The Punknaught in SR, Rediculous? Options

[toetag]

I used to play CP2020 and one sourcebook had a wacky vehicle called the Punknaught. It was basically a sprawl ganger tank made out of junk.

I have been working on a basic demolition run story where Lone Star gets wind of a gang building one of these and then started thinking that the idea may be a bit far fetched.

So the question is: In your view, is the Punknaught a rediculous and unreasonable addition to SR or does it seem like just the sort of thing a gang might use to get a leg up on the competition?

[masterofm]

The bigger question is why? Bringing out a tank into the streets draws attention. Are they that confident that it will be of any use? Are they just fark nuts crazy? Do they have the local police in their pockets? Some people don't need a junker tank, and why bother when a vindicator attached to a junker APC will do the trick?

Tanks require a lot of upkeep, and I know a buddy who used to repair tanks during the gulf war. Tanks are big, and the barrel is also huge. You need a very secure chassis to even begin to think about firing it especially when using a high caliber shell. They are heavy, and slow, and big. Although it would be interesting to have a gang that thinks they can get away with building a rough shod junker tank to only find that the gun recoil just annihilates the vehicle that they built. Remember there are a whole lot of other ways these things can go wrong and a gang with any brain in their head who does any kind of research will know that you can't half ass when creating a tank. At one point another tank repair crew was doing some work on a tank and replaced a barrel. They put in the twenty-four 3/4" steel bolts but didn't set the barrel correctly inside the tank so when they did a test fire since it wasn't properly placed in the tank when the barrel fired the force of the recoil sheered off all of the 24 bolts and would have killed the occupants inside (which is why they do a remote practice fire every time do repairs on a tank.) Even with these huge like 6"+ inch 3/4'" steel bolts. Needless to say some people were doing shit work for a loooong time, and my friend was able to take one of the sheered bolts which he showed me. It was a very clean cut.

The more interesting idea is if LS is just worried about collateral damage. Sure the junk tank might demolish itself and take out the rival gangers at the same time thus solving two problems, but to have something like that hit the street even for a moment might make them loose their juicy contract for the area they are supposed to protect. Have the gangers building the tank just some crazy drugged up gang who have gotten where they are by extremely brash moves that although end up generally being blood baths, but they have a lot of recruits and pull in quite a lot of wanna be gangers who end up getting put on the front lines and killed. It is throwing the neighborhood down the tubes and they realize that even if this stunt causes more damage to the gang using the weapon then the rival gang that they can't afford this. The gagners also supply a lot of street drugs in the area so after they pull in recruits they get them hooked on a cocktail of drugs, and right before sending them into battle they give them some kamakazi or some serious hard core combat drugs.

LS can't put pressure on the gang, as they have someone very powerful backing them and so they hire a group of runners under the table. The contract is big, and if they can turn the neighborhood around they will be set for life and there is a fat promotion to the chief of LS security. He wants to take down the gang badly, but is afraid of the higher powers at work who are supplying them with high end combat drugs. There is also a question of why this gang is being funded to turn this area into a war zone. Maybe there is something more to this whole thing going down then anyone can ever realize? Why are things in this neighborhood going so bad so quickly.

It would be a nice spring board to a larger campain.

[Rad]

Yay dumpshock. Guy asks a question about a fictional vehicle idea, gets a long post about RL experience with tanks.

If I'm reading this correctly, the idea is not a "junker tank", but rather a tank-like vehicle cobbled together from spare parts, a-la Junkyard Wars. SR is not a mechanics-shop simulator, and all these RL concerns about stresses and recoil are pointless in a game that has man-portable assault cannons.

I could totally see this happening in SR--though not often. Picture it as a one shot thing one of the crazier gangs gets the idea to do, or something that happens occasionally in really isolated parts of the barrens where's nobody's going to care that gangers have their own tanks, and the gang leaders are essentially 3rd-world warlords anyway. The Spikes especially I could see doing this.

As far as rules, if you wanted to give it different stats from just a normal tricked-out APC, I'd suggest applying the glitch rules from the streetsweeper shotgun in arsenal. That'd be a good way to represent something cobbled together that might fall apart if you push it too hard.

