UPDATE MAJOR UPDATE
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=27166
INCOMING NERDGASM IN 10, 9, . . .

And because this idea amused me too much not to do:

CuteMech
Bust-A-Move (350, 4 slots available)
Mechanical Arm (4000, 2 slots used, 15 capacity available) [Yes, the picture shows them having arms, but in terms of game mechanics, they don't. Build these into the existing cute fuzzy arms on the doll]

Cyber Shotgun (2,100, 11 capacity used)
External Clip Port (100, 1 capacity used)
Laser Sight (100, 1 capacity used)
Silencer (400, 2 capacity used)

Mechanical Arm (4000, 2 slots used, 15 capacity available)

Cyber Submachine Gun (2500, 10 capacity used)
External Clip Port (100, 1 capacity used)
Laser Sight (100, 1 capacity used)
Sound Suppressor (600, 3 capacity used)

Cost: 14,350.
Your enemy being gutshotted by their daughter's new doll: priceless.

i find myself trying to figure the physics of having a shotgun in the arm of whats supposedly the size of a teddybear...

I have no idea either. In terms of game mechanics, it works, but in terms of physics... I don't know.

How do you stuff the Shotgun into the Arm of a Dwarf?
Or Pixy for that matter?
Don't think about such things ^^

When I saw this I got a mission idea about your runners being hired to kill an assassin who has been offing important people. They could be mafia dons, important witnesses to crimes, whatever. Just make it so the thing draws attention. All the targets have to be related though so the next hit is obvious and they are there to protect them. They meet the hit and their family, making sure all the security is set up then begin the mission of making sure the target stays alive. The targets son or daughter is afraid so they sleep in their room. In the middle of the night they hear a scream. Rushing to the door they find the target dead, riddled with bullet holes, the son or daughter crying, and their adorable teddy bear, eyes glowing like red coals in the night, turn its head all the way around to face the runners. With a child like smile and a cankerous laugh it shoots the window and jumps out. Eventually they find that the assassin is an AI based off a military training program gone postal. Killed the last batch of recruits and then stowed away on one of their comlinks.

In other news, the cost of a M79B1 disposable LAW rocket is still only 750

and one can probably train a guy in its use for less then what it costs to train him to pilot that crazy machine

The point of the mech is not to be cost-effective or practical (because in very few cases will it actually be either), but to be cool. The cutemech I put up has some potential to be practical if only because it can (theoretically) pass itself off as a harmless toy up until it opens fire.

A few problems I see here..

Drones don't carry passengers unless they're designed to. (EG: crashcart... so a rigger cocoon is a nono) for most.

Mechanical arms *MAY* only be equipped w/ cyberlimb type accessories w/ the GM's discretion. Though I agree w/ the concept.

One thing about GM discretion is size matters.. by strict raw I could equip a fly spy w/ a LMG + 250 rounds using a single weapon mount... no GM is ever going to let that fly (literally or figuratively). Patently silly ideas are only fun so far as theorycrafting and should rightly be thrown out.


A little while back, I posted a Tachikoma concept based on the Evo Orderly (walker, 2 mechanical arms, medkit6, and if the picture is right, it's a walking wheelchair (so it can carry a passenger).
IIRC: I put in gecko tips (medium drone or smaller), thermoptic camo, armor upgrade, and IIRC an actual wepaon mount in the arm for a LMG or GL.


Though really... I don't think most cyberguns really fit the concepts well (outside of being well hidden weapons). As they have serious issues w/ lack of ammo. (then again w/ 2 arms... the concept of just having the drone pick up a mecha sized rifle or assault cannon does come to mind, or using the arms to slap magazines into the arm slots). (long history of mecha in anime carrying rifles and swords just like an overgrown troll)

One idea I haven't seen pointed out from augmentation is the use of an "External Mount" from augmentation as a cyberlimb mod... nifty way to cosmetically weld something like a SMG to the forearm w/o making it necessarily a cybergun. (also opens up the use of modded weaponry w/ things like 100rd dual ammo drums).

I reckon that mecha would probably be used in psychological warfare first, like Liberty Prime in Fallout 3. I mean, it's one thing to have a lot of tanks pointed at you, but quite another to have a 40-foot tall robot with laser eyes throwing bombs everywhere!

After this thread, I went back and looked over Maximum Metal for CP2020, and I was just thinking how awesome it'd be to have a book like that for Shadowrun. Though, all the people who think Shadowrun can only be a street-level game would probably get all butt-hurt about it.

But yeah, ACPA creation rules for Shadowrun would be killer.

where's my ED-209?!

you have 3 seconds to comply!!

