I have this idea for a HTR Docwagon {high threat response} type company of and for the shadow community. Their Slogan "Dangerous Doctors For a Dangerous World" pretty much sums up their operating concept.

Shockwagon is a "guerilla" approach to health care for sinless: An old Soviet Hind-D gunship, a rigger, a couple of "shock Docs", a couple of "shock troops" for patient extraction, and a mage.

Theres gonna be a clinic in the Barrens with a small staff.

My question is how much should they charge? Its not like a group of the sinless would have a lot of cash to throw around as its basically medical merc's so the operating coasts will be pretty high, and I need to balance that against what the market will bar.

Thanks

Edit: This is not social justice do gooders. Just some runners cutting into Doc Wagons profit margin, and working forthemselves instead of the man.

I'd say make it free. I'm sure there's some eccentric billionaire philanthropist, or pro-Barren-dwellers'-rights policlub, or bizarre until-now-unmentioned clause in Dunkie's will that could pay for it from behind the scenes. Use your imagination. Heck, you could maybe even finagle a shadowrun out of finding out who the mysterious benefactors of Shockwagon are...

Or, you could make them a bit creepy and have all patients undergoing treatment sign away their bodies to the Shockwagon company prior to receiving said treatment. If the patient dies...then Shockwagon loots their corpse six ways from Sunday and sells off any decent organs, leftover cyberware, etc. to help defray operating costs.

There's certainly no money in charging people in the barrens for medical care. If there was money in it, some corp would already be doing it.

Anyone who wants to provide free medical care can get all the business they want just by setting up shop. No need for gunships and riggers.

I think the Universal Brotherhood soup kitchens and free clinics are some of the best examples of organizations trying to do good for the homeless. Along with education and training camps, like Camp Faith and Camp Hope, the poor people of Redmond can be put on a healthy path to becoming an integral part of the new, more-enlightened society where everyone shares and no one goes hungry.

Sorry I should have been more clear this is not a hand out for the grimey, broke ass sinless. Spesifically I had in mind Shadow Runners.

I love the idea of using a russian Hind. I'm not sure it would be cost-effective, unless as others have mentioned, the shadow-docs had alot of mystery backing and such. The shadow-clinic would be do-able, definately, but the mobile unit may not be as feasible...

If the unit only has the 1 Hind, and 1 shadow-doc team, they'd only be able to contract either exclusively for a specific period of time, or exclusively for a particular group of runners.

The benefit of the corp docwagon is that their resources allow for a high high high probability that a docteam will show up if you get hurt. If you've only got the 1 unit, they you can only serve 1 small patient (maybe a small runner group) at any given period of time. Additional units would let you serve more people at once, but you'd still have issues of coverage and availability that some runners may not feel so comfortable taking a chance on.

I do like the general concept though Just be difficult to implement without becoming a full size, pretty much legitimate corp.

First the MI 24 Hind D is about the coolest thing ever. "Dont shoot it you'll just make it mad" lol

and I was thinking about an old T Bird too and anthor team but between the clinic its staff, a Decker for security and communications, a Face to a the Johnson and do some book keeeping, a mechanic etc it would really add up fast into a corperate structure.

So like you said I was thinking of a time period basis, that way they could do multiple jobs a day, or possibly night.

It has some many interesting spin off's too... like rival shadow services, maybe fianced by organized crime, or doc wagon starting its own slush fund baised runner service. How the hell do you hide a Hind from Lonestar? Does lone star even wanna screw with a suped up Hind?

Hmm. What might also work is to have fake DocWagon looking vehicles.

They could serve the runner population that is wary about leaving material links with a true corp like DocWagon, and the docwagon-fake vehicles would likely have as free run of the skyscape as true-docwagon does. It'd be hard to immediately realize the fake-wagon is a fake.

Oh the PR hell when a Doc Wagon vechile lights into KE and Lone Star with a rotary cannon and rockets and they claim their being set up by Crash Cart.

I'm sure DocWagon, CrashCart, etc. would be completely shocked and surprised by the sudden fire that rages through the HQ of this little upstart outfit. Its not like they are corps, concerned with their bottom line, or able to hire Runners, or anything like that.

