Okay. I have a player who's played Cyberpunk pretty extensively, and she wants to know if there's a SR equivalent to (or a possibility to implement) Cyberpunk's airboarding... basically skateboarding on boards with hovercraft-ish abilities. I don't have Rigger 3, so... I don't know what can and can't be done. Any ideas?

I once had a character that made a Vectored Thrust drone that was shaped like a surfboard. He'd strap in and ride it through the skies. I'll see if I can dig up the stats for it.

You might be able to modify a microskimmer. I'll check in a few minutes.

If she calls herself Anarki, though, I'm going to rail her.

~J

I suspect the most accurate thing (I say suspect because I'm not a CP expert) would be to make a simple small skimmer drone. All of the power plants can carry enough weight for a person (100KGs by shadowrun rules) and stay under their maximum load rating.

They're technically hovercraft so would us ethe hovercraft skill to pilot, but due to the unconventional piloting system (the top-heavy nature of a person riding on them) you may want to impose penalties, make a different skill to ride such-as the 'hoverboard' skill, or simply use the all-mighty athletics skill.

Really, outside of cyberpunk a hoverboard is basically impossible to ride. It's essentially frictionless, it's impossible to turn because there's nothing to effect external force on it in that matter. It totally lacke sthe centripedal force necessary to turn.

The best method would be to use a dumb Ally Spirit with Three Dimentional Movement trapped in a board shape or wood homoculous (sp?). It would have been taught to respond to the rider in a manner similar to skateboarding. The other way with magic would be to use a specilized Levitaiton spell designed to accomidate such rider reactions quicikened or anchored to board.

This one came out and was hyped for the 2000 Olympics:

http://www.airboard.com.au/

Apparently it remains commercially available, at least in Australia.

That's absolutely nothing like a skateboard.

The skimmer could easily be designed to work like a skateboard. It could maybe even be all-mechanical. You have the basic leaning to turn, you can have the back of the board extend past the back of the back of the area that keeps the thing afloat, so you could initiate turns like that (don't know the technical term for the basic turn by lifting the front wheels off the ground and moving them to either side). You could turn with just a fan pointing backwards, it'd take some extra skill on the part of the user though. That could be compensated for if you added some intelligent engineering to the thing to help cancel side-travel.

cranial RCD! Just control it with a thought. The hard part would be coming up with a way to do that and stay standing. It's kind of the same idea as rigging a bike. Then again I always thought of rigging as a techno-telepathic link with the veichial.

-The Eggman

I once had a writeup for one of these, building on the a small surfboard-sized board, with a couple of stabilizing fins and mounting the equivalent of three microskimmer drones on the underside. Two for lift and one for forward thrust.

Yeah, I'd say start with a Small Hovercraft chassis, hopefully R3 has a drone one to start with. Then, I'd use the Fuel Cell engine as they have the best of all the features. I'd also keep it Remote Controlled, but one could add Manual Controls. For sure add a Bucket Seat, but just call it a "Ergonomic Standing Pod" and then Improved Handling, Watertight Mod for Hovercrafts, and Speed maybe some Engine Customization.

Have the builder scour the Matrix and find some design plans and then do a bunch of runs with him or her getting the parts for it. Some B&R tests later...

Well, hang on. I've got the Shop and that program uses R2.

When you have it designed and finished, I'd like to see it. I think it could easily find a place in a lot of campaigns, particularly if we can think of some easier way to control it...
One thing that might work is allowing manual control using "power" lean steering... with the lean being interpreted by the drone and translated into the appropriate thrust shifts to actually execute the turn. Or maybe a wireless remote of some sort might work better, like a small ball held and rotated in the desired direction of movement.

If only there were a way for it to be controlled like a Segway or sommat...

