Post wacky or deceptively deadly drone or vehicle concepts here!

I saw a fun little thing in the boards the other day and liked it plenty:

But I think it could've been done with lower cost and an extra "pop" when the going gets tough.
I give you:
The Headless Murdercycle
Harley Davidson Scorpion [-, 12,000]
[1 Slot] Armor 16 [6R, 3,200]
[1 Slot] Ram Plate [6R, 2,500]
[1 Slot] Rigger Adaptation [4, 2,500]
[1 Slot] Motorcycle Gyro Stabilization [8, 2,400]
[2 slots] Termination System: Self Destruct[12F, 1,000]
Av: 12F
Cost: 23,600
Notes: The drone motorcycle will resist 12DV with 24 dice and likely keep driving, the target, on the other hand, needs to figure out how to deal with 24P, -1/2 Impact. If, somehow, the target requires more damage, you can detonate the bike itself for 14 (f).

It's so nice to be appreciated.

I like the concept of that bike, but if the target took 24P -1/2 Impact and survived, I don't think a 14(f)P explosion is going to matter much.

Hmm. Good for hitting a big bruiser and then asploding minions though.

If that's the intent, then why not just take off the Self Destruct, put on a weapon mount, and mount an Ares Alpha loaded with grenades? That way you still get your grenade shot, and you don't waste an otherwise perfectly functional 23+k ride.

*shameless swipe for his collection*

~Umidori

Not so sure it'd be "perfectly functional" after a ram attempt, but the point is taken. The termination system would be optimally used after ramming and steering into things like nobody's business.

But you could add a sidecar...

The Headless Murdercycle with "Musical" accompaniment by LMG
Harley Davidson Scorpion [-, 12,000]
[1 Slot] Armor 20 [6R, 4,000]
[1 Slot] Ram Plate [6R, 2,500]
[1 Slot] Rigger Adaptation [4, 2,500]
[1 Slot] Motorcycle Gyro Stabilization [8, 2,400]
[1 Slot] Sidecar [6, 1500]
[1-2 Slots] Weapon Mount [?, ???]
Cost: 28.9k. Assumes a visible, flexible weapon mount. Guns sold separately.

The sidecar not only allows for the addition of a nice big, gun, but ALSO increases the vehicle's body by 3. The ramming damage comes to as much as 33DV.
Deadly enough yet?

Hmm...normally we are limited to ONE sidecar since a modification can only be taken ONCE right?

Too bad...but a sidecar och each side of the bike should be possible.

Since adding a sidecar adds +3 body should not also the modification slots increase by +3 as well?

Yo dawg, I heard you liked modding, so I put a side-car on your side-car so you can mount weapons while you mount weapons?

~Umidori

Yup. Or at least it should, consider sidecar entry itself suggests sticking a weapon on it.

If we went for straight up ramming mayhem in the form of super-high body, I'd say we might as well take it to the extreme and use a Hermes Van for it or something. 51 DV will get just about anyone's attention.

Interesting, I cannot see anything about being limited to ONE sidecar, so more than one can be added to a bike.

The only section where a limit on the amount of modifications of the same typ that can be added is for weapon modifications only.

Well, within reason I think, a bike with X6 Sidecars will be just silly...and rather hard to handle with -1 handling per sidecar.

Not sure you really need Gyro Stabilization if you have a sidecar...

It's very slow now, top speed is only 72 and accel is only 9/18.

How about

The Headless Murdercycle with "Musical" accompaniment by VBFG

Thundercloud Contrail [-, 5,000]
[1 Slot] Armor 18 [6R, 3,600]
[1 Slot] Ram Plate [6R, 2,500]
[1 Slot] Rigger Adaptation [4, 2,500]
[1 Slot] Sidecar [6, 1,500]
[2 Slot] Turbocharger x 2 [4, 8,640]
[5 Slots] Weapon Mount, Concealed, Fixed, Reinforced [16F, 8500]
[2 Slots] Ammo Bins x 2 [4, 400]
GE Vigilant Light Autocannon [15F, 5000]
Cost: 37640

Costs a bit more and it'll need Restricted Gear to buy at char-gen. If you ain't worried about cost or availability you could swap the Vigilant our for a Vanquisher....

Acceleration is 22/44 but speed is only 108. I didn't include the cost of 700 rounds of ammo either which is another 8400 if you go for AV.

I thought you could mount the gun facing backwards and only use it to mop up survivors and deter pursuit....

I'm not sure if you've done this for this incarnation of the bike, but when I developed mine, it was designed to be able to ignore the maximum damage it could deal from ramming. If you increase the damage from ramming, you need to start thinking about more armor for the bike. If you can't add any more armor for the bike, you need to start making Damage Resistance Tests, and that means your bike is vulnerable.

