How large is a t-bird exactly and just how common are they in the cities? Not the milspec ones - but can someone drive one around a city or not? May sound like a dumb question but I really don't care.

- J.

There ARE no civilian T-Birds O.o
They are about as big as a Tank.
So not very common in the cities.
And driving them around there?
That would be pretty hard i think.
Kinda like flying an attack chopper.
In a sprawl. Made of skyscrapers.

LAVs aren't common in the city due to the fact that they need to go fast and low in order to fly (as they effectively ride on a cushion of air generated by their downforce). So basically, they're open country only. The modern equivalent are mostly used on water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_vehicle

They're expensive, gaz-guzzling pieces of high tech, so I'd say about as common as supercars, strectch limo, big ass super-luxury SUV and the like.

Another ballpark could be somewhat along today's prevalence of light choppers.

Which would make them an uncommon sight, but not rare enough to raise the sort of eyebrows a full-fledged tank would cause. The richest and trafic-logged the area, the more common they would be.

note : they're full-fledged VTOLs, it means you can probably hover or move at low speed on thrust alone, especially if you're using lighter grande armor than what' slapped on the military ones. But in those conditions the range will suck.

I would personally rate them as a very strange thing to see, and they'd DEFINITELY turn up on the local corp's radar without serious precautions during a run (if not literal radar, then figurative). That said, the one place that I would probably rate them as being fairly common, at least in areas that the runners might opt to visit, is Los Angeles. Not only is that sort of eccentricity encouraged there, but the whole place is half underwater.

EDIT: sorry, double post.

Yep. This all confirms what I was thinking and reinforcing my views on this. It's never been widely discussed to the best of my knowledge except perhaps an old novel back in SR1 days.

Thanks

- J.

There are some T-Bird SMUGGLERS, but they don't operate inside city limites.
They go cross country and use liberated military T-Birds to do their work.

There shouldn't be too much trouble with the local law as long as it belongs to someone who can afford it - a corporate immatriculation, tagged to a well know ork rap name, that sort of things. Especially if it's a civilian-oriented design withou the avionics, weaponry or rmor of a military bird.

Having the bird tagged to some John Doe who's total spending in town is a 2 nuyen burger at the local McDonalds will have the law keeping it under close watch. Even worse if the papers says it's decomissioned army bird with the military grade hardware removed. Yeah right, they're going to buy it....

If you got the proper IFF and paperwork, yes you can.
If not, you get shoot down.

But it will be a lot of paperwork.
And you will have regular inspections.

According to Spy Games (pg 16) T-birds are quite common in Denver, apparently because the sector governments didn't want their own smugglers shot down.

Relevant paragraph from Spy Games:

Pretty much all that was going to be said has been said about T-Birds. They fill a role of Attack Helicopter and Light Recon Tank combined, and some possibly as Troop Transports and Supports (The Skraacha from Arsenal makes me think that's how the Cascade Orks sold it to the SSC Military to allow them to build them.).

Essentially, I see them as really fast Mil Mi-21 Hinds or Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks, with probably the same adaptability in roles.

For smuggling, you can get a few thousand kilos on the birds, which for low-weight/high-priced commodities (drugs, chips, shadowrunners, magical reagents, etc.), pays for the fuel and maintenance easily. They were also central in the role of keeping communities supplied during the chaos of Crash 2.0, as their disorganized state allowed them to perform supply runs on their own basis rather than trying to work with a supply chain. This has not been forgotten by said communities, and they're able to get a lot of support from the locals in way of supplies, hiding out in old barns or warehouses, R&R, and other such support.

So if T-Birds are not common in Seattle or urban areas, what are those flying contraptions on the front of the SR4 book cover? I thought T-birds were flying cars until I asked you guys a while back.

I wouldnt rank them as "common" vehicles but they can be damn fast couriers. I'd say as rare as a limo and most likely not (normally) owned by private joe citizen.

Still, good radar absorbing paint, ruthenium and fake vehicle identification numbers can do wonders.

I'd rather go with ECM or some other tech gizmo rather than radr absorbing paint/materials for something that's supposed to move around under a legit (even if faked) cover : even if the transponder transmits a legit code, the air control is going to wonder why said transponder is emitting from a corner of air their radar says is empty....

