Two quick questions.

1) I'm looking to tweak out a GMC Bulldog for rigging/remote operations. I don't really care what all I have on it, but I want to be able to pretty much summon the thing, and I want it to have some kind of rigger-controlled weaponary. Because that's delicious. Suggestions?

2) If a spirit is pissing me off, and I don't have the means to kill it with said weapons due to immunity constraints... Does ramming it at 300 meters per turn an acceptable solution for getting around immunities? Seriously. Is it?

EDIT: Manifested spirits. I'm not going to try and ram an unmanifested one, unless I line the entire thing with biofiber... Hmm....

2) IIRC, ramming the thing at that speed would cause 30D damage, so yeah, that should blow the spirit to smithereens. I'm not sure how I'd handle the staging rules for collisions with pedestrians though... Also, your own vehicle now needs to resist 30S, which may or may not suck for you.

[Edit] Yuu mean materialized, don't you?[/Edit]

Manifested, materialized. *chuckles* Leave me alone! But, yes. I have to resist that much? Bwah, that's no good.

But I'll remember that the next time I'm driving someone ELSE's car.

The spirit would take 30D, the van would take 30L. A light is nothing to worry about if the spirit needs killing fast.

Nope Moonwolf, check the BBB, collisions with pedestrians. Clearly states that damage for the vehicle is staged down one step, so D becomes S.

I'd like to go ahead and point out that an armored truck taking 30S damage from hitting a pedestrian is... completely retarded.

You shouldn't be moving at 100m/s (ie, 6 k/minute or 360 kph) when you hit someone, then. Now, if that collision were at 200m/ct (240 kph) then the pedestrian would take 20D and the vehicle would take 20M.

Jason--you forgot that all pedestrians in this land have titanium bone lacing, dermal sheath, and are possessed by a force 12 greater form City Spirit. Either that or the guys who wrote the rules were trying to deter you from killing pedestrians with your car....I'm still working on the latter concept.

And don't forget that you reduce the damage for the colliding vehicle by body x number of successes on the ramming test. So a body 4 vehicle with 4 successes would take only 6M in the 200m/ct case. And you can always use control pool on the resistance test.

TKG--Why exactly 6M? I'm tired but I keep coming up with a different number...closer to 4M

Also do you get armor on the Crash test? If so is it applied after you reduce the damage of the collision?

What if the pedestrian has titanium bone lacing or has a cybertorso or something? Physics is shadowrun sometimes has to take a back seat. It should also be mentioned that said 300m/turn is very, very, very fast (225mph).

man, I am just too slow. I need move-by-wire to type fast enough for you guys.

20M-(successes x body) = 20M - (4 x 4) = 4M. I was backwards.

In any case, I don't know how you're getting a Bulldog up to 200 m/ct

Sorry, I was using the Rigger 3 damage tables, where the body of both sides is used. It means that vans can run people over and take some damage, rather than wiping out in one go.

*boggles*

Wow. So, er, is it a good idea to ram spirits, then?

I deserve a prize!

Now, all I need to do is find out how to find a full-automatic shotgun to mount to the roof of my.. Er. Delivery truck. Yeah. That's the ticket. Delivery.

EDIT: Oh! As for impossibly fast vehicles? I want this bike.
http://www.ircuser.org/files/219mph.mpg

Screw "good idea." It's just COOL to ram spirits!

I hate to be the voice of reason here but watch out, most spirits are a lot tougher to ram than one would think, especially if your GM is on the ball. Assuming you'll mostly be ramming city spirits, they have various movement and accident powers to trip you up. Movement powers of course can slow your ramming speed to make you ineffectual, and the accident power can be very liberal on what it means, You ever watch They Must be Mad? You get the idea. The best idea for dealing with most spirits is just to move out of its domain.

Elementals on the other hand are much more difficult to deal with, the only solution being high caliber weapons when they materialize. Fire, air and water elementals will most likely just manifest inside the vehicle and incinerate/suffocate/drown the occupants. And earth elementals? Well they can make nasty speed bumps.

Geek the mage.

For your bulldog-- a Security model with rigger adaptation can be summoned on command. An improved Pilot would be helpful; but simply rigger-adapting the thing will give you a Pilot of 1. For weapons, a pop-up turret should do the trick.

As for spirits... it depends what you put in that turret. I tend to load Great Dragons into the damn things, which will fry most spirits easily. A water cannon or flamethrower can do the trick as well.

If you're dead set on ramming the damn thing, get yourself a low-level nitro injector. That will get you up to 2.5 x your normal speed. If I were the GM, I'd be imposing all kinds of handling modifiers after firing off one of those, but YMMV, of course.

That's why my rigger keeps a blowtorch next to her at all times.

~J

Tasers are better

Oooh. That gives me an idea.

Line your vehicle with biofiber, moss, or something biological. You're now an astral battering ram, and will work against un-materialized spirits, too, right?

Same reason why you can't use fast motion through the earth. *laughs* Splut.

