Doberman: Med. Crawler Chassis, BOD 2, Armor 6, Remote Microturret, External Fixed Firmpoint, ICE (gasoline) power plant, 25l gas tank

Folks are off a bit on the weight, especially if it's a body 2 drone. IIRC it has 6 points of armor.

The weight of armor is (IIRC) (Body^2)*5kg per point... Which means the armor alone on this drone is 120 kg (264 lbs). Now, since this is the size of a small bike, I'll add in the weight of the smallest freaking reasonable bike out there, like the 80's honda spree scooter weighs in a 70 kilos dry. Add in at least 5 kilos for the electronics and weapons, and at an absolute bare minimum this thing will weigh 195 kilos, likely more in the 220-250 range after sensors, rigging gear, remote control equipment, weapons, ammo, ect.

This is a real absolute minimum weight for those of us on the Las Vegas side of the pond of a bare minimum of 429 lbs, with a more likely weight of 484-550 pounds. Much bigger than most folks think.

[edit] I'm too slow, but I think it's funny that me and AE came up with some very, very similar numbers.

You're right austere. I just meant, if say, you took any drone, say one with a large load rating, and piled stuff in it, you'd add any load consumed to the weight of the drone.

Your right, you won't be grabbing it and flipping it over. I was thinking more along the lines of using a crowbar or something to give you some leverage.

Its not something you could do in a wide open area, only in close quarters where the drone can't maneuver well. Running is a better choice, but sometimes you just don't have the option.

Considering it has a base handling of (4/4?) I think, it can handle pretty well most places. Take into account that a rigger modifies its handling a bit, and suddenly, it handles extremely well everywhere, especially with a rigger controlling it. Also, as I said before, any intelligent rigger will permenantly attach a shock security system.

From what I remember from watching battle bots, the doberman and the Steel Lynx are about the size of some of the super-heavy weight bots they had running. those hit 400 lbs easily. Not impossible for a human to lift in a stressful (adrenaline anyone?) situation, but a troll on the beefy side would probably flip it like a yugo.

A shck security system is a nice touch for it. It makes running even more attractive.

Shock system plus ramming speed is a beautiful thing to behold (unless you are beholding from a receiving standpoint)

There's no good reason NOT to have a shock security system on vehicles. It has a pretty damn good cost/benefit ratio.

Woah, me and BitBasher posted those messages saying pretty much the same thing within one minute of each other.

I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to, Tarantula, and my message wasn't really in response to you but to the discussion in general. Still, yeah, load consumed means the drone weighs more -- just like a car weighs more when there's people inside.

I might be giving humans a bit too much credit on the flipping though. I'm a weakling and certainly wouldn't manage it. How difficult would it be to flip over something in the 225-300kg range, if it's around 0.75 x 0.75 x 2 meters in size and on small wheels, if you can get a solid grip on it?

A sledgehammer should be right out, the damn thing is heavily enough armored to withstand sustained HMG fire (equivalent to around 1" of armor steel), but in the wacky world of SR it just might work.

Ouch!

The weight brings about problems for the Rigger too though. My Rigger's gonna have to get a ramp so that he can drive the thing in and out of his Van. He isn't going to want to pick the thing up himself!

dissregard, must have missed about a page of posts

Yeah, my current rigger has ramps that are put in place by his walker drone so the crawlers can get out (well, they can be deployed without the ramp if the situation warrants it, but it's a pain getting them in without it.)

As an addendum, if we take the weight of one of the lightest actual motorcycles, liek the honda shadow 125 CC which I feel is far more realistic as a minimum weight instead of a scooter, given the speed this drone is capable of. The Honda Shadow 125 weighs in at 145 kilos dry. This would put the weight in at around 270 kilos, or 290 including the weapon mount and weapon and armor.

That's 638 lbs.

[edit]
to back this up, if we even look at something smallish like a utility quad, middle of the road model like the Yamahe Kodiak with a 421 CC engine It's 591 lbs dry or just a hair over 268 kilos not counting the 20 kilos of weaon and mount nor the 120 kilos or armor. I still think we're on the light side of estimations.