Personally, I'd just use the normal mechanics and fluff it. IE: Those extra points of armor actually come from a cast-iron door welded over the driver-side window. A cookie to the first person who gets the reference. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

[masterofm]

I gave a RL story, because it is an important example of what happens when you screw up and how important trying to mount a barrel on a tank is. Not because I'm being an ass to other people who are just trying to be helpful.

He also said "junker tank" and so if he is thinking a tank made out of junk parts the vehicle might have one shot in it. Tank factories exist for a reason. I also gave some interesting ideas to run with. Something big sends up warning flares, but if there is some reason why LS just can't rein hell on them it makes the idea more plausible. It gives a story that has substance behind it.

Maybe I should just be snarky for thinking up such a reason.... it seems to be the way dumpshock is heading.

[kzt]

Rad wanted:

"Oh, that is SO cool!" I bet it would be even better armored than a citymaster. How about 30 armor and 25 body?"

Sadly some ideas are really just not very good.

Remember that SRworld is where a private security company set off a nuclear weapon in the middle of the second largest city in UCAS and nobody got very upset. LS has very heavily armed aircraft that would get it in under 5 minutes after it was spotted.

[Rad]

I gave a RL story, because it is an important example of what happens when you screw up and how important trying to mount a barrel on a tank is. Not because I'm being an ass to other people who are just trying to be helpful.

He also said "junker tank" and so if he is thinking a tank made out of junk parts the vehicle might have one shot in it. Tank factories exist for a reason. I also gave some interesting ideas to run with. Something big sends up warning flares, but if there is some reason why LS just can't rein hell on them it makes the idea more plausible. It gives a story that has substance behind it.

Maybe I should just be snarky for thinking up such a reason.... it seems to be the way dumpshock is heading.

Yeah, I was a little harder on you there than I needed to be. I just get ticked off when people respond to an in-game question about guns or vehicles with alot of RL technical knowledge that has 0 bearing on playing shadowrun. The example you gave isn't important unless you're actually planning on building a tank, because in shadowrun there are specific rules for designing and building vehicles.

Going back and reading the rest of your post, I see there was some interesting story ideas in there as well, so sorry if I wrote it off a little early. Just keep in mind that not all of us are gun-nuts or engineers--and those of us who are aren't always interested in mixing that with our roleplaying.

It's like when RL martial artists respond to a question about the combat rules with a dissertation on how it should work: Interesting to some, but it's not relevant to the question and for most people is just damn annoying.

Rad wanted:

"Oh, that is SO cool!" I bet it would be even better armored than a citymaster. How about 30 armor and 25 body?"

Sadly some ideas are really just not very good.

Remember that SRworld is where a private security company set off a nuclear weapon in the middle of the second largest city in UCAS and nobody got very upset. LS has very heavily armed aircraft that would get it in under 5 minutes after it was spotted.

Not really. That's the other extreme. I just don't like it when questions about the game are responded to with in depth discussion of real life things that have no representation in the rules.

And like I said, I don't picture this being used outside of the zones where lone star doesn't bother to travel. If the gangers were dumb enough to stray into star-patrolled territory with one of those things, well...

[Crusher Bob]

Part of the problem is that the science of armored vehicle construction has gotten considerably more complex and exotic material oriented. For example, if you have some good welders, it would be possible to attach enough steel plate to a bulldozer to make it mostly immune to rifle fire (see home made tank rampage. The problem is that modern tanks are much more than just a lightly armored box. Even the cheapest anti-tank weapons will go through it longways, as they are made to disable real armored vehicles. Plus it would have to be warded to prevent a spirit from simply manifesting inside and killing the crew.

An interesting alternative story is that the gang steals a 'historical' tank for a specific rampage or distraction. For example, a bunch of guys with too much time on their hands have restored a Panther, of something. The gang steals it for the fun of driving around in it.

[BlueMax]

Part of the problem is that the science of armored vehicle construction has gotten considerably more complex and exotic material oriented. For example, if you have some good welders, it would be possible to attach enough steel plate to a bulldozer to make it mostly immune to rifle fire (see home made tank rampage. The problem is that modern tanks are much more than just a lightly armored box. Even the cheapest anti-tank weapons will go through it longways, as they are made to disable real armored vehicles. Plus it would have to be warded to prevent a spirit from simply manifesting inside and killing the crew.

