I noticed a huge weakness with vehicles when I first picked up the SR book and decided I wanted to be a Rigger. It is true that most street vehicles have a 3 or 4 body at the most. Even though non Anti-Vehicle weapons are reduced in power and damage level, a few extra successes would stage up the damage so much that a single shot from a shotgun would take out my Eurocar Westwind.

So, when it was my turn to run Shadowrun, I did the most logical thing I could when confronted with vehicles and guns... Called Shots.

A previous post mentioned that vehicles have alot of empty space (trunk, empty passenger area, etc), and this is completely true. But I don't believe the Half power and reduced Damage Level are supposed to represent "empty space".

Basically I told my players if they want to shoot a car and hope to stop it, they best take aim for a vital area. Shoot the tires, shoot the engine block, shoot the axle, heck... shoot through the windshield at the driver. But don't expect to just shoot the car and expect to stop it. Unless my player is fireing a fully automatic weapon, these so-called "wild" shots I often disregard completely. It hits the trunk, pokes a hole in the door, maybe even takes out a headlight. But it's not going to stop the car.

This would be the point of staging damage due to successes (a more accurate, damaging shot) and Damage Codes. By default, people don't aim at areas that are less than effective for destroying the target.

Personally I just triple a vehicle's Body for Damage Resistance Tests. That coupled with the reduced damage tends to be very effective.

Triple? I'll say.

Alternately, you could also say that the small-arms fire can disable a vehicle, just not immediately. For example, a shotgun might cause some sort of fluid leak or other damage which might not instantly immobilize the vehicle, but will cause the engine to sieze up in another 15 minutes or something.

The SR damage system doesn't really do that kind of stuff very well; there's no real mechanism for a car limping along for a bit, then finally just kicking the bucket. It either runs, or it's instantly dead. You could maybe set up some sort of rule mechanism where Deadly damage done by a pistol (or other smallish weapon) might not have immediate effect, but rather causes the engine to cut out in a certain number of minutes or kilometers or something along those lines.

I suppose as an evil GM you could point out that getting a vehicle up to D does not stop it dead in its tracks. It's up to the GM to determine effects like inertia. Next time one of your PCs decides to open up on the Westwind that's barreling down on him at 90 km/h, intending to "kill it" before it hits him, remind him of the dangers inherent to letting Mr. Newton do the driving.

More considerations:

If you're using a shotgun (flechette ammo), vehicle armor is doubled (BBB p. 116) and consider the effects of choke.

If you're firing slugs from that mamajama, expect to see civilian vehicles take significant damage. Staging up the damage doesn't "just happen" because the GM wants it to, it represents extra damage incured by more skillful/lucky attackers knowing the right place and the right time to attack a target. A slug to the sensitive electronic components of a car or important lines in the engine is going to slow it down asap.

Also, getting 4+ successes (to take that shotgun slug from S to M for the vehicle, and M to D from successes, plus beating out any dodge test successes) means throwing 8+ dice at a target and getting very lucky. Getting 8 or more dice neccessitates a skill of 4 or more in shotguns, which represents a moderately well trained firer.

You know, given the controversies that have flared recently regarding vehicle damage, someone should do some digging through the AADA, or whatever it is called (American Auto-Duel Association) and find out just how much punishment a car can take before it is beat unto inutility. Then again, I imagine those auto-duel types are a pretty closed-mouth bunch.

Another way to represent it is to use a "Stun" damage monitor for any weapon that is not an AV weapon or has AV ammunition.

The rules for that would be simple. Standard weapons do "stun" damage until the vehicle reaches 10 boxes of stun, then it overlaps into physical. AV weapons/ammo does physical damage only.

A vehicle that gains 10 boxes of "stun" would have the appropriate TN modifications but it would not be destroyed but suffer fuel leaks (very important that fuel if it is a loong drive to the nearest gas station). Perhaps the gearbox/transmission/brakes or some other thing doesn't work and the vehicles accel/decel suddenly becomes a fraction of it's usual ability.

Shooting a car, hitting passengers.

Unless a player makes a called shot then he just sprays/shots at the vehicle and hitting the general hull of the vehicle. Passengers would, at this instance risk getting shot as the bullets penetrates the rather thin non-bulletproof metal. The chances of hitting a car would be depending on the amount of bullets and the amounts of passengers in the car.