Interestingly, our group pretty much runs DocWagon this way already. Well, not the Hind part, but it isn't something that Joe Wageslave uses for health coverage; DocWagon is specifically for people with dangerous jobs, and who may not want the details of what they do to be discovered when they get scraped off the curb (this is accomplished through DocWagon extraterritoriality and a very liberal application of the doctor-patient confidentiality clause.)

I don't think anyonme would sign a contract for a service, paid in advace (so they already have your cash) where said contract gives them an incentive for you to NOT survuve their service. Your cyberware would fetch more than many, many years contract in most cases. You're trunk monkey isnt gonna help you here.

what this really sounds like to me, is a contract extraction service... more than a docwagon service...

-Mike R

I love the idea. The Hind D was about the best thing to ever come out of Soviet russia. Replace the minigun on the front with a vindicator and rock & roll!

If you built it right, you could probably use a Semi to house the hind and the operation. A mobile base. You will also need a drek hot decker to give you clearance in restricted airspace, unless you want a dog fight with yellow jackets every time you go up.

Also, the biggest problem with a Hind was it's heat output. Stingers did real well against them, so the soviet pilots figured out that they had to fly above 2 clicks to stay out of range. I would definitely make that a factor.

Getting feed back my original question was how much would something like this cost to operate and then how much should they be charging for said services.

Shadow: Have you noticed the ROF on the Vindicator is a bit low, a 7.62 Mini gun should fire t h o s a n a n d s of rounds a minute. Think, "Puff the Magic Dragon". If Ray Gun is around he will probably know for sure, I beleive it outta be about 10,000 a minute.

As far as the Heat Sig, I know Dow makes some paint that reacts to temputure, hear about that or something similar? And can you get an invisibility spell around a Hind?

Thanks :}

The cost:

250 to purchase the hind, and restore it to operating conditions.

10 a month in maintenance when ever you fly the bird.

A full time mechanic 4k a month

Some kind of base, say 35k initially to setup.

Fuel, and lots of it. Military vehicles are notorious gas guzzlers.

another 50k in medical supplies.

As for the RoF, well yeah. None of the guns in SR are accurate in that respect. Raygun has a table that converts SR guns to it's actual RoF. I mentioned the vindicator because it is the only minigun in the game.

As for the heat... it is generated by the engine and shunted out the exhaust pipes. Which is what the stinger locks onto. I recommend a signature penalty when flying, it would be easier for a heat seeking missile to lock onto it.


Rayguns website can be reached through the link in my sig.

Been a while since i looked at it, but i'm not sure that by canon rules that the semi had the Body to let a Body 4 Hind land on it. Yellow jacket i think could, but that is a completely different class of craft. I have the vague recollection that sea vessels needed to be at least have at least double the Body as the aircraft landing. Not sure about land vehicles.

Another part of the puzzle would be the Hind outfitted with surveilance and countersurveilance, preferable passive so you didn't light up the EM. A big azz spirit could help a lot in with Concealment. Nothing like a rainsqual at your disposal to screw with active radar. A hot Decker or a very deep security breach insider at SEA-TAC could get you clearance in the friendly skys, but any unidentified incoming craft at the LZ is likely to be assumed unfriend by whatever forces are opposing your client. You'll defenately want Buck Rodgers on the Hind stick too.

EDIT: Invisible doesn't work on heat sigs, even the P version, or other electronic detection outside of direct optical...which is not what you'll need to worry about. Mask Vehicle can help as you can use it to alter sig by +1 per 2 success. There is also Flak in MITS that is an area spell specifically for screwing with sensor dectection. Also, as i mentioned their is the spirit power Hide.

BTW, a bit off topic but in line with what someone was saying about DocWagon, in our campaign i believe DocWagon has a list price for patients that want a death certificate forwarded to LoneStar, sans body.

Miniguns can indeed fire up to ~10,000rpm, although it seems the US 7.62x51mms (General Electric M134 most commonly) usually go at either 2,000rpm or 4,000rpm, user selectable.

