Alrighty folks, I am a newbie at SR4, but a veteran of the previous 2 editions. I am going to start up a new SR Missions campaign this weekend, and I want to get the nuts and bolts of vehicle combat down before that happens. I have read the SR4 faq, and done some forum searching, but haven't been able to locate what I need.

Here's the deal, one of my players is playing a Rigger. His concept is that his character is a total recluse that refuses to actually meet anyone in person. When he does personally go out on runs, he never leaves the confines of his Daihatsu-Caterpillar Horseman. This is going to make a bunch of situations where the Tactical Vehicle Combat rules are utilized. Here's my hang-up - the rules say that a vehicle driver must make at least one Complex Action controlling his vehicle, or it goes out of control at the end of the turn.

1) When does the Complex Action have to be used? Can it be used in the first Initiative Pass? In the last?

2) Does it have to be spent every time the Horseman moves? Like if the Horseman is involved in a gunfight in an office building, and it simply drives across the room, does that require a Vehicle Test?

3) Can the vehicle just move around anywhere it wants, or is it's movements restricted by some sort of maneuverability limitations.

4) If the Horseman isn't moving, but does have the engine running, and is active, can it still defend against attacks using Reaction, or full defense.

5) When the driver is making a Vehicle Test, the vehicle's guns can still be fired using Pilot and gunnery programs, right?

thanks for the help all.

Answers as I see them:

1) No idea. I don't think it matters.
2) Strictly rules-wise, yes. Logically, no. He can just tell the pilot to move him across the room, as long as he's getting from A to B.
3) It can move anywhere it can fit. However, moving in many of these places require a roll, generally with a die pool penalty based on the kind of terrain you're in. Also, feel free to get him stuck in things. It's EASY to get vehicles stuck if you try to drive them places they shouldn't go.
4) I'd let him use reactionx1 if he went full defense, mostly because the vehicle can only move in a very limited fashion if it has to go from a stop to dodging.
5) Not sure what you mean by this. Are you talking by the vehice itself, by others in the vehicle, or by the rigger?

Also, make sure you play up the consequences of never getting out of his ride. How does he get food? Where does he sleep? Where does he poop? What does it smell like inside? Where does he park the car? Where does he get physical mail delivered to - you know, like where does the pizza get dropped off at? How does he do maintenence on his own car?

I hate the Mr. Ng type clone riggers. The idea that you never leave the confines of your vehicle is just so dumb. It goes beyond caution and gets into "idiot" turf in a hurry.

Well he leaves it - in fact he's not in the thing the vast majority of his time - just not on actual runs. On runs he uses the vehicle, or just maintains contact via commlink. Also he uses smart tires, so the chances of getting stuck drop quite a bit.

And what I meant by question 5 is if the vehicle's automated systems can fire the weapons, while he is driving.

So seriously, if the character wants to move in every IP, he has to make a seperate vehicle test for each IP he spends moving?

2) I don't think that it does take a complex action every time. It takes an action to issue an order, but the order can be quite complex, like 'drive me to the nearest airport' and the drone takes it from there.

Edit: And then the pilot program makes the veicle tests.

No. If the character wants to move anytime during a turn, he has to make at least one vehicle test during that turn. It doesn't matter if this test is made during the first IP, or the last, as long as he makes a successful test before the completion of that particular turn. Next turn, same thing.

1) When does the Complex Action have to be used? Can it be used in the first Initiative Pass? In the last?

As was said, anytime you like. If you did not spend one IP on Driving, you face a crash test. Doing that does not require an IP, and depending on your speed (crash damage) and maneuver dp size, you may not care at all (Don´t glitch on the crash test though). If the threshold is very hard, you should take the driving IP early because you can repeat the test to avoid a crash.


2) Does it have to be spent every time the Horseman moves? Like if the Horseman is involved in a gunfight in an office building, and it simply drives across the room, does that require a Vehicle Test?

No, see answer 1. You only need to do a maneuver test for stunts.


3) Can the vehicle just move around anywhere it wants, or is it's movements restricted by some sort of maneuverability limitations.

The vehicle can´t squeeze through tight spots (narrow openings and very low ceilings), can´t climb ladders or stairs, requires a floor able to support the additional weight, and will likely get stuck in soft ground. Consider an upgraded Transsys Steed drone.

4) If the Horseman isn't moving, but does have the engine running, and is active, can it still defend against attacks using Reaction, or full defense?

Yepp, as long as you are aware that in that case the vehicle does move, with the usual consequences.


5) When the driver is making a Vehicle Test, the vehicle's guns can still be fired using Pilot and gunnery programs, right?

No. Nice attempt. The vehicle is controlled by the rigger, the pilot is out.

