 Fire darting an aircraft carrier |
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 Jan 16 2007, 10:17 PM
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#1
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Neophyte Runner  Group: Members Posts: 2,345 Joined: 31-December 06 Member No.: 10,502  |
I was just wondering if any of the texted had rules explaining why a player character can't wipe out an aircraft carrier as easily as they can take out a toaster.
If they haven't put a rule out yet what do you do in your games? (I'm making the transfer to 4th ed. This hasn't come up yet but sooner or later someones going to want to drop a banshee or a cargo ship or something). *EDIT I mean a physical combat spell not a manipulation. More along the lines of a power bolt. |
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Jan 16 2007, 10:21 PM
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#2
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,526 Joined: 9-April 06 From: McGuire AFB, NJ Member No.: 8,445 |
Easy, the body and armor of the craft is gynormous. Plus all the AA guns on the damn thing, and missles and lazers and whatever else you want to throw on it.
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Jan 16 2007, 10:24 PM
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#3
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
do you have rigger3 handy? it covers ship armor and so on.
and while the rules are not compatible with SR4, it makes for a nice yardstick... all in all, ships have a different kind of armor to other vehicles... |
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Jan 16 2007, 10:26 PM
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#4
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,345 Joined: 31-December 06 Member No.: 10,502 |
That's the problem body and armor don't matter against physical combat spells(Is fire dart the wrong name?, should I say power bolt?). Anyway a manipulation spell would bounce right off. But in the texts example about hitting a bike no mention was made of body or armor. And, while the "its armaments are incredible" argument usually works in shadowrun there isn't anything keeping some mage from getting drunk and popping the thing off in port. |
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Jan 16 2007, 10:27 PM
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#5
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,345 Joined: 31-December 06 Member No.: 10,502 |
Yeah I was hoping there was something like that out there. |
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Jan 16 2007, 10:27 PM
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#6
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 |
Yeah, you used the wrong name. Fire dart implies an indirect combat spell. No problem, we understand you now.
Admittedly, it is object resistance and not an opposed roll, which hurts the carrier since it would be nice if it could roll it's 1 hojillion body dice. It would still benefit from counterspelling, though. Then, damage is applied to it's damage track of 8 + 1 hojillion / 2 (rounded up!) boxes. So it's not quite as easy as nuking a toaster. |
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Jan 16 2007, 10:29 PM
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#7
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,150 Joined: 19-December 05 From: Rhein-Ruhr Megaplex Member No.: 8,081 |
Easy, the concept of an Aircraft Carrier has already started to be outdated. Until 2070, there won't be active carriers anymore. (most likely replaced by far cheaper stealthy drone carriers).
If you talk about just slinging a direct combat spell, a carrier is just to big (alltough there are no rules for that). |
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Jan 17 2007, 12:16 AM
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#8
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 |
The old canon material did say there were some carriers still in existence, just not many and most of them are like the British carriers that are smaller and for vehicles like helicopters and Harriers.
Rigger 3 and Cyberpirates have rules about ships. It would be next to impossible to damage a sizable ship, even a destroyer, with magic. The GM might allow for targeting specific points with direct combat spells, aiming at weapons systems, sensors, etc. You could always pick off crewmen, too. Ships like that are probably also warded where it counts, so sending a fire elemental after the magazines probably wouldn't work either. On the other hand, sending in a water elemental to back up the toilets might. |
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Jan 17 2007, 12:21 AM
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#9
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,526 Joined: 9-April 06 From: McGuire AFB, NJ Member No.: 8,445 |
You evil evil man... +1 Karma. :vegm: |
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Jan 17 2007, 05:41 AM
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#10
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 |
Thanks. One runner team is was used a water elemental to plug the sewer line leading into a modest security building. Hacker reroutes the phone call to a fake plumbing service and responded to the call of "our nice cleaning building is full of shit!" By the time they got there, it was a real mess and most of the employees were outside. The Secmen didn't check all the plumbing kit too carefully and were easily dropped by stabbing narcojet darts. They picked up what they needed, hacker wipes the security camera memory, the mage dismissed the elemental and out they go, telling everyone to wait a bit before going back inside, to let the place air out. They didn't, of course, but there was enough time to get away. For pure harassment value, a mage had a problem with certain establishment, so he sent a water elemental in to spring all the sprinklers inside and then left it inside the pipe to block the water main cut off. Really messed that place up. |
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Jan 17 2007, 03:23 PM
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#11
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 160 Joined: 14-November 03 From: MSP Metroplex Member No.: 5,822 |
Well, I suppose the Body + Armor would stop most personal weapons or indirect spells; but with direct spells, strictly according to the rules, any hits over the threshold 4 physical resistance test should be able to do damage to the carrier. I think it would have to have dozens, if not hundreds of boxes of damage. Can a power bolt punch a hole through a barrier? I'm wondering mostly if a mage could stand just outside the hull and punch a hole through it and sink it. I tend to think of direct combat spells as not doing specific location damage, as they attack through an aura. This isn't spelled out in the rules, but I think I'd have to rule that sinking/destroying a carrier or something similar would involve dropping the object all the way or nearly all the way to zero, as the entire carrier would be slowly worn down. Most casters would knock themselves unconscious or be discovered before that happened.