I assume that by manifested, you mean materialized. 100 m/s is more than enough to kill most spirits, though if the spirit has a high enough body, it can damage the car too. I don't recomend doing it to earth elementals. And guys, I don't think there would be enough room inside a bulldog for a spirit to materialize inside of it.

So, a GMC Bulldog security version, armor of 5 as I recall. Rigger adaptation and remote control interface to start with, but remote control only lets you control it directly. To call it to you, you would need to add a drone brain, giving it a pilot rating. Simply transplanting the brain of a regular drone wouldn't work, since you need something programmed for a car-sized drone. You would have to find a passenger vehicle drone program, have one custom-made, or program one yourself. I don't know what the availability would be, or if you could get it at character creation.

As for weapons, I recomend a single small, pop-up, antiaircraft remote turret. A heavy machine gun would be ideal, but you can only get a light machine gun at character creation. A panther cannon or grenade launcher are other options, but they aren't so great for use against small, fast-moving targets, especcially aerial ones. A battery of smoke launchers and an oil-slick sprayer are a must, since they are so cheap and easy to get.

Other than that, the usual morphing liscense plate, transponder library chip, and of course, runflat tires and roll bars. I also recomend upgrading the sensor suite, adding a level or two of ECM and a level of ECCM, and adding a roof hatch so passengers can shoot their guns and cast their spells upward, or just fire backwards more easily than if they were leaning out the window.

You could buy a turret with nothing in it, then buy a Lone Star Strato-9 and strip the MMG off and stick it in the turret. Not only are you thus better armed, but then you have a wonderful surveillance drone that won't send people running.

~J

I could be mistaking, but I don't think there's anything in the rules that says a vehicle has to be large in order to inflict the high-speed damage when crashing into a pedestrian. So if that theory holds true, I introduce the...

Spirit Killer Disposable Drone

Chassis: Small Rotorcraft UAV
Power Plant: Electric Fuel Cell
Quality Factors: Complex Chassis

Design Options of Note: Speed Increase 120, Engine Customization 5 (Speed 5), Superconductive Drive 1.

Grand Total: 5,900 nuyen and a Speed of 345 (~275mph). You can increase it to a Body 2 drone (for Serious damage to any metahuman/spirit target and Deadly to most) for a 1,300 nuyen increase in cost. At full speed that's going to do 35S to 35D damage, is completely legal within the game world, and readily available. It's a little pricy, but it's worth it if you're up against a target you just can't take down any other way.

That is the most evil fragging thing I've ever heard, ROUS. Now, if we can dikote it and have an ally spirit possess it.

*snickers* Kidding. But isn't there a mod along the lines of a spiked bumper? Or was I simply on Zen when I though I read that? If so, I suggest seagull-sized drones that are nothing more than flying spikes. Add an explosive charge to the tip? Ouchu!

For roleplay effect, have your rigger shout 'KAMIKAZE!!!!' at the top of his voice every time he uses one O' these.

I suggest you force your drone rigger to wear a hachimaki and drink sake before every run.

If he wants to control the thing directly (because he really wants to hit), those "Banzai" shouts and the sake are quite appropriate - rigging a vehicle that's being destroyed in a crash (likely to happen to this drone) deals 6S damage, IIRC.

But it is an evil idea, nevertheles, especially if a mage polarized-wards it: behold, dual-natured rigger-controlled surface-to-spirit missile....

The ward is polarized so that it appears clear from the *outside*, and an astral form has to make a perception ( 8 ) test to recognize the drone as a threat. Otherwise it appears mundane until the moment of collision. Oh my...

Heh. Stuff like this makes baby zombie Jesus cry. For brains.

Well, you could direct-control the things, and then switch out right before impact. I think. But this is all so many kinds of sick. Sick, wrong, and utterly delicious.

Like my van. I'm going to paint it pink. And put paneling on it. And have a custom horn that plays La Cucaracha. Because, damnit, if they don't like it, they can walk.

So does that mean I can make a weapon focus chrome bumper?
I love it.. the GSSR, guided surface to sprit rocket.

I somehow am reminded of Bombchus from the Nintendo 64 Zelda series....

Ah, we see that all FASA games a vulnerable to the raming tactic. The best weapon in Btech was an ultra fast VTOL that rammed baddie mechs...

Remember that there is no interia in astral space so you can't damage an astral form by running into them with something. The most 'likely' outcomes seem to be either pushing them along of shoving them to one side.

Er. I'm a retard. But I thought wards were stationary?

Dissonance, it depends on the GM's interpretation of the line "cannot be moved from the location." Really is a question of semantics, but making them stationary cuts a lot of possible issues.

Crashing six (or so, somewhat variable how many are needed) warded vehicles together can work. In general, the only time something is forced into astral combat with a ward is when it is unable to go around. With dual natured creatures/objects, the warded doorway can be a problem after building up a little speed, but purely astral forms don't have that kinetic dilemma.