Am I not understanding how vehicle damage operates with rockets? The way I understand it, when you make an attack roll with a rocket the successes are used to reduce scatter rather then increase the damage. So it seems impossible to destroy vehicles with rockets? I have a character who bought a couple M79B1 LAWs (12P dmg -6 vehicle armor) which, while described as an anti-vehicle weapon it would be incapable destroying a westwind sports car (13 boxes of damage on its damage track) even if rolled no successes on its damage resistance test. This came up in an adventure where there was a commercial tracker trailer with 26 body and 8 armor I wanted to attack and realized that the anti-tank rocket wouldn't be able to do much more than pop a tire, further examination showed that even the "Great Dragon Anti-Tank Missile" wouldn't be able to do much to slow it down. Is there something I am not understanding about vehicle damage and rocket attacks?

Nope... you got the right of it... and they get even WORSE in SR4a.


If you didn't notice that anti-vehicle rounds have -4 DV per meter 'miss'. And w/ a *4d6* scatter... good luck getting that LAW to hit anything dead on.


The only way IMO that it can work is if you consider the target to have an areal cross section... EG: firing at the tractor trailer from the side is a huge friggin target. Then accept that it'll take 2 or 3 rockets to finish the job... but a damaged vehicle might give other problems. (handling penalties, speed reduction from wheel damage... etc.)

You could also consider the vehicle a barrier and apply damage to the internals (such as characters inside or cargo). Especially on a thin walled low armor target like a semi.

I didn't want to make a new thread to ask this, but this seems like an appropriate place. What happens to a vehicle when its condition monitor is filled? I know this sounds like a stupid question, but it's never answered anywhere. The only obvious effect (and "obvious" is just my opinion) is that it's no longer able to run its engine. If there are people in it, do they suffer any damage? Seems to me that if you disable a car by putting APDS rounds in the engine block, the passengers won't be directly harmed. Do weapons mounted on it still work (particularly manual ones)?

As for the rockets... try using Active Targeting to add dice to your anti-scatter roll. That leads me to my next question; Active Targeting says "To use active targeting, the character/vehicle must first make a Sensor Test to lock onto a target. This requires a Simple Action (see Use Sensors, p. 169). If the character/vehicle wins the test, the net hits are added as a dice pool modifier to the subsequent Gunnery Test."

Sadly, the words "Sensor test" never occur except for on that page, so I have no idea what dice pools are involved in a Sensor Test. What am I missing?

I'd call it an automatic failure on a crash test (or at least demand a crash test at a huge penalty) and say the vehicle is immobilized until repaired. Mounted weapons would probably still work, but that's a case-by-case kinda thing, I think.



Does that help?

Just a thought, but in SR3 the scatter represented the amount you had to roll in order to be on target. At that point you added successes like normal.

*Blinks* Yes, a lot in fact. I can't imagine how I missed it. Thank you.

And Telion, that makes sense, doesn't it? I'm not sure it works that way, though. Examine the rules from SR4A, page 155

"The attacker reduces this scatter distance by 1 meter per net hit
for standard grenades or 2 meters per net hit for aerodynamic grenades
and grenade launchers. If the scatter distance is reduced to 0 or less, the
grenade hits the target exactly. (Note that additional hits do not add to
grenade Damage Values). Otherwise, the grenade lands at the remain-
ing distance in the direction indicated."

And page 156

"Like grenades, missiles and rocket scatter (see the Scatter Table, p. 155). For both, reduce the scatter distance by 1 meter per net hit rolled on the attack test."

It specifically says net hits don't add to DV for grenades, and implies the same for rockets/missiles.

The layout on that section is horrible; you have the header at the bottom of the page on the left, basically inside the artwork, and then the entire body is at the top right. It's relatively easy to overlook.

If thats the case, then use chunky salsa to great effect. Hit beneath the vehicle and have the explosion bounce between them. Sounds like power gaming especially since I ignore ceiling floor in a salsa equation, but well if the rules don't provide the weapon to be of any use then you might as well.

Good luck pulling that shot off with scatter, not to mention without your launcher mounted at ground level itself.

