I know this has been discussed before but I cant seem to search out the prior threads.

Im not entirely comfortable with the SR4 vehicle damage rules, are there any houserules on the subject that people have come up with that they'd be willing to share as an alternative?

Hardened armor (including vehicle armor) is only half as high as in the books, but counts as automatic hits instead of you having to roll it.

There, AP ammo is now really useful, because you can't scratch most vehicles without, while drones are now decently tough against non-ap small arms fire, low amounts of hardened armor are actually usefull instead of meaningless and you balanced high force spirits better all with the same small change.

Do you let damage transmit through the vehicle at a certain point or does it just happen automatically?

The way I read it in core was that it was automatically transmitted to the passengers. However I think I would re-engineer it such that if the damage could surpass the armor then it would damage the passengers inside only if it could then surpass a barrier test.

Dragnar, what do you mean? I'm curious as well, because my friend mentioned mages being able to geek vehicles with extreme ease with indirect spells, and I'm looking for evidence as to otherwise. I've heard references to hardened armor for vehicles in my search around, and know what it entails, but how do you get it on a vehicle? Just take the automatic hits you would get?

If you want drones to be tougher against small arms fire why not just give them more armor? Also, APDS is really useful against vehicle and hardened armor as it is, as it makes it possible to damage the vehicle in the first place.