I recently picked up Arsenal, and I noticed in the charts in the back of the book they list Explosive Ammo as +1 DV, no change in AP. They list EX Explosive as +1 DV, -1 AP. This is different from the BBB, which had Explosive at +1 DV -1 AP, and EX explosive as +2 DV, -2 AP. Is this a typo? Did they nerf the ammo? I've been running 4th ed since it came out, and while EX EX is pretty brutal, I didn't think it game breaking.

They nerfed explosive, EX explosive, gel, and flechette ammo. They woulda nerfed APDS too, but noticed that it sucked enough not to need nerfing.

Thanks, I just went and checked out the Errata on the main site and noticed they added that since I last "updated" my BBB. My players are gonna miss that boo boo.

If you don't finde the original rules gamebreaking, then there is no reason to change the rules.

Lars

I alwasy thought that the AP modifier on it was a little nuts. Given how its been described to work in the past, less like a micro-grenade or miniature cannon round and more like a very impressive explosively actuated expansion/fragmentation, the AP never made much sense to me.

Interesting note - APDS ammo (-4 AP mod) will do, on average, the same damage as EX Explosive (+1 Pow, -1 AP mod). I suppose the days of APDS sucking are now officially over Good stuff.

+1 DV = -3 AP (on average)
So under older rules:
Explosive were equivelant to -4 AP
EX to -8 AP
Flechette to -4 AP
and Gel to -4 AP (based on Impact armor being 2 pts lower than Balistic on Average)

Post Errata (assuming I rember the changes correctly) it's:
Explosive: -3 AP
EX: -4 AP
Flechette: -1 AP
and Gel -0 AP (same assumption above)

Now, +1 DV is obviously better than -3 AP against poor or no armor but -3 AP is better against hardened armor.

If you're not dealing with hardened armor, a low AP versus a high armor can result in piling on penalties rather than taking down your foe. (This can be a GM tool if you want to hurt, but not kill your PCs) As a result, PCs desiring to be effective should always strive to deal stun damage because regardless of whether the DV is over or under the armor, it will always fill the same track. Kind GMs should always use lethal ammo, because you can switch tracks when things get hairy.

Well, they don't suck, but they are not awesome either.
Versus an unarmored target they'll actually do less damage than an Ex-Ex and have an higher availability (but are less expensive)

APDS are actually really useful ammo after the errata, specifically for punching through barriers and hardened armor. Under the original rules, there was no advantage at all to APDS.

Agreed. APDS went from "meh" to "I always keep an emergency magazine." If you're the classic mediocre marksman who carries nothing but a pistol for self-defense it can be a real life saver. It'd be a shame to get killed by a simple Steel Lynx with basic autosofts just because you can't score more than a net hit or two with your light pistol.

Better than that: for the purpose of bypassing armor, APDS was just as good as EX (and did less damage). It is now way more efficient than EX, since it can bypass armors that have 2 more in ballistic rating.

But now, the question is: how do you kill a troll with an armor jacket, dermal plating 2, a helmet, and a ballistic shield with a gun? That's 18 armor. Sure, he wouldn't be able to wear all of that in the street without raising attention, but when storming a facility after a backdoor B&E, this isn't completely stupid.

You could do that with EX at creation, but now it seems imposible.

Don't forget the FFBA that's in Arsenal now, too.

Yeah, trolls properly using a ballistic shield are tough cookies, but that's kinda to be expected. In your example they'll make something like 5 or 6 hits vs. a 9DV -2AP shotgun blast (Base DV+ExEx+1 net hit), which means it'll likely take more than a shot or two to knock one unconscious, much less kill them. Just remember what we're talking about here though: You're essentially trying to take out the rough equivalent of a bear here, except it's a bear wearing body armor, a helmet and wielding a ballistic shield. It's going to take a few shots. It gets even crazier once you start adding cyberlimbs into the mix, but then of course, we're talking about an armored bear with metal limbs, so I don't really know what you expect there either.

There's PPP too, but neither of those 2 make sense in my opinion ("Oh, we designed a full body armor but we didn't put supplemental plates on the legs and arms even though it doesn't really make it more expensive, because we didn't feel like it! You have to add them yourselves"). And they just add to munchkin-factor, transforming a rookie runner into a tank that's almost invulnerable to anything but what was considered "naval damage" in SR3. They're so efficient that I don't see any security guy or runner not wearing them if he has the body - which means that people would not use any firearm smaller than vigorous/panther AC.

