How is rigging a motorcycle in VR possible? Options

[i101]

You've read the topic if you opend this thread so you got the question right. While in VR modi the rigger leaves technically his body. During a car ride this should be fine.. But lets asume he rides a motorcycle with 120 mph. If I am not wrong the rigger has no control of his body while in VR, which means that his droopy body during a pursuit wouldnt stay for long on his motorcyle.

How do you play this technicality?

[KCKitsune]

You've read the topic if you opend this thread so you got the question right. While in VR modi the rigger leaves technically his body. During a care ride this should be fine.. But lets asume he rides a motorcycle with 120 mph. If I am not wrong the rigger has no control of his body while in VR, which means that his droopy body during a pursuit wouldnt stay for long on his motorcyle.

How do you play this technicality?

The bike itself can have gyroscopes in it to control it's balance. Also the Rigger most likely has the bike set up that if he is going to go VR he has hand/foot harnesses so that he stays on the bike at all time.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Just ride in the Side-Car...
Or strap yourself into the Pilot Couch of the Revolution Doble Monocycle...

[Karoline]

If I remember the rules correctly, it is possible to control your meat body while in VR, but you suffer a -6 penalty to anything you do in the meat. I figure this means that the rigger would have enough control over their body to keep their hands gripped and their legs tucked around the bike (And whatever else you do to stay on one of those things). If I'm remembering that wrong, then perhaps you could presume that the meat body's muscles stay in the same state they were when the rigger jumps into VR. A sitting person doesn't collapse when they go into VR because their muscles are stuck in the 'sitting' position. Similarly someone riding a motorcycle would keep griping it, and so thus not fall off (Though unless there is a gyro or something, keeping the motorcycle upright could be difficult)

[Falconer]

No you don't control your meat body... you take a penalty to your perception tests to notice anything going on outside of VR.. VR disconnects your muscles.


Yeah, the motorcycle would need a gyro (which is also +2 handling, so it's pretty good mod), and also allow it's autopilot to drive it around riderless (normally doesn't work since driver needs to take it off the kickstand and get it moving before the autopilot can do anything, also remember all motorcycles have the manual control built-in. Basically w/o the gyro the bike can't balance while stopped.

After that, again, you'd need something to keep your limp body in place.

[Karoline]

No you don't control your meat body... you take a penalty to your perception tests to notice anything going on outside of VR.. VR disconnects your muscles.

After that, again, you'd need something to keep your limp body in place.

Hmm, I still hold by there being some level of... call it muscle memory. It isn't like you relax completely and flop onto the ground every time you jump into VR, so you can obviously set your body to remain standing while you are out. I don't see why you couldn't set your body to hold onto the bike while you are out.

Also, if you can see with your meat eyes while you are in VR (Which requires the ability to move and focus your eyes among other things) then I don't see why you couldn't exert some small level of control over your muscles while in VR. Maybe not enough to coordinate walking, but just enough to keep you standing/sitting/hanging onto a bike.

[Falconer]

No... you take the -6 penalty to everything, and your control of your body is severely curtailed....

muscle memory STILL needs nervous system (even if you're replacing conscious control w/ reflexes... if I were to apply a paralytic poison you still wouldn't argue the same thing would you... the nerves are cutoff).


I'm not saying the player couldn't rig themselves into the seat somehow. Cowboys could lash themselves into the saddle to be able to sleep and ride at the same time for example. But something similar would be in play, would you allow a sleeping player to stay planted on a maneuvering motorcycle (assuming that's the reason they're piloting it in VR) w/o some kind of restraints. I wouldn't.

[MikeKozar]

I'm not saying the player couldn't rig themselves into the seat somehow. Cowboys could lash themselves into the saddle to be able to sleep and ride at the same time for example. But something similar would be in play, would you allow a sleeping player to stay planted on a maneuvering motorcycle (assuming that's the reason they're piloting it in VR) w/o some kind of restraints. I wouldn't.

If it's the Rigger's bike, then it's safe to assume he's modded it to keep him on top of it, and so I would point this out the the player the first time they tried it in one of those "I assume you extinguished that dynamite fuse when the fight ended, right?" hints. If he tried it on a stolen bike later, I might drop the hammer on him. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) The other possibility is to have a system built into the riding suit - it wouldn't be tough with 2070's tech to have autolocking grips and semi-rigid supports that keep a limp body in the riding position. A really good rigger bikesuit would interface with the bike's pilot to adjust posture as appropriate - if you were sitting straight up while doing 160 in a car chase, people are gonna think you're 'Weekend at Bernies'.

[Udoshi]

Gecko gripping on motorcycle suits or bike racing armor seems like a cost-effective solution to this problem. After all, sometimes you really want to stay on our bike.

[i101]

I dont like the idea of side-cars, pilot couchs and gecko grips. This would mean that an unmodifed bike couldnt be rigged in VR except it had a few of this extras mentioned before. Hand/foot harnesses and autolocking grips are a reasonable solution, which I could imagine as a standard feature of every raw bike.

Thanks for those suggestions guys n gals. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

[Stahlseele]

THere's one really good Novel dealing with this a bit. I just can't, for the life of me, remember the english title <.<

[Chrysalis]

There is a thread on this, but for the life of me can't find it.

[OneTrikPony]

the title of the novel is 'Dead Air' writen by Jak Koke, and it is not good. I don't expect more than mediocre writing in shadowrun novels but this was one of the worst. Definitley a step down even from his Dragon Heart Saga trilogy. Not to say I havn't read it more than once. I love the shadowrun fiction but this was almost as hard to stomach as Shadow Boxer; wich I've never been able to read all the way through.