You could apply damage per square meter. For every square the explosion covers that the vehicle occupies it takes that damage also.

Well keep in mind you can use an airburst link to drop a rockets/missiles scatter to 1d6.

An AV rocket/missile has a damage of 16P and -6 AP to vehicles. Which should do some serious dmg. I also noticed there are special missiles arsenal that allow the extra hits to be converted to extra damage. So those expensive and hard to find ones may be needed for those targets. Otherwise go for the tires and glass.

Its 2d6 scatter -1 per success in 4a for airburst. Also even a direct hit will barely take out a 4 door car, and will heavily damage but not take out a pickup truck on average. I guess it removes the one shot destructo weapon for people with money to burn and I guess that could improve gameplay.

Runners are much more likely to be shot at by people with rocket launchers than to be the ones doing the shooting, no? Corporate security doesn't have any problem getting ahold of such weapons, in comparison to street trash. Thus, making rocket hits on the getaway car survivable is a feature, not a bug.

That sounds like a pretty fair assessment to me. I know in SR3 you had to make a called shot to do damage to a person inside a vehicle, so unless you do that, the only thing that takes damage is the vehicle itself. It sounds kind of bizarre sometimes, like when you lace APDS rounds into the side of a car, but it's one of those results from the abstraction of the hit/damage rules.

And as far as mounted weapons, I'd say that pintle mounts and ring mounts would work fine, but no such luck on turrets since they're powered and would require engine power to work.

Not if you go full auto. Fully automatic bursts (in addition to things like rockets) damage the passengers equally (although the add the car's armor to their own). An HMG firing AV rounds full-auto is going to be eating a lot of money's worth of bullets, but it'll be guaranteed to hit something or someone hard.

Ramming, AoE attacks and full auto attacks deal the same damage to the contents of a vehicle as the vehicle itself. Damage and Passengers, page 162 SR4.

For some it will be a feature, for others a bug.

I think the not increasing damage part could be a feature, but that combined with the ridiculous scatter rules make it a bug.

Didn't we go over this once? If I recall correctly, if you put four people in each of two family sedans and threw them at each other at a combined 80 mph the cars collide, bounce off, take no damage, and all 8 passengers are blood splatters.

Nope. Per Arsenal, if they're wearing their seatbelts and haven't disabled the airbags, they are fine.

How many AV rockets does it take to get to the chewy center of a patrol car?



Answer: 17 rockets to destroy a moving patrol car.

Now for a parked patrol car:


Answer: 10 rockets to destroy a parked patrol car.

That's why you use airburst links and missiles with high sensor rating or laser designated missiles

That not really new info, it has been pointed out multiple times in these forums that it's completly ridiculous that you can end up killing your self with a hand grenade, even thought you cot an criticall succes with the attack.

All I remember is that there was some vehicle that would cream its occupants before taking damage itself.

If you use the core crash damage rules, most collisions that would leave the vehicle unscathed will horribly injure the occupants. That's probably why the item in Arsenal was added.

Fuck airburst. You shouldn't need that crap to make it work. There's a rules problem when unguided shoulder-fired rockets can't reliably hit a stationary vehicle at 50 meters when fired by 'best-of-the-best' uber-users.

i wonder where the 4d6 scatter and -4/m came from...

edit: never mind, SR4A...

Even with the reduced scatter from airburst, you're not getting reliability until you start really pushing the limits of what's feasible. With the 2d6 scatter from airburst, you're still needing to get your attack pool up to 21 just to get 50/50 odds on hitting without needing to switch to guided missiles.

heh, there are times i wonder if the people working on SR4 is unable to do averages...

i clocked the average of the example elf to 10, but the average of the scatter to 14...

nine and two thirds, actually, but yes. And while there's a few ways to get some more dice there (spending 5 actions aiming (the maximum bonus possible there with a skill of 10) before each shot would bring the dice-pool up to 34, and the average result to 11 and 1/3), actually managing the full 42 dice needed to bring average hits up to the average scatter...

The Defense autosoft only works against melee attacks.

Full defense against ranged attacks is response + defense. I went that route in the first example since it wasn't doing anything else.

