Horsepower Haven, Grind the gears here Options

[Kiedo]

my bad, I wasn't thinking it's bolted down pit side and the grating is small enough nobody could get thier hand through it. Relax the racing should commence after you deal with the lightning riders, when it's race time I don't want anything aside from a drunk or two interfering with the action. But as they say, better safe than sorry

[Nikoli]

Well, I was thinking along the lines of:

If I wanted to sabotage a car, how would I gain access?

If a part or tool falls, how do I retrieve it?

What stops the devil rats from crawling up and gnawing off my arm?

[Kiedo]

Oh okay, in that case:

to sabotage a car you'd have to unbolt the grating the day before so you could open it, and judging from the deep water you'll probably need a scuba tank.

Parts and tools should be no problem the grating is very fine, you'd have trouble getting a pencil though it.

The devil rats are held at bay by the half ton grating itself, without a small army of them they couldn't even budge it.

[Nikoli]

[Kiedo]

umm five feet but you cannot see the top of the canal through which it flows.

[Nikoli]

so, assuming it is waist deep for a tall (over 5'10"), A troll, orc or taller human could reach the grate. Might not be able to do more, but they can reach it.

[Aes]

I'll admit the vehicle combat and meneuvering rules aren't my specialty, but in case dice rolls are warranted:

[ Spoiler ]

Handling: 1/3 - 4 for the VCR. I imagine final TN would be 2
Car skill: 05, 03, 01, 05, 03, 06 - 5 successes
Control pool: 02, 03, 05, 04, 05, 02 - 6 successes
The Corsair has an acceleration of 36

If control pool dice cannot be used, that would increase her speed by 36*5 = 180 meters per turn. If the dice can be used, that'd be 396 meters per turn. Probably resulting in her reaching the vehicles max speed of 460, unless she were driving *really* slowly.

I used the rules on p. 142 of the BBB. Am I completely wrong in how I applied them? Also, on the straightway, would it be utterly suicidal to try this? I imagine Maeva would know a bit more about what speed she could safely maneuver at than I, so she'd probably let go of the speeder before going through a wall. :P

[Thomas]

[Kiedo]

no no no the water would be over a troll's head its really deep, it directly connected to a main sewer line the drop from grate to water is about five feet.

What does BBB stand for, I assume it is the core book since p.142 is what your talking about but what does it stand for. Yes we are going to be using SR3 for the driving, there are just too many little differences between R3 and R3R, I don't want anybody to have to play the part of rule nazi. Your control pool is aplicable unless you like to save them for braking, or something else, your TN is as you say 2 so thats fine, I hadn't realized just how fast you can rocket you car up to 396 meters per 2 seconds sounds fast. That can't be right if my math is correct that would put your speed at 712.8 kilometers per hour which if I'm not mistaken is roughly 427 mph no way somebody who can do better math double check that, math has never been my strong point, I'm better at english (except spelling).

And yes what thomas said is true also if all else fails theres always your gun.

[Aes]

As far as I've understood it, BBB is the core rulebook, yes. I'm not quite sure what's it an abbrevtion of.

The part of the rules that puzzles me is that they state your speed goes up by your acceleration times the number of successes. For somoene with a decent sized control pool and vehicle skill, that'll easily be a LOT of acceleration.

Double-checking the power plants list (and adding in design options), an acceleration of 36 is entirely possible. Seeing as she has a decent-sized control pool, it wouldn't be unfeasible for her to roll 12 dice on an acceleration test regularely. And with a target number of 2 (handling 1, -4 for Vehicle rig means that situational modifiers should be greater than +5), she'll average on 10 successes, or 360m/round. I'm not sure where the time units used for a combat round in SR are listed, but I were pretty sure they were longer than 2 seconds. Ah well. Can anyone with greater rules-fu than I step in here? I'm assuming that in-game she's going as fast as she deems safe. We might as well get the rule niggles ironed out before an actual race has started.

[Fresno Bob]

[Sandoval Smith]

An entire round is three seconds long. To get the proper speed conversions, multiply Speed by 1.2 to get KM/H, and .75 for MPH. The Corsair's top speed would then be 552 KM/H, or 345 MPH. Although you can Accelerate every intiative pass, Speed is spread out over the entire turn.

BBB stands for 'Big Black Book' a holdover from SR2, which was in fact, a Big, Black, Book (or it might've been blue, I can't remember). This is no longer quite the case in 3rd edition, so BBB has been phased out in favor of SR3.

