Why is it that SR4 (and perhaps previous versions, I really can't recall) turns big honkin' testosterone fueled 4x4 mudgrippers and cowboy cadillacs into Kei trucks and euro mini versions?

What do we use for something like a dually or a dodge rampage or even a chevy avalanche type vehicle?

Heh... it's not a rant... I promise.

Group decided to start a new shadowrun campaign and I'm making a fomori ex lone star that comes from inside corp-world Lone Star Austin. And when looking at vehicles, for cowboy hat style, I found myself seriously lacking in options.

Tata Hotspur is not manly enough for you? I mean, I guess it's not quite what you're talking about, but it is a high-performance desert racing truck. Pretty badass in my opinion. It's in Arsenal.

nah, Hotspur rocks... hell, the stats aren't bad on even the Gaz... but that's not really what I was getting at.

I was just curious why there were no "what americans think of as pickup trucks" in the 2070's.

I don't understand the OP question. Trucks are already girly-mobiles in real life 2010.

But, yeah. You've got the POS Gaz, the Gopher (the only truck in the core book, sounds manly enough), and the Hotspur (which is more 'monster truck' than pickup truck). … That's it. There are no girly trucks in SR4 at all, right? I guess you could argue there's nothing *better* (read: shinier and less blue-collar) than the Gopher but that's the direction of *less* manly.

I do agree: Hotspur is the best ride there is. I just think it's partly because it's not a pickup.

Because most of the games take place in Seattle. Where are you going to drive a pick-up where an SUV would do?

Now, if the game was taking place in the Confederated American States, which is full of hillbillies... Or the NAN, which is mostly rural... Or Aztlan, where you need to be able to get away from the everything...

That follows, American commercial values of "big and loud" sort of went out of fashion. The people who would want classic monstrous trucks generally cant afford to buy them much less feed them gallons of fuel.

"The 6000 SUX. It's Big!"

They didn't go out of fashion.

They just went to the CAS.





-k

I hate to get all socio-political, but most of the people who buy these idiotic machines today are middle class. In Shadowrun, you dont really have a middle class. Most people are varying degrees of dirt poor or filthy rich. The people who can afford them dont want them and the people who would use them, cant afford them.

I dunno, I lived a large chunk of my life in the South, and even the poor folks loved their pickup trucks there.

Whereas now in the Northeast pretty much the only pickups I see are commercial - either company owned or owned by people who use them for work.





-k

Shadowrun has tons of middle class. They work for the corps.

You go North enough, you get the same deal. They're usually older trucks that a person could repair themselves, however, rather than those new POSes they pass off as "Trucks" nowadays.

Ok as a rural cowboy type let me rule in why those big heavy duty trucks are needed. They are built and designed for a reason. Often that reason is what they are used fr by some consumers, take the SUV for example. The SUV was designed for going offroad and handling rougher terrain but got turned into the modern day minivan.

Trucks are designed to be the modern day workhorse. Those big gas guzzling trucks are gas guzzling because they have the power to get the job of moving equipment from one place to another done. A lot of people that live in the cities can go to the store as much as they want when it is less than 30 min away and their is an abundance of choices to shop from. In a rural setting to get the choice means driving the 1hr plus probably one way, which means you have to get more at one time and actually stock up. It means that simple delivery of many basic items is not available unless the rural consumer pays out the nose to tie up the delivery truck with the long commute. The truck fills the commercial capacity for moving equipment and goods and doing some of the work. It also gives the rural person a way to be independent and have the equipment needed to live.

I guess to sum it up best. In a rural area a pickup truck isn't a luxury but a neccessity.

They also tend to take a lot of abuse, and still go, "Please sir, may I please have some more?"

I thought we were just talking about "cowboy cadillacs" and Chevy Avalanche and stuff, not cars that ever see a day of actual work. No offense to real rurals. Who, by the way, will use the Gopher or the GAZ.

What just because we're rural doesn't mean we can't have a nice ride? :P:P Just had to say it. lol

I have personal experience from that. 2 weeks ago my fullsize old F-150 took on a little Nissan Sentra Sedan and won in my opinion. Luckily the car came at an angle and was deflected some but that little car still moved by truck about 3 feet sideways. That steel body took the impact and I am still driving it right now. The truck took all that force and my kids were left unharmed. My wife and I are suffering from the jarring but if I would have been in anything but the truck It would have been a lot worse.


It definitely took a licking an kept on ticking. The only issue is that I now have some additional weight on the truck from all the little pieces of car stuck in the side of my truck. But that will be fixed as soon as the parts comes in and I take the beast to the mechanic.

Maybe the Awakening also brought back intelligence?

I consider that an insult to a lot of people.

Not even with SURGE, man. Not enough power in any World for that.

Yah, the ONE thing i like about america are the cars . .
Especially the big huge trucks. you can't get much closer to an armored vehicle legally in most cases.
Somebody over here in my part of town is driving one of those huge american Trucks.
Either a Chevrolet or a Dodge, i am not sure . . never been good with cars <.< . .
I saw that one get into a car collision. another car, some kind of limosine frontally crashed into the side of the truck.
the limo was, basically, a total loss. i think the engine block was somewhere close to the passenger seat.
the truck? i saw that one driving around with a new door and some of the dents taken care of 2 weeks later . .
this is a kind of car i would actually buy. i don't care about anything or anyone else, as long as I am safe in my car.

Yeah, the old beasts are great for surviving everything. The new trucks, not so much. They can only hopefully kill a moose if you hit one. (This is a concern in parts of Canada. A moose is a big animal! And injured one is a pissed off one. And then tend not to run away.)

Although BMW makes some good cars. I heard about one model a friend of mine in South Africa was telling me about was used as "Bush Taxis" in his neck of the woods.