Dread Polack |
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Jan 18 2007, 12:36 AM
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#12
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813 |
i would treat the an object the size of a large ship as a collection of barriers, personally.
there is nothing that really says explicitly how a barrier interacts with direct spells, however.. this makes it a bit tricky. assuming we ignore the damage resistance part (direct spells don't have damage resist tests), i would say an aircraft carrier is "armored/reinforced material" or "hardened material", and you need 13P damage to make a hole 1m across, 10 cm deep. add in the probable wards that will be placed on it, plus counterspelling most likely, and you've got a fairly tough target. |
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Jan 19 2007, 10:01 AM
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#13
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 906 Joined: 16-October 06 Member No.: 9,630 |
You all might want to read the rules again FOUR is not the cap on object resistance. THERE IS NO CAP!, a Drone or vehcle has an object resistance of 4+ according to the table. Notice how it says 4+ not just plain 4. Using 4+ tells us they can have an object resistance above 4. So said carrier, drone carrier, battleship could have an object resistance of 24. Nothing in the rules is againts it. So basicly your archologies, battleships and other huge structures only have an object resistance of 4. If your GM is stupid enougth to allow it. By the rules there is no limit to object resistance. |
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Jan 19 2007, 02:01 PM
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#14
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,428 Joined: 9-June 02 Member No.: 2,860 |
There were quite a few active carriers built with the (SR3, Rigger-3) heavy carrier chassis in the 2060s, primarily with the Imperial Japanese Navy and UCAS Navy. I suspect there will be in 2070 as well, since big hardware like that doesn't disappear overnight. As for Fire Darting the ship, military hardware of that magnitude has had almost 60 years to come to terms with magic, equivalent to the 1880-1940 period, which saw battleships go from wood-and-steel with auxiliary sails to the Yamato and Iowa. The UCAS and Japan have plenty of enemies, and not just nations with big warships of their own. If the folks who protest against megacorps or the Technocrat party or racism or whatever with active vandalism found out that there's a multi-billion nuyen aircraft carrier sitting in port without magical protection, someone's going to take a magical potshot at it. Or unleash a great form water spirit/elemental. So you can bet a big carrier has substantial magical defenses. The mage trying to fire dart the carrier will probably be beat senseless by the carrier's CAEP (Combat Air Elemental Patrol) before he can roll to resist drain. |
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Jan 19 2007, 03:02 PM
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#15
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Target Group: Members Posts: 81 Joined: 26-February 02 From: DC/NOVA, USA Member No.: 80 |
Actually, IIRC, according to Runner Havens there's now a UCAS Navy supercarrier group parked in one of the suburbs (Renton?), which has a "friendly rivalry" going with the Army. If there's a carrier in Seattle, not only are carriers still in use, but any game that uses Seattle as the default setting might eventually involve a run on one. Thus, it would help to know when that twink-idiot, err, player, decides to throw all of your best-laid plans by trying to sink it, they'll blow their brains out on drain before they can scratch it... :dead: |
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Jan 19 2007, 03:20 PM
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#16
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Agreed. With something like 1500-3000 crew, in addition the 2000+ soldiers of the air wing, I would expect a large carrier to at least have a platoon of mages. This would allow for the whole outside of the ship to be warded and for a "fire team" of mages to be constantly on guard duty (or a full squad in potentially hostile waters) with their full selection of elementals, some on patrol and some in reserve. |
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Jan 19 2007, 06:11 PM
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#17
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813 |
probably a few long term bound spirits (using karma) with magical guard on the ship as well. |
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Jan 19 2007, 06:19 PM
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#18
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 |
As I stated in an earlier post, a carrier probably has powerful and permanant wards in key areas like magazines, fuel storage, engine spaces, CIC and the bridge. If they had a group of military and contractor mages working together, they could put up a stronger wardand not lose much karma since the cost would be divided amongst all the mages. Weaker, temporary wards could be set up and maintained by mages in the crew. Long-term bound spirits are a probability too, along with all the spirits the crew mages could summon as well.
