*Edit: Damn quote and spoiler limits!*

Since they were asked for, here they are. They are really designed for cars and bikes, with all the play testing done with that type of vehicle. If you want to apply them to drones and aircraft, then I take no responsibility for any crazy results. They should actually work pretty well though.

First off there is no change to a vehicles stat line. We just add a few metrics and rules to cover max speed (as opposed to the Speed stat which covers the highest speed a vehicle can go without handling penalties), acceleration, braking, etc. Since my game is taking place in the CAS (and thous US instead of SI measurements), I settled on using 1 mile is 1600 meters. Yea I know, not quiet exact but it makes figuring speed in mph easier. Current speed times 0.75 for mph is far easier then times 0.74564543068480076354092102123598.

For anything with a multiple, round up to the nearest number divisible by 5.

Now we have some raw numbers to work with and can calculate a vehicles performance. Yes 2070 vehicles perform pretty damn crazy. What did you think, vehicle tech didn't improve in 60 years?

This leads us into an important part of vehicles... chases! Car chases are a whole lot of fun, especially when people are shooting at each other in the middle of them. I have hated the yoyo and other weird effects of the SR4 rules since I first read them. I started hating them even more after playing them. So I have been working on some alternate rules.

First, a few basics to get out of the way.

So you got all that and are ready to run the actual chase huh? Well here are the rules for it.


There, that wasn't so bad was it? As I said earlier, I'm still testing and tweaking these so any actual play use feedback would be greatly appreciated. If your just going to say this is stupid without adding useful comments of why it is stupid and ways to improve it, then I'll just ignore you.

Cheers and I hope this is what you were looking for Ornot.

PS: While your here, these are my updated rules for converting vehicles of today into their updated 2070 version, as well as how to get a stat line on a classic vehicle and factory installed options.



Classic Car Modifiers. And before anyone ask why you would want a 60+ year old car, I actually own a 1947 Ford Super-deluxe.


Factory Installed Options (aka: Trim Levels)


If you want, you can include Dealer Installed Options as well. These will come on the vehicle off the lot, cost the full amount, and take up Mod slots. GridLink and SunCell both perfectly fall into this category, along with Anti-Theft, Rigger Adaptation, and any of the tires.

Reminds me of my Chase Combat thread I started some time ago.

Basically, I'd like to ask how you deal with the "Picard Maneuver" problem, plus the fact that speed/acceleration does not matter.

The example, admittedly extreme but actually happened, was when the bikers were chasing us. They were on ordinary choppers, we were in a sportscar. If they were on racing bikes, their top speed would be 200, while our top speed was 300. I then called in a Force 10 spirit, and had it use the Movement power on us. 3000m/turn = 3600 kph, or Mach 4.6.

Now, the GM quite properly handwaved the escape. However, according to RAW, that would not matter in the slightest. The bikers would get individual rolls against us, and if we did not succeed, they'd remain in close range. Even if we won, it'd take four minutes at minimum to Break Off, during which time we'd have traveled over a hundred miles.

Now, can your vehicle combat rules deal with those issues? I haven't examined them in depth, but I don't see anything addressing either of these problems, or any of the others I listed in the previous thread.

You didn't read the 'The rule of superior performance'. It stats that if the fleeing vehicle is faster (higher speed and accel) with nothing that would keep it from using its higher performance (ie: lots of traffic, really really really bad twisty road, etc), then its escape is hand-waved.

Also, since we can take higher speed out for their to be a chase (if you couldn't, see 'The rule of superior performance') and Accel provides the vehicle that accelerates faster with bonus dice on their chase roll a'la the 'Acceleration Advantage' rule. I did it this way since in a chase through traffic, turning down alleys and such, you will rarely if ever hit your top speed and if you do it is only for a second or two. 'Acceleration Advantage' gives the vehicle that can accelerate and brake (since braking is determined by Accel) faster an advantage.

From personal experience road racing, as well as the ability to read the records of specific tracks, I can tell you that in a chase through twists and turns, acceleration, braking, and cornering are far more important then top speed. How else would a car like the Cobalt SS (top speed ~148mph) get faster times around the Nurburgring the several very fast cars (including a coupe of Porsches, Skylines, Evos, etc.).

The problem is, how much of a speed differential is required for the escape to be handwaved? I think we'd agree that a mere 5m/turn advantage wouldn't be enough, but what about 50? What happens if the vehicle has a higher top speed, but lower acceleration? Exactly where do we draw the line? What range should we stop rolling at start handwaving?

Also, I noticed that you slowed down the "Picaed Maneuver", but didn't stop it. Was that intentional?

And what happens if you've got more than 2 people in the chase?

We've actually played it through with more then one vehicle chasing the fleeing vehicle. Actually a good chunk of the play testing was done that way. Their all keeping track of the CM and by comparing their totals to anyone else it will tell you how far away they are.

