Ok having become a hard core fan of the British Top Gear I am developing an appreciation of those super cars that seem more European than American.

It makes me wonder about what the runners drive. Do you go on a run with a high value car? Think of James Bond's Austin Martin- tricked out in Goldfinger and just a great car that wrecks in Casino Royale. OR are you like Patrtick Swayze in Road House with a knock about for day to day use while keeping the good car hidden away?

Or do you see no point to haivng the car?

low key all the way while on a job.

you dont want to be flaunting your expensive ride while on a job. just in case you need to ditch it in a hurry and disapear.

the cheapest run of the mill camry would do the trick over any tricked out zonda

If it's not stolen, it's not a Shadowrun.

Fixed the thread title for you. (your --> you).

And Top Gear kicks ass.

Unless you need the expensive ride for a con.

One of my currently active characters makes use of a middle-of-the-road(hehe) sedan not too unlike the Shin-Hyung in Arsenal. Got good speed and handling, cheaper than a Eurocar, and with a chameleon coating it doesn't look out of place anywhere, thanks to the fact it can adopt a pre-programmed "rusted-out clunker" pattern whenever it needs to go into the slums or get a brand new glossy black paintjob for the ritzy neighborhoods.

He really oughta take a page from Swayze by keeping the damn thing hidden and use a real clunker, though. It keeps getting scuffed up and damaged. Sometimes by his own team! Can't imagine what a pain it is to recoat an adaptive camouflage paintjob.

Or to blend in better with your target area.

Generally, the best car is the one that won't be noticed going in or out, IMO. Speed and armament are secondary concerns usually at odds with the first; it's easy enough to hijack a car that looks like some portion of the area vehicles, even if it's a delivery van, (and if it's not, that's a good sign that the run might be more difficult than should be taken on without serious help), but it's hard to find a way to outrun the armed response in said delivery van.

Of course, it helps to have a really fast car aimlessly driving around under remote control, awaiting summons by the driver in case the quiet way fails.

Whatever happened to "High Tech and Low Life"?

My "old man" character drives a BMW.

He's not especially attached to it, though. It's just a reliable car with four extra mod slots. And lots of hidden surprises. He'll probably get another one when this one inevitably gets trashed.

In his previous Virtual Seattle incarnation he drove a Punisher-style battlevan.

My Rigger drives a Daihatsu-Caterpillar Horseman, among other things. That advanced cargo module can hold an astonishing amount of gear.




-k

Hm... Bulldog all the way, sadly. If you are carrying an Steel-Lynx and an assortment of other drones, nothing else has the mix of needed space and low-profile.

Well, my old detective-character was driving a 1969 Corvette Stingray - ultra-oldtimer (But completely switched out engine and transmission. We gave it stats of a Westwind) No tricks, no armor, just an hidden LAW in the trunk. Sometimes STYLE is all you need.

We bought out bulldog fifth (tenth?) hand. When we bought it, it was held together by body filler. Now that we have done a few runs, and its bit more shot up, its held together by even more body filler.

The cost of damage to the van is usually the most expensive part of our operations: so I recommend a cheap second hand van from the scrapyard, that your rigger can do up.

My son is playing a mage / rigger in the denver missions, and he likes his ares roadmaster (a lorry). Lorries drive every where at all times of the day and night. They have high body and high armour. His is kitted out with medium lifestyle, so it doubles as a safehouse. Its much easier to hide a concealed turret on the lorry than on a sports car. He did of course want the ejector seat option! Hes just lost his high lifestyle (a shoot out in a posh condominium with the Vory can cause questions to be asked) so having the lorry parked in a cheap warehouse makes a very quick and effective hideout.

On the point of stealing cars: we find that Murphy is always out there, and stealing a car is just asking for a lone star to stop you at the wrong moment.

Most of my characters use the monorail or bikes. The rigger has a Westwind, but that's the private car. On runs, a battered-looking van-tank-drone carrier is the vehicle of choice.

Generally, on a job, an expensive car is a no-go. That's something for downtime.

Yeah, expensive cars are pretty stupid vehicle to use on the job, unless the job needs it and even then it's not the smartest idea to use a personal vehicle.

That was a pretty smart move of him, considering what that car had to endure.


If my character has a car, that is typically also used for running, but mostly to get around town and to be inconspicuous and such. When a vehicle is needed in a more direct fashion, it will be acquired for that purpose, unless some old cars are still lying around from earlier (like those two vans my PnP char has "acquired" during a run and which are now used, because they are kinda expendable).

