The Cutlass is, as far as I can find, the fastest boat in SR4a and Arsenal. It's also decently sized, carries a couple of weapons mounts, and has a "sophisticated sensor suite".

Unfortunately, it's hard to find the precise correspondence between vehicle Body and size, but the fluff suggests that the Body 12 options probably are too small.

Our options aside from the Cutlass, in the books, include a harbor patrol boat, and a pair of yachts.

Always remember that we can use Arsenal to modify the shit out of it.

Fastest? It's Speed is 60 and Acceleration is 15/30. The Crest and Slyph in Arsenal are both significantly faster. The Slyph is even described as an anti-smuggler vessel, and you can afford two of them for the price of a single Cutlass. Then you have other alternatives like the GMC Beachcraft which is way faster and armored to the teeth. It would make an awesome attack vessel, and is used by pirates quite often, too.

There's really no reason to limit the group to just one vessel, either. In fact, I'd say that it's more of a liability than anything.

And you can modify all of these vehicles, too.

I say we go for a biggish ship some faster support/pursuit ships. Then we do like pirates and hold a big ship and its crew hostage for big bucks.

I saw the Crest and Sylph as being too small for the group - but as said, it's hard to say. I think we'd need a GM ruling.

I would like to speak my piece for a single larger vessel though - as far as our employer is concerned, more vessels means more chance of us going rogue. It also makes a lot more sense from a logistic perspective.

This is annoying...if we were on land, we could just get the stepvan and have done with it

The Sylph and the Crest both seem, to this GM, to lack something essential: The ability to live on them.

Michandre is right: From your employer's perspective, one vessel is a lot easier to explain to the appropriators than a whole fleet.

(Mind you, also, your vessel needs to not scream "pirate" or "smuggler". Covertness matters.)

For speed and maneuverability, I would go with the Cutlass. However, the Classique looks a lot less intimidating and has a lot more space (body). It is, however, much slower and more expensive.

Thing I hate about vehicles in SR4: It is impossible to tell if you're supposed to be able to live aboard them, in some cases.

Sometimes it's obvious in one direction or another, but a lot of times it's fuzzy as hell, and the Cutlass is one of those cases.

Especially since 'patrol boat' can mean a lot of things, from "Not meant to leave the harbor" to "Open Ocean Cutter". The book gives no clue whatsoever what's intended.
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That said, that's a separate determination from how many people the damn thing can carry. For watercraft, the books say nothin', but Jason Hardy provided me the handy rule of thumb a few months back of 1 passenger per 2 body points.

It works well enough for most cases. Using this guideline, the Cutlass can hold 8 people given a body of 16. The Classique can hold 12.

I figure the classique, if you strip out the luxury appointments, even if down to High (or even more drastically down to Middle) can probably hold more people. The Cutlass, I'm not sure you can do the same thing.

I'm still set on the Striker. If you go on that 1 passenger per 2 Body, then you can support 15. And you also get 30 mod slots. Is it likely we could ever obtain one of those, Penta? Through theft or maybe we earn the money and buy one? Plus it has the description which specifically states it's 'capable of independent action'.

(I should probably stop going on about it, it sounds like I'm obsessed or something.)

Part of me says we get an amphibious zeppelin and live off that.

Fuck the amphibious. LIVE OFF THE ZEPPELIN.

Yeah but launching attack ships and picking them up via a airborne craft is a problem. Thats right I'm thinking a carrier zeppelin.

Ohh a zeppelin would kick ass.

The Luftschiffbau Zeppelin LZ-2065, a heavy cargo airship, is only 800k

By the way, as far as zeppelins are concerned, Cherry (my character) is going to really, really want a GTS Tower drone. Are people behind using group funds for that, if we can afford it?

Anyway, Penta, because the rules seem to be kinda skimpy, how could you feel about a player-designed boat, with all attempts made to keep it reasonable?

