So SR vehicle specifics with reguards to motion, turning, etc. has been left intentionally vauge for good reason: It's complicated. If anyone here's ever played Car Wars before , then I am sure you can relate. Most RPG's I've played tend to ignore the whole 3D aspect of flight or situations. Which like them, SR is a 2-dimentional game. There are no real rules reguarding distance from high places (like snipers) without using Pythagorean's Theorem to get a better idea of how far away things really are. While 2D makes rules considerably simpler (and way more managable), it does restict the ability to model some things in SR.

What I am driving at is how some drone have speeds that could make them a part of regular combat phases (speed= ~15 or so) and am curious how you all handle that. I am specifically looking for vehicle-movement during combat with non-vehicle entities. Things like, how sharp of turns can they make at given speeds, can they recover from a steep dive, slowing and changing direction, etc.

I am considering just treating them like regular PCs for movement during combat and just tracking an altitude (when applicable) and making note of accelleration/deccelleration restrictions for Driving Test purposes, which seems to be a good start.

I know theses situations are rare and are GM calls at best, so that's what I am asking for: Your experience and thoughts about handling vehicle-movement in non-vehicle combat situations.

Thanks.

Have you ever read Rigger 3? There's a section describing pretty much what you're talking about...

I have Rigger 3 revised, but to be honest I haven't scoured it. I've mostly been using it to fill in the blanks for Vehicle Design and to dig deeper in some of SR3's basic layout on Vehicles and drones. I'll look into R3R, I was assuming that part hadn't changed from SR3.

Thanks for the insight.

If I remember correctly it says you should use the vehicles Acceleration Rating as its quickness and just ignore the whole speed thing.

The way I do it by not changing how I'd handle things. i.e. Vehicles have speed. On the vehicles action it moves whatever part of that it's supposed to. Want to accelerate or decelerate? That's a complex action. Want to take any manuevers beyond slight course correction? That's a handling test, and a complex action.

This usually has 1 of three results.
First: the vehicle barely moves in combat. usually when it is accelerating from a dead stop, and is being driven by someone who isn't very competent (non-rigger with <4 dice)
Second: the vehicle goes flying out of the general area of the combat and the driver spends the rest of the fight trying to turn around.
Third: The driver crashes the vehicle trying to do some sort of fancy maneuver while trying to stay in the combat area.

From time to time a rigger with a drone will manage to pull something cool, but my general experience is that moving vehicles don't make good street fighters.

Page 80 in R3R.

"A vehicles walking rate is equal to its acceleration rating. Its running rate is equal to its speed rating divided by its handling (rounding down), down to a minimum of twice its acceleration. A vehicle can move faster than its running rate in a combat turn, up to its speed rating, if its driver succeeds in a vehicle test. A driver expends a complex action to make this test."

So, for a ford americar you get.

Walking: 8
Running: 26 on road 16 off road (13 is the answer, but minimum of twice the acceleration bumps it to 16)
Max Speed: 105 if vehicle test is succesfully completed.

Also note: You can make ramming tests, and no other vehicle maneuvers listed in SR3 (starting on p141)

Any other vehicle actions (sensor tests, electronic warfare and so on) are handled per standard vehicle rules.



So there you go.

If the vehicle rules weren't so cumbersome, I'd have people try to run the PCs over with an Americar more. That would pwn and be funny too.

My players do it all the time. I just improvise. They're happy, I'm happy, someone makes me coffee.