My PC's are living out of an Airplane, How the hell do I price their lifestyle Options

[Rad]

Exactly. Yet this is Dumpshock and if topics didn't get wildly off topic it wouldn't be Dumpshock. They can run it any way they want, but people are going to comment on it especially if they feel a curve ball comes into play. There was very little situational instance given, so when more information came into play that is when people had an opinion. If the situation had been described in more detail then just "my runners live in a plane" it would have probably had a different response. In the end there are lifestyle mods in arsenal for living in a vehicle, which could have answered this question days ago.

The vehicle amenities mod in Arsenal didn't answer the question, which is why our GM posted it here. The closest thing to a core answer was to combine the vehicle amenities rules from Arsenal with the optional advanced lifestyle rules in Runner's Companion, which FlashbackJohn provided in the first reply.

Sorry if I lost my cool a bit, but I can't really buy that there's no animosity involved when people jump in to criticize our group/gm/playing style instead of answering the question. Saying "but if that's how your group plays, then fine" at the end is disingenuous, especially when most of the complaints and advice were about issues of IRL realism that contradict the official mechanics.

But yeah, internet = people hate you, lolz. Especially on an RPG forum. It's the same thing that happens with the ARMA folks and historians over on the fantasy RPG boards. Eventually I just gotta' learn to let the drek roll off my back a little easier.

[masterofm]

Don't need to say sorry. I really don't care about the whole thing and my comments were more directed as if I was editing someones essay. There were parts that just didn't make sense to me so I added what I thought would make the most sense. Sometimes people take offense to this on a forum or even when you are right there telling them what could maybe make the paper better. Some people happily accept these comments while others get deeply offended, and then decide that you don't know what the hell you are talking about and should go drown in a lake. The problem is that it only becomes a flame war when both people start taking what is said as a direct insult. Then it topic just degrades into uselessness.

Also on the "how it should be done in RL" part is only just a small thing to consider when playing Shadowrun. Personally when I think about Shadowrun I think ok... how would people do it today, and then add the crazy technology factor, and then add the twist that is comprised of the Shadowrun world. Maybe the corruption might be a factor or maybe they would just send four force 6 mages at you. Honestly when given only half of the story it sounded like all of the team made it out without a scratch and after more was explained thought that it would make sense that quite a few of your team mates got gunned down (although the dead mage becoming a free spirit thing I still can't quite deal with mainly because of the rules associated with that.) None of this was given in the situation, and people will still say that taking on a zero point facility or crazy insane strike team head on = death. Some might find it more acceptable knowing the whole story. But like I said in the end it would have been better to either ask the very simple question, or go into a ton of detail on how everything went down.

[merashin]

the free spirit thing was more of a i got killed in the first few minutes of the game, so they tried to find a way to get me back in, to avoid boredom

[masterofm]

Oh no doubt that is exactly where I think the GM was going with that. Although I would have liked it if after your mage died he took you aside and gave you one or two characters from the strike team to play against your own party and laid out some of his plans for what was going to happen. Would have been less boring, and at the same time might have made the combat more interesting. If I was the GM I probably would have done that if no other backup characters were on scene and if the players at the table were cool enough to not hold a grudge against you. It's kind of like 2 GMs vs *edit* 5 players *edit* at that point.

[merashin]

actually we have 6 players

[Jewish Children]

It doesn't help that one of my players just happens to distort probability around himself.

lol, thats me, in a TM and i roll ridiculously lucky, in RL i have edge 8. It's why in not dead yet, but thats an other matter.

and anyone who questions the ability to repair the engine, well when u have a force 10 machine sprite to help, and roll 24 dies to repair, things go alot faster. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[Platinum Dragon]

I realise I'm late to the discussion but...

Except that it's not moving, hardly ever in fact. Too high profile. We just got our hands on the means to blackmail our way into control of an airport, as well a various utilities around Hong Kong, so we'll have a better means of fueling and storing this thing soon. Meantime it's parked out in the middle of nowhere and serving as a fully stealthed base of operations from which we launch our fully stealthed amphibious submersible citymaster and fully stealthed amphibious motorcycle.