Bye
Thanee

A Patrol-1 with chameleon coating pre programmed with designs for various security companies and stocked with gear appropriate for a real police or security vehicle.

Just keep your transponder codes up to date, but other than that, fine idea.

You know, I wonder why am I reminded of the "Blue Beetle" from The Dresden Files?

Because Harry would fit in to Shadowrun so easilly it is scary... though he would need a very specific team, the man Hoods too often....

You know, I've had a lot of characters trick out motorcycles, or acquire rotorcraft, or boats, or any number of not-exactly-subtle vehicles... But not a single one has ever pursued a supercar, or even a halfway decent sports car, that I can recall. It's quite a strange thing to me, because I'm a "car guy", and I figure if I was a super-criminal with oodles of money, I'd get my ass a fast car. Hell, as soon as my last PC made any money at all, he got himself a BMW 4000GT and tricked it the hell out. I'd go on a run - any run - with a high value car. Sure, it's memorable, but if it's got a faked transponder, a shifting plate, and ruthenium paint, it won't matter - nobody really looks at the *car* in 2070 anyway. They look at the digital signature.

Then again, none of my players understand the attraction of hot hatches, Alfa Romeo, or small roadsters, either. Heathens. Who wouldn't want to go commit crimes in some of these:
Vehicle appearing in my next game as the British "Bracken Thunderbolt Coupe"
Or maybe an Armored BMW 765 is more your speed?
Or a Lotus Esprit GTO?

(I've been making a Euroean vehicle update, you see. Culling concept art from all over the net.)

I'd rather have a tricked out bike for most runners or a Spiral or Shin-Hyun for my budget conscious riggers. I also like the Hotspur if I feel like splurging, since it's still quite fast while being beefier and cheaper than a Westwind. Off-road suspension, 16 Body and smart tires are pretty nice if you find yourself taking creative detours through the Barrens.

One of my standard automotive purchases for most characters is a non-discript coup (Mercury Comet or whatever) with upgraded pilot, a theft protection system and a large car bomb. Load it with all your necessary bug-out gear, drive it to the long term parking lot at the local airport and program the agent to move the car every 1-2 weeks at random. If you ever need to to disappear, you send out the call and the car comes to wherever you are to pick you up. If anybody gets wise and tries to mess with your stuff...

My group once did a (filmed) chase away from The Magic Kingdom in a Range Rover 4X4 while armed Jaguar Sports Cars were chasing after them. They found out that their "Great Armor" doesn't work so well against full-auto bursts that have no recoil penalties.

As for myself, I'm from Northern Ontario. If we hit something on the road, we have to make sure it is D-E-D DEAD! Full-Sized Sedans (Ford Americars) and Pick-Up Trucks (Naz) are a must.

Thats where the Patrol-1 came in, its got the handling of a sports car for a reasonable price, the fact that its a police/security vehicle is pure bonus. I actually wanted to buy the Ford 115Ti, but the min/maxer in me couldn't justify the price tag on it.

Jim Butcher would probably want to play him in a superhero game.

He plays the City of Heroes MMO and actually got permission to play Harry Dresden there.




-k

Actually, I used to have a Harry Dresden clone in my group. Worked very well, especially since the Paranormal PI used to be a viable archetype back in the good old days. He had a day job of doing more mundane detective work so he could actually pay for the hooding.

Jim Butcher definitely wants to play him in nearly any game.

It's a hoot reading through the Harry Dresden RPG books.

...of all the vehicles my characters owned the best was a decade old Ford F-350 club cab with a canopy, V10 diesel, and a winch (which came in very handy). The paint was faded, there were a few dents, and it needed a bit of TLC (Hannah also had a good mechanic skill) but it carried a fair amount of people & gear and didn't turn heads when seen. Not blisteringly fast, but reasonably armoured (cab, bed, and canopy) and a total brute.

It was bought with the used car rules (which I think was in Arsenal?) so it had a couple flaws (hence the "TLC").

The GM also decided to give it a "bed of useful items" (which was constantly re-supplied during the course of the campaign for a small "upkeep" fee). Of course these had to be mundane items one would normally find in the bed of the average pickup. When we needed something like say, a rope, a tarp, coil of garden hose, or a case of Spud Lite, I'd roll a d6 and on a 4 - 6 it was in the truck.

The truck also handy when we had to transport a body or two (unconscious or otherwise).


