Car Questions, As GM I am God but still... Options

[252]

Okay, here are my questions that were thrown at my by two of my gamers.

Spark Plugs supposedly can have their ceramics ripped off and thrown at any window, even car windows, and they will puncture a small hole, and crack them up.

Is this true, and what kind of backing besides I know so can you document.

What about armored glass, yes this is important. Because the vehicle in question was an armored car.

Also supposedly armored glass in an armored car can easily be slammed out. I see this as being made more as a safety in case of a fire procedure. Not because it is actually week. If the manufacturer wanted to make it so, it could be just as resilent as other armored vehicle parts.

If you could help me out fine, if not. I'm GM, I'm the freakin God in my game. So that is all I need.

[mfb]

someone has been feeding you filthy, dirty lies. go wash your mouth out, then hit them with something sturdy.

[Arethusa]

A spark plug? Think of what any comparitively small, relatively lightweight piece of metal thrown will do.

Consider yourself the victim of players throwing bullshit at you, knowingly or otherwise. Sparkplugs will not puncture glass better than anything else, much less ballistic polymers, and you cannot just push out armored windows. It just doesn't happen.

[edit]

Listen to mfb. He's got the right idea. Violence is not the answer— unless the question is "what is totally awesome?"

[Zephania]

let them think it does until a really inoportune moment and then
" BWAAHAAHAA you really thought I'd let you get away with that!? Now you're trapped underwater and the leviathan is closing in fast..."

[252]

The thing of pushed out was not the way of the question was to be sounded as...

I meant slammed out as in, two legs slamming into the windshield, while the body is firmly braced against a seat. A very strong position for repeatedly hitting something strongly. I do not mean, I push up against the window, and pop out it flies, with 1 psi. Hell you breathing too hard would result in the window flying out.

And you seem to not understand that I'm talking about the ceramic piece within the sparkplug. I don't have any pictures here to show. But there is ceramic in it. I don't know if it is chemically any different from some of those ceramic pots and pans and what not. But it could be...

I agree with chances are that these guys are talking about crap. That they have no idea about. Because I'm not finding much of anything about this. And most of these guys didn't get much past high school. Not saying that they doesn't mean they have to be stupid. But it does mean that they may lack certain advanced knowledge skills of such stuff we are talking about.

[Arethusa]

Even so, they are not intended to pop out. That would be a major security hole, no pun intended. If all it took was someone of sufficient strength and a construction grade suction cup, any light armored civilian vehicle could be popped in seconds. It's not unfathomable that a window could be designed to release. It's unfathomable that anyone would want to do this. Also, remember that these windows have to be capable of withstanding impact that could dislodge them quite easily. Stopping bullets is not an easy thing, and lots of energy is being transferred quite rapidly.

As for the spark plug, ceramics do not necessarily have to be porcelain, but that still doesn't mean anything. You can't throw a spark plug through an impact resistant window without taking that thing supersonic, and I'm not even sure then. Ceramics have little to nothing to do with that. And since you mention chemical composition, keep in mind that ceramic's basically chemically inert for all practical purposes. Has nothing to do with this.

In short, your players have, knowingly or not, been feeding you bullshit. Perhaps they're quite stupid. Perhaps they're just incredibly ignorant. Perhaps they're just really duplicitous. Perhaps it's something innocuous and completely other. No one's really making any judgements of your players, and I'm not really sure what you're getting defensive for.

[RedmondLarry]

Thief with Spark Plug breaks window

Broken Spark Plug insulator used to break window

Young thieves use Spark Plugs to smash windows

Police suspect that a spark plug is the new weapon of choice for breaking windows

Thieves use a simple spark plug to break window

[Arethusa]

As much as I'll admit I am surprised at that, it really doesn't mean much (though, as the second link says, I'm surprised I've never heard of this before). You can and I know of people who have punched through windshields with their bare hands. None of this has much to do with allowing you to punch through ballistic glass.

[Frag-o Delux]

Most of those seem like the theif used the whole spark plug.

EDIT: The original post post was talking about plain glass, then also asked for opinions on armored glass.

As for the regular glass, you said you were not interested in "Because I know" stories, so I will not say.

Armored glass? Hell no. A bullet has a hard time doing it. I man powered projectile most deffinetly won't.

[Arethusa]

Also worth noting that they were not thrown, as the first post suggests.

[Frag-o Delux]

I have seen what I was told to be spark plug ceramic used as a thrown window breaker.

I can tell you a thousand and one ways to get into a car. Some more subtle then others and a lot to get around alarms if you wish.

I can not provide links, as the people I was with at the time were not very photogenic. I can probably get some letters from them, if they are still in the jails I last knew they were in.

I can tell you how to get into most buildings also. I still use some of those tricks at work, when I get locked and leave my swipe card in on my tool box. :)

[Austere Emancipa...]