Air Spirits summoned by magicians that are pissed off there's no flying cars yet.

Not every VTOL vehicle is a T-bird

Which pretty interesting considering how awful the range of a tbird is.

Which still doesn't buy you many monocrystal turbine blades, engine actuators or C checks. Or many 10,000 liter bladders of Jet A.

Have we gotten stats on how good the range is on a T-Bird? I know they're gas guzzlers, but they probably also have big fuel tanks... And Smugglers would put on extra tanks to give them additional fuel for maneuvers and range.

It does buy you a barn to park in, and a warm meal while the heat blows over.

We have numbers in Rigger 3. They get 20 liters of jet fuel per kilometer. Not 20 km per liter, 20 liters PER kilometer. Tanks don't have a lot of space to add fuel tanks, and you can't casually strap on fuel tanks on a flying vehicle as it's easy to screw up CG or the aerodynamics.

There IS the piper brat from arsenal.

Its like the rich kid's private mini-jet

. . . You remember that this is, basically, EXACTLY what they are doing TODAY?
And the average T-Bird has about the same aerodynamics and CG the average BRICK has . .
The only difference between these two is the fact that one is slightly larger and houses turbines that create enough force to lift and propell it . .
As for the 20l per kilometer . . if i ain't mistaken, compared to todays military jets, this is still rather good enough, right?

I peeked through Rigger 3 and looked up some of our contemporary fighters. It's about the same, it seems (note jets in Rigger 3 are listed at 10 liters per kilometer), though our current fighters carry more fuel now than in R3.

Well, an F/A-18F has a ferry range of 3300 km on 16,750 liters of fuel, which is about 5 l/km. The T-birds have a max range of 375 km on their 7500 liters of fuel. And jet fuel in SR is not cheap.

Useful to know given we're playing in Denver.

- J.

Things to do in Denver before you're dead.

The only jet VTOL I've found in Arsenal is the Gulfstream Luxe V.


That said... Man, does anybody miss the vehicle creation rules? I want to see shit like the BEE aircraft from DEHR. That should totally be somewhere in Shadowrun.

They never did work right. Just make it up.

All right. What do you think?


Federated-Boeing Bee
Developed in secret in Federated-Boeing's skunkworks facility between government contracts, the Bee receives its name from its project code: Bumblebee. A vehicle not quite like any other, details of the Bee were carefully leaked to generate interest without giving any competitors enough information to rush a competing project into production before the big reveal. Though this marketing strategy backfired in terms of FB's ability to give the vehicle a better name, it certainly worked in terms of generating interest!

The Bee marries a short-bodied, sliding-door aircraft with a utility profile similar to that of utility helicopters with a tilt-wing design, but the Bee is no rotorcraft. The miracle of the Bee is in its engines: ducted vector-thrust jets and unparalleled fuel economy produce an aircraft capable of both high-speed transoceanic flight and short-range VTOL/hovering operation. The designers of the Bee set out to create a jack-of-all-trades that performed beautifully in any role that might be reasonably asked of it, and they succeeded. The Bee's new, hot, and pretty expensive, with a features list a mile long.

Numbers in parenthesis represent the Bee whilst hovering and loitering.

Handling: 0 (+0)
Acceleration: 30/150 (15/50)
Speed: 700 (150*)
Pilot: 3
Body: 18
Armor: 8
Sensor: 3
Availability: 20
Cost: 1,200,000

*The Bee cannot hover at faster than this rate. Accelerating beyond its maximum hovering speed is tantamount to shifting to forward flight.

Standard Upgrades: Additional Fuel Tank x1, Amenities(1), Enhanced Image Screens (2) Improved Economy, Improved Take-Off and Landing (Level 2), Interior Cameras, Life Support (Level 2), Passenger Protection (Rating 4), Rigger Cocoon (Enhanced) (3), Satellite Communication, Self-Repair.