Why do you keep saying invulnerable? It's rather hard to stage bursts down to nothing even if they are stun without going the theoretical troll route, and it's pretty easy to nip that instinct in the bud. I'm willing to live with things being a li'l silly at most extreme high end if it makes things more playable at the low end. After all, in the case of Joe 2-5 body, things are in pretty good shape, and the trolls we're talking about in this case are practically walking bunkers with the level of gear/'ware you're talking about.

Well against foes with Armor ratings of 4 or higher (IE - the vast majority of serious enemies), it's mathematically provable that APDS is exactly as effective as Ex-Explosive rounds. So the question of which ammo to go with basically comes down to situational elements

Ex-Explosive
--better against targets with an AV of 3 or less
--lower availability rating

APDS
--will rarely, if ever, have its damage converted from Physical to Stun
--better at punching through Barriers
--cheaper
--doesn't explode if you Crit Glitch

Yep, I like me some APDS nowadays

Nerve gas, or a well placed manabolt, or a WP grenade. or four WP grenades.

It's not. With 1 net success, an Ares Predator punches through armor 9 with APDS, 7 with EX. APDS is way better since it doesn't get downgraded to stun as often.

Joe 4 body would have 11 armor without penalty, which means he only gets stun damage from a HMG, or an APDS loaded predator. Or a sniper rifle. Unless the guy shooting at him rolls well. I'm talking about a .50 browning here, the kind of weapon that rips supermuties to shreds in Fallout, so I don't think anything short to full body/SWAT/Militari armor OR a ballistic shield coupled with standard armor should stop that.

I'll allow FFBA to stack but with the standard rules for encumbrance, not their "encumbrance/2" rule. If it's so good nobody considers not getting one, then it's probably a bit too good. Makes me think of Dikote.

APDS is also quite expensive, particularly if you apply some markup for availability and it being F.

-"250 a clip!!!!! It's like killing guys by throwing nuyen at them!" (Simon, serbian sniper)

Cheers!!

Max

You think armor is too stackable in SR4? Even the worst of tank munchkins will get PASTED by weapons that are available in chargen. Take for instance a tank troll with 40 damage resistance dice (which I think is more than you can get starting out from chargen, if not more than you can get period). Now take a standard Assault Rifle firing a narrow full burst with ExEx ammo. The AR does 16P, -2AP. To resist that, you'd need, on average, (16 x 3) + 2 dice, or 48. As is, the ridiculous troll still takes a few boxes (assuming no staging up from net hits). All it takes to kill the tankiest tank that ever tanked is a couple mooks with assault rifles emptying clips into him. That's a lot, but it's a far cry from naval damage.

The only things that are really nigh invulnerable are high force spirits, since the biggest damage booster (full auto) doesn't affect their hardened armor. Though, of course, they have 0 armor against magical attacks, so it balances out.

Not in vanilla. Yes, though, if we consider FFBA. Weapons are supposed to kill, not to stun, and a browing .50 not being able to pierce the armor that a body 4 character wears is just ridiculous.



Stun damage. It's FAR from what I call pasted. Also, you're not firing at him with a light pistol here.
Against a body 4, armor 8 guy, Standard assault rifle ammo would be weak unless you aim well, and we're talking about armor without encumbrance here! An ares predator (a HEAVY pistol) would barely bruise that guy.

Now, a full auto with ExEx is not supposed to hit you (that's 7 uncompensated recoil on most AR). If it does, of course you're going to feel lots of pain... (if someone hits you with that, use edge. it's what it's here for.)
FFBA, with the curremnt rules would basically make anything short of an assault canon with AP rounds deal stun damage on a body 5 guy. That's just nonsensical. The world of shadowrun is deadly, characters can use or burn edge, have to use their brains and abilities to stay alive. If they want to take less damage, they (my players) can add additional armor layers, at the cost of agility and reaction. That's what some SWAT teams do nowadays, I don't see why low-body shadowrunners wouldn't sometimes sacrifice some agility for survivability.