Do what I do and treat vehicles as Barrers. Pull the information from the weapon to barrier chart for damage to the vehicle, while damage to the passangers is standard.

Explosives do double damage to the vehicle (normal to the people in it) while bullets do very little damage to the vehicle, except for anything fired with heavy weapons or called shots (Engine, etc), while normally turning the people inside to chunky salsa. Actually saw this in Iraq. Vehicle shot to heck, killed everyone inside, engine still running fine.

that was usually the end result with tanks to. The shell going through the armor would take out the people inside (either directly or by setting off the ammo) but said vehicle could be rescued and salvaged when the fighting died down. Happened all the time during the desert campaign of WW2 for instance.

I can't speak to the abilities of the 'best-of-the-best' uber-users, but I can say that 50m is a long way for an unguided missle like the old LAW. I always thought that they were intended for close-in (20 or 30m) flank shots by sneak and peak infantry. I only fired one in my limited career, and that was just in a training environment, but between the rudimentary sight, the heavy kick and back blast, and the awkward balance on the thing I don't think I would have gotten close to a moving target over 20M away... probably not even to a stationary target over 20m.

Quite frankly if people are looking to houserule... there's some easy ways to go about it... instead of -1 per net hit, switch to -2 or even -3 for rockets and missiles (GL's are reasonably fine at -2/hit).


Also, another good mechanic is to scale scatter by distance.

EG:
hand grenade... 1d6/2, 2d6/2, 3d6/2, 4d6/s at extreme. -1/hit
Grenade Launcher, 1d6, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, -2/hit
Etc.


Doesn't address the low levels of damage these weapons do, but it does at least allow you to use them w/ some reasonable precision.

Overall, I think most SR rockets and missiles aren't the big boys we think of like the maverick or penguin. But more like 2.75" folding fin rockets like the zuni. (2.75" rocket is roughly equivalent to an 8" cruiser gun in power and explosive yield).

Firing at a target 20m away has very good odds of having the scatter be towards you enough to kill you.

14m average scatter; the scatter (4d6) does not change with distance, distance only modifies your net hits to be "lower." So instead of having 14m-(DP-3)/3 of scatter at 50m and missing, you instead you have 14m-DP/3 of scatter at a range of 20 meters.

Another silly idea...

Roll scatter as normal... EXCEPT...
divide by 4 for point blank/short,
divide by 3 for medium
divide by 2 for long
divide by 1 at extreme


Really I think that's the biggest problem w/ the rules right now... you scatter exactly the same no matter if you're close or far.

Odd, I was routinely (on the order of 75-80%) hitting targets at up to 350 meters with a standard LAW rocket during my tenure in the Marine Corps... But then, I also fired several hundred over my career...

350m is reasonable for a LAW shot at a building or stationary large vehicle (M1, HET, etc.), but not a fast moving technical or BMP. I have more experience with AT-4s, though I wouldn't say I've fired "several". ~200m seems to me to be the outer edge for reliably hitting a moving, medium-sized vehicle with iron/plastic sights for something like a LAW or AT-4.

Sure. But in ShadowRun, you couldn't hit a stationary building 3 times out of 4.

Thanks for all the replies! A lot of good suggestions for bringing the rules in line with reasonable expected outcomes.






I think either of these could be effective solutions, I will talk it over with my GM see what he thinks. I am more inclined toward the latter just for sake of expedited gameplay. To be fair one thing I did not consider:



I never considered that this could be an intentional balance issue. SR4 has so many odd rule bugs I just assume all of them are oversight at this point. However balance aside, if I were to survive an encounter because the "anti tank" rockets were pinging impotently off my Mecury Comet, the victory would feel quite hollow

Best shot with a LAW was a front on shot at 400 meters on a 5-Ton vehicle... was quite impressive to see the engine block disintegrate and the hood fly up alomost a hundred meters in the air... but you are right... a fast moving vehicle is a difficult target for an AT-4 or LAW... and 200 Meters is probably a very accurate, reliable range for a moving vehicle...assuming you have some experience with the weapons in question...