...my Cajun rigger Josie LeSarre (back in the SR2/3 days) had a Ford Canada Bison outfitted with a drone rack in the back. The best feature was it's high base signature (5) and excellent on/off road handling. As her Aircraft skill was actually higher than her Driving (she was an ex CSAAF pilot/drone rigger), her real "baby" was a fully armed Wanjina.

...exotic supercars though? Meh, unless, as like some said, it was necessary to blend in or pull off a con for certain missions, that stays in the garage on work nights.



...oh, and on buying aircraft (other than drones)? A total waste because they are so expensive and too easily trashed (often along with the characters inside). Always better to "acquire" one when needed like Josie did.

My characters that I write for have some tricked out rides.

Jon "Money" Johnson has a 2062 C-N Jackrabbit with the back bench seat and a crate engine and concealed armor plating, and a few other additions, for Shadowwork. His daily driver (He's a SINner who is a "Corporate Investments Investigator") is a 2070 Mercury Comet LS with a blueprinted engine and concealed armor plating and not much more (All legal and licensed through his job and a law firm that doesn't mind red tape for the right amount of money.). Also, not seen but in my head, is a Ford-Canada Buffalo that he uses when going hunting (Legally licensed), with Satellite Communications, Extreme Environment Modification (Desert), SunCell and a Multifuel Engine, as well as a gun safe that holds quite a number of modern and classic hunting rifles (Some of which date back to WWI!). All vehicles have high-end pilot programs with Fuzzy Logic to allow for evasive maneuvers, which has been coded by some very sick, twisted minds indeed.

Nas had a 2058 Mitsuhama Tengu that he had lovingly modified beyond factory specs so far it's hard to believe. But that got burned up badly. His back-up vehicle, and one he uses when mobility is needed, is a 2066 Triumph Rocket-IV Cruiser Motorcycle that's been modified by Shadow Garages. He just got his hands on a used 2065 GMC Commodore that's been modified already, and he's making more changes as he gets cash for them.

My local shop keeps finding creative reasons to delay the order I placed with them. It is really strting to drive me nuts since they used to be good about this stuff but at this rate I'm taking a trip to Orlando to make the buy....

I had a runner with a maxed out (speed, acceleration, and handling) Westwin for SRM, that I remember costing around 325,000. It was quite fun.
The only problem I have with putting that much effort into a Shadowrun supercar is it's not that fast (as I recall, I was not able to reach Veyron speeds).

That,s because we don't have stats for a super car to use as a base, mostly becouse it's not somethink most players would need.

Unlike a wheelchair drone, toy drones, or a Segway. Or three combat helos, a submarine and a frigate ...

We could have done without the submarine and the frigate I guess. The others may come up; I personally adore Bust-a-Move drones. They're cheap enough to use as throwaways, for example to deliver a hand grenade. The wheelchair is relevant to hackers who skimp on their meat body, or riggers who want to be mobile while in VR. Segways are actually being used by law enforcement nowadays.

The frigate and submarine tend to be so far out of PC budget range that they're essentially (minor) plot items instead of equipment. Though I suppose sometimes it's useful to know just how hard it would be to destroy them, for example when engaging in a sabotage run. I'm not sure if the rules really scale that well to vehicles of that size anyway.

A race car might be nice to have stats for; it's the kind of thing a runner might buy for fun. You know, when enjoying the payout from a job. Also, lots of possibilities in race-related missions (sabotage the Ares Racing team in the middle of a cross-country race!) where the stats would be useful.

Charlie Croker: "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" - The Italian Job (1969)

Yeah, sure you can find niche employment for them. Question is, is that more or less than for a super sports car? I assume the latter. And segways may be used by mall cops, they're not in wide use and, given their proneness to uncontrollable behavior that killed their inventor - are unlikely to ever be. And Arse70 doesn't give us one, but two of them.


No, they don't, at all. The only thing they do is demonstrate that the SR4 system breaks down trying to emulate such vehicles.

Well take a West Wind. Its max (easily controlled) speed is 240. I always say use 75% of that stat as the MPH. Actually converting it, that's is 80 meters every second which is 288kph/179mph. Put race tires and custom engine for speed, you get a max speed of 312. That will take you just shy of 234mph while still being controllable. Actual max speed that you can take a vehicle to isn't defined, but I normally allow up to 20% more than the max controllable, increasing the required successes for handling by 1 every 5%.

Why would you need to go any faster than 88 MPH?

Or 200, in all seriousness?