Pistols are if anything overpowered in SR4; modern body armor that's available today stops pistol rounds rather effectively. As for the assault rifle thing, remember that any time you connect with a shot you already by definition have at least one net hit boosting your damage value, so it's only going to take two net hits with everyday ammo to start threatening physical against someone in an armored jacket, which is kind of a problem for the defender since it's really easy to have an 8+ firearm dicepool while it's rather difficult to have an 8+ ranged defense pool without eating into your initiative passes. I personally wish that AP was a little higher on many of the rifle and assault rifle type weapons, but as it stands now a Barret 121 will handily deal physical to the majority of targets, and knocking someone out and pushing them into physical overflow is often more effective than dealing physical anyway since heavily armored individuals tend to have higher Physical Tracks than Stun Tracks.

Modern *light, and partial body* armor stops Heavy pistols rounds efficiently? We're talking about armor that makes a desert eagle useless, and that's light armor, because armor vest isn't a SWAT suit (and armor jacket DOES stop any non-critical predator round). I wouldn't call guns overpowered with that kind of light armor. Remember that armor rating also takes into account the fact that some parts of the body are unprotected. It makes sense that an ares predator could deal lethal damage against a guy wearing an armor jacket and no helmet: that's called "Don't leave your brain matter on the ground".

The barret is a sniper rifle. It deals tremendous blows in vital organs, punching through armors as if it was paper. I'm not that much a specialist on sniper rifles, but I recall that they can do that kind of stuff.

Having 8 dice in an NPC dicepool means that the NPC is a professional. A tough minion. 8 die is a lot, fairly specialized runners have 14 dicepool in good conditions (except for munchkins, but I never think about them when doing calculations).
Now, a body 4 character is affraid to get shot by an AR EX burst? First of all, that won't be a damage soaking type, so it either means an agile type (and then, yes, you can use an action to dodge, if you even need to) or something else (and then you can always pile up armor and lose some agility. So what, it's not like you were a vital part of the gunfight anyway; that, or -1 agility won't change much, or you have magical/mystical armor on top of your jacket and you barely care.)
Or you could just grin and bear it. If you can't stand it, you shouldn't be in such a situation to begin with, so it shouldn't happen too often. When it happens, we're talking about a burst; that's 9 DV, and the damage reduction roll has 11 dice, so it goes back to 5-6 damage. Painful, but not deadly. But then again, shadowrun IS suppose to be about doing tough things against unforgiving adversaries, in unforgiving conditions.

And if the guy goes narrow full auto, he empties his dice pool because of recoil. That's -7 dice. Unless you're fighting a very tough guy, this is easy to dodge. If you fail your dodge... well, it's suppose to be lethal, isn't it? Maybe you picked the wrong fight (and even so, that's only 16 damage, it's totally possible to survive that without burning edge. Of course, you're unconscious and dying, but that's what your biotech specialist is for).

I think that things were relatively good with BBB, and that the only problem come from this stackable-with-only-half-normal-encumbrance-factor thing, which doesn't make much sense to me anyway. I'm just changing it to "stackable but with the normal helmet/shield rules"

Actually, I think 40 is the absolute maximum you can hit from chargen.



You realize that does nothing to address the SecureTech PPP system right? Since that utilizes the standard helmet/shield rules?

Shield/Helmet rules aren't very clear. The way I read it, it does create encumbrance. It's just that it does stack in terms of counting armor.


BBB p149:




Helm/shields don't count as stacked armor but DO count as armor items. Different armor items add their armor ratings for encumbrance, unless stated otherwise.
PPP does aswell: it makes the armor heavier, less flexible, so do gel packs. That's how I run my games anyway.


Besides, my point is simple: if an item is clearly a better option than the others, with no significant drawback, then it becomes standard. PPP wouldn't even exist as an option if it didn't create encumbrance: it'd be standard issue. Same for FFBA: any 2+ character would get one since it'd make max armor raise to body*2+3. And then it's Dikote all over again.

Yes, shields and helmets do create encumbrance.

The downside PPP causes, is that it stacks with everything, like shields and helmets. This lets someone turn their basic armored clothing 4/0 into a 7/8 rating armor, that is still as low-key as armor clothing.

Or, this lets someone take their armor jacket of 8/6 and turn it into 11/14 armor (assuming they have the 7 body needed to not be encumbered, or aren't worried about a little encumbrance). While still not being a full body suit.

Lastly, this means the really big tank guys, once they can acquire SWAT armor (12/10) base, throwing on the PPP and the SWAT helmet get to 16/18, and thats WITHOUT a ballistic shield!

Yes, it can be encumbering, but if its a troll, chances are it won't be, and it will be the trolls who try to pile on the masses of armor like this.

