Anti-Stealth Measures

Breaking and Entering is such a common problem for large corporations that some have devised brilliant ways of dealing with such problems.


Illusion Walls:
Illusion Walls are walls that have been treated with a quickened Phantasm or Trid Phantasm.

Phantasm Walls are usually brightly colored orange or white walls with a phantasm of appearing as a normal wall. People who fail to see through it suspect nothing, but cameras and rutheneum are not fooled, and ruthenum that enters the area takes the coloring of the white walls, ruining it's effect in the same way as if you had move too quickly. The higher the force, the more useful these walls.

Trid Phantasm walls work in the opposite manner: the minimum force is used to disguise regular walls as bright orange or white walls. The idea is that normal people will easily overcome the illusion, but your rutheneum will be tricked. Anyone who fails to the illusion is still tricked by the ruthenum, which is auto-tricked and mimicks the orange or white color. Anyone who bypasses the illusion sees the rutheneum change and can take advantage. While much cheaper, anyone who sees through the illusion knows that the illusion is there, making it more difficult to surprise people with.

Invisible Paint/Heated Wall:
This is not a magical paint, this is paint that is that is visible only in the ultraviolet spectrum. The rutheneum, which does not respond to the invisible light, does not detect the hidden paint, ruining it's effect on people with ultraviolet vision.

Heated Walls is a misnomer- the wall may be hot or kept very cold. The ruthenem does not mimic the temperature of the walls, and the person stands out against it. Hot walls may mask the signatures of normal people walking by, but cold walls make thermographic signatures of people that much more intense, providing a +1 TN penalty to stealth checks if heat is not accounted for, and ruining rutheneum's benefit for those with thermographic vision.

These two do not provide the rutheneum PENALTY that the magic versions do.

PKE Doors:
The PKE door uses PKE technology to detect magical auras passing underneath it. It can be defeated by taking it apart (much like a maglock), or with masking. Otherwise it searches for magical auras passing within range much like the hand held device, and may be linked to an alarm, or just changing color or beeping if detect auras pass underneath. This is less likely to provide full assensing, but it is possible.

This helps prevent smuggled magic items or invisible characters from passing through, though any awakened character or spirit might trigger it, or attempts to use illusions to modify the appearance of the door (such as making it appear closed when open).

Pressurized Floor:
Besides simply triggering an alarm, some pressurized floor plates might cause ultraviolet, glowing ink to spray down, ruining rutheneum suits or invisibility, or might cause a spray of water which allows people to be detected for a moment. The latter are much more rare, unless it is a very high profile location.

White Mold:
A special kind of mold some companies grow within their walls, they are specially bred to require minimal moisture, and do not require light. The important thing is that, as living things, they block spirits, astral perception, and astral projection in between walls. Some very high profile companies may but these inside doors also, though this is very rare due to the automatic watering and maintenance mechanisms needed to grow the mold and control its growth. White mold in the walls tends to make the physical structure of the wall slightly weaker (as one solid wall is now 2 thin walls with a bit of space between them). Certainly the mold is visible to normal vision also, so is almost never used in glass or other clear windows.

Active Jamming:
Simple but effective, some companies use active jamming within their walls to prevent shadowrunning teams from using radio communication while inside. This also has an effect on their guards, so it's only used in specific types of area- such areas typically include landline phones in a multitude of places around the structure so guards can call in backup, or even simply panic buttons to be pressed. Such areas tend to have higher video surveilance as well, to make up for lack of radio ability. Still others might have guards with powerful signal boosters to their own radios, though this is very rare.

Spirit Patrol:
Those with access to conjurers frequenly use non-manifest (or sometimes manifested) spirits to fly around the building (or inside) searching for auras. Astral percieving mages (or projecting) can assist with this task also, or even dual-natured critter guards.

Critters:
Whether dual-natured critters, mutants, or even simple dogs, sometimes having animals with thier keener perception (and in many cases, lack of fear) can be enough to detect anyone who doesn't belong there. Dual-natured critters are nice that they can also fight astral projectors.

Fences:
Electric fences might not keep out fliers, diggers, or high jumpers, but disarming the electric fence can be problematic, since many companies monitor the power of the fences. If the power goes out (due to muddling with the fence by electricians), the people inside will probably know about it. Cutting through the fence may or may not trigger such an alarm, but the fact that the fence is electrified can make that a problem also. Electric fences may also generate heat, hiding the thermographic signatures of physical guards inside the fence.

Detection Spells:
Mages can detect for a variety of materials that have no business being brought into their buildings- though detection may be limited by the power of the mage. Common detection spells look for rutheneum or explosives.

Ultrasound Emitters:
While the ultrasound detector is fine in it's own right, it may also be vulnerable to jamming or silence spells. The solution became quickly apparant: have an ultrasound signal beep at random or regular intervals to be detected by the emitter. In case of silence, jamming, etc, the electronic confirmation that the signal was sent will be detected by the computer, but the detecter will not have recieved audial confirmation, triggering an alert.

This can be difficult to overcome by electricians, who need to determine whether it is regular or random, and possibly disable the emitter before the detector, or vice versa to face recieving the sound. Anyone with high frequency hearing can detect the emmitter easily if within the area. (But this means guards so eqipped might detect the lost signal too if nearby).