A carrier is an expensive piece of kit, several billion for the current model and about 3 times that for the next generation design. There is no reason to think this trend would stop in the future. On the other hand, today's carriers are rather lightly protected compared to their cost. Just a couple of missile launchers and about 4 Phalanx guns. There's no reason to think the politicians in the future wouldn't also skimp on magical security in SR, too. |
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Jan 19 2007, 06:37 PM
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#19
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 633 Joined: 23-February 06 Member No.: 8,301 |
Moon-Hawk hit it right on the head for this one. The most important reason why you won't be powerbolting a carrier into oblivion has nothing to do with Object Resistance or magical defense. Its Body rating of 4000 (maybe an exaggeration, doesn't matter), gives it 2008 damage boxes. I've yet to see someone cast a Force 1004 Powerbolt.
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Jan 19 2007, 07:07 PM
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#20
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,206 Joined: 9-July 06 From: Fresno, CA Member No.: 8,856 |
Perhaps that's an indication that you give out too little Karma on your runs. :P |
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Jan 19 2007, 07:11 PM
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#21
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,150 Joined: 19-December 05 From: Rhein-Ruhr Megaplex Member No.: 8,081 |
The most important reason why you won't be powerbolting a carrier into oblivion is common sense. All else is just justifying that in the framework the rules provide ;).
On Carriers: Carriers are even bigger and far more vulnerable than battleships were even before WW2. I know, they are canon, and since carriers won't come up in my games soon, I won't dispute it... much :D. My hero is Lieutenant General Paul van Riper, who sank most of an US Carrier Fleet in a major wargame in 2002 (Millenium Challenge 2002), with basically fishing boats and civil aircrafts (see this article: http://www.exile.ru/2002-December-11/war_nerd.html ) On magic security on capital ships: Sure, they may have a squad of security mages on that ship. So, the enemy assembles a company of mages for the specific purpose of destroying those ships, one after the other. They might come up with an underhanded move the defenders didn't think of, or simply overpower them. The attacker always has the initiative, and in the long run fire power always wins against armor. I know, that's easier said than done, but the attackers have to get lucky only once :D. |
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Jan 19 2007, 07:18 PM
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#22
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 |
I was thinking about that exercise when I was writing that other post but couldn't think of it. Thanks for the link. Like I said, carriers are very lightly defended for their value. One way to stop a ship would be to have water or air elementals cause cavitation around the propellor making it work less effectively and perhaps not at all. The same goes for the rudder. However, that is probably something military mages would be expecting and would be prepared for. |
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Jan 19 2007, 07:21 PM
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#23
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
...with fishing boats, civilian aircraft, some gunboats and corvettes, and lots and lots of anti-ship missiles.
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Jan 19 2007, 07:36 PM
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#24
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,150 Joined: 19-December 05 From: Rhein-Ruhr Megaplex Member No.: 8,081 |
Don't know about the corvettes, but the lots and lots of anti ship missiles were crucial, of course.
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Jan 19 2007, 07:57 PM
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#25
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Could be they were limited to just patrol craft. Just seems like a pretty silly limitation, when Iran had at that time 2 corvettes and 3 frigates, in addition to their 23 dedicated missile attack craft.
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