Orcs can do nasty stuff, too. But your troll doesn't need PPP to reach 18 armor, and that's almost his maximum before being a useless wall that cannot shoot an elephant in a corridor.

Trolls are supposed to be tough to kill. They're huge, can wear armor plates almost as think as a light armored vehicle's, and in game term cost 40 points and have to deal with all the disadvantages of being a troll. So yeah, they hare 3 times as hard to kill as a standard 4 body military soldier or lone star officer, but he dodges like crap, is almost impossible to miss (I think you get bonus dice against him), is totally vulnerable to APDS-loaded panther XXL fired by a guy with a bit of experience with that gun. Nearly as much as the 5 body/10 armor streetsam. Of course, smaller guns are much less efficient against a troll, and you won't see that APDS loaded panther very often, but that's the point of playing a troll.

Edit: however, PPP does make orthoskin/dermal plating useless. Especially if it can be concealed on an armor jacket. So I gues you're right: once again, an item people wouln't think about not using.

I never said our light armor can do it, just that we have armor that can do it. In Shadowrun, they've had another 60 years worth of fictional advancements in material sciences to draw upon along with a theme that franly thrives on action movie logic. Shadowrun armor is tremendously resilient by design. The idea that people can take a shot or two but keep on kicking is built right in, which is one of the reasons why hit locations are glossed over and not considered a part of the rules as much as possible. Whether armor is partial or not only matters a whit if the GM is determining if a location may be considered vulnerable to an armor bypass attempt or not, and even then he has extremely broad leeway.

And heavy pistols evolved as well. Better alloys, better barrels, better powder; the new pistols are tremendously powerful by design. And a predator cannot punch through an armor jacket, so it's alright as it is, really -at least that's my opinion. The super warhawk can, but that's a small assault canon . I'm always imagining Shadowrun as a deadly setting, and having armor so efficient compared to gun just kills all that feeling. Especially now that they've reduced the power of explosive rounds and ExEx.

APDS is too cheap and easy to get, though; I have no idea why corpsec wouldn't use large amounts of them, since they don't have to worry about availability and illegality, and that they're cheap. Easy way to kill infiltrating streetsams! I think the price is 100 times too low or something. Any idea?

What I would also agree with is that, on the other hand, the rules for vehicle armor make them a bit weak: You can trash an armored vehicle (15 armor, so something like a light military vehicle, a patrol hovercraft, or a light T-bird) with a full auto of HMG with AV rounds. Yes, that's a browning .50 firing with AV rounds, and I would understand it if it *could* do some damage to a lightly armored vehicle. But 120 nuyens to rip a quite-heavily-armored vehicle to shreads is just crazy, and would make anything but main battle tank armor useless. Anyway, I think this needs a complete overhaul. Oh, and limiting armor to 20 points makes no sense either; MBT are supposed to fight each other with light gaussguns (why did they give up railguns?). Which means that they probably can sometimes withstand a light gauss gun hit; That would put a MBT's armor in the 40s, and a light tank in the 30s, which seems consistent with citymasters having 20 armor.

Wait wut?

Well, you can have bonus armor, concealed, "available", cheap, at no essence cost, and with the same drawbacks. The point of orthoskin-likes was that you could wear them "on top" (well, more like, under ) of an armor jacket. Same for bone lacing.

Here's my analysis of stuff like hit locations and heavy armor: Armor, hit locations, and math. It covers armor penetration, modeling of heavy vehicles, hit locations, and various other stuff.

Okay, but it doesn't take encumbrance into account.
I am not against full body armor turning browning damage to stun; but a 4-body guy wearing it will be somewhat encumbered.
Your maths basically say that an armor jacket is okay as it is. I fully agree. FFBA isn't, however, at least not in my game.

Edit: I don't see how your values differ so much from SR4... well, you did give arbitrary values for armors to begin with. Although, turtle shell makes no sense IMO: 22 armor means that you can basically laugh at an A-10 tank killer firing at you (heavy autocanon that can take out citymaster-class vehicles). Also, your MBT armor equivalents are a bit light: modern M1 have 1000+ mm RHA front armor.

Edit: okay, 44 armor for a tank is a bit much. For MBT, I'd say 31-35, depending on how good the model is; that's the kind of vehicle that a heavy tank gun with armor piercing round seem to have been designed to take down.

SR gives an armor number by abstracting the body coverage and how effective it it at stopping attacks.