Meantime it's parked out in the middle of nowhere and serving as a fully stealthed base of operations from which we launch our fully stealthed amphibious submersible citymaster and fully stealthed amphibious motorcycle.

launch our fully stealthed amphibious submersible citymaster and fully stealthed amphibious motorcycle.

fully stealthed amphibious motorcycle.

amphibious motorcycle.

...

The mind boggles.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Or, put it the emosamurai way: AWESOME!

[Falconer]

As someone who's been there at the meetings where the financing of the aircraft has been discussed... I'd have to say luxury. I'm only a student pilot myself, but the club aircraft aren't cheap. The wet price for just a dinky little single engine 2 seater is over $100 hour now... hate to see what it is in nuyen for a military grade craft w/ a lot of advanced allows and embedded systems.

Just because people put in luxury amenities though doesn't mean it's livable... EG: just because the limo has luxury fittings doesn't mean it has beds, and dining facilities... it means it has a full wet bar, top flight entertainment, and things to make traveling from point A -> B quite enjoyable. I wouldn't say it included a shower and the like.

They're basically living out of a glorified winnebago. Individual accomodations for 5 or 6 people inside the airframe aren't going to be much better than coffin motel just because of space considerations. So call it low... with maybe some decent common areas (kitchen/entertainment center/cargo-freespace area). If it just floated around like a glorified yacht they're not burning much... and it keeps the maintenance down. There's a problem here though... they can't really do this on the ocean... if the waves are over say 5' they need to be in the air... just because it floats doesn't mean it floats well in heavy wave action (which can damage the wings and airframe quite a bit if not sink the plane). (this is an old problem w/ seaplanes... they need calm bays to land in, and landing on the ocean itself was always a dicey affair).

If you don't believe me chart out the interior of the aircraft. As a tilt rotor, a C-130 would be spacious in comparison. And a C-130 doesn't have all that much space inside. A 130 has roughly a 40' x 10' x 10' cargo area plus the cockpit and a chem toilet. Now start thinking about other bits not included... say you put up coffin type bunks... reasonable space... shower/toilet raises issues... chem toilet is used and discharged after each flight... where are you getting fresh water to run the shower or drink (desalinization is a huge energy hog if you say from the seawater, which brings up the fuel problem). To the GM, I'd suggest actually doing a small exercise w/ the players of mapping their living/cargo space within the plane to figure out exactly how 'luxurious' the accomodations are.

But if they're doing any flying they're racking up the credstick. Airframe parts are wearing out... and they're NOT getting their normal maintenance. Maintenance requires facilities, not just a drone/PC w/ a good roll. We're talking a facility, not a workshop, not a toolkit, a facility. Further they don't have space on the plane for a workshop to even attempt to machine simple metal replacement parts, let alone the advanced synthetics and fancy stuff that's going to go into making this bad boy. I have no issues w/ the story given... and JURY RIGGING a short term patch to the damage. But a jury rig is just a band-aid, not a full repair (the game does include rules stating certain things require access to certain grades of facilities no matter how good you are).

Just my take... rather than being completely silly w/ the arms and such. PC's would be better off selling off the plane in parts (possibly even the entire plane) to other AAA's who want the prototype tech and who can offer protection. Shadowrun is very much a game of connections and part of it when you enter the big leagues is deciding who you do want as allies and enemies.

Hope that helps.

[Matsci]

I realise I'm late to the discussion but...
...
The mind boggles.

Arsenal page 132. It turns into a jet-ski.

[Rad]

Just my take... rather than being completely silly w/ the arms and such. PC's would be better off selling off the plane in parts (possibly even the entire plane) to other AAA's who want the prototype tech and who can offer protection. Shadowrun is very much a game of connections and part of it when you enter the big leagues is deciding who you do want as allies and enemies.

Hope that helps.

Well, that would have been an option, but it's not prototype tech. When we got it all it had was an autocannon, then we jury-rigged it enough to fly to an airfield that had facilities we could use to perform the repairs and upgrades in proper. Some of our stuff is pretty SOTA, but it's nothing new or unknown.

The arms are pretty ridiculous, and we haven't actually used them for anything yet--there always seems to be a better option--but sometimes in a game you want something just for the cool factor.