An interesting alternative story is that the gang steals a 'historical' tank for a specific rampage or distraction. For example, a bunch of guys with too much time on their hands have restored a Panther, of something. The gang steals it for the fun of driving around in it.

The science in 2070? The same one that understands magic?

[masterofm]

It is fine Rad and thank you for looking at my post a little harder. The RL example was just to consider what goes into to constructing a tank. The lets make a big metal bad assed thing with some weapons and see what it does kind of thinking was WWI tanks, and they kinda sucked. The other example of the SR setting is how the hell could gangers get away with something like that, because if there isn't something there to stop LS from punking the crap out of those gangers the minute they find out what is going on then there could be no Punknaught in SR. You might even piss of the local mage chapter with a stunt like that and gangers don't fair well against high force spirits with immunity to natural weapons.

If there is fear of something greater it not only gives you a reason why a shadowrun team would be hired, but somewhere to go from there. You stop the tank, but lets say their recruitment is still being bolstered for their tactics. Maybe LS hires you to find out how they have been recruiting people, maybe the gangers actually do more complex versions of recruitment then gangers actually do. The leader might be some crazy drugged out psychopath, but maybe his right hand man might be a powerful mage who is a totally black trench coat pro.

Maybe the gang is backed by Horizon and they are testing out a new form of subliminal messages and using this gang and the area around it as test subjects using trid broadcasts on the demographic shows for latchkey kids. Maybe it is working but making them more violent then they anticipated and creating mental disorders. The tank might be nothing big, but it can open some interesting story development. Maybe it is a shell version of Horizon and is actually not Horizon at all but a group of vampires who are using some Horizon tech that they stole to try and create a ganger cult. They are trying to tweak it, because of the fact that they want more mentally stable sheep to follow their bidding. Maybe LS is convinced it is a AAA at work and is afraid that if they move they will suddenly mysteriously cease to exist. Maybe LS has also been effected by the subliminal messaging and that is the actual reason why they have not moved in on the gang in the first place. Through RP the party might notice that the LS officer they have been dealing with is getting more and more on edge, becoming erratic and that if the party looks into it they might notice that LS violence has been on the increase in the area ever since this gang started up.

The biggest point of SR is how far down does the rabbit hole go.

[Crusher Bob]

The science in 2070? The same one that understands magic?

It's probably possible to get ~20mm thick steel plate in the correct shape, and find someone competent enough to weld it together in your garage so that is won't come apart when hit. It is probably not possible to get ~20mm thick face hardened steel plate, and definitely not possible to get ~20mm thick chobam (or whatever). It also not possible to weld chobam in your garage. And considering that anti-tank weapons are designed to defeat a considerable amount of modern armor material, the punknaught is basically only going to be good against rifle fire. Even simple 25mm and 40mm anti-armor grenades will penetrate more than enough steel (~50mm) to go right through any steel armor you could put on your punknaught.

[Kanada Ten]

Smoke, black and hot, choked the crew as the panzer careened into the Barrens; it's remaining engine whining like a dying banshee. It skidded and slid on the oil slick road until slamming a pile of rubble. A blackened dwarf threw open a hatch and tried to climb out; the smoke followed him, coiling about him. The Vultures descended. AR suites sputtering into life, the panzer wreck became laced in orange schematics, lines of weakness and load-bearing bolts. Others would arrive sound, but with their bulky and bizarre cyberarms, the gang tore, sawed and torched with practiced efficiency. They all knew how much this carcass could be worth, loading the meat onto the backs of few trolls they collected and perfected into hulking backpacks of cyber and skillwires. The birdman heard the others coming from his perch, his bulbous ears picking up their engines a few miles off. Quickly, the Vultures took what they could and shambled off.

[masterofm]

Not before the internal kill switch was activated so that the tank couldn't be scrapped first frying the electrics on board and cooking off the ammo cash blowing up the tank from the inside. In under two minutes the attack choppers with force 7 movement come in and extract the crew making sure the tank is completely demolished. DU rounds make the tank a large pile of metal still worth scrap but not much else... yet in the badlands scrap metal is always worth something.

What would shock me is why a tank is not part of its brigade or an armored division. Tanks move in formation and it is how they do the most damage, there is also kill switches built into any take to make it a large pile of scrap metal. SR should be no different.... except maybe when the crew flips the switch the tank just auto detonates instead of waiting for the crew to escape.