I'm gonna have to assume this thing has a pretty low center of gravity... with a 10hg sledgehammer that troll would have to swing it at an... impressive speed to transfer enough kinetic energy to knock over something this heavy, in fact I think he'd have enough force to damage the unit way before it tipped over in the case of a sledgehammer.

Wow, look at all the responses. BOD 2 eh?

The Doberman is bigger than I thought. As big as a Steel Lynx, just not as heavily armored.

Are we talking regular sledge or a troll sized sledge? What if its a 50-100lb sledge? Or bigger if the troll is big enough.

I'm thinking the sledge from Alita Battle angel, start to swing and the jet assist kicks in...

Okay here's an idea from the cinematic point of view - I'd like to know what kind of TNs you guys would assign to do it:

Put a cork/obstruction in the gun barrel of the doberman. I would assume the person trying this has snuck up on the doberman from behind, and it would take some kind of athletics test just to get in and out of the sight of the doberman quickly.

Any ideas what kind of TN needed to pull it off - and what would make good obstructions?

I'm thinking quick-set epoxy and a threaded rod.

I was just using a cork as an example. Could you use a sliver of wood, for example? I keep thinking of the Last Crusade, with the rock in the turret.

OOO! Would a splat gun triggered on the barrel work? How would that be treated? Anything hitting the goo sticks, so would a bullet stick to it if the splat goo was in the barrel?

Heh...the target for shooting a splat gun at the barrel of the gun would be astronomical, I would think. Called Shot at the very least, with probably +10 for the diameter of the barrel as well as any for moving, etc....altho the moving might be stopped if a previous splat gun shot was at the treads.

For putting something in the barrel. First, you have to catch the drone, if you can't run as fast as the drone is moving, you fail. Period.

Next, once you have accomplished that, I'd say its an opposed test between the rigger/dronepilot and the blocking characters athletics to actually get the thing in. (Fixed points are able to be aimed, within certain degrees) also note, it has a microturret on the top, which could shoot you while its driving away.) Once its in, I hope you were running a lot faster than the drone, because now you want to get away from it.

Also, any attempt and physically placing one it would trigger the shock system.

Splat glue, causes a str 6 check for breaking free of the glue. I'd say handling checks are required to shoot someone, as now your gun is entirely fixed, instead of slightly aimable. So, you take a handling check against TN to hit, and that limits your successes allowed on the actual shot test. So, 4 successes on handling, you can't get more than 4 successes on fireing.

Other than that, splatting the tires, I'd say if its going anywhere over 6m/turn it rolls on through, with a +1 handling penalty for chunks of goo on the tires. Less than that, crash test. (Sudden stop, could flip itself over like that.)

Plugging a moving barrel on a veritable small tank while its driving about isn't easy. I simply meant, if its going 10 meters a combat turn, you CAN'T get within reach to do anything melee wise to it, unless it decides to drive by you. Now, under tight terrain and such, it might not have that choice, but just a basic field, it could quite easily just sit out of your reach and never give you the option. I meant you have to be able to catch the thing.

Hey! Spike Strips! I can't believe I forgot about them. What gang would be complete without the obligatory initiation test of ganking Star gear? And everybody thought they just had them hanging on the walls as trophies, heh.

Sorry, the statement was unqualified so I assumed you meant they just couldn't do it. What the target number would be for it I have no idea. Definitely up there though.

Kanada Ten: good idea, except I would be very surprised if any drone or Star vehicle (or any vehicle with armor) didn't have solid tires.

Soild tries makes off road sukas. They have rules for spike stips and armor does help (eh, I get the other part - it's the spike strips they steal from the Star).

Nikoli, A.E.:

Actually, there are quick-set epoxies out there designed to bond metal.

The Devcon company, for one, makes epoxy compounds for many purposes, and has at least three formulas--based around Aluminum, Steel, and Titanium, respectively.

I first heard of them in firearms industry-related publications; they're sometimes used to "bed" a rifle action into the stock, to enhance accuracy better than attaching the barrelled action with screws alone.

As I understand it, the stuff is quite similar to Fiberglas (or "fiberglass", as some call it), but with metal fibers in the epoxy matrix instead of glass ones.

Here's a link: Devcon

(Left-click on "OEM Manufacturing" on the home page, then left-click on "Epoxy Adhesives" on the next page that appears.)