Airboard, Small (Gas)

Handling 2/2 (4/4 with rider)
Speed 180
Accel 19
Body/Armor 1/0
Sig 6
Autonav/Pilot -/1
Sensor 1
Cargo -
Load 300

Seating - Ergonomic Standing Pad
Setup/Breakdown 0
Entry Open
Landing/Takeoff N/A
Fuel Gasoline ( 25 liters )
Economy 0.5 km/liter

DP Cost 562
Cost 16578.9992630482 ¥

Skimmer, Small Reference (Rigger 2)

Features
Bucket Seats (Level 0)*
Hovercraft Water Seals (Level 0)
Handling Improvement (- 1)
Handling Improvement (OffRoad) (- 1)
Load Increase (+ 29)
Acceleration Increase (+ 14)
Speed Increase (+ 90)

--

The problem with the small Skimmer is that it has no CF and no capacity for CF. I could do the Large (closer to motorcycle size) and add Gyroscopic Stabilizers which would eliminate the with rider penalty. In theory you could remove the Remote Control interface, Sensor, and Rigger Adaptation from the Skimmer and add Manual Controls instead, which would also eliminated the +2 Handling.

Otakuboard Basic

Chassis: Medium Skimmer (Markup 1.00)

Power Plant: Electric Fuel Cell

Final Cost: ¥37,700

Hand. 2, Speed 75, Accel 6, Body 2, Armor , Sig 6, Auto , Pilot 1, Sensor 1, Cargo 3, Load 300, Seating 1, Entry , Fuel EC (120 PF), Econ .4 Km/PF

Remote-Control Interface, Rigger Adaptation

~J

Airboard, Civilian (Electric)

Handling 3/3
Speed 90
Accel 10
Body/Armor 1/0
Sig 7
Autonav/Pilot -/1
Sensor 1
Cargo -
Load 295
Seating Ergonomic Standing Pad
Setup/Breakdown 0
Entry Open
Fuel Electric ( 50 PF )
Economy 0.4 km/PF

DP Cost 296
Cost 7400 ¥

Skimmer, Small Reference (Rigger 2)

Features
Acceleration Increase (Level 6)
Bucket Seats (Level 0)
Load Increase (Level 29)

--

This is the off the shelf model from retail outlets around the Matrix.

blow it, nevermind. I'll work up a military\shadowtech version later.

Kanada: how're you getting that so cheap? The base chassis and power plant costs about that here, unless I'm screwing up my math.

~J

I'm just using the Shop program, but are you factoring in the .25 Drone Mark-Up? I used Unusual Design and Specizied on the first, but the second is a stock item, IMO. The base DP of the Skimmer and Electric is 255 by the Shop's math and a cost of 6,375¥.

Er, both sizes of skimmers have a flat 1.00 markup.

~J

In R3? That may just be one of the many changes they made, but in this case that doesn't seem even near right. Who would pay 22,500¥ for a scooter?

Oh, oops, we're using different editions

The skimmers aren't designed to be scooters, hence the price.

~J

:: nods :: again, I think we should work through it, and get it play balanced... it's got some serious promise and could easily be useful to joe shadowrunner, because it makes a great way to escape from your average run with serious style.

honestly, if it's designed for a human passenger it's not a drone.

I agree with that to a point. Once we get to silly things like airboards and kid cars, things you buy off the shelf in Wal-Mart, I think there is a reduction in safetly features and legislation that keeps those prices low. Additionally, search and rescue drones designed to carry or rescue injurded humans would still receive the drone modifier and then be slapped with special design, ambulance, and more.

But it still acts like a drone in the absence of a passenger, and could be used as a drone even with one.... I'd say that it's really a matter of opinion, though the more I think about it, the less I feel that it's a drone.

Reminds me of the parapalegic rigger I made... rigged his hover-round he did.

Much spiffyness, being the otaku in question I thank you all for the help in this. Basically if anyone has the cyberpunk offshoot cybergeneration the board Im looking for is the one that Boardpunks ride.

Wow cybergeneration. There is a phrase I haven't heard in a long time. Also if you are using the basis from that book remember that those things are feindisly difficult to pilot, and would probably require it's own skill to use. Perhaps she should look into getting some board armor for herself for when she falls off while trying to learn to use this thing. Also, what happens to the drone if the rider falls off? Does it keep going, fall to the ground, or just sort of slowly descend? This could be one advantage to using the drone frame is that it can do some simple automated functions, perhaps even going in a straight line to a preprogrammed beacon.

Note the boards in Cybergeneration were closer to surfboards than skateboards and counted several turbofans for lift and maneuvering - the wider control surface also made more sense in terms of control and lift. My designs (which I've looked for but can't find) were of this type too.