1) When does the Complex Action have to be used? Can it be used in the first Initiative Pass? In the last?
Once per turn, during any pass.

2) Does it have to be spent every time the Horseman moves? Like if the Horseman is involved in a gunfight in an office building, and it simply drives across the room, does that require a Vehicle Test?
No vehicle test unless he's trying to pull off a stunt, otherwise the single Complex Action per turn will cover any general movement.

3) Can the vehicle just move around anywhere it wants, or is it's movements restricted by some sort of maneuverability limitations.
Depends on the vehicle, and the areas its trying to move in. Anything thats not a walker, is going to have difficulties with stairs, large debris, and other such obstructions.

4) If the Horseman isn't moving, but does have the engine running, and is active, can it still defend against attacks using Reaction, or full defense.
Yep.

5) When the driver is making a Vehicle Test, the vehicle's guns can still be fired using Pilot and gunnery programs, right?
The pilot can run the guns if you are driving, or vice-versa no issue here.

Even if you allow the vehicle to fire its guns on autosofts remember they will still need an instruction on what to fire on. You can't simply have the vehicle firing everything at any target without the rigger expending actions to at least designate a target.

Correct, unless you instruct it to fire at anything at moves, takes only one action... Your teammates will not appreciate this though. Simple action pretty much per target (GM might allow you to flag multiple targets in a single action, but thats up to them) is what its usually going to be, then the pilot can fire until the targets down and then wait for you to designate the next target.

This is a world of RFID tags and commlinks. Could the Pilot simply be instructed to fire at any signal that's not designated as "friendly". It would be pretty awful if there was an innocent bystander, but there are some situations where that is really unlikely. But to avoid the bystander situation, could the Pilot get an instruction to shoot at any armed individual who's comm signal/RFID doesn't have a "friendly" designation?

Also, like I said, my player equipped the thing with Smart Tires, which specifically state that they can negotiate stairs. Also, the thing doesn't take up much more space than your average Troll, especially with the wheels pulled in. With these things in mind, I am leaning towards being fairly liberal with maneuverability and the places he could go - essentially he's planning on using the thing kind of like a mini Tachkoma from Ghost in the Shell. What do you folks think?

There is an update you can do to smartgun system to be able to designate friendly targets using RFID's. But if all of your people are broadcasting RFID tags, then it makes them easier for the opposing team to find as well. Whether a drone can determine if a subject is armed is a sensor test.

The weapon also needs at least a flexible mount, and even turrets can be iffy. As long as you have to aim with the vehicle, the driver needs to get the target into the firing arc.

I assume turrets on military vehicles have a weapon comlink, and are integrated into their vehicle like an immobile drone. The driver would drive, and a sensor officer would designate targets with the sensor suite. The hardwired turrets would fire onto designated targets.

RFIDs don't have to broadcast constantly, they can be Hidden or Stealth (I forget which term it is) RFIDs which only respond to active properly-encoded queries (though naturally, the replies are broadcast wirelessly, just not endlessly).

DS

If you really want to go for the Tachikoma aspect, have your rigger look into Walker Mode for his Horseman. Smart tires really won't be enough for a rigger to keep up with actual humans.

As for needing a flexible weapon mount, the book is really ambiguous about how the different mounts work, and there really ought to be a larger contrast between fixed and flexible mounts. I like ccelizic's rule here describing the differences between the two, though it's not an official rule.

Also, someone who has the books can correct me, but IIRC you don't have to spend an action controlling the vehicle every combat turn, as going out of control isn't the end of the world. All it means is that you take a -2 to all actions for the next turn, and you need to make a Vehicle Test (this one doesn't take an action, but does have the -2, I presume) to avoid crashing. This I imagine is how old-school fighter pilots (who all had one IP) would do combat: one Combat Turn spent fighting, then the next one spent recovering and not crashing.

And, to give my take on the questions:

IMO it sure can. Also IMO any Vehicle action that actually moves the vehicle, whether it be defensive driving (to add Dodge to vehicles), or vehicle sprinting, etc. all count for this; so long as you do one sometime during the Turn you're fine.

IMO this depends on how complex the movement is. Anything that would require an Athletics test for a human to pull off, yes. Otherwise... probably not.

There are restrictions already in the book for this. Threshold modifiers for terrain are especially nasty, so combat maneuvers in close quarters could be really dicey.

Ask the same question of a human being. If he's not moving, but could move, do you give him Reaction or full defense?

Dodging tests are all about balanced mechanics anyway, not about realism. No one can ever actually move fast enough to dodge a bullet; that's just silly.

See Cel's rules for my take on this. To fire independently I'd rule you need flex mounts, because the Pilot firing the guns is not the same person as the Rigger moving the vehicle. If the same person were doing both (in different passes) I wouldn't have a problem with him using fixed mounts.