(1) In keeping with the Bee's multirole design, the Amenities level can be swapped out in the space of an hour's work by ground crew (or two hour's work to install all the luxury geegaws that corporate bigwigs usually insist upon.) The standard, factory amenities run to soundproofing, full wireless connectivity, and comfortable leather bench-seats facing one another front-and-back with five-point crash harnesses, and can range from a cargo floor to a luxury flight suite for four.

(2) In keeping with the Project Bumblebee's directional imperative to 'bring the wow factor,' the interior of the Bee features no screens whatsoever. As such, all displays in the craft, from the entertainment unit in the back for use on long flights to the pilot's heads-up displays, assuming she's not actively rigging the bee, are full holographic. The default user-interface color scheme is a warm amber, but it is of course fully customizable, either by the end-user, or by sending FB a scheme of requirements and having them installed that way at the factory.

(3) One of the problems that FB decided to address when constructing the Bee is the dichotomy between rigged vehicles and vehicles being controlled by a metahuman pilot who was not jumped in. Few solutions have been universally satisfactory: a Rigger in a standard pilot's seat is woefully exposed in the event of danger or dumpshock, while a vehicle which replaces the pilot's controls with a Rigger cocoon is impossible to pilot by any means other than a rigger. A vehicle which features both standard pilot seating and a rigger cocoon is usually wasting space, though of course anyone can be put in the cocoon for transit. FB solved this by building the entire cockpit to the specifications of an Enhanced Rigger cocoon, whilst leaving it large enough and roomy enough for a pilot used to operating in cramped quarters to operate the Bee manually. This turned out to be surprisingly simple and easier than expected, thanks to technology licensed from DocWagon, and FB has promised this innovation of a 'Rigger Cockpit' will be showing up on future products.

1.2 mil for something capable of trans oceanic flight seems crazy low. But it fits given the G5 price. Oh, and iiirc, one of the bugs in Rigger 3 construction rules was that you couldn't crate an aircraft that could fly trans-ocean.

It fits in around the price range of the Gulfstream Luxe V. Given that the Gulfstream Luxe V is, well, a Gulfstream and hence, I presume, undoubtedly capable of transoceanic flight, it seems reasonable.

I mean, sure, I could jack all the prices up to somewhere around that of modern-day aircraft (a Dassault Falcon X, for instance, goes for like 60-70 million dollars,) but either way it's going to be out of the range of most 'Runners who don't get it by five-fingered discount.

The thing on the 4E cover (I'm assuming you are talking about the one with the LS logo) looks more like a tilt-rotor design for me, though it might be something like the VJ 101

And the Arsenal rules for what is VTOL and what not are a bit wonky anyway. The T-Birds are not even STOL according to Arsenal...

No, I was talking about the Gulfstream Luxe V, a business jet found in Arsenal.

I've got no idea what that thing the Star is fielding on the cover of SR4 is. It looks like it's about to crash, since even a tilt-thrust aircraft doesn't want the body getting to that kind of angle, that low to the ground, especially in a hazard-rich environment like the heart of Seattle.

(Completely aside, is it just me, or is that troll with the magic and the shotgun like, far too chill for a guy who's blasting someone with magic?)

Not even the kull drone is STOL ... and the FB eagle is mentioned as VSTOL, which is just bullshit. Also, none of the Helicopters has the "Improved Vertical Takeoff and Landing 2" quality ...

I assumed you were looking for something that maches the LS vehicle on the cover (and is not a T-bird)


I dunno, I'm always distracted by the human...he's pointing his spur in some insane direction, he looks like he's in desperate need of a bathroom, and what in the name of every possible hell are those things on his legs?

You are expecting the writers and developer to have read the rules, aren't you?

eh, he's still fresh, cut him some slack, he still has hope . .

well, not anymore ...

Yah dumpshock tends to do that . .

I did, extensively.

but you were dumpshock first

If it exists, I haven't been able to find it.


Look like greaves that only cover the lower parts of his shin and his ankles.

I like to take a Hawker Skytrain, give it improved economy and suncell and call it a Skyranger. But that's just me.

You'd condemn your runners to die horribly then in the first turn when a grenade is chucked in before they can get out?

Or the enemy mage magically controls the guy with the rocket launcher to fire it at the nearest guy, point blank?

*yoink*

I'll take that as praise of some kind, even if very light on the details.