Those links talked about a sharp impact breaking a safety glass -- glass that's supposed to break into bits when hit by something hard. I'm guessing a spark plug is good for this because it's small (easy to conceal), rather sharp (small area, large pressure), sturdy and ceramic (which means it's almost completely inelastic). You might as well use a small metal rod or something similar, spark plugs are simply easily accessed and concealed and rather inconspicuous.

Also, based on those links, a thrown spark plug would be a very unreliable window-breaker. Although, assuming car side windows really are designed to shatter whenever they are handled roughly, who knows.

Armored glass is specifically designed to not break, regardless of how hard you hit it with hard, pointy things. A spark plug won't be of any use trying to break through one. None. You'd have to get the spark plug to hit the armored pane at bullet velocities to stand a chance of penetration, and that's all you'd get -- armored glass just doesn't shatter.

Also, as was already said, armored glass does not pop out of place, not unless the vehicle in question is made extremely poorly. Or if the braced person doing the kicking is a cybertroll with hydraulic jacks and the glass (and the vehicle) is only lightly armored.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Jul 3 2004, 03:07 PM

[252]

Alright thanks for all the help.

Could anyone tell me if this ceramic thrown weapon would work on one of those ballastic armored glasses though. I mean for certain.

I don't need documentation. But it better not read like some cheap story that I could buy for fifty cents from some moron down the streets.

I doubt the characters will ever get into the same situation again, I think I was way to light. I have to be meaner to these punks definitely the ones who whine out of character at me. I hate it, but I got to roll with it.

[Cray74]

[Snow_Fox]

Fro car windows in 2004 sure, but that's because finding a rock in Harlem is hard and you draw attention to yourself if you walk around with a brick or cinder block in your hand.

If it's a known problem now. I think we can safely say, even without the awakening they'd have fixed it in 60 years time. certainly armored glass is not going to be so vulnerable.

[Plastic Rat]

I note that the SAFETY aspect of popping out windshields (I take this to mean from the inside) was mentioned, and yes, I would allow someone to do it in game, especially from the position mentioned. Sitting in seat with both legs kicking at glass.

In most cases to avoid people being trapped inside a car, a car windshield should be able to be kicked out from the inside, armored or not. In many accidents, whole windshields are known to come flying out from the housing. They're designed to withstand impacts from the outside, not the inside and I don't really see this changing a whole lot in 60 years.

The spark-plug thing, wow, guess you learn something new every day. (Nice links Our Team). Going through automotive school we learned pretty much every abuse of innocent mechanical objects you could imagine being perpetrated, including what happens when you connect an arc-welder to a car battery and turn on the juice (DON'T try this at home kids). And in that time I NEVER heard the spark-plug ceramic - window thing. Where I grew up I guess we pretty much stuck with the traditional half-brick or tyre iron.

I'd would like to find out a bit more about this. But if it works now, I don't see why it wouldn't work 60 years from now (although I would say spark-plugs would quite a bit rarer than today). I would probably let them get away with it on normal glass, but armored glass, nope, I'm pretty sure the manufacturers would plug that particular security hole quick, fast and in a hurry.

I'd rule a throwing weapons test doing say STR(S) base damage against the object resistance of the glass. Armored,... possibly tripple or quadruple it's rating.

[BitBasher]

[Jason Farlander]

How about, rather than requesting proof that a thrown spark plug can not break armored glass (which probably does not exist in as direct a form as you would like), you demand that your players provide an example of a spark plug being used to break armored glass in real life before allowing them to use that tactic in-game.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Eyeless Blond]

Indeed, it's not like a spark plug is anything special, or that the ceramic tip is necessary at all. In fact, most emergency response teams carry window punches like that one that will safely and easily punch through most glass types. Plate glass and safety glass will break easily when you apply a large force to a sharp point, which is why spark plugs and other objects that can focus your hand's mass into a small impact area work well. Safety glass in particular is designed to shatter on impact into small non-jagged pieces so you don't get cut up when your windshield breaks, so even improvised window punches work very easily.

Armored glass is different, though, for the exact reasons everyone above mention. Armored glass is designed to *not* break, and so it won't.

[Kanada Ten]

I will totally go on a tangent and say that tempered glass shatters on contact with an IR laser beam, and even armored glass melts away. Why doesn't the tool laser come in the hand? Why must I get a cybereye there first? ;)

[Cray74]

[Kanada Ten]

[Arethusa]

Any glass, not just tempered should fair horribly under an IR laser. As for ballistic glass, given that it's not glass at all and often a polyemer, resin, or some screwy combination thereof, I'd say there's much more room for interpretation as to whether or not it has any effect.

Also, why would this spark plug business possibly not work 60 years from now? One word: Lexan.

[KillaJ]