A Møøse once bit my sister...

No realli!

Yah, i'd still go for an Hummer H1 if i could afford one and needed a car . .
Biggest Problem with these beasts is the narrow streets and finding a parking space for them in hamburg.
Allthough, with the H1, one probably could simply create such parking spaces on a as needed basis *snickers*

Actually give me an old pickup or an old jeep over the Hummer. Cheaper and easier to maintain and can pretty much get the same job done when it comes to the civvie side of things.

EDIT: Double Post

Yes, well, my Buddies in the Military tell me to accept no substitutes for that one.
Especially the one who was in afughanisu-tan.

I am not denying they are great vehicles, I just know that with an old pickup or jeep I can get parts so much easier to find. What extra the H1 can do doesn't equal the cost to keep it up.

*nods*
and over here, the H1 can not really be driven anyway . .
and don't start with the castrated H2 or even H3 <.< . .
i'd sooner drive one of those old yellow school busses!

lol, I used to have an old yellow school bus as a RV. That thing could offroad so much better than any normal RV.

I had an old Oldsmobile and flipped a truck with it when we collided, the thing was raised stupid high though. Rode away with a few dings. I miss that car.

Edit- I am kinda confused by the lack of trucks in the game though. There's like 10 different vans and maybe 3 trucks including a tractor trailer.

Anyway MPUVs for all!

Not quite true

http://www.alpineco.com/inventory/used/tru...truck_88381.htm

Completely legal with a Class C license.

I kick myself for not jumping on the chance to buy a Sexton Self-Propelled Gun back in the day...

Shoot me if I'm wrong, but aren't most Shadowrun vehicles electric?

Woo, multipost party!

Hybrid Vehicles unless they're totally electric powered. Compact cars and scooters are almost always just electric, while the rest are mostly Hybrid.

High Performance Vehicles (Not including sports cars) almost assuredly do not have electric powerplants. Just not efficient enough, even with battery technology by 2070s standards. Not helicopters, not tanks, and certainly not T-Birds/Panzers!

I seem to recall something about the streets of most major cities being a power-transfer grid.

aren tanks technically electrically powered?

Robocop ftw

BTW, I like the GAZ. It's really low profile.

Got a guy with three of them, each with a multi-launch drone rack full of heimdals hidden in the back under a canopy.
Nothing says lovin like missile strikes on demand.

GridGuide, yes. Hybrid Vehicles use a pair of motors to operate. One gasoline/diesel, one electrical. With GridGuide, you're paying for the car to be electricity charged the whole way, along with traffic updates. It's not in every part of the city, however, thus the need for a secondary source.


No idea, I just know that they have some big hooped engines in them burning fuel if they are.


Depends on where you are. Downtown Seattle, not so much. Hell's Kitchen, Puyallup Barrens or Anywhere, Snohomish, you're golden and fit right in.

Gas turbines probably. Running at perfect degree of efficiency to produce electricity for the electric motors. You can shut them down if you need stealth. (thermal signature and noise)

yeah, that's what i was thinking about.

...my character Hurricane Hannah had a 7 year old F-350 Super Duty club cab (yeah, pre-crash2) with the big V-10 (actually stated it up for the game and applied the used vehicle rules in Arsenal so it had a few quirks). As she was from Bayou Country, a big herkin' truck made sense for her.

It was a beast and came in quite handy on many runs. The GM also gave it "bed of useful items". Could only be mundane items you'd normally find in the back of an old pickup like rope, a tarp, pile of dirt, etc (no weapons or high tech). On a roll of 4 - 6 the desired implement or item inquired would be there.

The concept these days for building cars everywhere but USA seems to be that the front and rear should act like a accordion and fold in on itself to absorb the force of the impact rather then be rigid enough to withstand the impact fully. The idea being that the cabin itself should be left untouched by the impact as the energy is absorbed elsewhere. Yes, this results in the impacts looking worse then they are and the car usually being scrapped by the insurance company (given all the sensors and electronics these days one is better off stripping and recycling then rebuilding anyways).

The USA does the same thing with crumple zones today. It's a "Safety Feature" that can be activated at as low a speed as ten klicks an hour.

I think I've mentioned the issue of large animals in the highways of Canada, and you can see how such a "Safety Feature" is anything but in the minds of Rural Canadians. Not only did you not just kill that animal who is very pissed off at you, but now your car is sure to be broken and you can't get away.

Much like everything else in life, I blame the antagonism to American trucks on Yankees.

I have relatives out in Red River County that, honest to God, need those big trucks for work on the ranch. Pulling heifers out of the mud, hauling giants loads of hay and what not. Farmers and ranchers rely on those vehicles for their livelihood.
But then some Yankee moves to Dallas and has to buy a brand new F-150 extended cab to drive the half mile from his house to Whole Foods so he can be a "real Texan" and not only to gas prices go up, but the costs of what were once work vehicles now go up because the only thing that sells, therefore the only thing dealers have in stock, are luxury trucks.

I spit-ball the stats some of the trucks my player's want to use in Shadowrun, but they go through them so often I rarely find a need. My mage recently wanted to invest in a Fenris from the Wolf & Raven book. He's quite proud of it. I'm looking forward to the Yakuza blowing that thing up.

One of the best calls I had during my Tech Support days started out with me doing my spiel, and a southern drawl accusing me, "Are yew a YANKEE?", due to my accent.

A heartbeat later, I reply, "No sir, I most certainly am NOT!", scaring the folks around me.

"Well. You alright then."

But, yeah. Work Trucks are important, and in the UCAS/CAS/NAN/Quebec/Aztlan they'd be a common and useful sight with Shadowrunners that work around Rural areas.

Running into bears are we? or have the moose in Canada developed a mean streak?

tractors?