I'm just messing around with the rigger 3 book and trying to build a good suit of power armor. I'm kinda new to it and wading through the various options at the moment. Anybody can recommend how to go about doing it?

1) Figure out chassis. You'll want one of the Anthroforms.

2) Pick a power plant. It isn't reflected in the rules, but I'd advise against any of the combustion plants if you're going to use it indoors.

3) Search for any of the dozen or so threads about this from the past year.

~J

Vehcile design is one of my favorite bits, so heres a design of my own to help you get started. I built this to creat a new archetype, the Avatar Rigger. Basically a drone rigger built with only a few drones designed for independant deployment and one uber-drone for the rigger to directly control.

Rigger War-Form Mark 1, "Avatar"
Large Anthroform chassis: 800DP
Electric Fuel Cell powerplant: 600DP
+9CF: 45DP
-3 handling: 75DP
+40 Speed: 80DP
+400 kg load capacity: 40D
+60PF to fuel capacity: 24D, -6kg
+100% to Economy: 100D
Rigger Adaptation: Free
Remote Control Interface: Free
Mechanical Arms (STR 9): Free
+ 3 Arm Strength: 540DP, -30kg
level 4 sensors: 125DP, -2CF, -35kg
Advanced Drone Pilot 3: 250DP
Micro Remote Turret: 100DP, -10kg
External Hardpoint: 25DP, -1CF, -10kg
13 Gunnery Recoil Adjusters (4 for turret, 9 for hardpoint: 130DP
2 Weapon Customization Kits: 5DP
Smartlink Integration Kit rating 2: 35D
2 .2CF Ammo Bins (1 for turret, 1 for hardpoint): -.4CF
6 points of Vehicle Armor: 300D, -270kg
6 points of Personal Armor: 30D, -36kg
Total Design Point Cost: 3304 Design Points
Quality Factor: Streamlined Design (+.25 chassis mark-up)
Quality Factor: Prototype (-.6 chassis mark-up)

3304 * .1 mark-up factor (.1 is minimum) = 330.4
(Note: you might want to add in a few other goodies, like electronic ports, an autosoft interpretation system, and gridlink power linking. Also, some rating of RC Encryption is virtually mandatory.)

Since most GMs will demand at least a security grade mark-up for this, you end up paying 66080Y for this monster.

But then you get to add in some cyberware to the mechanical arms and legs, and at half price too!. My favorites are:
Telescoping Limbs: 5000Y
Retractable Climbing Claws: 5000Y
Shock Hand: 650Y
Retractable Cyber Skates: 1250Y
2 Cyber Spurs: 5000Y (11500Y if you went retractable like me)

Add in a Franchi SPAS-22 in the turret and Ingram Valiant LMG w/smartlink 2 on the hardpoint with, oh, 200 rounds of ammunition for each: 4100Y

Final Price tag for this nifty little toy: 87080Y
Stats:
Body 3
Armor: 6 vehicle, 6 personal
Handling: 2
Sensors: 4
Pilot: 3
Speed: 50
Signature: 5
Cargo Factor: 6.6
Load Capacity: 103kg
Fuel Capacity: 120PF
Economy: 1

Have Fun!

The -0.6 markup, for a prototype makes it too unbalancing.

Think about it.. A drone with this kind of capabilities would Never end up on the scrapheap. Its SOTA.

Even used drones of this quality would have near-new prices.

If I were a GM, thats where I would set my foot down.

Also, you can't fire the Ingram without going out of rigging mode, as its a manuel installment, not a remote.

Other than that, it looks good.

but really, isn't he only effectively getting a -.15 markup, since the minimum is .1? and the only + he has is .25? Granted, i dont know what he gets/losses by calling it a prototype, but it doesnt seem that killer to me, for this design...

You forget if it's got a certain amount of armor, it's considered security, then military grade - this increases the markup by 2 and 3 respectively IIRC.

hmm, could sr4 be the version where true power armor comes into being?

Raise the tech bar?
Hate to burst your bubble, but current hydraulics and electronics technology is more than sufficient to construct a working suit of powered armor. Why hasn't it been done yet? Two reasons:

1: Cost, while current technology is more than capable of building such a device, at the current time, the processes involved have proven (to this point) to be prohibitively expensive.

2: Impracticality, current offensive technologies are superior to defensive technologies to such a degree that this thing would not offer any significant increase in protective value, which is what would most likely drive the military to invest in its developement.

But, that being said, give me 100-500 million dollars and about 5-10 years and I can hand you a working, useable model.

(The time would be in the design, construction and testing.)

Therefore to make Powered Armor both actually viable and cost effective you would need to raise the tech bar.

The presence of affordable cyber wear suggests that the miniaturisation of motors and actuators has progressed to the point where it would be affordable to produce powered armour.

The presence of hardened military body armour that will always bounce most small arms fire (with the exception of APDS) suggests that personal armour has progresses far enough to make it worth the effort.

The best reason you would not make it in SR is that it would probably increase your chances of detection and provides limited advantages over military armour in a fire fight.

There are (in my limited understanding) 2 forms of confrontation in modern warfare.

Sneak up and kill them quietly, the power armour will increase your chance of detection.

Shoot them with a big gun, the power armour will do very little other than allow you to carry more. This could be useful if the armour itself is very heavy in order to provide a greater protective value but not that much.

Edward

I just don't feel that it is needed in the Shadowrun game.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...=mg18624945.800

Maybe power armor by 2060 is viable...

my two cents:

yes I do believe power armor in 2060 is viable, however I believe that this would be quite a game breaker.

Say you take your power armor, give it rating 12 armor (almost nothing hurts it) and move by wire handling (to counter react the armor increase) and maybe give it at least photovoliatic paint, if not the full ruthenium (yea it's expensize but look at the benifits), add it the fact that you can carry and use really powerfull weaponry eaisly (all you need is Gunnery 6 for all your vechile weapons) and the other cyberware the rigger can have, and bam, you have something that is far better then any street sam out there (considering the rigger obviously pilots this in Man in the machine mode, is there a better name for this??) gets his rigging init, which is basically like wired reflexes, however, the machine is a lot stronger, much better armor, and a weaker body then the street sam, for a lot less money, and you have a major unbalancing aspect in your game.

Shadowrun does not need power armor IMHO, and it could just get real nasty real quick with all the easy to do and cheaper customizations the rigger can do to it. unlike a sam, who needs a lot more time to heal, costs a lot more to upgrade (essence and everything considered) and you have one very powerfull combat monster.

Oh, and for sound you just make it have a electric feul cell engine, (I believe that was described above) and you could probably work out with the gm some upgrades to make more quite.

Hey that is a good point, what customizations are there to make a drone/car more quite, IIRC there are not many customizations that do this.

just my two cents about the idea of power armor in shadowrun, sure the military may have some... but that makes any military a very tough nut to crack for players.

amadeus

Sound is an aspect of signature. Signature improvement is taken as an abstract system so you don’t just make the vehicle more quiet.

If you want the explanation for the noise reduction that comes with signature improvement it involves a altered exorcet system and sonic baffles in eth engine bay. Or something like that.

Edward