So, yes, in SR an armor jacket can stop most of the weapons in the game. But it doesn't cover your hips, etc.

It's kind of stupid when you think of it (since bullets don't hit average parts of the body), but it's part of the the whole abstraction bit that underlies a lot of the the game logic. So deal with it or do hit locations.

Handguns in SR are hugely more effective than they should be, and shotguns, rifles, LMGs, MMGs and (especially) HMGs are significantly less effective than they should be.

You can only make handguns marginally more powerful even with all the cool stuff. Recoil goes up as MV and bullet weight goes up. See this video to see what happens at the extreme...

Effective AP ammo (particularly APDS!) in handguns is a silly idea, but it's been around a long time in SR and I don't expect them to stop the madness any time soon. Fix it if it bothers you in your game.

A-10s are shooting at the rear and mostly top armor, which is much thinner. That's why they strafe in a fairly steep dive. More like 2-4 inches max.

Yep, that's what happens when you're dealing with a low granularity system, unfortunately. Pistols are better in the shadowrun universe, but when I said "overpowered" I should have been more specific-- I really meant that they're overpowered relative to modern day assault weapons. Things have moved on in the setting and killing a person with modern firearms is easier than ever unless they're countering you with equally modern firearms. And honestly, as kzt pointed out, it's kinda silly. Firearms are a rather mature technology. We're already at the point where many of the major advances in firearms is more on the production and maintenance end than anything. We've had rather effective weapons for ages now, and even the AK-47 can shoot a guy pretty dead, it's just innaccurate since it was designed to have broad tolerances for fouling rather than as a pricely calibrated match grade weapon. Since those days it's really been about approaching the holy grail of having a weapon that's precise AND low maintenance, since we've got the killin' people part down pretty well.

Anyway, I'd say your assessment of APDS is way off though. First of all, it's easier to get arrange for Synaptic freakin' Boosters tailored out of your own cells than it is to arrange for APDS, and the stuff is effectively like throwing 7 nuyen at your opponent per round. I typically limit my vanilla corp-sec goons to having one or two long arms in a facility loaded with the stuff in the event they're hit hard by shadowrunners using strongarm tactics like big Spirits, combat drones and the Uber-Troll who just won't go down, but that's really about it. They honestly couldn't make ammo prices any higher without things utterly failing the sniff test, because the stuff is already quite expensive as it is by IRL standards. I've already got a houserule in my own games that rules that "flechette" ammunition for shotguns costs the same as normal ammunition for other weapons, since it's not like 0 buckshot is some groundbreaking new technology.

Yes, and they can wreck light tanks.
Their DU ammo has 68 mm penetration, I doubt it's enough to split a heavy tank open. (in game terms, I'd give something from a -4 to a -6 bonus to armor penetration against a tank when attacking from the air).
I wonder if their standard ammo is good enough to damage any tank, although it would damage a light armored vehicle, I'm sure of it.

I also can understand how a browning loaded with expensive ammo can destroy a 16-armor vehicle. That's a vehicle with light "real" armor (as opposed to the 12 armor of crimson samurai drones and lower vehicle armors, which are just glorified armor jackets), so it gets ripped to shreds. But APDS and AV rounds are nearly free; I don't see why corpsec would ever use normal ammo: you can destroy 200k nuyens of hardware with just 200 nuyens, that's a good bargain!

If you want to kill a tank or something more heavily armored without giving your target a chance, you use a gauss gun (although today's technical advances indicate that railguns will be the weapon of choice). Those can literaly transform a tank into scrap metal.




7 nuyen to kill a runner isn't really much, especially when there's hundreds of thousands at stake, or even more. Those are AA or AAA corps, they have money, are not concerned by availability, and are probably willing to spend way more than 7 nuyens per round if it can guarantee that a runner will drop dead without having the time to do damage, such as killing a corp sec officer (bad for morale) or stealing paydata.

Same for vehicles. Using a 10000 nuyens guided AV missile to destroy an armored vehicle is cost-efficient, and quite consistent with man-portable anti-vehicle missiles.

The encumberance penalties were covered in later posts of the same thread. But the main penalties of heavy armor were that is got hot, reduced your athletics pool, reduced your passive defense, interfered with your perception, etc. Plenty of body 3 and 4 folks are walking around with class 4 armored vests and not suffering penalties significant enough to be modeled by the current SR4 armor penalty system.