Not related to the murdercycle, but any flying drone with a sniper rifle makes me sad as a GM.

Your players will hate a Dalmatian with a Mitsuhama Yakusoku MRL and Inferno Missiles...

The problem with the murdercycle is that at char-gen, you can only start with armor rating 6 (yawn) and after chargen, the extended test for INSTALLING the armor onto the bike is threshold 20, with intervals of 6 hours per test. Assuming you're losing a die on each roll (that's default, right?) I think you'd have to do a lot of work to be able to install that armor at all, let alone in any reasonable time between runs.

Qua?

Armour has an avail' of 6R, easily within char-gen limits.

The Vigilant and the mount to put it on are a different, Restricted Gear, matter. I did mention that.

A Bod 9 Contrail with the Sidecar and Ram Plate does 18P to itself in a ram so the maximum 18 points of Armour it can carry is sufficient. It's victim has to cope with a 27P which should be enough to maim most anything....

No, actually, it isn't. Its an optional rule that is stupid.

Ah, my bad. Even without losing dice, you're looking at a weeks worth of work - but that makes it way more likely to be doable between runs.

Normally you're limited to a number of rolls equal to your dice pool.

So for a pool of 8 you get:
8 * 8 dice, or 64 dice.
With the optional rule you get
8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 dice, or 36 dice.

Or about 60% of the same pool, with the same thresholds (and greater chance of glitches).

So yeah, that rule is stupid.

technically its a suggested rule, is a bit different than optional, but close enough. however as its the suggested way of limiting the number of extended tests you can make preventing someone from making the impossible simply because they can keep rolling dice.
limiting the rolls is not stupid, making the impossible is.

As opposed to just limiting the number of rolls? How is it better?

I'm not sure where you got all your dice to soak. What helps with that beyond the Body and installed Armor?

As for other things to tack on..
Add self repair to reduce damage by 1. Should effectively double the bike's life expectancy.

Add on an Anti-theft system to stack another 10(e)S damage to anyone within a meter of where it passes. Now your murdercycle does splash damage!

EDT: Oh man! I totally forgot about vehicles having hardened armor, so it doesn't have to soak a thing as long as armor = body and it isn't going over 200m/ct.

Woah clearly you have never seen the show "Metalocalypse" they have a tricked out motorcycle with 4 sidecars, and it actually is CALLED the "Murdercycle." How anyone could possibly steer that I have no idea. But I got to say I do love where this thread is going.
Could we perhaps do something completly rediculous and maybe give it the lighter-than-air mod as well? (Sooner or later not owning Arsenal is going to hurt.)

Now that I think on it, the ramming rules could really use some sort of expansion into things like sideswiping or pulling off a PIT manuver. I remember someone mentioned a system for pure vehicle combat simulation.. anyone remember the name?

No, it would deal 18P to its modified armor of 9, causing it to make a roll, causing it to more than likely damage itself. Mine does not have this issue.

At worst, it could do 9DV to itself, actually, unless the driver was stupid and rammed at over 200 m/turn. Very easy to deal with. No ramming vehicle can ever do more than 1.5*bod to itself.

Of note: When a vehicle does a successful ram, it will do its body*(1 to 3 depending on speed) DV to the target of the ram and HALF OF THAT to itself. (BBB, 169) With a ram plate, you increase the multiplier by one compared to your speed level. However, the increase only applies to the vehicle being RAMMED, the ramming vehicle's damage is unchanged. (Arsenal, 142) So, if you had a 20 body, 20 armor, ram-plated Conestoga Vista smashing some poor shmuck at top speed, the vista would take 20 DV (20 bod*2*.5) and likely not care, while the target would take 60 DV (20 bod*3).

Yeah, that'd splat a dragon, I reckon. Assuming you could hit one, of course.

Qua?

Ramming attacks are at -1/2 AP Impact. Vehicle armor is considered both Ballistic and Impact armor. Therefore ramming attacks halve vehicle armor.




No, because the 18P was already the half damage to self, as the poster said. I did not check his math, however.


No, the "damage done to the rammed vehicleis raised to the next higher damage value on the ramming table (p. 160, SR4)" (Arsenal, page 142) which is quite different. A vehicle going more than 200kph gets no benefit from a ram plate.

What gives you that idea?



Incidentally, the ramming vehicle only receives half the calculated damage. In this instance that would actually be 9P so the vehicle in question is horribly over engineered.