If we do that, should it be a Navy ship? I suggest the Celebrian Striker

I think we should go for a decommissioned NAVY boat. Fast armored but un-armed even fits well IC well we where going to scrap this but here you go. I'm happy to RP upgrading/repairing it as well if we get a good sized decommissioned ship.
Twink it out so its faster and maybe add a way to launch and retive faster boarding craft and we are set.

Random question, because I've never played a character with a Sim module but no cybereyes before: if I have a Sim module, do I still need glasses to experience AR?

By RAW nope.

....I really would squirm at statting up a whole ship. You might be able to pull it off, but the rules make it very hard to do and know you're coming out with something reasonable.

Keep in mind, any ship you do get is likely to be (Very) modified...from a *civilian* ship, which itself will probably be new-built. (How does the Navy get its hands on a newbuilt civvie ship legitimately while keeping cover? Hordes of ways!) Mil-stock ships, even demilitarized, would draw too much attention.

Humm I forgot what class is used to counter smuggling now but thats a very normal ship/bar the warship grey paint job and bow HMG. But a demilitarized version of that with a few mods to make it look less intimidating perhapses. Also the question of ship bored armaments we have to ask with modern trade ships crews arming up. I don't see it being beyond the realm of possibility that some trade ships would be armed. However if thats so its a two way street.

Maybe we should use the Similar Models rules in Arsenal?

Maybe

Part of me is thinking a Harland and Wolff Classique III (Yacht) with a method to dock a Colorado Craft Sylph and may be a Bolt or two. Though a Blohm & Voss Spitzenreiter could make a nice home base with modification as well being a fishing trawler. Though both these vessels are SLOW. Thus we will need assult craft to work effectively. If we get a removable weapon mount for the Sylph think like a Thundercloud Morgan a weapon mount used from standing near the rear ect that be affixed when needed and store below decks when we are masquerading as a yacht. Again for this to really work a large portion of our combat ready crew must be able to pilot water craft well. A Sylph can carry a crew of 4 including any gunner.

I've already got a Sylph with a torpedo weapon mount, but I'm thinking of changing that. Any suggested mods?

Does the Armoured Control option for Weapon Mounts include the single slot for manual control?

That's probably a good idea. I mean, don't modern pirates usually do it that way, with a single larger, slower boat and a number of outriders?

I think that the fishing boat is probably less conspicuous (and has extended range, as I recall), but I like the yacht for its bigness. We should uparmor it a little, though.

We get a free satlink, right? We should also probably purchase some sort of network node. If people don't want to spend group funds on this node, my character will definitely be buying her own, but she'll charge you all to use it .

What other mods do we want? My evaluation:

-Weapons mounts (like an assault cannon or whatever) might be a little too conspicuous on the mothership, though I bet we could probably hide some missile launchers pretty well.
-An extra fuel tank is nice if we have the room for it. 1000
-I'm going to mention armor again! Regular is Rating x 200. Concealed is Rating x1000
-A complete skinlink would be pretty cool. 5000
-Drone racks might be nice. Small landing = 5000, large landing = 20000
-My character will want ECM (Rating x 1000) and jammers (Area and directional cost rating x 500 each), but will be willing to pay out of pocket for those if she can afford them. Same with lock-on countermeasures (5000). Same with improved sensor array (1000). Same (probably) with a Retrans unit (4000).
-Engine customization might be nice, though I imagine it's pretty conspicuous ( Speed x Body x 5 or Accel x Body x 25)
-Missile Defense is, amazingly, not illegal. It's pretty pricey, though (10000)
-Ram Plate (Body x 250)
-I think searchlights are required. Plus they're pretty cheap (1200).
-How obvious are torpedo launchers to official inspection? I suspect very. (surprisingly affordable at 2000)
-I think a workshop would be nice. (10000. 50000 for a full desktop forge)
-Valkyrie module! Do we have a ship's surgeon? (also surprisingly inexpensive. 2000)
-Rigger cocoons? (1500 each for the basic model)

I'm not sure how you would dock a Sylph with a Classique.