While Raygun's RoF numbers do make the whole thing a lot more realistic and, more importantly, a lot more reasonable, using any system where the cyclic Rate of Fire is dependant on the amount of actions of the firer will always get you unrealistic results. That's why I use an autofire system which calculates RoF much like the canon rules do with a char's running speed.

However, if you don't want to use House Rules a lot, I suggest you leave those RoFs as they are. Simply making one part of the firearms-related rules in SR more realistic will often have an effect on game balance if you don't account for all related parts of the rules as well.

BTW, there's no need for any additional Signature penalties for the Mi-24 Hind. Jet turbine rotary-wing aircraft have a really sucky Sig in SR anyway, just make sure you don't add any Signature-improving design options.

Ok I've about got all the information I need here and I thank you all very much.

I'm leaning towards some what of a pragmatic approach to autofire ROF, if anyone has found a system that works really good for them I'd love to hear about it.

Lastly, because I dont own a MITS or anything {which I will be correcting} is their any way to use a spirit or a elemental mask the heat sig for a Hind or anything else for that matter?
Hell, can you ward a hind?, paint the power circle around it, not that it would be much a circle but the blades do spin in one.

The spirit power Concealment works on vehicles and raises the signature by the force of the spirit.

My understanding of warding is that you can ward anything, including a Hind. You just need soemthing physical to attach the ward to.

Warding is described in the SR3 book

Maybe I've got too much time on my hands.

Body: 7
Armor: 8
Cargo: 65
Handling: 5
AutoNav: 2
Sensor: 4
Seating: 2+8b
Entry: 4d
Load: 1,671
Speed: 186
Accel.: 20
Sig.: 0
Fuel: 1,840l Jet
Econ.: 0.25km/l
Chassis: Cargo Helicopter

S.I.: Lots

Avail.: 32/32d

Cost: 945,500

MIL Mi-24D/Hind-D

Other features: APPS (Pilot&Gunner), Contingency Maneuver Controls-1, Crash Cages, ECM-1, Electronic Ports, Enviroseal (Gas&Overpressure), Folding Bench Seats, Launch Control Systems (3 Medium), Life Support (10 man-hrs), Power Amplifiers-4, Rocket/Missile Mounts (4 External Standard), Roll Bars, Secondary Controls, Turret (Small Remote, Gunnery Recoil Adjuster-7, YaKB-12.7/Vanquisher HMG, Ammo Bin for 1,470 HMG rounds).

This is true to form in top speed, ammo amounts and fuel amount/range. There are only 4 rocket/missile mounts because 1,200kg is about as much as the 6 mounts on the actual Hind can carry. Things such as ECM, Sensors, Power Amps, etc are just thrown in there based on the descriptions (you could get rid of the Power Amps altogether).

The Load could easily be 1,000kg higher (the chassis can handle it, it's 250 nuyen to the cost per 10kg extra load), and the Cargo should be put at anything you think would fit in the thing (again the chassis has got room, it's 1,250 nuyen per 1CF extra cargo).

A version with the GSh-30K autocannon (use Victory AC in an external hardpoint) is slightly cheaper (33,750 nuyen less) but has less room (4CF less) because of the huge ammo bin. I figured you'd be more interested in the minigun version, the autocannon might be a bit overkill. Also, the mount of the minigun negates any and all recoil from the weapon.

Then just mod it away by adding Rigger Adaptation and better electronics (Sensors, ECM, Power Amps, etc). Don't bother with thermal baffles etc because you can't get the Sig up to a respectable figure anyway -- for the sensors of the 2060s it's a shining beacon whenever it's in the air.

In the black market of the 2060s it would most likely cost a lot less than the price above. It would also be in horribly bad shape, and might not have many of the mentioned parts -- especially weapons and electronics might have been scavenged. Remember: The design is 87 years old in 2063. That's a lot in the world of aviation.

PS. The minigun in question here, the YaKB-12.7 apparently has a cyclic maximum RoF of 4,500rpm, and it's user selectable. On the other hand, the twin-barrell 30mm cannon has a max cyclic RoF of 2,600rpm, which sounds far more scary.