Come to think of it, there's probably a whole community dedicated to experimenting with the mass/velocity profile on these devices to achieve specific results.

The setting has this technology in its very early stages to prevent silly but entirely plausible things like 'everyone now has telekinesis' since it doesn't yet possess a tractor beam quality to manipulate objects but late enough that you could use a velocity shield to protect you from a long fall. In settings that have tractor beams, I make them entirely different technologies.

In game, the RVHL *Rival* Shield detects any damage over '5' outside of a 2 yard radius and activates a field of 10 to 25 DR (for a military model) for a couple of milliseconds, double that if set to be directional (commonly forward). They are however expensive and superfluous. Only police, swat, military, criminal underground, and civilians operating in high places have a need of use for them, and I'd imagine the current non-practical parkour scene in my setting would frown upon their use unless you were just starting out. Even then body armor is still popular and a rifle round will still go through a civilian's projected energy field. The military also has access to Pulse, AP Pulse and APEX Pulse rounds that cap an energy folding device on the front of the round. The Rival Shield cannot generally stop liquids, heat or light.

Rival Shields draw the same social penalty that you get for walking into a tavern or bar in peace time with armor or a combat vest on, so they're commonly hooked on a carry belt under a vest or jacket or disguised as a wearable computer.

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On the larger field, EMP, ECM, scramblers and miniaturized point defense are used. In space-combat, you want to move in fairly close and fire a barrage which will occupy most of the systems.