Xahn: re the weapon mounts question: Presumably, Armored Controls include manual controls? Not sure what you're asking here.
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As a guide to how I read sizes? Body isn't a good metric, IMHO, at least for ships. It tries to do too much. When Blood in the Water worked through the problem, we figured on the Classique being a yacht between 100 feet to 200 feet...Closer to 200, in that case, and we quickly determined that it was possibly pushing it (in terms of deployable auxiliary craft) to do more than 2 Zodiacs. Since BitW died, I thought about it a bit and figured that the Classique may not be quite the megayacht 200' length makes it out to be. I cannot tell *how* big the thing was supposed to be, but 200' is probably too much.

The Sylph I personally see as something you need a good bit of space to assemble - not something you can do on a ship at sea, at least not a ship of this size. The Sylph is something you'd bring to the launching site on a truck, assemble it on land, do whatever, then disassemble it if possible.

Quick side note: You do not, unless it comes with the ship as std equipment, get a free satlink.

Does it matter? It's just a cheap (500 nuyen) accessory for a commlink that even comes with its own portable dish.

I meant the satellite upgrade for the ship, not the commlink upgrade.

Okay, all.

Michandre brought up a good question to me via email. Namely, how do I regard the Martial Arts section in Arsenal?

Um. Let me put it this way. When I reread the section tonight, my eyes practically bugged out.

I don't want to junk it totally. I wish I could save it. But it'd require me to rebuild it from square one to balance it.

So I have to junk it, and pretend it doesn't exist.

Michandre, I hope I'm not revealing too much by saying that you essentially acted against your own interests. See, her character is Israeli, and had a perfect excuse (IDF service) to learn Krav Maga - possibly the mechanically most badass style in the listing presented. I fully admit that before it was pointed out, I'd probably have let it pass, because I hadn't sat down with that section of Arsenal and really considered it for a while.

Ordinarily, this would win 1 or 2 karma - when you act against your own interests, say by calling my attention to a rule which cuts against you, I'm perfectly willing to reward you on occasion for that. It's fair play, but it's also something most players (in my experience) don't do much, instead letting it slide and hoping nobody notices. I can't fault you when you choose to do that, but.

However, this being during chargen, no karma. However, have a cookie.

Keep in mind, we'll have a couple hackers on board, so a ship PAN may be a good idea. The ship surgeon (that's me) could go for a valkryrie module, but with the size of the craft, a medical workshop would probably be a better idea if we want to do implantations onboard. Maybe a vehicle workshop and small armory too (that'd work great for repairing/modding drones and player weapons).


Yeah, 200' is a tad large, considering that's the length of some ferries. I'd probably say 100-120 ft.

It's actually still 500 yen. So, that's cool.

I'm bummed about the Krav Maga, obviously. 5 BP each for the ability to Take Aim and Ready Weapon as a free action? Sign me up! The bonuses for called shots and using weapons in close combat are also nice. It's pretty cool to have a valid excuse to take a martial art whose game rules are based on using guns

I'd also like to note that I don't know why I love the so much.

Oh, and incidentally, I'm a dude, just playing a female character. It's okay, though, Penta, my name is actually androgynous (in Hebrew, at least. In Hindi it's definitely a boy's name).

Regarding the nexus,

I think Signal 3 is probably enough - we don't want it too big, or else evil doers can get in. We'll also hopefully have a Tower or something.
Response 3 (the max we can get)
System should be high, though above System 3, we can only have a maximum of 24 personas (which I think is probably more than enough)
Firewall, also high.

If the GM allows a slightly munched out nexus, we can get Signal [whatever], Response 3, System 6, Firewall 6 for 150 * (Processor Limit) * (Persona Limit). For something like 20 personas, 50 processors (probably more than we need), this comes out to 150,000. For a more reasonable 12 personas, 20 processors, it's 36,000.