And another one: National Supply Source

(For the latter, left-click on anything marked "Devcon Metal Repair Epoxies" under the "Adhesives" heading.)

Of course, YMMV.

--Foreigner

This has been an issue in my current game, so I have been thinking on it. Obviously with the right plan/circumstance you can do it, but I was looking for a somewhat reliable way. I think I have been trying to hard, cause out of nowhere it just hit me, do a called shot and bypass the armor. Sure your success are going to be few and far between, but at least they are going to be. The power will still be halved and the damage code dropped, but you at least have a chance.

No it would be trying to damage a tank with a pistol, which would be pretty hard to do by the rules, but not as hard as it should be. The point was, that the rules make it impossible to damage a doberman, when it should not be quite that hard (IMHO). So I am just using the same book of rules to find a way out of it.

Has it ever occurred to you that it's hard to damage a Doberman because it's supposed to be, seeing that it's a militart grade killing machine with as much armor as an APC? maybe it's supposed to be that hard to kill because you shouldn't be silly enough to run into places that use them without taking precautions first.

Just curious

Well....how high would a mage need to levitate the drone (and how powerful of a levitate spell) in order to drop it from a high enough distance to destroy it regardless of armor. SR rules for falling usually suck, but how hard would it be for a mage to take hold of a doberman this way and just smash it using gravity?

Now I'm thinking chem-delivery rounds with metal setting epoxy and called shots to the barrels....

Woot, got a new tactic for my pacifist pistol sam. Epoxy resin is very hard, like ballistic plastics, that should fubar any gun that gets some in the barrel till it's cleared at a shop later.

Nikoli, If I'm driving around, you'd have to have it so I was driving straight at you (forward mounted firmpoint) or so that the turret was aimed in your direction, to even be able to fire in such a way as to obstruct the barrel. Neither of which are prefereable to your health, as you probably just got shot.

Brazila, the called shot wouldn't work, sure, you're bypassing the armor, but by the rules, if your power doesn't exceed the armor, it doesn't hit, it bounces off. So, sure, you'll "bypass" the armor in order to have it still bounce by the armor stating that your power is too low and it does.

If you bypass the armor then the rounds would not bounce, since you bypassed it. I would say that the called shot penalty may be increased depending on the percent of the vechicle that is not armored. Another option is a called shot to the tire of the thing. I also like the levitate idea, as vechicular armor does not assist in crash tests, so I would take that to be the closest thing to falling.

Called shot to tire, first, I think it comes standard with runflats, so if you do damage it (I think they have a ballistic armor of 4, and soak with vehicle body) they pop at a moderate? Run-flats are +1 to handling checks, normals are +2. Thats it, no reduction in speed or anything else, just a handling penalty.

Is there a weight specified in the levitate spell?

Brazila, if we're going to go that ruleslawyer-y. I'm fairly certain the vehicle armor rules say if the power is less than the armor, it bounces, and it doesn't care if you're bypassing it or not, because its bouncing. Sure, it'd only be halved and not have the armor power subtracted from it, but if thats still under the armor value (very likely) it bounces.

Isn't it a base TN 12 for the highly proccessed object also? (I'm going off the very first post in the thread for this, I don't mage much.)

Depends on the spell. When the TN of the spell would otherwise be BOD, QUI, STR, WIL, whatever, it is OR instead when the spell is targeted at a vehicle. When the TN of the spell is specific, such as the TN of 4 for the Levitate spell, it doesn't change.

Strictly speaking, the OR of the drone is 10 or higher (10+). The exact number depends on the GM.

Well, you know, with the drones micro-turret on the top, it can shoot the casting mage even if the front turret can't target him. Makes casting hard when a rigger is shooting you.

Isn't levitate limited to 30m/turn? If the drone was going faster, would you have to first slow it down to under 30m/turn before you could start picking it up?

Ahh. Well, as far as the sensors go... Since they include some visual, but also ultrasound/radar etc. I'd say a +1-3 TN (depending on how well the mage did casting his invis) penalty to the test to detect said mage. (of course, you need imp invis at 6/7 force to affect said drone) Magic is a good way to go about it, but still hard.

Best bet for gangers is still, have one jump in his americar, head up the block, floor it and nail the sucker.