And following on from my last post:

"What do people think are the 'best' ways of tacking new SR4 cyberzombies?"

Assume you have a fair bit of warning about it, and some time to plan (IE: You're out hunting it, it hasn't just jumped on you out of the blue).

• Spellcasting at it is difficult because of its background count
• Straight combat is out because it's rock solid and will outlcass any (living) street sam with its mods and firepower
• Phys Adepts (especially melee ones) are almost helpless against it as they sit in its background count and deflate

The only ways I have managed to think of:

• Get a rigger with a big attack helicopter, and mounted rocket launcher ... in fact, why not five of them in case it blasts the first out of the sky. Then fire rockets at it until it stops moving, then check it's dead by firing a few more rockets at it
• Get a good hacker or technomancer to break in and screw with its reality simulators, make it go crazy and kill itself

Any other effecient ways/comments anyone can think of? This is purely for academic purposes by the way ... I'm not preparing (right now) to send a cyberzombie against my team

The hacking method is the "lowest cost" one I can think of, since just throwing huge vehicles and high-powered weapons at it until it falls over if a bit of an expensive thing to do.

Using a huge gun killing the sucker with the first action. Viable tactic for everything, actually

I'm totally lazy, so I won't start crunching numbers on this right now.

Nuke the place from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

you mentioned huge vehicles and I agree with that one. a bored rigger and or decker..er hacker and a riged cement truck? but then i'm more teh mass transit type so a local city bus...or maybe a few taxi cabs... and if that dosn't work theirs always the good old fashioned sniper ambush with ADPS again a rigger type job or some street sams all about 400+ metters away, or for ambushing fun. Command det Land mines. becouse if you want to show you truly care about the well being of your target then nothing says I love you please stay dead like good planing,effort,care,love and HE shape charges and claymores.

And dash posted before I could so heres an edit...damn it using a good movie quote before me hehehe

But not before paralysing and confusing him with nu-disco tunes, followed by a retreat to safty, of course.

This thread is going to be great. Sorry.

True, but you have to expect a cyberzombie to have maxxed out ears, eyes and everything, so the first hit alerts it to your location (if it hadn't spotted you already), then they just approach you real quick and take you out.

The only combat scenarios I could think of as viable are ones where the attacking thing is hardier than the cyberzombie itself (which is going to have 6 points or more of hardened armour, plus whatever sheathing/orthoskin/plating/worn armour up the wazoo)

Attacking it on foot is going to be really risky!

shoot them in the face with a tank

Ask Mr. Lucky to Longshot him in the face. With a minigun, or something.

The Hacker way would not work because I can see the Zombie turning off it's wireless connection and then "turning off" the Hacker for the attempt. No, the best way to take out a Cyberzombie is to hit it with a team of sammies. You'll lose a few, but honestly that's the only way I can see to take one down with the "lowest cost". Vehicles... not really because the Zombie has his own heavy weapons and he might be able to destroy the vehicle before it cacks him.

Another way occured to me... Air Spirits. Summon them and have them lift the Zombie about 30,000 feet in the air and let him drop. While he's coming down, shoot him with sniper rifles ("Pull!" ), rinse and repeat until it stops moving... and then shoot it in the head with shotguns until the head disappears.

heres a thought, lure it to a nuclear bomb shelter, lock it in and don't worry about it anymore

And as soon as the air spirit approaches the cyberzombie it's inside its area of background count, and loses force equal to the zombie's negative essence, which will either deflate the spirit to the point at which the zombie can one-hit-kill it with a blow from spurs, or might even destroy the spirit before it reaches the zombie

OK - a huge huge spirit, maybe - but you'll need in excess of force 6 I think ...

The simple solution is 2 pistols..
..1 loaded with paintball shells containing some form of acid, the other containing whatever you like.

Just apply liberally, and watch them no longer be a problem.


I suppose paintball shells loaded with DMSO + something fun will do just as well

Use the Air Spirit to suck out all the air in his vicinity [or use a water based Spirit to drown him]

Lure it to the junkyard, pick it up with that magnetic crane, and drop it in a car crusher. One conveniently ringed with a large quantity of explosives, and filled with acid (unless lava is conveniently available.)



All right guys, this will take precision timing. I've got the tank loaded into the steam catapult. As soon as it hits the zombie in the face, decker, I want you to fire the main gun...

Any cyberzombie worth his billion nuyen pricetag should have an internal air tank and Oxyrush nanites.

I think biological warfare would probably be the easiest way to kill a cyberzombie -- they have got to have really crappy immune systems!

Also, if you could hack their PAN and turn off their invoked memory stimulator, they'd kill themselves by forgetting to eat and take their meds.