[Blackpool]

I say go for it. Instead of worrying about all the reasons not to do it like are being rattled off above, just do it. Find a vehicle in the rules, up the Armor and Body a little bit, add a fixed mount panther assault cannon and have the gang run that thing around the Barrens and your PCs have to deal with it. I'd be more than amused with it as a player and I think describing the chaos as a GM would be fun to.

Even if it gets blown up, the gangers can always make another and just keep perfecting the idea until it's solid and useful for what they want. Maybe it's just securing their territory, I mean what other gang is going to piss with the gang with a tank? Not many. Unless they build their own tank. Ha! Perfect excuse, escalating gang war! See, the idea is not that far-fetched. If a gang or gangs had access to a large junkyard and had the tools and skills to build a ghetto tank, why wouldn't they do it?

Basically, if you think your group will like it and it has a solid idea behind it, I see no problem with it. Don't listen to all the nay-sayers around here. Have some fun and think outside the box of "canon" and "how it works in RL."

[kzt]

Whatever.

SR is where Blackwater nukes Chicago and everyone thanks them, then hires them to help clean up the mess.

LS or any corp security team would obliterate any gang producing that kind of threat and nobody would care.

[BlueMax]

It's probably possible to get ~20mm thick steel plate in the correct shape, and find someone competent enough to weld it together in your garage so that is won't come apart when hit. It is probably not possible to get ~20mm thick face hardened steel plate, and definitely not possible to get ~20mm thick chobam (or whatever). It also not possible to weld chobam in your garage. And considering that anti-tank weapons are designed to defeat a considerable amount of modern armor material, the punknaught is basically only going to be good against rifle fire. Even simple 25mm and 40mm anti-armor grenades will penetrate more than enough steel (~50mm) to go right through any steel armor you could put on your punknaught.

In 2070? Chobam is today. 60 years ago folks were telling us we wouldn't break the speed barrier. Today people are telling my my kids "Viraly Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome" is an extension of asthma (not kidding on that one..). Its a Fantasy game where will power can summon the same force of a small nuke.
In first edition there was this cool note about how in Shadowrun Armor tech outpaced weapon tech but I don't think its been carried forward.

[masterofm]

No one really said no to the idea. Some people just gave constructive advice on how to handle tanks roaming around in the streets as his question was "is this within the confines of SR?" Not this idea is awesome so I'm implementing it. If someone made that post it would be A - needless, and B - only create flaming. The poster actually had an interesting question as to how this could be done and still fit into the SR world.

However that being said if you want to play it all pink with no explanation then that is fine, but if you want to play black the only reason why a tank would be out in the streets would be for a very sinister reason. It would probably be even bigger then just a bunch of gangers deciding to build a tank in an area where LS has a contract.

[Shrapnel]

Yeah, I was a little harder on you there than I needed to be. I just get ticked off when people respond to an in-game question about guns or vehicles with alot of RL technical knowledge that has 0 bearing on playing shadowrun. The example you gave isn't important unless you're actually planning on building a tank, because in shadowrun there are specific rules for designing and building vehicles.

Sorry, Rad, but sometimes RL has the best examples...

For instance, I give you:

The Colorado Bulldozer Rampage

Toetag, if you want to have your gangers build a Punknaught, I say "Go for it!"... In fact, I like the idea so much I might just use it myself. Thanks for the inspiration!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/notworthy.gif)

[Crusher Bob]

Note also that you'll see plenty of 'technicals' in places where there is no greater power. A punknaugt in Seattle wouldn't last 5 minutes. But you could have one on every street corner in Mogadishu (or similar places).

[kzt]

A punknaugt in Seattle wouldn't last 5 minutes. But you could have one on every street corner in Mogadishu (or similar places).

yup. Just because LS doesn't patrol the Z areas doesn't mean they don't maintain a pretty effective surveillance network covering them.

[BlueMax]

yup. Just because LS doesn't patrol the Z areas doesn't mean they don't maintain a pretty effective surveillance network covering them.

your tempting me to ask about this in another thread. Not because I don't agree but because I don't know where to stand. Reading Feral Cities I get the impression that nobody maintains network, surveillance, over well... feral areas. I'll need to cross check and ponder more.

