So a Predator with ex-ex ammo (and find a runner who doesn't use that) can take down the heaviest available drone with no more difficulty than some guy in an armoured jacket. Ditto an assault rifle, even using FMJ. What are they making the armor out of these days, aluminium?

Also, with reference to hardened armour, do extra hits on the attack test count toward the 'modified value'?

As written, yes.

Extra DV from automatic fire does not, however.

-Frank

Out of less than 4mm / 1/6" rolled homogenous steel?

A hollow 1-meter cube made out of 4mm-thick RHS would weigh about 188kg. To achieve about the same protection against small arms fire you'd need around twice the thickness of aluminum armor, which would weigh around 133kg for a similar cube, only then there's the problem with incendiary threats. Putting armor that heavy on a small drone is quite a bad idea.

Assault rifles wrecking small drones makes perfect sense. In this instance, SR4 has taken a huge leap forward from the insane armor ratings of drones in 3rd Ed.

But I can wear armor considerably stronger than that available to a Steel Lynx (full body armor + helmet = 12 armor), and it certainly doesn't weigh 180kg. A Steel Lynx isn't exactly a 'small drone' either, it's at least man-sized.

Consider all the SR4 BBB drones to be the baseline models with the sensor/weapon upgrades as typical dealer upgrades (like bolting on a spoiler or swapping the CD player). Odds are the gear book will include standard variant packages, similar to the way cars tend to come in an STandard, LXury, or EXtreme version.

Armor upgrades are non-trivial on stats since there's a weight/mass trade off. Were I them I'd include one "combat" variant with thicker traditional armor and one "performance" variant that has increased speed/maneuverability. Add a general option to upgrade vehicle armor by +x with exotic materials for +y% base cost to give a bit more gradation. Going that route would eliminate the need for an RBB but still provide a decent range of vehicles with different performance specs without a huge amount of work.

If I remember my Fields of Fire illustrations correctly, they're big enough for a human to sit on and ride. I think the footprint (with legs extended) is about the size of a VW bug.

The AI robot spider-things in the Ghost in the Shell animated series remind me of the Steel Lynx in size and locomotive ability. The... tenchi-ichi-yama-whatevers.

Is that completely rigid armor? Do environmental factors or defeated threats degrade it over time? How thick is it? How expensive is it? How much, exactly, does it weigh?
If it's cheap, light, thin, hardened and non-degrading, then the real question is: What the fuck is body armor made of in SR4?

Magic.

First off that armour costs more than the entire Steel Lynx, and is harder to come by (Avail 14 vs. 12).

Second calling that armour "considerably stronger" is very dubious since it is not Hardened. Once you have a weapon that does enough damage to overcome it the drone's armour is weaker, but up until that point it is much stronger.

That doesn't mean that there aren't issues with the Hardened Armor rules. They aren't new issues, and i'm disappointed they wasted an opportunity to fix them coming forward from SR3. I agree that it be better having Hardened Armour simply remove it's rating in boxes of damage, possibily negating all damage. Then you'd roll soak as per normal. But even if you didn't allow the Hardened Armor rating to be used for soak i think current armour values are on the high side for that.

The rules don't bother with armor degrading or weights. Any such attempt to simulate RL to that level of detail is left to an exersize for those that want that [IMO] cluttering crap.

EDIT: Incidentally you can still take Stun damage while wearing that armor, though you have a lot of dice to soak it away. You'll have at least 6 Body (or be taking encumberance penalties), so at least 18 dice. So there is a band of damage in the 6ish-11 DV range where you could be taking a few boxes of Stun damage.

Whether there are rules to handle the degradation is another matter, but the fact is that most types of body armor are unsuitable for protecting vehicles because vehicle armor should stand up to a serious beating, both by the environment and by, well, beating, for years after years. That's why you don't see up-armoring kits for HMMWVs weighing only a hundred or so kg and being capable of stopping armor piercing rifle rounds.

Well that and the massive cost of a hundred or two stand-alone NIJ level IV plates -- thanks for pointing out the cost of the set of armor Dancer mentioned, BTW, and for noting that it is not hard armor.

something i just noticed....

look at the sensors, on p. 325. they all have a listed capacity. logicaly, this means you can put them in cybereyes/ears/limbs as appropriate.

now, a smartlink already has a laser rangefinder in it. options like camera and microphone are pointless as well. the laser microphone and cyberware scanner, however, are usefull. being able to notice concealed weapons and cyberware within 15 meters is a good ability to have.

I assumed that capacity was exclusively for putting into the sensor packages listed immediately above. I suppose it doesn't say explicitly that they're only for the sensor packages, but I'd probably require at least GM approval before sticking them in a cyberlimb.