"Dead Air" is about the LA Sabers combat biker team. The part relevent to this thread is that the bikers wear specialized armor that locks their legs a feet into the bike so they can ride hands-free to wield weapons such as macroplast whips, maces, and ranged weapons. One particular reason the story sucks is because the characters are clearly 'rigging' the bikes, (ie; recieving all the bonuses a jumped-in character would recieve in SR3), but they are not in VR under the effects of a RAS (reticular activation system) overide.

Apparently FASA writers (especialy Jak Koke) weren't held to any accurate portreyal of the rules system. And why should they be? Jumping into a bike you're actually sitting on is one big hole in the rules that gapes like a prolapsed asshole. Any one who's ever ridden two wheels should be fully aware that no matter how big your gyro is, duct taping 70Kg. of dead weight to your cycle is just unworkable.

[Jhaiisiin]

My own rigger runs a motorcycle as his primary vehicle, and runs it in full VR. Of course, he's using a modified passenger protection system so he's fully enclosed in the bike (similar to, though not quite the same as a Tron bike), so falling off is never a concern. He doesn't dare VR rig an unmodified bike though.

[The Monk]

It could be that since the rider uses his body on turns while riding the bike, in VR his body becomes a mechanism which the bike utilizes to control and balance the bike. Essentially his body becomes the gyrostabilizer.

[hobgoblin]

the RAS override that VR makes use of its the same natural system that we use each night when we go to sleep.

but if one observe a sleeper, one will see that they do not just flop like a bag of bones. they twist and roll to change pressure areas on their body (on people unable to move their own body, say from a spinal injury, one have to do this aided to avoid whats called "bed sores").

the SR3 opening story talks about the decker not bothering to will her face into a socially acceptable shape when jacking in, leaving the troll telling the story a bit unnerved when looking at her.

[Falconer]

Page 139 arsenal...

A credible argument can be made that you cannot rig an off the shelf motorcycle.

Manual control override lists 3 options...
Drive-by-wire: a switch to completely disconnect the autopilot from the controls and assume manual control w/o interference from enemy deckers/riggers.
Manual Control: the vehicle simply cannot be controlled at all by the autopilot/rigger it lacks the necessary servo controls
Secondary Controls: many of us have seen this in drivers class where the instructor has his own controls on the passenger side.

Last sentence... "Note that ALL motorcycles come w/ manual controls."


IE: I put forward the argument that any motorcycle which is going to be rigged REQUIRES having a rigger adaptation to control. Said rigger adaptaion probably includes things like gecko tips on the seat or the like to hold the rider in place (or flat across the top while in full VR). It makes sense... autopilot can't turn the front fork w/o some kind of special motors/hydraulics added, as represented by the rigger adaptaion. (by extension, means you couldn't offensively hack a go gangers bike if he was chasing you either, except to shut down silly stuff like gridguide).

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Page 139 arsenal...

A credible argument can be made that you cannot rig an off the shelf motorcycle.

Manual control override lists 3 options...
Drive-by-wire: a switch to completely disconnect the autopilot from the controls and assume manual control w/o interference from enemy deckers/riggers.
Manual Control: the vehicle simply cannot be controlled at all by the autopilot/rigger it lacks the necessary servo controls
Secondary Controls: many of us have seen this in drivers class where the instructor has his own controls on the passenger side.

Last sentence... "Note that ALL motorcycles come w/ manual controls."


IE: I put forward the argument that any motorcycle which is going to be rigged REQUIRES having a rigger adaptation to control. Said rigger adaptaion probably includes things like gecko tips on the seat or the like to hold the rider in place (or flat across the top while in full VR). It makes sense... autopilot can't turn the front fork w/o some kind of special motors/hydraulics added, as represented by the rigger adaptaion. (by extension, means you couldn't offensively hack a go gangers bike if he was chasing you either, except to shut down silly stuff like gridguide).

This is very much in keeping with how I would adjudicate such a thing...

Keep the Faith

[cndblank]

If I remember right, couldn't the level of paralysis in VR be raised and lowered?

Certainly it wouldn't take much for a person to hang on to a bike if he was also rigging it at the same time.

[MikeKozar]

(by extension, means you couldn't offensively hack a go gangers bike if he was chasing you either, except to shut down silly stuff like gridguide).

Two words: Power brakes.

[LurkerOutThere]

Rigger adaption takes care of these things. Also as others have pointed out RAS override is a safety feature it would be simplicty itself to keep the leaning of the body active and tie it into the control mechanism augmenting the bikes existing gyroscopes.

Finally, it's a world with DNI, magic, sub-orbitals etc etc and yet people have a hard time believing that someone could come up with a way to stay on a bike while in full VR

[Borbag]

Arsenal 142, rigger cacoon
basically it's a fire resistant bullet proof metal plated box instead of a seat. i don't know if it can be installed to bikes or not.

[hobgoblin]

Finally, it's a world with DNI, magic, sub-orbitals etc etc and yet people have a hard time believing that someone could come up with a way to stay on a bike while in full VR

the more out there the fiction is, the more correct the mundane parts needs to be (or something like that. i know some scifi buff or other made a statement of such a nature).

[LurkerOutThere]

While i am familiar with the thought process Hobgoblin however my point is this, there is a specific cost and addition for making something rigger compatible. I do not fathom why when the technology is already quite advanced everyone acts like they've found a glaring hole in the setitng just because it's not explicitly stated that for motorcycles full VR integration includes some way of keeping the rider mounted and the motorcycle steady.

[Ravor]

Just skimmed the thread, but it seems to me that it isn't much of a stretch to figure that part of the program uses the Rigger's own senses to keep him body balanced and thus outright on the cycle.