[masterofm]

Lone Star officer 1 "Well sir overhead surveillance picked up what looks to be a tank. Its shape and heat signature make it out to be that at least."

Lone Star officer 2 "It's probably nothing lets just leave it be and do no followup investigation what so ever."

Lone Star officer 1 "Yeah that sounds like a good idea I am totally on board with doing no follow up... oh yeah and three drones spotted it opening fire on a building."

Lone Star officer 2 *looks at the vid feed* "No that is probably some birds. Some attack pigeons and it seems like the building fell because it was probably structurally unsound."

Lone Star officer 1 "We have also gotten over 80 phone calls reporting on the ground that there is a tank moving in the exact same path that the drones are painting the image of again what looks to be a tank."

Lone Star officer 2 "Not my problem, and anyways it's attack birds. It's obvious when you look at the picture."


Trid feed from later that day with a biosculped elf shown in front of an exploded building

"Rampaging birds kill 70 wound 45 and destroy three buildings. Hi I'm Amy Jones reporting on this horrible scene where it was reported that a tank like object composed of attack birds rampaged around the city destroying cars and the a local gang The Blitzes. During this time three buildings just happened to collapse one that was reputed to be The Blitzes and the other two were apartment complexes. After the carnage the birds drove back into a warehouse and when Lone Star burst in on the scene not five hours later they found what reported to be not birds, but a large hunk of metal. Where these attack birds are the world may never know, but we should all stay in doors because you never know when the next bird attack will come. This is Amy Jones Trid news at 11."

[kzt]

Does the IDF patrol Gaza? But somehow someone is able to kill people who decide to launch rockets from schoolyards before they get off the grounds. And isn't it odd how all the carefully hidden tunnels full of explosives got hit by airstrikes?

Many very bad things can come out of areas without government that are full of desperate people. It certainly makes sense to keep an eye on them.

[masterofm]

kzt you speak crazy. I mean that just makes sense. I mean haven't you herd of the ostridge syndrome?

[Brigandier]

On the one hand, I've always been a really big fan of pink mohawk style games. On the other hand, I'd have to say that there's just a point where things get a little too crazy be plausible. I certainly find the idea of a punknaught both awesome and hilarious, and I even find myself trying to brainstorm my own Shadowrun around one, but my immediate gut reaction is 'not in Seattle'. Certainly the Z zones are a wild place and LS doesn't want to go in there, but I'm certain they probably have some amount of surveillance of the area, or at least informants and they'd swoop in to do something about a tank getting built in the Sprawl's backyard... and if not them, probably the UCAS military if they got word of it, simply because gangers with that sort of tech and power would be something they'd want to put down before it got out of hand.

That doesn't however mean, that this sort of thing couldn't happen, it's just unlikely. But, I personally think it becomes more and more likely the further away from a heavily patrolled place you get. Like say... Chicago. Given Feral Cities description of the gangs in Chicago and places like the Makers Collective or whatever that group was called I could totally see it being viable in a place like that. With the background count, magic would probably be slightly less of an issue for the punknaught and since nobody really runs security of the corridor or the CZ except the people that live there, I could actually see it being a very viable thing to deal with rival gangs or perhaps even Bug Spirits. So if perhaps you could think of a run that took a group to Chicago on a day trip, like to retrieve some old data or capture somebody or something, you could probably throw the big clunky junk tank in as opposition for that run without anybody really raising an eyebrow.

Just my 2 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)

[Chrysalis]

I used to play CP2020 and one sourcebook had a wacky vehicle called the Punknaught. It was basically a sprawl ganger tank made out of junk.

I have been working on a basic demolition run story where Lone Star gets wind of a gang building one of these and then started thinking that the idea may be a bit far fetched.

So the question is: In your view, is the Punknaught a rediculous and unreasonable addition to SR or does it seem like just the sort of thing a gang might use to get a leg up on the competition?

I believe it was in Chromebook 2, Chromebook 3 or 4 had the other amazing vehicle: the ambunaught.

I think that thinking on what Synner has said and my own thoughts that Shadowrun is loose enough as a game world that you can literally have anything in it. So why can't you take a truck chassis, cut it in half, put on monster truck wheels, weld on slabs of steel, and paint it pink with spikes?

http://tsoalr.com/?p=867