Ah, i didn't understand what you were getting at with that comment. Ya, personal body armour is generally a different thing than vehicle armour.

Suppressive fire uses up 20 bullets per pass. :eek:

Yeah, better not load up on exexplosive for that....Costs too much...

Now I have an odd question. I have to admit that I am a gun-toting NRA member with shotguns (and have shot many different types).

I dont understand why the Remmington 990 can shoot slugs (Regular ammo) where the Mossberg AM-CMDT cant. Combat shotguns are designed for all sorts of ammo. Take the M-1012 (M-4 is the civilian version) shotgun that the Army/Marines use. It uses regular shotguns shells (flechette rounds in SR), slugs (regular ammo), mini-flares (tracer?? or miniflare? in SR), etc. As long as the round is not overly packed with powered (and no one in their right mind would do that) then it can handle anything upto a 3.5" shell. damn that is everything on the free market.

I am confused.
dog

I agree, this was odd to me.

I think it's great flavor that certain stealthy guns, like the roomsweeper and the slivergun, only take flechette. But I am at a total loss on why any military would invest in a gun primarily suited for taking down unarmored targets. In 2070, this would be even worse, given the extreme proliferation of armor. Short of clearing out shanty towns, I don't know what this gun would be used for (if you stick to the fluff that flechette is bad with armor). And surely even those wishing to sweep away the unarmored refuse would prefer a more general purpose gun.

Of course, the fact that flechette ammo is better against armor than standard ammo, despite the fluff text, makes the discussion a bit less meaningful -- the gun is then quite good, but expensive to use.

Since when is the Roomsweeper limited to firing only Flechette rounds?

I was refering to the Mossberg but yeah I guess the roomsweeper fails into that category too.

I just needed to chime in on all this armor discussion:

I agree that flechette is extremely effective against present day armor. Flechettes have much the same effect against modern armor as APDS would in SR's version of the late 21st century.

However, as a geek who's into materials science, I have to agree with the interpretation of 2070's armor. In Shadowrun they have the ability to manufacture bucky-tube sheets, arachno-fiber weaves, plasteel, dikote, and impact absorbing gel packs. They even mention some of this stuff in the new SR4 book, BTW.
So, what you can create out of this stuff is relatively normal looking clothes and jackets that are the equivalent of present-day bomb squad armor. The strength of this stuff would make fletchettes bounce off because fletchettes don't have enough mass and energy to penetrate these new-material armors. The technology of APDS (I'm assuming) is to drive a single narrow teflon-coated penetrator round through these kinds of tougher materials. (The answer to better armor is to deliver more energy to a smaller point.) Shotguns and fletchette casters tend to spread their energy among multiple projectiles. With APDS or a "standard Shadowrun bullet", all the energy goes into one good poke. Likewise, I don't think "standard" ammo in Shadowrun are normal FMJ or unjacketed rounds. I think they are what we would consider penetrator rounds today. (Like those 7.62mm Soviet tungsten cored things.)

As for vehicle and drone armor, please keep in mind that the changes to the drones and vehicle stats is based on the new system where 5+ is the only TN. In SR3 an Ares Predator III, with the right ammunition, in the right hands, could blow up a Patrol 1 in one shot. Easy as pie.
It seems a little sketchy to me that a pistol could blow up an armored police car in one shot, BTW.
In SR4, an Ares Predator with good ammo and in capable hands could very likely damage a Patrol 1. But, it would take Edge or some seriously amazing luck to actually destroy it in one hit.
Going from that, drones are not armored like beer-cans in SR4. Quit worrying.

Oops, my bad. In previous editions, the roomsweeper defaulted to using "shot" rounds but could still use normal rounds -- but only if you read the text description. In this edition, both are listed in the damage table... but two editions of table-skimming caught up to me. I guess I'd just got it in my head that roomsweeper = flechette. Sorry for the confusion.

The term "roomsweeper" does evoke images of, say, sweeping a room with buckshot.

Here is a new questions for yall.

Sammie with 7 Agility, 6 firearms, +1 Enhanced Articulation, +2 smartlink gun & ambidextrious. So that is 16 dice (if my math doesnt fail me now). If I want to fire two guns (one in each hand) then I split the dice pool. Understood. But do I add teh +2 for the smartlinked gun prior to spliting the pool or after? What happens if I have 1 smartlinked gun and 1 that isnt?

What do you think?

first, articulation does NOT affect combat skills in SR4.

second, i beleive that the smartlink would apply after the pool split. so instead of 15 dice with one gun, you get 9 and 8 dice. (9 and 6 if you lack ambidex). and a further penalty if you dont shoot both guns at the same target.

if one gun isnt smartlinked, then it wont get the bonus.