So what would you do? No teamwork benefits for the quarry?

We could also try:
No teamwork benefits for the quarry for the opposed vehicle test, but for tests like provoking a crash, etc., all team members in the same range can help.

So how would you do the bonus for pursuers, then? Excess vehicles? Just per vehicle with the same cap?

I didn't say I had better ideas, just that it makes no sense.

If you think about it, you can't use the same rules for "we only need one of them" and "they only need to get one of us." In the later case, more team members is a liability.

Ok, but... basically the liability thing is already in there, because iterative probability disfavours the weakest element, and having to win several times in a row will worsen that. If you add team members just for the teamwork bonus, but they can't actually keep up with you, they will keep losing and get caught, or at least unnecessarily draw out the chase. Having several critical vehicles that need to get away is even worse.

If the fastest of the quarry manages to break, then the others lose bonus, and so their chances just dropped further. So unless you have a self-contained team that can give itself the maximum teamwork bonus, any added vehicles are automatic liabilities, teamwork bonus or not. Basically to be a benefit each added vehicle or team needs to already be very similar to the level of the primary vehicle.

For example:

Cop car drops some (= a team of three) of these fast pursuit drones (P4s?) against a lone runner getaway car. Now the cops get bonus in the range of +4 to +6 both for the car and the drone team. This always helps.
In order to even the odds, the runners drop a very similar team of drones. Now it's back to the same odds as before, except the drone team has to get away, too. If they can't beat either of the cops reliably, then this was a stupid move.

On the other hand, if the cop car were throwing, say 12 dice, getting a few for speed, let's say 4, and 4 more from teamwork (capped by reaction), then it's 20.
The cop drones are largely irrelevant, because their weak standard pilots can't do much. So, let's say basically 4 dice + 6 from speed.

Now if the runner vehicle does not clearly outmatch the base cops (16 dice), then that teamwork bonus the cops just got is really bad news. So they deploy drones, too, putting parity back on the table. The drones need to be able to also throw reliably more than the cops, though. Even at DP parity their odss are pretty bad, so they might end up a sacrifice.

The Break maneuver as it is can also make for neverending fights: At DP parity basically the odds of getting away are really slim. You can't maneuver anymore because that break roll is your stunt, so your DP is stuck, while the pursuers can still inflate theirs.

I've been BP762 and 3278's post in this thread. I applaud your efforts gentlerunners, but I think that I'll stick with winging it. In my opinion few people now a days manage to evade pursuit by police agencies these days. In the sixth world it'd be even worse. As such it's one of the few areas I take some dramatic license on behalf of the players. I don't say this to threadcrap-I applaud your efforts, and think everyone involved is putting forth some great effort. And I hope you guys come up with something that's both efficient and streamlined.

Actually, though, with the technological means of SR4, and the trust the authorities put in them, I wouldn't be surprised if getting away is actually easier. At least to a jurisdiction border, of which there seem to be many.

And the trouble with winging it is that there is then either no conflict or an auto-fail. Or it's completely random - you could do DoF, etc. In my game I pretty much did away with being chased as a relevant game element - up to now. The runners simply got away, or disable the pursuit in tactical combat. The ideal solution, as you say, is to add an exciting element to the game which won't be too tedious to use even AFTER the run, where everyone just wants to go home.

As it is, I guess with what I've done it's not streamlined, it'll take almost as long as real combat when several combatants are concerned, and... it's another mini-game.

Which is why I'd like to repeat my requests for critical looks.

Maybe that's how you see it, but really I don't see it the same way. But I'm not willing to invest a lot of time arguing semantics here. Needless to say I'll just agree to not agree with you here.

IMO, Shadowrun already has too many one-player minigames - Astral World and Hacking World are already things that generally only involve one player. We solve this with a tacit agreement not to have mages go off solo doing astral bullshit and to run hacking as fast and dirty as possible.

My suggestion for Chase minigames would be to try to avoid making it into a 1-player minigame, and redo it as a special type of tactical combat - ie, you have a fight where you are running away in a car, so it's still a team game. Or to put it another way, I would try to bolt your chase minigame on top of tactical combat.

Yeah, see, that's all we do [and what Paul means by "winging it"]: we just never come out of tactical combat, even if there's a chase. Works just fine.

Basically this IS what happens during chase combat, too, even within the normal SR4A ruleset. The only thing you do is stretch the combat rounds to increase the distances you can move to be actually meaningful. I think what the original writers envisioned is everyone in the car(s) doing stuff on the side - shooting, casting spells, etc, all while the car is speeding along at top speed.

I have several issues with this: It's EXTREMELY pink mohawk, and I think a lot of people here don't play like that. People run from the cops, they don't kill them, simply because killing them creates more problems, later. The only people you shoot are various kinds of thugs. Sure, driving and gunning is a staple of action-movie fare, but I don't think it works too well for a lot of games. With the way Chase Combat is set up right now, I'm thinking you will need to try to destroy pursuers quite often to get away. If you do, it's not a 1-player mini-game, but the running-and-NOT-gunning might get boring for the other players. For those occasions an even more streamlined mechanic would be great.

Maybe something where those relevant players are actually on a timer? A gamey thing where you use a chess-timer or similar thing to keep the adrenaline up?

Something super simple: Work out the DPs as before via my revision.
Then, no IPs, simply:
One opposed test, and one maneuver per turn, and the player has to actually SAY something interesting. Every roll can't take more than 30 seconds.

Well, right now the chase rules are horrifically stupid, and tend to lead to either you being unable to run from the cops or you deploying a pile of cheap drones so they have no hope of catching you. The problem is that there's no real middle ground between getting away clean, and just having to stop and fight all the cops.

One good way of doing it, I think, would be to have the results of the driving roll determine how many pursuers are "in play" for each combat turn. So having a good driver lets you run from a dozen cop cars while shooting it out with two or three at a time until you get away or your vehicle gets disabled, which makes it meaningfully different from ordinary combat but doesn't make it a 1-dimensional minigame.

And that's why you put the M2-HB in the back seat, just a few bursts and the cops that were chasing you are now driving a colander.

Well, that's why I tried writing a revision, maybe you missed it. I tried to fix the problems it has while retaining the mini-game status - because, well, it's not like it's without benefits.

BUT, you've already given me a good idea: Keeping some people off screen is an excellent motivation. With TACNets and the like the chase doesn't stop when a car or two get behind a corner.

So, let's create another range category: Off-screen. Off-screen enemies can't shoot at you (and you can't shoot at them).

Off-screen shouldn't always just be at greater-than-extreme range. Maybe base it on the environment? In a city, off-screen happens at Long Range, out of town, off-screen happens at one over extreme range. In order to lose the pursuit, i.e. execute the Break maneuver, all enemies have to be kept in the off-screen range for three turns. Now it might make sense to let an enemy close, now and then, to kill them.

One thing to keep in mind is that when a vehicle has its damage track filled up, it does not pull a hollywood fireball. It simply breaks down, and if the people inside are damn unlucky, crash into something massive or flip and roll for some reason or other.

True, but then mostly you'll be killing cars with full-auto or explosives. And then people just die, too.

I'm going to try a rewrite for the tactical vehicle rules, too, if I find the time.