Hi guys, I'm toying with making a rigger whose dream is to have his own T-bird. Assuming he could actually get his hands on one, would he be able to use it in any sort of normal run? If not, what sort of stuff would these type of vehicles be good for? If a T-bird is not practical, that's fine, it can be the character's holy grail, and probably won't make much of a difference in how he plays.

Thanks,
Argentis

T-Birds are double edged swords, They are extremely fast, and have VTOL capabilities which makes them near impossible to chase. But with an availability of 24F (ie forbidden technology) they are extremely illegal and will make you a target everywhere you go. It isn't a good idea to paint a bullseye on yourself if you plan to go SRing. T-Birds are usually used as smuggling vehicles as they are fast, have good capacity, and have great armour. For inside a city and other low profile runs I would suggest a more "common" vehicle like the Bison, Buffalo, or Bulldog Step-Van. If you need more speed look to the Hyung or Comet.

Definatly have your character always try to get the T-Bird (as you should always have a holy grail) but have your character get other vehicles to fill in niche operations as needed.

Thanks for the reply, I sort of figured it would be something like that. They caught my eye as I was flipping through the rulebook, and thought "those look like fun".

Lot of Fun... Very Expensive... Indeed the Holy Grail of Rigger Vehicles...

Well, I think this is headed towards rebellious youth who watched too many action trids .

Ohhh, to be a rebellious youth again...

Well if I'm not allowed to be young and irresponsible, I can pretend I am.

So Very True...

A rigger who has a "commuter" helicopter or tilt-wing rotor craft is not an outrageous concept, however. Modern SR sprawls like Seattle have tons of air traffic coming and going. Your rigger could be starting there and dreaming of being a T-Bird jockey some day, running to get enough money to get his own. That's a nice concept.

I have to disagree. The problem with wanting a T-Bird (or ANY aircraft, really) in SR is that it's only possible in a really long running game or if your GM is being "nice."

I suppose I should mention that I rarely get to play a Shadowrun campaign that lasts for more than 4-7 runs, which generally isn't enough to break into the piloting aspect of the rigger biz, especially when you consider the amount of gear that riggers go through. (Our other GM tends to "accidentally" destroy the teams transport... often) I also don't like relying on either "GM kindness" or a big score to help me afford my flight capability because, well, I'm paranoid.

So, one of my few gripes with SR4-SR4A over the previous editions is that it's lots harder to start with a usable aircraft. Since I include under "usable" the ability to carry a bit of cargo--say, the infiltrator, her gear, and her bungee cord--I don't consider the Wasp to be a truly usable aircraft, but more of a drone you can park your meat in.

The Cessna C750 is actually not a bad option. However, your infiltrator will need a bit more gear than a bungee to hit that 148th floor balcony, and the Cessna is going to take some fairly serious modding if you want to use it in combat.

Realistically, though... I'd want something that could hover, and other than the Wasp, all the rest of the hover-capable aircraft are either entirely out of a character's price range, or they take a big enough chunk of a character's resources that you can't afford your aircraft AND your aircraft mods/guns/cyber/drones/programs/lifestyle. (in order of perceived importance to my pilot character)

Bah.

In response to the OP, though... Yeah. T-birds are AWESOME. I mean, HOVERTANKS! That's a hell of a cool thing for a rigger to covet/scheme to get/talk about obsessively/save up to buy/mortage his soul/betray the team for. But actually scoring one in-game? Good luck with that.

EDIT:Grammar.

Hey Falanin, thanks for the reply. Yeah, I had half-expected that a T-bird may not be attainable in any sort of reasonable time-frame (It's kind of like me being able to own a Ferrari in my lifetime, theoretically possible, but not likely). The more I think about it, the more I like this character concept.

Argentis

I think every character should have an ultimate goal. I've always had Rigger characters that wanted to own a tank (I even had one that lasted long enough to get one). As a character design I would specialize the character as a smuggler. Add flair to your character like he has models of T-Birds on his dashboard or as a wallpaper on his comlink. Totally play up the ultimate goal, "My character is relaxing at the moment reading T-Bird weekly".

Something's been bothering me about t-birds. How high do they fly? A few metres? A few centimetres? Are they basically really fast, really beefy hovercraft, or are they basically really beefy planes that stay at NoE ranges? I have no idea. Halp.

Tbirds can fly very high. The groundbound brother is the Hovertank like the... how was it called... Behemoth in SR3? But okay, that guy is just too heavy for his engine to operate at higher levels than ground.

T-birds are basically a cross between an armoured fighting vehicle and a jump jet. They're kept aloft using thrust vectoring. Ducts or nozzles direct massive amounts of thrust from a turbofan downwards to constantly push the T-bird up into the air. These nozzles can be also be pointed in any direction to allow the t-bird to steer and propel itself through the air. Stub wings and the T-bird's body provide some lift at speed, but much of the lift is always from direct thrust. Rigger 3 specified that a T-bird's ceiling was 1500 meters. I don't know if that's realistic, but that term may be a total non-starter anyways, so hey, let's run with it. T-birds typically stay within a few meters of the earth not because they have to but rather to take advantage of the ground effect. Basically being really close the ground breaks up the air flow around the T-bird and reduces drag, which improves their fuel economy from an abomination-unto-nature to merely abysmal.

T-birds are frakkin' awesome, but they rarely fit well into more classic shadowrun campaign. When up close and personal (i.e. inside an urban environment), the ear-splitting howl of the jet engines and the big blocky armor plating is a tip off that trouble is brewing for most non-sedated security teams. If you're playing a smuggling/pirating/military campaign where the t-bird has room to stretch its legs, then they work fine. So you should only really be looking to get one if it will mesh with the campaign or with where the campaign is going. (You may be sprawl gangers in Seattle today, but someday you'll be gun running in the Gulf of Mexico!) If a t-bird will mesh with the campaign direction, then a good GM will loosen the reins on those purdy toys and allow them into play.

Hmmm T-Birds in a city... are they less maneuverable than a helicopter?

The rules and fluff for T-birds have always been a bit thin and inconsistent so it's hard to say for sure, but I would be inclined to say they are as maneuverable or more maneuverable than a helicopter. The way I understand T-birds, their multitude of agile high-thrust nozzles would allow them to execute much more aggressive maneuvers than would be physically possible when relying on a rotor or two for lift.

Huh... always thought inertia would cause them to whirl around like pinballs in a city. But your statement makes sense to me and it makes the big T more awesome.

Has there ever been a good picture of a T-Bird? Maybe I should dig out my Rigger Black Book...

I remember a really cool picture at the beginning of the rigger chapter of the SR3 Corebook.