That math is all wrong. The price would be 450 * Processor + 300 * Persona for those stats. For Persona 20 Processor 40, that comes out to 24,000. That's more than we'll ever need, though it is a good chunk of change.

Which brings up something. How big do people see workshops as being, when assembled and usable?

Re implantations: I'm pretty willing to say now that doing them at sea, on board a ship, is probably a very bad idea.

Why? Because whether the ship is 50' or 100' or 200' in length, it's going to pitch and roll. Even minor movements would be...bad...during delicate surgery.

What is the stand on karmagen with respects to Attributes and Special Attributes? Specifically does the karma spent on Special Attributes count towards the karma cap for Attributes? By RAW, Karma gen includes special attributes under the cap, BP does not. The chargen excel file downloaded does not include special attributes under the cap.

GM ruling needed, but I am fine with either.

Fun fact: my character has 8 pieces of headware. I'm not sure if there's room for a brain in there or not.

For those who care, that's a scintillating 2.55 Essence loss!

No Nin-Jutsu for my character then? Damn.

I'm sure you can store it elsewhere at your body.

Big enough to fit in the back of a van.

And yeah, all my ware is in my head too. It's mostly just extra gray matter though.

I'm playing an ex-SBS quartermaster as of now. So an armors workshop would also be nice. As for how to dock a 4 man speed boat on a yacht. I'd say its a special mechinay job and its defiantly possible I've seen it done on small yachts.

So should I lose the Sylph? And where are we leaving from, I believe someone mentioned Miami? If it's undecided, my vote's for that, as my char's from Tampa and it's a little more convenient than Seattle. While we're talking about ware, I've got mostly headware, bit of bodyware, eyes, ears and one modular cyberarm. As well as a modular grapple hand with no Climbing Skill.

I'm going to say go with the excel file.

I've seen the lifts you might be referring to used for divers, but not for a speedboat. I'm also not sure how you'd store something that big on a 100'-120' yacht.

Which is something I want to emphasize. The "fits in a van" is for a shop when it's packed for transport, at least the way I read the rules. What's undetermined is how big the shop is when not transportable.

Whatever ship you get isn't going to be too modified from its base in terms of structure - they might add safety improvements (watertight hatches in lieu of doors, for instance), but you're still stuck with the ship as built in terms of how much space you have.

You have to realize that few if any of the vehicles listed in the game are designed to be used by such a large group. The game revolves around groups in the 4-6 man range. Even a large luxury yacht is going to be very cramped with 12 people living onboard fulltime with a full retinue of personal equipment. Then you have to worry about all the modifications made to the ship which is going to eat up a lot of space, too. Which is why I was recommending having more than one vehicle.

As for the size of a shop, it naturally depends on the type of shop. Some require more space (like a vehicle shop), while some don't require that much (such as a microtronics shop). In general, I'd say an average-sized room would be more than sufficient for most one-man shops that don't require any large areas, which would be the case for any that involve the building or repair of drones and vehicles.

I've also seen the speedboat 'lifts' on yachts before. They basically hang off the back or side, depending on the size of both ships and how many recreational vehicles they have. It's basically a larger drone rack.

I still think the best thing to do is go with a small barge or frigate and modify it for living quarters and a portable 'dock' for the real vehicles. Maybe toss on one or two long-range weapons and give it a decent amount of armor, and you're set. It's also important to realize that one of the perks of being a privateer is that you get to claim pirating vessels if/when you take them over, assuming you're not specifically ordered to turn them in yourself. So even if the group doesn't start off with multiple ships, they very well may end up with them.

But I realize Penta has a very specific idea in mind, too. So that has to be respected quite a bit more than some of the other possible options.

I fully realize the size of group issue, Dr. Funk.

