Lots of the tech in the game have the property of motion sensing. Everyone at my table has decided that this mean Aliens style red dots approaching everywhere. Of course this interpretation puts a bit of a damper on any encounter involving suprise. Has anyone else run into this in game and have a good way to place it in the Star Wars universe, without giving everything away to the players?

I bet motion sensors come in many shapes and forms

For instance, here is a canonical example of motion sensors in star wars:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Motion_sensor

It seams those were just antennae that just give off a wave to detect movement. Sounds good to me. I bet an antenna is easy to conceal.

This may sound crass, so don't take it the wrong way, but your players don't have absolute law over how certain bits of technology work in your version of Star Wars. Especially something that wasn't ever outlined in any of the 6 movies. If you want sensors to be some cleverly hidden widget on a wall or disguised as a bird in a tree, then go for it. You are the GM.

Totally agree with kaosoe there. Your the GM and its up to you toc reate the elements that will drive the narrative. Use Star wars canon and also use real world technology. Homes have burglar alarms with sensors placed near the corner of ceilings in the identified rooms. When switched on they dont give of any red dots etc.

Oh I realize that it is my call, just wondering if anyone else has made it in the past with something that worked out. And these aren't the stationary motion sensors, those are easy. These are things like "General Purpose Scanner" and "Cyber-limb Scanner" from the CRB. I'm leaning towards allowing full motion detection in medium/short range and falling off rapidly. Also toying around with not being able to discern size at all. I really just want them to have their shiny new toys, but not have it restrict encounters too much.

Oh I realize that it is my call, just wondering if anyone else has made it in the past with something that worked out. And these aren't the stationary motion sensors, those are easy. These are things like "General Purpose Scanner" and "Cyber-limb Scanner" from the CRB. I'm leaning towards allowing full motion detection in medium/short range and falling off rapidly. Also toying around with not being able to discern size at all. I really just want them to have their shiny new toys, but not have it restrict encounters too much.

Ah I see. I always assumed the visible red lasers we see at card scanner terminals and markets were for the user's benefit so they know where the bar codes should face. They didn't have to be visible. But I could be mistaken.

I'm not fully understanding if you're trying to make it easier or more difficult for the PCs to have/use this tech, but here's my two bits about it either way...

If you want it to be the see-all, then it's easy enough to make and use in the SW universe - you're the GM, make it however you want it.

If you want to put some limits on it so it doesn't botch your plans of surprise on the PCs, make it just like the scanners in Aliens. Pay close attention to that movie - the scanners only told the distance of a moving object from the scanner and could only detect to the front of the scanner. There was no 3-Dimensional detection (it didn't say "there's movement 20' ahead, 8' above to the North-East." It couldn't even tell you where walls or such were; it simply stated "there's movement 21.54' in a North-East-direction from the front of this sensor") [21.54 is the pythagorean theorum for 20' x 8' away btw]. Summed up: they can see there's movement ahead of them x-distance... but they can't tell if it's above or below them exactly.

Or you could also say that this tech is great for low-traffic indoors, where there's no wind, no tumbleweed, no critters moving about... oh and cities have those little droids scurrying around the floors all the time too - they get picked up too.


I think what the CRB intends when it mentions "motion detection" would be like a laser tripwire. The military nowadays use this tech for claymores - they're an infrared laser (invisible to the naked eye) and when interrupted, it detonates. Also used for trip alarms. The CRB mentions motion detection in grenades; [to me] that would imply more of an advanced trip-wire than an aliens see-all.