Assuming you want more realistic models of tanks:



With most tanks having armor of 500/250/100 (or considerably more, for example the current revision of the M1 Abrams might be something like 750/300/100 vs KE and 1600/450/200 vs HEAT) and bodies of around 60.

You're saying 1 mm = 1 point of armor; it's wrong, as the scale they use is not linear, with good reason:

a round that would penetrate 1 mm would need a lot more to penetrate another mm. (I know, it's a very, very weak round)
a round that would penetrate 599 mm wouldn't need a lot more to penetrate another mm.
Using your scale, it just means "1 success" in both case.

I stick with my 34 armor for MB tanks. it work well, make them impervious to anything but real AT weapons or Coil Guns.
Then, as a roleplaying game, it's just trying to modelize stuff, and rules are necessarily an abstraction.

I've checked the price of AP ammo in real life, and I find it crazy: it's super cheap. The question is: is the difference between standard and AP real-life ammo the same as between SR4's standard and APDS? -4 is a lot, and it's non-linear: I would say it's the difference between 200 and 600-800 mm of armor (for tanks), or concealed and military grade armor. What they call APDS seems to be a very, very efficient round.

Edit: okay, AP is cheap ($1). SLAP is a bit less cheap ($7), apparently, and it doesn't seem to justify a -4, more like a -2. I guess APDS would not be that cheap at all.

I admit that making sense of it all isn't simple

It'll typically take more than a single APDS round to put a guy down too. It's about ending the threat, not necessarily killing the guy-- unless you're dealing with hardened armor or a person under the influence of a Pain Editor, it often doesn't matter that much whether you're doing physical or stun. Once you have a metahuman opponent down for the count you can always kill them via forcing stun into overflow if need be. In the case of Joe Security, it's also worth noting that they're unlikely to take a guy down in a single pass. A lot of the time cheapest yest most effective option corps have for arming Joe Mook and the security drones with cheap automatic weapons like a foregrip equipped Sandler TMP or an AK-97. One of the quickest ways of killing runners I've seen is simply using massed semi-automatic fire from the goon squad followed up by the last guard using a Take Aim action paired with a wide short burst.

I suppose it's true. And you're right about full auto fire killing shadowrunners even without APDS. I guess bruises aren't too good when your body is covered with them


In spite of this, I've decided that APDS would just be much, much more expensive in my game though; A security drone is worth a few thousand nuyens, so with a full auto APDS costing 70 nuyens, it's not going to change much, except that the drone will be more efficient at killing streetsams. But when the full auto of APDS costs as much as the drone itself, it's another thing entirely.

I can sort of justify it: APDS isn't armor piercing, apparently. It's super-powerful armor piercing. I've looked at several AP rounds, and apprently they just use tougher metals, not discarding sabot. Also, a 4 armor difference seems to be huge, and standard AP would be closer to -1 or -2, looking at the armor type chart from national institute of justice. That would make APDS a kind of luxury, high-tech round that corps use to mow down very tough runners. In D&D terms, it'd be a single-use item like a potion, a temporary buff.
As for AV rounds, I'd hate to see 120 nuyens destroying an armored truck, so I guess I'll have to increase the price here too.

Between a real life SLAP 7.62 and a standard 7.62, there seem to be a 50-100 fold difference, so I guess that's okay .

I like my game deadly, but deadly with standard, mundane weapons .

Are you kidding me? An A-10 30mm Autocannon using the rounds they were designed for (DU Rounds) are absolutely capable of destroying MBT's... every see any footage af the Gulf War? I have seen physical evidence of exactly what that weapon is capable of... and while it may be tasked to actually hurt an M1 Tank (and any of its variants on the front armor, that is not the tactic that they use (As mentioned above in another post)... "Light Arnored" vehicles have absolutely no chance of survivability against an A-10...

Rant Over

Another Note... If you are using MBT's in any style of Shadowrun, I think that You are not getting the scale of the game... Deniable assets are not tagged with operating on the Main Battlefield, and anythig other than backstory for such escapades is ludicrous in my opinion... how many shadowruns do you actually NEED an MBT (or LAV's or Fighter Jets for that matter)... seems to be WAY OVerkill ...

Sorry, Could not help myself... Rant Over, again...
My two cents

And this is why we have the Thunderstruck. Mr 40 armor troll takes goes down to 16 armor, vs 10 dmg, with nothing but 1 net hit.