Blue_Lion wrote:astral projection says.
They can generally only affect the physical world (or themselves be affected from physical beings) by Sensitive psionic powers such as Telepathy, Clairvoyance, Empathy, etc.; Astral travelers communicate using Telepathy
Sorry but that indicates they would be unlikely to use the power to poses the machine while in astral body as it is not a sensitive psionic power so as a general rule unable to affect the physical world. You could however poses a astral projecting machine.(Nice try but I am going to say no dice, based on the text in astral projection.)
In addition any psychic could spot them, as could animals, people with items to allow them to see invisible and SN so there is a good chance they could be detected.(not to mention the risk of attack.) And while inside a solid object you would be unable to see out of it unless you had part of yourself sticking out. (I find the idea that a group of PCs would have no one with psi or SN unlikely.)
Given the duration of the power 4 of electrokisis(2 minutes per level) it is unlikely a psi is just sitting there using it. Without knowledge there is a machine present it would be unlikely he would be using this power and it has shorter range. So again they would need to know the machine is there for them to be using the power. It never says the detection is constant or that it tells the difference between a AI robot and a suit of PA just that a device is present.(AI robots would seam to be outside the scope of power 4 as they would not have controls to affect so they may not be detected with it.) Given power 5 it is unlikely that they know the location of a device just that it is present and knowing the type would be a GM call.
Surveillance devices can be detected with observation attempts and when used as a detection method for an ambush detect ambush or detect concealment would apply.
Basically you are doing allot of mental gymastics to justify claiming a nitch power is a great threat that it would be common to encounter.(As a GM I have to be able to look at text and see through munchkin rules bending, so I am use to using the rules to stop such acts.)
astral projection *also* says that any power that does not require physical contact can be used. and in any event, it isn't clearly shown whether telemechanic possession is a sensitive power or not; one of the most annoying things about the super psionic powers, really. we know some of them are sensitive, physical, etc, based on other books that don't have super psionics as a category, but do have some of the powers categorized as super in other books (nightbane, for example, has hypnotic suggestion as a sensitive power). some we can deduce (all the ones based on telekinesis are probably physical). the telemechanics powers i don't think are in any books without the super category, and are not directly based on any non-super powers. we might guess a category for telemechanic possession, but it would be a guess. even then, i would say the most plausible guess (based on the requirement for object read, a sensitive power, and the fact that telemechanics has more in common with machine ghost, a sensitive power, than it does with other powers) is that it is sensitive, and could thus be used.
in a typical 4 person party, it isn't even that improbable for none to have psionics. going by the standard 25% chance, you've got around a 30% chance that nobody in a group of 4 will have psionics. given that we're never told how to tell which of "most" supernatural beings can see the astral form (even if the group has anything supernatural, which is not remotely guaranteed), and animals aren't entirely standard (and even if they are, the typical horse is not going to be able to clearly communicate "hey there's an astral being floating halfway out of the ground 300 meters ahead at 3 o'clock"), it isn't entirely implausible that a group wouldn't have someone to spot the psychic. or if they do, that someone may be an animal that can't clearly communicate that fact. even if they do, hiding would be pretty easy; the psychic is invisible to normal sensors, can only even possibly be detected by some of the party, creates no scent, makes no sound, leaves no trail, and can easily hide even in a completely open flat plain with zero vegetation.
and yes, it *is* improbable. that's why i said it seems pretty fishy, and indicated i would want to know *why* there is a psychic sitting around waiting to take over the party's robots, especially if it keeps happening. i even went so far as to say that it sounds like the GM is abusing their power to "win". i'm not sure what you're getting at, quite frankly; why are you complaining as if i said it was perfectly reasonable when i specifically said that it doesn't sound like something that would reasonably happen without a good explanation.
(as to power armour not having controls, they totally do. they are almost definitely electrical in nature, at least for some part of the system, and i would say probably count as numerous separate devices, which would make it quite hard to control one, because you'd have (for example) one device to detect motion in each finger, one for the forearm, one for the bicep, etc. it would, however, be much easier to create something equivalent to a muscle spasm. but in some way or other, the armour is detecting the motion of the pilot and moving along with them, otherwise it wouldn't have its own P.S. score). but as far as sensing, it is definitely an electrical device. or rather, a whole bunch of them more likely; electric servos, pressure sensors, various other sensors, and who knows how many electrical devices that combine to make a computer (which will have some unfathomably large number of switches in it)
and while electrokinesis wouldn't necessarily tell you that something is, say... a samson power armour as compared to any other power armour, it most likely can tell you the difference between a complex device and a non-complex device, and should probably give you some idea of how powerful the power source is, so it very likely should be able to tell you the difference between a robot vehicle (oh hey, it's a humanoid-shaped collection of electrical devices with a central extremely dense cluster of electrical devices (the computer) powered by a massive energy source) and a flashlight (one electrical device connected to a much smaller energy source). furthermore, the electrokinesis power certainly implies that you will have some idea of what you're doing. it doesn't have a description that it can open and close circuits, it says you can turn lights on or off, turn on a TV, adjust volume, etc, all without seeing them, which means you must be able to *identify* light switches as being something distinct from the power button on a TV set in some way or other, unless we presume it is supposed to be you just flailing around blindly all the time hoping you're doing the right thing. i wouldn't extend that to knowing exactly which bit in a computer to manipulate to get what you want (particularly since you can only switch states 12 times per melee and to get usable input into a computer you would likely need hundreds of state changes per second at least), but i would say you could probably mess up some specific subsystem in a computer for a short period of time.
really trying to use an example of exception of a rule that allows for ecceptions to disprove the rule.
"oh, he just kept trying until it worked!!!"