Basically, with the ramming plate, a vehicle takes a damage value two levels lower than the target. So at DV level 2xBOD the vehicle takes half level 2, which is 1xBOD and the target takes DV level 2+1 which is 3xBOD.

And it says that characters resist ramming damage with half Impact. I don't know if a vehicle fitted with hardened armor counts as a character in this instance.. I suppose a wall is a character. Any noun in existence is a character? I just feel like something with real structural support is quite different from, say, a guy wearing chain mail or thick padding.

I finally ran the numbers myself and this is correct.

I don't know why you people try to justify things outside the rules. Vehicle armor is in effect Hardened, since Vehicles are immune to Stun damage, so as long as the modified DV of the attack does not exceed the modified AP of the vehicle, it does not even need to do a Damage Resistance Test, and that should get the effect you're talking about.

I just forgot about the 2xBod armor cap again.
Need sleep.

Yep.......

This is a vehicle we are talking about here.....

... It appears that for the last few years my eyes have glossed over the beginning word of that sentence.

I was speaking in terms of overall effect. While there is no higher damage multiplier than 3 for ramming, it's not very often that one would be ramming at 200+ meters/combat turn.

Wanna touch T-birds?

To get that little extra "oomph" a heimdall can ram someone before the added warhead goes off. This would come up then as well.

That's the way I always use a Heimdall, zero scatter for the win.....

Okay, sorry for practicing necromancy on this thread but I've just read the "RAW" for ramming. The vehicle must be within walking/running range, and as written, will use the walking/running speed (when ramming, you use tac. combat speed, plus they say "[..] if the driver has to resort to running"), so the figures written under "acceleration". Which means a Scorpion would never ram at 60-200, but rather at 20-60. With the ram plate, that increases to 16 damage to the target vs. 4 to itself. Unless I've missed something, you don't deal 24 damage.

Edit: and that's with a -3 penalty to hit for "running". If using the walking speed, don't try ramming a troll. He'll soak, and they will rip your head off.

or this piece of Evil to throw at players....

http://screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/t...-terminator.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3368/357230..._3a98c2c076.jpg

particularly with a really good rigger

You're assuming the vehicle does not retain the velocity of going 100 kph when he hits from 20 meters away.

Gear has two restrictions at character creation. Nothing higher than a rating of 6, and nothing with an Availability of 12 without Restricted Gear. This is mentioned in the same paragraph at the beginning of the gear chapter as well as in the character creation chapter. To drive the point home even further, look in Arsenal on page 132, under the description for vehicular armor: "What helps them to survive this is good old-fashioned armor, rated from 1 to 20." So no, none of these vehicles are permitted at character creation. And good luck getting a GM to let you do it afterwards, too.

Buying successes is an optional rule, too, and it's one intended for trivial tasks. While specifically designing these vehicles and drones so that ramming into things at high speed is trivial for them, I, personally, would require a roll each and every time. Because in my book, crashing at high speed is never a non-threatening and non-stressful situation. Regardless, considering it's an optional rule requiring GM permission, trying to rely on it as proof of concept is kinda silly.

So that, right there, is a list of two major stopping blocks in this particular nonsense.

Or when rolling vehicular damage resistance. SR4 page 161.

No, I'm assuming that ramming is a tactical combat action and thus uses the tactical combat running/walking speed. Which are, more often than not, below 60m/round. You can houserule that if you will, but by RAW, the murdercycle isn't gamebreaking.

Whether in tactical or chase combat, vehicles do not have a fixed walking or running rate as metahumans. They only have walking/running acceleration and maximum speed.
If an immobile vehicle with 15/30 acceleration would want to ram someone, this target would have to be within 15/30 meters in the first turn. If this vehicle had already spent one turn of accelerating to 15/30 m/turn it could ram anyone within 45m or 60m if it continued to run. It's impact speed would be 30-60m/turn depending on the chosen mode of acceleration. and so on up to the vehicle's maximum speed.

If only.

I don't know about you, but ramming a person or a small car with an M1 Abrams, while it may be difficult to actually hit them, is not particularly threatening or stressful to the tank itself.

I'd agree, and for a tank that was actually engineered by teams of professionals, mass-produced, and proven in the field, I'd allow the optional rule. For a stupid bike some jerk made in his backyard to prove how broken the rules are and try to ruin a game by actually using it? Not so much.

Will it still be ridiculously broken? Yup! Will it still be utterly invulnerable? Nope! Eventually it'll screw up its test.

Coulds someone do the math, how probable this is?
By ogling the problem, I think it is very unlikely that the vehicle will be damaged, let alone immobilized. How often do you want to ram things between maintenance stops?