As for the really high Accel against a vehicle with a higher top speed, you could play it out in high detail rounds for a couple rounds to see if the slower top speed vehicle can cut off and stop the other one. But that goes back to tracking exact meters per turn, meters of separation or traveled from a starting point, etc. If the lower top speed/higher accel vehicle can get up to the other one (the fleeing vehicle might have a starting speed advantage such as blowing past the cop chasing him at double the speed limit), you'll end up with a couple of rounds of the chase vehicle trying to maneuver past or pit maneuver the fleeing vehicle. The fleeing vehicle will spend those rounds trying to keep the chase vehicle as close to directly behind him as possible until he reaches a high enough speed that the chaser can't catch him. Ultimately though, it is the GMs call if he wants to hand wave it or not.

As for the Picaed Maneuver, it actually doesn't happen that way in play. If you have a say 100m lead on a car (Short Range vehicle wise, so CM 3~5 higher), it is perfectly possible during a hard turning or evasion maneuver which you totally narf up that the chase vehicle will get right up on your ass into close range. Happens all the time IRL.

I think I was unclear. At what speed differential do we simply handwave the escape, if that's what we're trying for? What if the escaping car has a dramatically higher top speed, but a lower acceleration? As you pointed out, the advantage usually goes to the vehicle with the better acceleration; so should we still handwave the escape? Also, what happens if we've got unbalanced vehicle types, such as a helicopter chasing a car?

The Picard maneuver is basically a teleport from extreme range to short range. Let's say we have two vehicles that are mismatched in performance, say a Dodge Scoot vs. a Eurocar Westwind. By RAW, their speed differences don't matter; if the Rigger on the Scoot can out-roll the Westwind's driver, he can keep in close range. Using your rules, let's say that by virtue of the Westwind's superior speed, it manages to move to Break-Off range.

In both RAW and your rules, if the Scoot manages to roll well enough, he can close the distance instantly from extreme range to within 5 meters. That's the Picard Maneuver. This will occur regardless of the speed and acceleration differential between the vehicles.

The same thing applies in reverse. If you're trying to keep up with a vehicle, to Cut it Off, it can instantly jump from close range to Break Off range, if it gets a good enough roll. This would apply even if we have a helicopter chasing a car.

Multiple people in the chase complicates matters further, but I'll just make one point for now. Since the winner sets the distance, a group of bikers chasing a car has the edge, even if the car has a superior driver. The bikers have more variability in their rolls, so they're more likely to get lucky and beat the sports car. By RAW, the winner gets to set the range, so the bikes stay in close range, even if every other biker botched. If I read your rules correctly, you advocate setting separate distances for each ganger? That sounds like a logistical headache, especially if there's a lot of go-gangers.

InfinityZen:

I really like these rules! I usually shy away from vehicle combat, but if it comes up, I'll definitely try out something like this (as opposed to the RAW chase combat rules, which... blech).

There are two things that I note lacking in your rules mockup. First, terrain (difficult, close, open, etc); not sure how this would come into play since the players are choosing their own thresholds, but it does seem like something missing. Second, crash tests; this system seems to assume that the driver will always be able to handle his car perfectly and make their manuever. It doesn't seem realistic. If I drive a GMC Bulldog and attempt to 90 degree turn the thing down an alleyway at 90 MPH (a threshold 5, let's say, upped to 10 due to the handling difference) well, I won't make that roll. The only penalty, however, will be my opponent closing distance on me. Shouldn't the van have to make a crash test to pull out of the turn before hitting the wall?

First off I would like to say thank you for the feedback and hope you enjoy the rules.

Before I get into answering your questions, I would like to point out that my chase rules still use the 1 minute long chase rounds. So the difficulty the fleeing party picks comes down to a mix of things instead of just one single manuver with them braking and accelerating hard the whole time. Example: "I'm going to swerve back and forth through traffic, cutting people off and tapping my brakes to try to make them swerve around, watching until I find an alley across traffic that I will attempt to turn into with a really hard powerside... Pick 5" You as the GM can always tell the player their picked number doesn't match their discription, but the discription is more for the flavor and enjoyment of the group in imagining the big wild chase.


The terrain difficulty comes in from the GM adding something with the "Even More Poison" bit. I'll repeat the text...


Adding 2 to the difficutly is pretty nasty when combined with the handling rules. That will almost allways raise the threshold by 4.



As for crash test, it is assumed that if you fail to reach the threshold but did not glitch or critical glitch, then you managed to brake/swerve in time to avoid a nasty crash. Lots of discriptions involving sideswiping other vehicles, grinding along walls, plowing through hotdog stands, etc. Stuff that adds color and surface damage, but not actual mechanical damage. Maybe hit a pedestrain or two (Hell, hit some even on a fully successful roll!).

On a glitch, make a crash roll. On a critical glitch... well you crashed. Sorry, I just noticed that I actually didn't put all that information into the original release. This is how I play it.

Also, if you want to go highly detailed you can not use the chase rules (which use the 1 minute chase rounds the same as the BBB) and instead use high detailed rules tracking the actual current speed and position of each vehicle on a round by round basis (since I gave rules for exact acceleration, braking, and handling capabilities of vehicles).

Updated and tweaked.