[Nikoli]

Also, the speed rating listed is not actually the top speed, it's the top safe speed. You can go past that, but it's gonna cost you in handling.

You can reach a maximum of 1.5*listed speed attribute for the vehicle

Exceeding this limit adds+1 to the Acc./Brake test during positioning phase of combat.

[Sandoval Smith]

You can push a vehicle up to 1.5 their speed rating, and along with handling, if you're playing with Stress, it also incurs stress points.

[Kiedo]

yeah I knew it was fast, I wan't arguing that your car couldn't do it I was just thinking that it was a bit outlandish(maybe not in 2064) for a car to be going that fast, the rules allow it so I'm on board, that faster thinks can move the cooler they are. I'm very much looking forward to SR4 which is slated for august fi I'm not mistaken, hopfully they'll incorporate some of the new technology, because really who carries a pager even today.

Anyways your right about the accel/brake thing, I guess it's to simulate a skilled driver squezing every ounce of performance out of a car. It must be combat that is two seconds, something is I'm sure of it. Oh and for the record, stress is not one of the rules I use online(I'm kind of strict on it because I have a munchkin problem offline).

[Sandoval Smith]

Combat is also three seconds. I'll double check my book when I get home, but I am quite sure three seconds is the length given to a single turn.

As for the insane speed of Maeva's vehicle, that's one of the reasons why it's said that GMs should be careful with allowing custom built vehicles. It's not hard to throw together something really out there.

[Fresno Bob]

I think part of the problem is that they allow you to make a sportscar with a freakin' jet engine in it...

[Aes]

Not that it's any more implausible than having a hovercraft - which has something VERY close to zero traction - survive a hairpin turn at more than 5 kph. Or for that matter, a troll soak a shot from an assault cannon. And don't even get me started on the rules regarding explosives. :P I like to think of Shadowrun as an action movie myself, rather than something that has any basis whatsoever in real life. Saves you a shitload of headaches.

But yes, I'm all for toning down acceleration myself. With a rigged initiative of 13 + 3d6, and a handling of 1, Maeva will likely be able to go from 0-345mph in 3 seconds consistently. That being said, the top speed of a jet engine car isn't that much higher than a turbocharged gasoline engine with 1 o 2 levels of engine customization running NO2 injectors. Only difference being that the jet engine isn't limited to the number of NO2 charges the injectors can carry. I'd be more worried about the ESS motorcycles going 165, 181, 187 and 270mph respectively without the drivers wearing a rebreather to allow them to exhale as well. And I hope to god they have some sort of gyro-stabilization, because you can get some neal nasty pavement allergies at those speeds if we don't use action movie physics. ;)

[edit]

Re-did botched calculations, because I'm used to sensible (metric) speed measurements

[Nikoli]

That's why I was thinking we add bio-monitors and the vehicle computer readouts to the sensor feeds being transmitted. IF someone is basically having a heart attack on the road, or not able to breath, the safety crew needs to know about it and fast.

[Tarantula]

Just so you know Aes, your TN for accelerating would be 1 - 3 for vcr. You have -Rating of VCR, you can't possibly get -4.

[Thomas]

Aes-
Current road racing bikes (and riders) are capable of 190+ mph, and drag bikes do even better speeds in the quarter-mile (200+ for slightly modified street bikes) – no rebreathers required. Heck, thrashing the throttle on my Goldwing will lift the front wheel, and the speedo needle climbs pretty fast too. :eek:

[Tarantula]

Its not that hard to envision the hovercraft making the turn.

You have the turn coming up, you hit it hard in the direction of the turn, lets say right in this case. Say straight ahead for current motion is 0º. Turn to 135º and keep the gas going, this is your brakes. Time it right, slow down enough so that you pass the curve and are accelerating again, while sliding over enough to get around the hairpin. Floor it once you're facing track again, and continue through the turn.

Yes, hovercraft driving is like superextremedrift power racing. But you could do it, especially rigging and all that jazz. (Besides, its handling is a 2(or was it 3?).)

[Nikoli]

And there is always banking to bleed off speed, or directional vents for sharp turns.

[Tarantula]

Right, directional vents make a big difference. Anyway, the point is it isn't even infathomable, and is quite possible to do. Theres one main event I plan to kick major ass in, and thats the rally.

[Nikoli]

hehe.