As for living accommodations, we upgraded it specifically with turning it into a living space in mind. The advanced lifestyle rules allow you to mix and match higher and lower elements into an average lifestyle cost, so rather than making a very comfortable airplane, we made a plane that has bunks/showers/cooking facilities/whatever. So yeah, it's a giant stealthed winnebago with autocannons and VTOL capability. It would be kind of fun to map out what exactly the plane has and where, but that hasn't really been a priority for our group, and we're all willing to handwave past the nitty-gritty specifics of lifestyle and get to the part where we blow things up.

I have to say our tricked-out vehicles are nuts. Right now we're trying to steal drums of a vaccine off of a cargo ship. We figured out it's route and had our citymaster (or is it roadmaster? I'm always confusing the two) wait on the bottom along the coast where the ship would be traveling. The amphibious motorcycle snuck up to the side and released a couple Dragonfly drones (the exploding kind) from the motorcycle's smuggling compartment. The drones took out the ship's communication tower, while our demo guy used a framed charge to blow a hole in the bottom of the ship and our TM jammed the airwaves so nobody could call out with a commlink or anything. Then we raised our submersible van into the hole and used the inflatable pontoons to seal it.

At that point, we realized we could use the ruthenium to mimick the floor of the ship, so when the guards came in to investigate they found an apparently empty and undamaged room mysteriously filled with about two feet of seawater.

Then we shot them all dead with silenced weapons through the van's gunports. Also, our 9x9 affiliated surged shapeshifter panda got one of them. (He's a new addition, played by the same guy as the mage and the free spirit that got fragged when we took the plane.)

The plan is to have some of the team run combat/distraction while the rest find the vaccine and any other useful cargo and stuff it into the van, then we drop out the bottom and blow the ship with charges placed along the way. If need be, the aquacycle and skytrain can come in to lend support fire or pick up more cargo/teammembers. If worse comes to worse we can just blow a hole in the side of the ship and jump out.

We were thinking of playing Drop-Bear with the panda by having him jump onto the deck from our skytrain during a low-altitude flyby (he's got insane soak dice, and wouldn't need a chute if we were low enough) but we decided it was easier to just avoid the weapons and drone racks on the deck of the ship and go in from underneath.

We've definitely left technical realism bleeding to death in a gutter somewhere, but the over-the-top action movie feel of our games works pretty well for us. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[toturi]

Or, put it the emosamurai way: AWESOME!

Ah, emo... kind of miss him around here.

We've definitely left technical realism bleeding to death in a gutter somewhere, but the over-the-top action movie feel of our games works pretty well for us.

I'm glad you guys are enjoying yourselves.

[Rad]

Indeed we are. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Ravor]

What veer did happen to emo?

[Lilt]

The arms are pretty ridiculous, and we haven't actually used them for anything yet--there always seems to be a better option--but sometimes in a game you want something just for the cool factor.

Lol. You wanna get a bow with a Min STR of 30. That gives it a damage rating of 32 (33 using explosive heads) plus a maximum range of 1800m. Compared to the maximum range of a sniper rifle, at 1500m, it wins by 300m.

If your GM says it'd be too hard to find, just point him to the availability rating: 2. You should be able to pick one up from your local outdoors centre.

It's legal too, so you don't need a license!

[/twink]

As for pricing the lifestyle, I'd say they pay full price. Sure, they have a place to live, but they're going to need energy and food and have chosen to live in an area where it's hard to come by. They'd also need to pay for maintenance. Sure, they have extremely good repair credentials, but unless they have replacement parts then they're not gonna be able to repair it.

Assuming you're following standard operating procedure for repairs (as anyone throwing 24 dice to repair something will tell you to do), there are a number of standard aircraft maintenance checks that you'll want to be making. From the sounds of it, you'd need an aircraft shop to do an A or B check, and an aircraft facility to do a C or D check. The number of dice you throw at it doesn't help, because there are some parts you just plain won't be able to reach without the appropriate tools, like winches, and some checks you just won't be able to do without the appropriate tools, like the microwave-based scanners they use to check for minute stress fractures. Tiny, invisible, fractures could lead to the craft falling from the sky if left unchecked. Because you're throwing so many dice, you can probably take a penalty and use a kit for an A check, B checks would require a shop. Similarly you could take a penalty and do a C check in a shop, but you'll really need a facility for a D check.