A booby trapped jaberwocky rocket (think roadside bomb) could disable the zombie's ware (if they still work how they did in SR3 anyway) and make him as helpless as a zombified baby.

In fact, booby traps in general would probably be the best idea -- if they're well hidden, the zombie won't see them, and boom! There is no defense test against a bomb (since there's no attack test, right?), and they can easily do enough damage to blow right through a cyberzombie's body and armor.

Step 1: Astrally Project
Step 2: Fly over its head.
Step 3: Cast Mana Bolts down into its Background Count repeatedly until it dies.

Seriously. Cyberzombies are fast, tough, and brutally effective, and they can fit astral enemies with their unarmed combat. But astral opponents can attack them (however ineffectually), in ranged combat. That's a problem.

Cyberzombies need astral cover or to stay in enclosed spaces where they can avoid line of sight from projecting hostile mages.

-Frank

ok, heres a theory i just thought of

being that Cyberzombies are created by magically forcing the spirit to remain in the body, couldn't you hire a team of mages to release the spirit? reverse whatever incantation is used to create said zombie, if the spirit leaves the body, you're left with a corpse

*falls off his chair laughing*

I know..
..But who can last longer, internal air or water spirit ?

Better to have the air spirits pick up a train and drop it from a very high altitude onto said cyberzombie... that way they can avoid the background count.

shape earth, bury it, you circumwent the most trouble of having to cast at the actual zombie, and if he's burried and you shape the earth into solid stuff you can be pretty sure that he won't get out . . else, use levitate to drop him from freaking high in the air down to the ground, falling damage still hurts them pretty much i'd wager . . or drop something heavy ON him . . else, Troll-Bows as they do not get the HARDENED Armor Cyborks get i think . . but i am not sure about that . . turn to goo? petrify?

Internal air lasts two hours. An air spirit using engulf is in melee range with the cyberzombie, who is dual natured (and thus immunity to natural weapons does not apply), and is reduced in force by the cyberzombie's negative essence.

I'm betting two hours is the longer of the two times, unless that spirit is very high force indeed.

I suppose something could be said for greatform spirits. LOS engulf could avoid the combat and background count.

"Okay guys, I've sicked the spirit on him. Now all we have to do is keep him from killing us or going indoors for two more hours... unless he has another tank of air on him...

Yes, you're quite right [I forgot about this negative essence thing].

I'm back to the paintball guns loaded with acid, then

same way you kill everything in shadowrun. seriously, it's not very hard to take out anything in this game. just shoot it until it dies.

I believe a CSA MBT Stonewall Jackson would do the trick so to speak.

Mitsubishi-GM Outlaw: Block III Multiple Launches of 10
Winter Systems Mercury Ship Laser
S-K Taurus Light Gauss Cannon
Aztechnology Itzcóatl Gauss Cannon
Ares Heavy MP Laser
All modded to Fire FA.

Firing from well over a 1km the CyberTarget/Zombie does not see what vaporizes him. His Cybereyes lack the range or details.

WMS

Just something I thought of: Why the hell is it the team against the CZ alone? Isn't this thing worth many millions if not a Billion nuyen? Do you not think its owner would be pretty pissed if you kill it/destroy the company's investment?

If I were the owner I would support it with at least a team of mages excelling in Filtering. I'd also have a recovery/monitoring team providing dedicated matrix overwatch and drone support for the CZ. It will be hard enough to kill off his support alone, and with him there distracting you, things rapidly go downhill.

By the way, where do you usually run into CZ's? I find it hard to rationalize to myself why any corporation would be willing to front that much money for something that highly trained and dedicated team could accomplish just as well. Sure it is totally bad-ass, but it just doesn't make financial sense. It completely goes against the corps bottom line. Whole teams of accountants would be committing suicide just looking at the bill.

I'd use a truck bomb, the explosives rules in Arsenal get into really huge amounts of damage very quickly. 2 metric tons of ANFO will do for the cyberzombie, and the block around him.

I thought about this, and it probably wouldn't work. Your cyberzombie is incredibly fast and quick. He'll be difficult to suprise, and if you don't, he'll go first. If you're not up high enough, he might be able to pull some crazy climbing jumping bullcrap and kill you with a dual natured cyberspur. Or more likely, he'll just hide behind some hard cover and you won't be able to target him with mana spells.

Not high enough is a non issue, the movement rates are so disproportionate it's silly, just stay outside 100m of the cyberzombie. Mana barriers are also, mostly a non issue, blow the damned things down, they will either bee weak from background count or your spells will be at full strength against them. Cover is slightly more of an issue, but air dropped conventional explosives can probably deal with that, depending on how good the cyberzomie's AAA is (the cyberzombie is likely more durable than the cover, and harder to hit).