The easiest way of dealing with this without making it into a numbercrunching competition should be the "searching fire" rules from cannon companion. The area hit by the shooter is (for convenience) equal to vehicles body and each passenger should make a standard dodge roll against a TN of 4 and need equal amounts of successes as bullets fired.

In the case of ties (more than one character hit) then both(or more) gets hit by the bullet(s) as they rip through the passenger/driver compartment but they gain a bonus to their body equal to the vehicles body and add the vehicles armour to their own armour value. This represent how the bullets killing power has been degraded as it went through the vehicles hull..

Damage against vehicle when spraying the vehicle with AV ammo/weapons.

Well, if one shoots against a vehicle with AV ammunition one does not just cripple the vehicle, you still need to aim at a weak spot. If I fired a high powered rifle with AV ammunition I would still have to aim at the engine block or general area of the fuel tank/cell. If one does not take at least one action to aim then the shooter just fires at a random location at the vehicle, it could be the windows, windscreen, license plate or even the fuel tank.

IF the shooter does not aim with an AV weapon he will not do much damage unless he is very lucky. The standard rules for AV weapons against vehicles apply with the following changes:

Character aims: Full AV rules apply
Character fires "blind": Full AV rules apply but damage is converted to stun (can overlap to physical as usual)

Hitting characters in a vehicle with AV ammo.

An anti vehicle weapon is not really designed to be used against mere humans but they usually get the job done. =)

If a character gets hit by the "blind" firing (or if the shooter actually aimed at him) then there will not be much protection from the vehicle since the high-powered ammunition tears through it like a knife through butter. The character(s) gains 50% body and armour bonus (round down).

*looks up* Oops, that became a loong post.

It doesn't really matter. Even with a TN of 2, a vehicle by the standard rules (and not piloted by a rigger or drone pilot) only gets to roll its Body in dice to resist. Even if the rifleman only gets a single success on his Ranged Combat Test with his shot-loaded shotgun (9S reduced to 2M), a typical car will take damage since, at best, it will only get 3 successes on its Damage Resistance Test. One counters the rifleman's success, the other two drop it to Light. One additional success by the rifleman, and it takes Moderate damage. Every two successes after that stages it up again.

I have no issues with the rules as is. Armored vehicles quickly become immune to small arms while unarmored vehicles are easily affected as it should be. Damaging a headlight, sensor, windshield, bumper and so on is a relatively trivial matter with a rifle and each of these is a moderate to light wound. Puncturing the radiator, wheel or tire, damaging the fuel lines or engine block, and so on is serious to deadly to most vehicles. An unskilled attacker would have little chance at doing even light damage, while a very skill one knows how to maximize the damage. If it becomes an issue in games, I suggest adding armor.

you consider minor body damage to be light to moderate wounds for a vehicle? please explain how a broken headlight would lead to a +1 or +2 damage modifier for driving in broad daylight. i'd consider popped tires and dragging parts to be light to moderate damage, those have immediate effects on performance. perforated bumpers and broken glass are descriptive effects i would use when a goon gets a good shot off put the car/driver manages to stage it to nothing.

just like how i might describe a well-placed shot that got staged to nothing against a character along the lines of "you feel the bullet dig a channel of fire across your arm as you twist out of its path" a minor scratch in the scheme of things, no modifiers, just a flesh wound.

Right, I wouldn't call blasting out a headlight as Light damage in the day, only at night in unlit areas of the city, in the forest, on a mountain road, or cave. I'm not talking about broken glass, I'm talking about spiderwebs across the field of vision, glass bits cascading through the car at every turn, or having half a windshield in your lap. The bumper dragging under the front wheels or whatever.

I like the canon rules for vehicles. The only problm, as has been stated in this thread already, is vehicle body. Yes, body being related to mass makes perfect sense, but I don't like how only armor can be added, and no body. There ought to be a vehicle enchancement to add reinforcement, rather then armor. Obviously, it'll add to mass as well, and slow the vehicle down.

In the examples used, people are forgetting that generally vehicles that you are shooting at are moving and that would make getting successes against them a lot harder for the attacker. If they are not moving than the rules makes sense, I mean anyone can shoot towards the engine of a stationary car.