After a couple one-shot vehicle kills I've noticed that non-rigged vehicles are awfully fragile. Someone with a 3 skill Pistols is rolling as many dice to damage a Ford Americar as the vehicle gets to resist. And that's without considering the shooter can throw Combat Pool into that.

I'm considering a house rule that 4 successes are needed to step up the damage on a vehicle, instead of 2.

And not only that, but a bullet or two that destroys a car renders it completely totaled and beyond repair. (or, costing 100% of the total vehicle cost to repair...whatever)
I will agree that vehicle destruction can be a bit fishy, but I'm not sure 1st ed staging is the answer. It's an interesting idea, though, it just seems like an awfully big can-o-worms.

It's a pretty common problem. By canon you pretty much have to either load up on a ton of armor or the vehicle goes down like a two dollar whore in Singapore by anyone with a weapon that has a Damage Level of M or higher.

What I typically do is triple the amount of dice any given vehicle rolls for their Body tests against non-vehicular weapons. Body 1 drones get 3 dice (fragile but not insta-kill), most Bikes would get 6 dice, most cars would get 9 dice, and vehicles larger than that are pretty much immune to serious damage except by vicious weapons or those weilded by adepts or something. Coupled with the automatic staging down of attacks, it's gone a long way to make it a bit more believable. At least to us.

Note that this is only for purposes of destroying the car itself. You can still hurt people inside by shooting through barriers (or whatever other rules you prefer to use for such contests) and all that jazz.

Ever seen what a well placed shot or two can do to a vehicle. if the gas tank is not absolutely full you can kiss the baby good bye.

But those should be rare occurances caused by a called shot or spectacular staging; not the standard.

Then explain the one some gangbangers lit up accidently. They were aiming for the tires and well the sights were off. Urban legend you say? Hell man, I was a hundred feet away when it happened. Don't let you supposed reality fool you. A .45 is powerful enough to crack the engine of a truck. Now you don't have to crack the engine block to make a car useless. Destroy enough hoses, pumps, wires, and other components and a car is toast. You guys also seem to be forgetting that a vehicles Body also acts like standard armor and that APDS ammo works like normal.

You could manage to set it on fire, though, if you're very (un)lucky. Self-sealing gas tanks should take care of most of that, you'll only get a small fire. Maybe you could even make the tank of a material that is very unlikely to spark when hit by most metals that bullets are made of.

I run it exactly like Doctor Funkenstein. Triple body dice. Good luck shooting down a cargo helo with a Light Pistol. (Yeah, and AV ammunition for most small arms doesn't exist.)

You wanna think of something funny?

Okay, so a lotta people have those supa-fly magnesium rims, right? They're alloy, right, so they're safe from the heat from bullets, right? Shoot the tires. If the guy keeps running, there is a distinct possibility that the heat from flattened tires - if sufficient to make the tires melt - will light the rims up.

Back in 1996, the San Francisco PD did precisely this. A guy hit a spike strip but kept driving. After about three blocks, his tires were pretty much shot, at least in the back. Sparks from rim-to-asphalt contact were hot enough to light up the rear rims like a christmas tree. He couldn't get out because it got so hot so fast that his door partially fused to the surrounding metal. Burned to death in the car. There was a big investigation, after which the police were exonerated of all charges. Their argument was, "What, we're responsible for his decision to A) run, and B) have magnesium rims?"

Just a funny - in that black humor way - vehicular story.

Erebus: I think he's said in an earlier thread that he does. Would be no point otherwise.

Ok. Cool. Just making sure, before I start using that to beef up vehicles.

Destroyed, whatever the name may say, only costs 50% of vehicle cost to repair.

~J

Do you triple the body dice against small arms only? And do you triple the body dice when a rigger is running the vehicle?

Wow, I go and watch a movie only to return and find people answering my questions for me. Cool. It's like some weird Twilight Zone movie or something.

But that just makes vehicles even more invulnerable to small-arms fire.

Edit: Though I suppose that's the point. Never mind, carry on.

~J

Let's look at your standard Ford Americar being pot-shot by a guy with an Ares Predator and regular ammo. We'll say he's your average runner with a focus on this sort of thing, so Pistols 6, and we'll say he's taking that pot-shot at a car in a well-lit parking lot (no TN modifiers). To be nice, he only has a laser sight rather than a smartlink but he does spend one Simple Action aiming anyway.

Bang. He rolls 6 Pistol + 6 Combat Pool dice with a TN of 2 and nails 10 successes with a base Damage Code of 9M. The vehicle stages that down to 4L and rolls its (Body 3*3) 9 dice against a TN of 4, succeeding with 6 successes. The shooter wins with 4 net successes and stages the damage up to a Serious blow.

Now let's use the same scenario with a Joe Schmoe with Pistols 3 and no targeting device. Bang. He rolls his 3 Pistol + 3 Combat Pool dice against a TN of 3 and scores 5 successes. The vehicle resists exactly as above and gets only one net success. Unfortunately, that's not enough to completely stage the damage down so it still takes a Light wound.

That's hardly invulnerable to small-arms fire. But at least with the seasoned professional, he was unable to completely destroy the Amricar with a single shot in perfect conditions. The only people who will be completely unable to do anything more than mere cosmetic damage are incompetent gunmen with no or very low skill ratings.

I suppose I'm just too used to Riggers, where the vehicle dodge rules are such that if a single attack didn't do a lot of damage taking a Rigger out with non-AV weaponry without ramming would be nearly impossible.

~J

As it should be against a rigger. It takes a rigger to take on a rigger... though his drones (Body 2 or lower) are still relatively easy targets. At least as much as any armored target with Body 3 or 6. And if you're prepared with AV ammo or any other type of anti-vehicular weapon, it's just as easy then as it is now.

