Vehicle design for SR4 Arsenal, guess what.... Options

[maeel]

Well, many have already voiced the opinion that the lower power setting doesn't suit the gaming style they're used to. The lower power setting also includes vehicles, where the citymaster becomes the topic of your riggers wet dreams...
However the overall powersetting can be easily adjusted by giving players more BP to deal with.
With vehicles it is not that simple. I for myself found the vehicle design rules awesome, and they actually were the reason for me to try to play a rigger, which i still do and enjoy.

Unfortunately i have to admit that riggers have not one of the vehicles in their arsenal that can be found in the books, simply because those just fit for the needs of your Runner/Smuggler/Merc or pirate and that is an understatement.
People especially RPG players and among these especially shadowrun players want to be creative. There is no better feeling than finally bringing that new weapon, cyberdeck, drone or whatever into play and see how it performs.

The plastic warriors and other resources on the internet even on dumpshock are a good example how creative people can be, and how much fun it is for them.

Our beloved developers should know and understand the satisfaction of creating something new......

So i employ you, unless you want shadowrun to become a game of technomancers, mages and adepts only, please reconsider your decision.

Everybody feel free to post his or her thoughts.....

[Bandwidthoracle]

Honestly, I'd really have to see more of the game to say if we need this, are we meaning riggers built their own, or rules for GM's to make their own?

[Kagetenshi]

There's always the SR3 method, in which it allows players to design their own vehicles but is explicit that it is outside of the means of characters to build their own.

~J

[apple]

Exactly this is the problem: players and gamemasters do not need rules to design vehicles.
- Real vehicles can be converted on the fly, just the handling (and the new name) must be decided (yes, and some other values, but in many cases, range is not that important).
- Exotic vehicles are a problem, if no template exists or if they go into extreme levels, because the design rules are, like every other design system (even the character design system) problematic, when it comes to extreme values.
- Variants? Just use an existing vehicle and talk with your GM about changing some values.

Some for guns. Give us a very large list of usable and well-designed vehicles in the arsenal, give us some good customization rules and I will be very glad.

SYL

[maeel]

The problem i see is that we will not see freight submarines, freighters and alike, which you need if you wanna play a pirate campaign.

It is, of course, out of the question that a character designs and builds his own vehicle. But if you take the Rigger3 for example, most of the vehicles in there are, and i apologize for my rude tone, fuck-ups.

Our gaming group has agreed that if a player designs a weapon, vehicle or spell that he can choose wether his creation is something available to the world, meaning that at some point npcs will use it against us, or only the character can have it, which makes the item extremely expensive, with weapons costing several hundred-thousand and vehicles being unpayable.

So most of my creations are actually vehicles that have entered mass production.
And since the devs. havn't shown much talent in designing vehicles (sorry for my honesty :P ) , i think it would be better, if they include more than just customization rules. The design rules took up about 20 pages in the book, that's not much to do for the players freedom.....

Converting SR3 vehicles might be an option, and should they offer a conversion guide, i'd be happy about it, allthough this might be problematic, since many attributes have been changed.

[the_dunner]

[Kagetenshi]

It may be the only practical solution, but the "free-form the design" option is a bad solution. It defeats part of the purpose of buying a game in the first place.

~J

[nezumi]

I think the poll is a bit biased, but...

I don't think we need the ability to design and built vehicles. It takes up a ton of space and its really confusing. I've only used it once, and that was as a GM.

We DO need rules to customize vehicles. That's different, and keeping it sane (like just prices instead of design points with no idnication of the conversion costs) would be nice.

Design *guidelines* for GMs wouldn't be bad, but since it's the GM, simplicity is preferred. There's no reason to make a huge calculation of it.

[Kagetenshi]

Do you play Riggers or other vehicle-oriented characters?

I've used those rules dozens of times thus far, and I expect that number to only increase. The spell design rules, meanwhile, are so much wasted space for me (and, some might be surprised to hear, the deck-building rules—I am a lamer and buy pre-made), but I'd rather they exist than "just free-form it" be the suggestion.

~J

[Bandwidthoracle]

[blakkie]

The poll is extremely biased. :P So much so that i'm not going to even vote in it.

Instead i'm going to write in my own answer in long form.

A wide selection of stock vehicles, at least a basic one of each appropriate size for each vehicle catagory. Then a wide selection of aftermarket items that a mechanic can apply to the vehicles.

For example 4 or so optional levels of performance/economy ignition control modules that you can use to replace the stock one to increase vehicle acceleration/speed but using more fuel, or use less fuel but lower acceleration/speed. There is a fixed cost for each of the modules, and you can just go buy one like you were buying a lamp for your house. It would have a Threshhold associated for the B/R test for installing it. You install each piece at a time, or i guess if you were adding a bunch of things to the vehicle at once you could total up all the Threshholds and do it that way. That makes it more risky that you have a Glitch or Critical Glitch on the whole project, so you'd have to handle that somehow.

The goal would be to have something approaching the R3 rules flexibility, but in about 1/5 the pages. EDIT: And something that doesn't scream out for a custom computer program or large moderately complex spreadsheet to try track all the variables involved.

[Darkness]

Mmh. That strongly reminds me of the rules in ye olde Rigger Black Book waaaay back in SR1. And i remember that someone posted *somewhere here* that Rob Doyle himself had stated, that such a system similar to what you described here, was to be used for advanced customizations and such.
Is there any confirmation for this?

[Kagetenshi]

[blakkie]

[Kagetenshi]

Rigger 3, page 102, first page of Vehicle Design:

[Cynic project]

[apple]

[mintcar]

I don´t care about vehicle design rules. Riggers are cool. Lets have lots of customization options instead.

[Kagetenshi]

Because once you start making things up on a grand scale like that you may as well have saved your money on the game in the first place.

~J

[apple]

[Blacken]

If the rules aren't written in, I'm going to convert SR2's rules to SR4 (they're better than SR3's) for my and my MUD's own use.

[blakkie]

[Kagetenshi]

Items added in customization are expressly allowed to be done by characters. There's no vagueness there either.

~J

[blakkie]

[nezumi]