Like I said elsewhere, if you want a REALLY good disertation on what kind of weapons systems would make a lot of sense if you had access to some really wicked future material science and power systems (Unobtanium and Hip Pocket Antimatter or similar to borrow from the DS vernacular), check out "A Hymn Before Battle" by John Ringo. (First printing, October 2000 ISBN: 0-671-31941-8 ) He goes into great detail about what you would need in an environment where near-light-speed weapons with fantastical ranges and computer-controled fire-control systems are the predominant threat on the battlefield. It's all about lines-of-sight, stealth, maneuverability and the ability to use terrain-masking (cover). Stealth is vital, and armor is critical, but ultimately a direct hit with a high power system is going to be fatal. Flying drones, in an era where even shadowrunners can get their hands on vehicular turreted lasers? It's going to be all about stealth on the future battlefield boys and girls, make no mistake.


Exactly. But keep in mind my above comment about flying drones. The modern Predator/Reaper and Global Hawk would be sitting targets. GPS? In a major conflict, satellite communications is going to be one of the first casualties in the opening hours. Same goes for satellite imagery. If it's visible and has a predictable path, it's dead. Stealthy satellites are going to be problematical: you have to either have solar arrays or a means to dump surplus heat overboard, and that's hard to hide. Worse, you'd need some heavy-duty visual stealth to deal with the whole "Hey, what just blocked out that star?" issue.
Powered armor, at the high end, could be made "hardened" in that non-penetrating hits do no additional damage. It could be made stealthy in a meaningful fashion - but don't think that simply being man-sized means a low RCS (Radar Cross Section). The (retired) F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter had a specially designed canopy, because the pilot's HELMET would have had a significantly larger RCS than the entire aircraft! But even ISAR (Inverse Synthetic Apeture RADAR) is limited in ground targeting at long ranges, especially against immobile targets. On-board heat management systems would allow you to store up great amounts of human-generate waste heat while stationary for later dumping to get them all the way down to ambient environmental temperature. With the exoskeletal musculature locked, the soldier could sleep and be immobile in nearly any position. On-board closed life support could even eliminate trace CO₂ traces. They can take care of even shallow depressions in the earth (or, toss out a compact but powerful "cratering" charge and Presto! instant foxhole). They can skirt the reverse slope of a hill to avoid detection. They can be made heavily enough armored to resist all but the heaviest anti-vehicular weapons, and that class of weapon is notoriously dificult to use to hit a man-sized target (lasers and other non-ballistic weapons being the obvious exception). In exchange, those PCA (Powered Combat Armor) suits (ACPA in CP2020 parlance) can carry substantial armament heavy enough to neutralize most weapons heavy enough to hurt them in return, bringing the equation back to stealth, maneuver and first-strike.




Both responses are essentially correct: self-destruct, if you had to implement it hurriedly (read: in a single IP), could easily be limited to some sort of device which destroys key components: the entire shell of the vehicle need not be blown to smithereens to render the technology un-usable, otherwise you're building in a needlessly large vulnerability into the vehicle. And if the technology is in something intrinsic (say, like, the armor), there is NOTHING you can do (short of destabilizing a fusion reactor) to completely deny the enemy the ability to analyze the technology - even high explosives aren't going to turn the trick.


We essentially have the workable version with what's in Arsenal... minus heavy armor rules. The suits presented in CP 2020 (I loved Maximum Metal, by the by) suffer from a key weakness as depicted: ground pressure. You have to be careful that the applied pressure of the system (read: individual feet in this case) don't exert such force as to immobilize them in the terrain (go through the floor). It's not going to do you a lot of good to have a massively powerful suit if it's restricted to reinforced ferocrete runways. Wide long pressure plates (soles) can aleviate this to some extent, but you're not going to see the kind of assault ACPA in those rules in Shadowrun.

Let us not forget the mecha at the end of Robocop! It couldn't handle stairs either and using that flaw our cyberzombie hero managed to defeat it!

Sign--

Wacky

I think about 3 people in my group would see a tank and think "I reckon I can take that"

Although thinking back when I played in SR3 last one of the players had a mech, it was basically an anthroform drone with enough space inside for him to crawl in and directly rig it. A bit of a hash job but didn't have any majorly unbalancing effect in game. We just worked to fit the attribute descriptions around the look we were aiming for (body set to make the mech big enough to put a person inside, etc.)

Although the player did get into the painful habit of going on a power trip whenever he got in it and any of the combat characters were around, which led to 4 of us abusing the rules to overpower the mech and pin it to the ground

The biggest issue was that there would be times where only one character would be in a "combat" vehicle and the other characters would be on foot, leading to the rigger being superior to the other characters in fights. However it did balance out during confrontations in confined spaces as he was too big to get around properly.

If you go for slightly smaller, yet nearly as good, with the Dodge Guardian (Walker Mode, 2 Full Arms, armor 16), most people forget that a motorcycle would be framed/weigh roughly as much as a troll. Similar to Iron Man (- the flying).

That sounds like every character I have ever made...ever

EDIT: In fact that vaguely reminds me of a 400bp free spirit character I created that punched a submarine and sank it.

Now THAT does sound like a story O.o