To be quite honest, if there were vehicle design rules for SR4(A) beyond "do what seems reasonable" (without giving what reasonable might look like), I might be amenable to a group-designed ship as a base. As is, because I have no freaking clue what reasonably could result, the prospect makes me squirm.

Which does not mean (hint hint) that I'm totally unwilling, but it'd be a prerequisite that you show your work, walk me through the process, and keep the vehicle balanced.

Just spotted this. Insofar as I have an artistic intent, it's this:

From the UCAS Navy side, this is a big op. For the 500k you see, more is likely being spent on ancilliary expenses, including support of the op.

You will not be the only privateer crew out there, not eventually (though you will be the first and the testing ground for the concept).

It's paid for through the heavily-audited-by-Congress "black budget" used for classified programs. In that regard, even a few million nuyen is a sneeze.

Oh, and if it were discovered the UCAS were behind this op? Major diplomatic damage. It is, from the government's POV, high-risk, but very high-reward.

Even better, it's designed to be self-funding, sort of. Not normally legal, but there are ways.

What this means for you guys:

In any ship, they're going to emphasize being clandestine. Hiding in plain sight.

Obvious weapons would be right out - Every coast guard in the hemisphere would be looking for you.

Having a cover would be required. A cover for when they break that cover might be a good idea.

Okay, that all reads a bit sterner than I intended.

So far as the ship goes - if you guys want to stat up a ship for use, go ahead.

Include full SR4 stats for vehicles, plus these additional statlines:

Water storage
Fuel storage (Diesel)
Fuel consumption (expressed in km/L)
Length overall (in meters and in feet)
Beam
Draft
Height above waterline

Also, the more artistically inclined may provide a floorplan.

I'll work up a history and such for the design when you guys finish the stats and stuff, and then we'll work on a history for the ship itself.

Before we do any of that, though, I'd like to see how many people we actually have considering play.

If it's actually less than 12, I may just say "go with a pre-statted ship".

I can't shut up today (yeah, yeah, can I ever?), so some commentary:

Re the expanded ship stats I'm looking for, I figure they deserve some explanation: And a small edit: If group size is really small by those standards, lize 6 or so, I might say 'use a prestatted ship'. If it's bigger, like 8 or 10, I'm more likely to go "Okay, design your own". When I set down the 10-12 number in my post to the career center thread, it was to define a maximum. I really cannot handle more than 10-12. The game I think works best with a larger group than standard, simply because I'd rather not mess with the insanity of NPC crew members (yet, if at all).

Fuel capacity and usage is because Arsenal basically admits operating time doesn't work all that well for potentially-long-duration craft like watercraft. Ships would find it very difficult to run off solar power, I should note - generally you use marine diesel, a different formulation from automotive diesel I believe.

Water has only capacity because one of the players for BitW (Karoline) devised a formula for water usage that works really well, I'll dig it up and post it soon. It's a standard formula, and works nicely to fit any group size.

Length overall is important, as is beam (width) and draft, because thiese stats determine a lot about a ship, including where it can go and where it can dock.

Height above waterline mostly is for illustrative purposes, and works as a check - if you're such and such a length, then height should sort of fit, and you want to fit under bridges.

Just wanted to let you know I"m going to pull my name from the list of possible players.

Just realized I don't have the time I thought I did for another game.

JD

Totally fair, JD, and I thank you for being so polite.

I'm definitely in. Sorry that I haven't been more helpful on the whole ship issue, but my knowledge of SR 4 is too limited to really help. Also, I have my own IRL Shadowrun game that I'm going to be GMing that I'm trying to prepare for, in addition to my college coursework, and looking for a job. I have plenty of time to play a pbp game, but not enough time to try and stat out things for it. Heck, I haven't really had the time to sit down and write up a bio for my character. Hell, come to think of it I haven't finished building him, stat wise, yet either. In my defense I had to do a fair bit of reading to get caught up on the whole commlink/AR thing in SR4. Even as a mage, that stuff is important to know. Guess I'll work on my character right now