Well, racing on the Salt Flats for pinks comes to mind...

My point was that with no changes, there is a car in the core book that will do ~180 without any problems in handling what so ever and with only a tire change ($1k) will come in just shy of 200mph while still being completely controllable. Considering that there are no handling penalties up to the max speed listed, you could say a West Wind with race tires is as fast or faster then race cars are today.

Certainly, a very clear point. I can't imagine why anyone would even ask 'where's the race car stat block?'

...excessive speed only attracts unwanted attention. Just watch any of those police chase vid shows.

Until the light barrier is broken, radio waves can't be beat.

"You can't outrun a Motorola."

I heard of someone that buried the needle on a Ducati and was radar pinged. Got away with a warning, too, because he was honest about it.

"Do you know how fast you were going?" "I'm sorry Officer, no. The speedo doesn't go that high."

You sure could say that. It's just, it'd be wrong. Even regulated F1 cars can go faster, and with SR, rigger technology and it's tendency to blood sports, I see no reason for any safety measures to remain, meaning that F1 in 2070 would be more like wipEout than anything else (SO63 even mentioned an armed league).

You seem unaware that a super sports car should be going up to 407 kph (252 mph) unmodified (you sure could modify them even more). Those are racing cars. For the kind of sport thatv requires really fast cars and the kinds of people who think owning one is fun. A car that goes 200 fully tricked out is a standard sports car, or even a tricked out sedan such as a BMW M3 (safety removed). That is not a super sports car by any means. It's a tuned-up sports car.

But far more galling is that a compact and subcompact car are missing. You know, the kind of car people actually drive. But we have two Segways, three combat helos, two warships and two remote controlled wheelchairs. Because that's the really important stuff.


Beyond around 190 mph, blurring renders most older designation devices and cameras useless though. I suppose that's why the guy in CanRay's story got away like he did - the cop didn't actually have anything on him except a blurred reading.

Well, the Jackrabbit and Honda Spirit are Subcompacts. The Shin-Hyung and Mercury Comet are Sedans and should be part of the Compact Class. Four basic templates should be quite sufficient.

The Shin-Hyung wants to be a sports sedan (but IMO fails) and the Comet is a large middle class sedan. There is nothing subcompact in the American Arsenal (there's one in the German Arsenal, yeah). Jackrabbit's a compact car (Polo to Smart). The Spirit *might* pass as a subcompact, but that's only one template, and there's THREE combat helos. Don't tell me that's no waste of space that couldn't have been used for other templates (like a viable SUV, a pickup truck, or an ordinary sports watercraft). But hey, Jetpacks, Segways and wheelchairs all get two templates because there's so much space left.

There are the two explicit subcompacts in the English Arsenal, as per p. 192 (list), p. 108 (Jackrabbit entry), and The Precious p. 348 (the Honda Spirit is a 2-seater).

The Mercury comet is a (cheap) standard family car, so that size is covered. The Shin Hyung covers the "sporty" vehicles. What might be missing is a template around the 50k¥ pricetag.

How many "Hey, at least I´ve got a car" kind of templates do you need? I much prefer having both a security and military attack chopper, and I assume the "street punk" groups like the PMV class vehicles.



For sports cars, the Westwind is an all-time favourite for me in high-paying campaigns. As a toy. For jobs I prefer SUVs and Vans for the gear-heavy guys, and motorcycles for those with little need for space.

Nice fail hard. The max speed listed is not the maximum speed that a vehicle in Shadowrun can reach. It is the maximum speed with no penalties to control rolls. For all we know, that West Wind that can hit 200mph in the hairpin turns can hit 300mph in the straights. There is nothing in the rules that tells us how high is the top speed with penalties, only a blurp telling us that you can go past that speed and get penalties. Also I said faster than race cars today, as in 2010. Those are just from this thread.

I actually do know a fair bit about racing, seeing as road course racing is a hobby of mine. If you do the math, the EW3k can run the 1/4 mile in about 8.028 seconds at ~159.568mph stock. Faster then every production car in existence.

One of my characters IS a Shin-Hyung. He's not too fond of the fact, that the team always asks for a ride, but on the other hand he likes them to depend on him. He's curretly saving up for a tricked out Nordkapp Zugmaschine with Trailer as his new home. and maybe a headquarter for the team

… Just to echo, the book (hell, just Core) definitely does have subcompacts, pickups, etc., and again, how is 200+ MPH not fast enough? No, there's no F1 in SR4; why on earth should there be?