If the plane is mostly grounded, you can probably increase the times, but staying grounded has its own issues even in a climate-controlled hangar. Their plane is floating, so you've got potentially quite violent motion (natural harbours, at-least the good ones, are generally populated) and various sea creatures are gonna start making it their home. Salt-water is nasty stuff too, and being splashed all-over with it is going to necessitate maintenance anyway. I'd extend times, as it's definitely less stressful than flying every day, but a x3 increase doesn't seem unreasonable, maybe x6 if you want to be kind.

If they steal fuel or replacement parts, let-alone try and steal access to a vehicle shop, they start making even more enemies and people start putting 2 and 2 together. To steal parts, they need to be the parts for your model of plane, and they need to be the parts that are needed. Even their modus-operandi may start giving things away, eventually. Electronic theft (generally done by making someone else pay for it) will eventually be noticed, which can lead to honey-pot traps. Physical theft risks witnesses, and wired communication can't be jammed. It's a risky business, one that quite possibly reveals what type of craft is being used, and more info out there means the net closing around you. It could be risked, but it might be better paying the price in the long run.

How much should it all cost? Well, repairing one box of damage on that thing is gonna cost 15k:nuyen: worth of parts, and that's no-matter how many dice you throw at the task. Assuming that a month's normal maintenance is approximately equivalent to two boxes of damage, the amount of damage it can take before 'wound modifiers' are experienced, they're looking at 2 boxes every 3 months. That roughly equates to another 10k every month (5k if you're being kind)... Doesn't sound too harsh, although it does necessitate regular access to shops and occasional access to facilities. They can ignore this cost, but if they do then just start filling-in boxes of damage on the plane's condition monitor.

You also can't assume that the aircraft had a D maintenance yesterday. I'd roll a D4 and subtract 1 to find-out how many years it'll be before it needs a D maintenance, and roll a D12 and subtract 2 to find-out how many months it'll be before it needs a B maintenance. The reason I subtract two from the B maintenance is that one of the plane's engines was shot-out and it was forced to make an emergency landing. I know they fixed it up using lots of dice, but being wicked-good at repairs only lets you do it faster, and says nothing for the main airframe of the craft. Subtract the time that's passed in-game since it was stolen, and either multiply the rest by 3 or count slowly. That's how long it'll be before they need access to a vehicle shop/facility.

How long will they need the shop/facility for? Well, according to this article, a D check normally takes "between 15,000 and 35,000 hrs. of labour", so an average of 25000. Assuming an extended test with a period of 1 hour, and that it's normally being worked-on by normal crews rolling 6 dice (Stat 3 skill 3), that means 2 hits per hour and thus a threshold of 50000. That's talking about a 747, however. The tilt-wing is probably 1/5th the size (a 747 is about 4.5 times the size of an osprey), so an extended repair test at with a threshold of 10000 and an interval of 1 hour seems fair. Given that the job is innately multi-task friendly, I'd total-up the skills of people working on it and use averages. I think an easier way to do it is to convert it into a daily task, assuming everyone works 16 hours. That means a repair test (416, 1 day), but you can increase the contributions of individuals that don't sleep (drones etc) by 50%. I don't know how good your party are at repairs, but if you assume a pool of 60 dice then you're looking at 20 hits per day, taking a total of 20 days.

I don't have any solid numbers for a C check, but I think that a threshold of 2000hrs doesn't seem unreasonable (that's the equivalent of being out for a week). Using the same time estimation system as above, it'd take ~4 days if your pool of dice was 60. If you tried to make-do with a shop, however, you'd need to remember to subtract the penalty from each contributor.

I don't mean to be harsh in these numbers. I'm just offering them as an 'all things considered' system for keeping the craft air-worthy. 10k/month doesn't seem an unreasonable expenditure, but your opinion may differ from mine as to how much longer the craft will keep when not flying. They can in-theory steal everything they need, although they could also steal everything they need to maintain a lifestyle. They just need to decide where the line is drawn. Is it really worthwhile to steal the parts/fuel, given the risks and identification factor, or would they be better-off doing jobs and using it to pay for said parts/fuel.

[FlashbackJon]

It would be kind of fun to map out what exactly the plane has and where, but that hasn't really been a priority for our group, and we're all willing to handwave past the nitty-gritty specifics of lifestyle and get to the part where we blow things up.

