[X] My Assistant

[tete]

I think it would be as simple as a single node for 4a (though it might be a less interesting game) as you can already remote start your vehicle from a few feet away in real life. Stealing a car isnt exactly rocket surgery.

[edit]
I broke in and hotwired my own bronco 2 once because I didnt have the keys and its not like I had the professional tools to do it (I screwed up my electronic lock pretty good in the process to, the price you pay for only having a coat hanger). The ignitions are smarter now but I'm sure the cops have some way around it when they need to.

[Drace]

If it's more convenient for your players you could also treat a car that is off as simply having its node running silently. That way it is still accessible of you know where to look (which a RFID 'key' would).

For the most part though I see shadowrunners carjacking as either a short term set of wheels or to sell to a fence who specializes in reselling stolen cars as a means of getting rid of evidence (a sr4 adventure I think in corporate guides has a used car dealer who does that in the side).

For street games or games where the players will e carjacking regularly and wishing to use the vehicles somehow they would probably need a full facility and space (most likely masquerading as an autoshop/dealer with the needed Ids and licenses) and extremely powerful RFID tag erasers and an abundance of RFIDs they can program themselves (a car with none is a red flag). Unless of course thy are running a chop shop in which case I would say they just need the erasers and depending on what all they are taking either a shop or facility. All lined with wifi inhibiting paint.

[kzt]

If you want real automotive security, you remove the battery from your car at night. That only works if it's a combustion-engine car, though, removing the kinds of batteries that drive an electric or an SR4 hybrid gas-electric engine is a no-go without an auto garage.

On a Prius there is a 12V battery that run the relays between the high voltage battery system and the drive motors If that battery dies or is removed the car isn't going anywhere under it's own power.

[DrZaius]

This old chestnut.

-DrZ

[tete]

If you want real automotive security, you remove the battery from your car at night. That only works if it's a combustion-engine car, though, removing the kinds of batteries that drive an electric or an SR4 hybrid gas-electric engine is a no-go without an auto garage.

That only stops the starter which technically you can spin by hand... I've never known anyone to do that. However you can buy a starter battery thats good for a couple starts and its less than a foot long and full of AA batteries. Its supposed to be for when your battery is dead and you dont have anyone to jump it. I would think 2 Lantern batteries would be the way to go for multiple temporary starts but maybe thats not enough amperage.

[ShadowDragon8685]

That only stops the starter which technically you can spin by hand... I've never known anyone to do that. However you can buy a starter battery thats good for a couple starts and its less than a foot long and full of AA batteries. Its supposed to be for when your battery is dead and you dont have anyone to jump it. I would think 2 Lantern batteries would be the way to go for multiple temporary starts but maybe thats not enough amperage.

Alright, fair 'nuff, but most would-be thieves won't have one of those on the off-chance their target is paranoid enough to remove a massively heavy battery from their car and remove it to a large enough distance that it is not practicable for the thieves to simply reinstall it.

Then remove something else, too. A spark plug or something. Anything which is reasonably easy to remove when you park the car at dawn or dusk or whenever you put it down and go to sleep, and just as easy to reinstall when it's time to go.

[nezumi]

Like I said, distributor cap, cable, or the little spinny inside it. A car can run with one bad plug. Distributors are cheap to replace, but you have to know what's wrong, and it's a specialty part you're not going to pick up at Wal-Mart.

I'm also rather partial to the Mr. Bean method; take the entire steering wheel.

[DMiller]

Or you could just be a normal U2C and expect that your stuff is safe because the Corporations© say so. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Edit: Except for technomancers, they are EEEEVVIIILLLL! and nothing you do can protect you from one of them (except turning anyone you think is one over to the Corporations©). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[tete]

The problem is all the easy parts to get to are also common to buy. You would have to find something generally uncommon and easy to remove but much like internet security and getting away from the dragon you only have to be a harder target than the guy next to you.

[Drace]

You could just cover the door handles in mono-razors and the only way in is a manual key on the end of a big stick. But then again you would have to be very paranoid for that. (But working next to a tow company for a few years I have actually seen two cars with that..)

By 2075 you would also assume that physical immobilizers are more advanced, perhaps also with a manually disengaging wheel lock, plus how many car thieves are going to carry a cyberdeck, mono saw, key sequencer and auto picker/lock picks?

Almost is starting to sound easier to steal cars from C zone or worse, or just car jack and taser the owner.

[Supine]

I mulled this over a while and decided that the best move is to walk up, spoof a command to start the car and open the door (Assuming there's an auxiliary node in the car for receiving remote commands when the car's off), bust into the car's node and hack yourself an Admin account as stealthily as possible, and then plug in physically to the car and use its node to Jam on the Fly using the car's node as you drive it to a remote, matrix-isolated garage for cleaning. Assuming you don't get caught hacking it, that prevents the car's RFID tags from communicating at all on the way and it prevents the car's node from doing anything incriminating. Then once you get it home, you strip the whole thing down to the frame and run over it with a tag buster and a signal scanner, put on a morphing license plate and all the gear to make it look legit, and you hire someone to forge the registration and service data over the car's history. If you don't want to keep it, you can probably just take 15 to 20% of the car's value and dump it off to some shady characters wherever they may be.

[Orffen]

We've moved on to SR5 and haven't stolen any cars since, but in our SR4 games it was always assumed the node is on 24/7. Your commlink is your ID/car key so the car has to listen. Maglocks are slaved to the car's node to let you in.

Also, why would manufacturers not have AROs up always showing make/model/features/pricing and a link to the dealer's page? Seems like a waste of advertising opportunity.