I also have a house rule that AV ammo is not available for anything smaller then machine guns.

I like this triple Body dice also, and will hace to seriously consider using it.

I personally houserule AV to be available for nothing smaller than rifle-class, though I realize that that's still smaller than realistic. At least it doesn't completely break my mind that way.

~J

I know a guy who teaches firearms classes and also manages a computer lab. He told me that once he took an old hard drive out to the range and shot it with a .44 magnum. The round only went halfway through the harddrive.


So, based on that, I can't imagine how handguns could cause any serious damage to vehicles.

First your always assumed to be aiming for a vulnerable part of a target. And your number of successes determines how well you do this. In a car that means the fuel tank or enjon bay.

What is going to happen to a car when you out a bullet into the radiator. Its going to stop within a couple of combat turns (a friend couldn’t get a radiator for a car and used a 44 gallon drum. It was good for 5 minutes), if you cut fuel lines its going to start a fire within seconds, if you hit the sump the oil will drain and the enjoin will seas within seconds, if you hit the rocker cover it will go strait threw and jam the cam shaft or the rockers and the engine will stop immediately if you hit the onboard computer the car will stop immediately. Serious wounds are represented by hits to the steering assembly or the spark leads (disabling a cylinder) or the battery or alternator. Or numerus other parts.

Frankly if it wasn’t for the fact that you can’t predicted placement of these components like you can vital organs in a meta human I would dispute the reduction of power.

As to repair costs it is a bit of a stretch to say that you have to repoase an entire vehicle because of a single disabling shot. I would be tempted to give a vehicle overflow boxes equal to its body the cost of repairs is cost of vehicle/body*boxes filled. deadlier over damage applies.

Edward

For the most part I don't use the canon rules, instead I use a bit of common sense and play it something like this (and it only applies for firearms):

If the player shooting the car doesn't specify an actual location (wheel, window) I assume the round hits a non-critical area of the vehicle. Now depending on the damage I make up something accordingly eg, on a 'Deadly' the round rips straight through the car and out the roof.

I have found this way gets the players thinking about how to try and stop the vehicle instead of letting a random set of dice rolls determine it for them.

am curious Dave how do you then handle vehicle armor.. ? do you use the staging rules at all?

DS

Uhm, except for the part about totally ignoring playing the game by not even bothering with a Body roll, that's pretty much how the game works as is. Same goes for regular combat; it's up to the GM to interpret the results and describe the scenario.

A Called Shot isn't required either; the player can just say he's shooting for the radiator without actually using a Called Shot (+4 TN, +1 Damage Level). The GM is just supposed to take that into account when he resolves the situation.

So in other words the players can’t predict what the results of their actions will be because the rules change on-the-fly?

~J

It has nothing to do with the player predicting his chance of success. That's metagaming. The point is that it's not fair to change the rules on a whim when playing a game. It doesn't matter if it's a roleplaying game, a board game, or a card game -- it's still unfair and it's still cheating.

I don’t mean perfectly predicting one’s odds by totaling the dice and TNs, I mean the reasonable certainty that if something happens the same way twice it will have the same or similar effects, regardless of whether it is important to the story one time and not the other. I can predict that if I set out to work at XYZZY time I will arrive on time. I can’t total up the odds, and there’s a possibility that I might not, but if I’m delayed because it’s important to the story that’s taking away my ability to reasonably judge results based on my actions.

~J

try pulling that kind of limp when you are in the hotter parts of Oz. lost a good V6 that way

hmm.. it is a problem then. I kind of like the 3x body dice houserule from a few posts back, though it does give problems with some vehicles<those with high body> especially with modified vehicles <rigger 3 rules>. dont remember if you could modify the body but if you could it will be abused..

the ad -hoc rules dave proposes seem too erratic for my taste.. I gm harshly & give players few breaks but for my players I have to be 100% consistent. if they shoot at a ford americar their inmediate expected result will be the same regardless of wether this is owned by joe ganger or miles lanier, or my personal idea on what is good for the plot.... ad-hoc is just not our thing.
that said I really dont like cars being brought to deadly using one single shot from a pistol.. its a bit too much `last action hero`..

DS

edit: about the car with no radiator.. new cars cant handle that old ones can, we have two and I managed to drive the old one <citroen bx.. aanncient> more than 35 km to the garage without any coolant fluid due to a leak<mind you, mostly highway, mostly downhill>

One thing I don't really understand, why is it harder to "shoot to kill" a truck than a compact car?

The cab has the same number of wheels, the bodywork is the same thickness and the engine is pretty much the same construction. Ok there may be a trailer, but who shoots the trailer to disable the cab?

Um, if I refine the comparison to a Ford Ka and a Ford Transit Van, the only difference between these 2 vehicles is that the transit has a larger internal space. All the components that relate to "take-out" are the same size and toughness. In fact a transit van has much smaller/weaker components then many high-end sports vehicles.

So vehicle damage is knackered anyway you look at it.

Well, if you change vehicle body to solely reflect is ability to resist damage (and not be related to size) then you'll probably be doing fine...

And what do we use to define size?

Make a new stat: size

But all that extra space doesn't take damage from having bullets go through it. When you aren't making a called shot your shooting at the most opportune target with minimal aim. You may be shooting for the engine but your hitting a door, or a window, or a light.

Making a Called Shot effectively gives you two automatic success (a significant degree of success) if you manage to hold your aim on the part of the car your shooting at well enough to hit.

[edit] However, according to the rules I can fire my 12 gauge(10D with a shot load) in to rear passanger door (1 success, no called shot) and cripple the vehicle (at least a Moderate wound).[/edit]

There fixed it.