This is of course a bit of a scorched earth method of dealing with the cyberzombie, but, it is a cyberzombie, so you're already dealing with scorched earth issues.

we have a winner.

If you want crude and don't care about the consequences, just initiate an orbital strike or an aeroplane crashing into him.

Pay Kid Stealth a lot of money to finish the job for you.

Hire a psychotherapist to sit down with the cyber-zombie, and really talk. Talk about his abusive father, his BTL addict mother, his poor upbringing. Maybe no-one ever believed in him. Maybe all he really wants to do is paint. The psychotherapist then tells the cyber-zombie to "just let it out, just let out all that pain!". Of course, this will most likely inadvertently cause the cyber-zombie to let his spirit out of his shell. Oops.

Isn't it wonderful what the team's pornomancer can do with a white coat, a clipboard, a nanopaste disguise and a reclining leather couch?

Man, but I took that sentence in a totally different direction than psychoanalysis in my head. Sometimes being ambiguous is a good thing.

sure beats my idea of tricking him into wearing a bratwurst costume and dropping him into a dragons lair.

You're prolly right about jumping, astral forms are incredibly fast. Though wouldn't it be cool?

And I was talking about nuking the cyberzombie from astral space, that was Frank's suggestion. I think there are very few threats that couldn't be destroyed by a 2070's aerial bombardment, but the thread is about cheap and efficient ways of killing them. If you have an air strike, what do you need an astral mage for?

Panther Assault Cannons are fairly cheap. Smartlink-II, cyber-arm gyromount, vision enhancement, and maybe a tactical computer if you've got one. Lure him into the open and shoot him. If he gets up. Shoot him again.

Green Slime.... What game is this again?

An orbital bovine bombardment works on *everything*.

A Thor shot in the eye.
Or a sign saying "Lofwyr is a wimp" duct-taped in his back (that could be kinda dangerous to put however).

More seriously, 3-4 sammies with APDS/AV loaded Barrets or Gauss Rifles shooting from different locations and with range of 1000+ meters until it drops dead seems okay...

I say it's not that unlikely for a CZ to have a wireless connection open because it'll be operating as part of a strike team BUT apart from everything being heavily encrypted and some nasty IC on the CZ's cyber commlink, there's probably at least 2 hackers right inside of his system. One is there monitoring the systems, diagnostics and sensory input and then another purely for security reasons.
The main problem I see is: How would you deploy a CZ. It's a multimillion ¥ investment AND it's highly unstable, even a gazillion-heavy megacorp isn't just letting this loose without a team of experts covering it's ass.
If he's alone, ye ole manabolt-spam from above will do of course.

Second question: Where would one even deploy such a thing? Cyberzombies have become a lot more badass in SR4 but also a lot more recognizable, being dual-natured, an astral beacon, having an aura that looks like the deepest spheres of hyzmarca's mind and carrying their own background count with them. In the shadows or indeed anywhere outside of open warzones, a CZ will stick out like a feathered serpent in a can of worms.

Has anybody mentioned talking it into committing suicide?

the cheapest way technicly is simple. fire spirit. manafest around his head. and have a few others in reserve jsut in case your using lower level spirits

We could get a giant blender. Cyberzombies - Will it blend? On further thought, I believe that we could...

1. Use multiple street samurai with Panther Assault Cannons
2. Pay a Renraku Red Samurai team to deal with it
3. Pay Kid Stealth or Argent to take care of it
4. Do a grenade barrage (probably White Phosphorus & High Explosive)
5. Attempt to decapitate with a dikoted polearm or katana

Also, the possibility of crushing him to death (maybe a giant boulder rather than a car crushing press) or snagging him with a powerful electromagnet were pretty good ideas.

Or maybe we could just get a dragon to take care of him or drop a brick of about 20 pounds of Compound XII on him?

What about the background count?
He won't even feel them, you could as well throw him some matches and hope he catches fire (of better, has a fire phobia)...

No Dikote in SR4.
You can still try with a monowhip...

Actually, it's better for Mr. Unlucky to burn a point of Edge and score an automatic crit. If you've only got one Edge, it only costs you 3 karma.

The one and only time we killed a CZ was 3rd ed. After chasing us around for the better part of 3 hours (game time) and being unable to kill the damn thing we eventually set up an ambush at a gas station. We put a small block of C4 with a remote detonator into the underground tank, lured the CZ into the gas station and blew the place sky high.

Depends on if your GM actually reads the rules on cyberzombies or not. If not then just pop it with a powerbolt, and have the phys ad whack it with a big weapon focus club. Seemed to work pretty well for us.