Plus, once you've done up a schematic, you're just asking the GM to use it for combat - usually to your detriment.

Buy the Low Lifestyle and never think about it again? You're perfectly safe. Carefully draft up your apartment with the Advanced Lifestyle rules, sketch out its basic layout and amenities, and use Google maps to locate it in Seattle? You're the FIRST to get ambushed at home.

[kzt]

The 10% SWAG I offered was from a company where the 20 million corp jet required a 2 million/year support contract. Plus the flight crew, fuel, the one supervisory mechanic, etc. Serious aircraft are seriously expensive to operate.

[Lilt]

The 10% SWAG I offered was from a company where the 20 million corp jet required a 2 million/year support contract. Plus the flight crew, fuel, the one supervisory mechanic, etc. Serious aircraft are seriously expensive to operate.

Hmm. That makes sense, in which case I'd revise my numbers above (where normal yearly maintenance would come to 24% of the craft price).

A fairer number might be something like 4.1k/month, probably cut to 2k/month as the PCs are doing the maintenance themselves. I'd still insist they're going to need access to a facility, however, to do a full 'D' maintenance.

[Matsci]

What veer did happen to emo?

My players shot it in the head, blew up the corpse, and burned down the building that it was in with White Phosphorus.

[CanRay]

My players shot it in the head, blew up the corpse, and burned down the building that it was in with White Phosphorus.

So, Cyberzombie Emo will show up sometime working for Aztechnology, supported by a brace of Force 9 Blood Spirits?

I mean, after all, you didn't MAKE SURE he was dead...

...

Sorry, Deadlands moment there.

[Matsci]

So, Cyberzombie Emo will show up sometime working for Aztechnology, supported by a brace of Force 9 Blood Spirits?

I mean, after all, you didn't MAKE SURE he was dead...

...

Sorry, Deadlands moment there.

Strapping a Kilo of C-16 to the corpse, then setting it off tends to insure that they are dead.

[FlashbackJon]

One might think so. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[toturi]

Strapping a Kilo of C-16 to the corpse, then setting it off tends to insure that they are dead.

Provided that Emo did not have Edge left. Which I doubt. Very much.

[Rad]

>long post regarding RL 200X-era aircraft maintenance<

While I appreciate the effort and apparent real-world insight being put into these posts, I would like to point out two things:

1: This is Shadowrun, not Microsoft Flight II: Upkeep Simulator. It's neither fun nor in keeping with the game to spend that much time and detail on micromanaging our vehicles. Do you typically make your characters go grocery shopping and detail what items they have in the fridge? Do you take into account the possibility they could be tracked/identified by their buying and eating habits?

2: The extensive upkeep and associated costs are based on current real-world technology, Shadowrun currently takes place in the early 2070's and includes nanotech that can fuck up your calculations sideways.

...

...sorry, 4Chan moment there.

What I meant to say was that it makes sense that aircraft maintenance would be significantly easier in the Shadowrun universe, particularly if your plane has a nano-repair system. I can't remember if we got that for the plane or not, but it makes sense that modern (ie: 6th world) maintenance would involve heavy use of nanites simply because it's fast, easy, and efficient--all of which would appeal to the corps. Heck, the repair drone we snagged might have onboard nano-colonies, not unlike certain medkits. This reduces our materials cost to generic feedstock gel #12, and makes it much harder to tell what we're using the parts for.

As a final note, what is this Emo thing you guys are talking about? Our team's shot and blown up so many things at this point, I may have missed that one. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[CanRay]

Nano-Maintence System does a lot, but it sometimes needs parts.

Such as the last game I ran when they needed to steal a mil-spec jet engine to repair Kane's Blimp. (Yes, the Shadowtalker Kane!).

They could either do a series of difficult runs against various places (One of which was Evo)... Or... They do what they did. Called in what few connections they had in LA, and found an engine that has all the parts in it.

Oh... Wait... They only have ONE connection in LA. An Orxploitation Rap Artist. Whose yacht had been attacked by a upgraded, gold-plated Neo-Hind Attack Helo flown by the Rap Artist's enemy, a DwarfCore Hair Metal Frontman.

You can guess which jet engine they stole.