When designing (or customizing) a vehicle, there are options for vehicle armor (standard) and vehicle Personel armor. We all know how vehicle armor works, and fyi the Personel stuff works just like regular character armor, with an associated lower cost and weight. I checked all through Rigger 3, and I couldn't find a rule saying that the two couldn't be combined on the same vehicle, sort of like layering your character's armor.

Any thoughts on this, and if so, any ideas on how to make it workable without becoming twinky?

My thought is that the personel armor is meant to protect the occupants of the vehicle where vehicle armor (standard) is meant to protect the vehicle. I would certainly allow both in a vehicle and expect to see both in luxury vehicles. The personel armor would only provide protection for the people in the vehicle and no protection for the vehicle itself.

Think of it like kevlar seats, roll cage, stuff like that.

No, you're thinking personAl armor, this is personEl armor. Rather, it is armor that stops personEl weaponry. It is not considered hardened. So it doesn't stage down the damage level and power.

You're right I was thinking of APPS not personal armor. Personal armor does act exactly like meta-human body armor and so would be stackable with vehicle armor. The only reason I can see for not doing it is that vehicle armor provides so much better protection so why waste the cargo space conceling personal armor when hardened vehicle armor is better.

weight penalty and cost. the formula for standard armor weight is (body squared) * 5. So, for the average van (body of 4), 1 point of standard armor weighs 80kg. The formula for personal armor is Body * 2, so thats 8kgs. I agree, on smaller vehicles (motorcycles, small cars, and drones), go for vehicle grade armor all the way. But on the bigger vehicles, the ability to get some extra ballistic protection would be very nice. But again, the rub is exactly how to combine the two ratings.

Hardened vehicle armor completely stops damage whose power does not exceed twice its rating. Personal armor doesn't do that so they would have to be applied seperately in my game. That is I wouldn't allow someone to get 1 point of hardened armor and 5 points of personal then double the armor rating for preventing damage.

Okay, an example, just to see if we're on the same page. A Predator heavy Pistol (8M) and a Franci SPAS 22 shotgun (10S) against a car with 1 vehicle armor and 4 personal armor.

First, both weapons penetrate the hardened armor. Both stage down power and damage level, so now the Predator does 4L and the SPAS does 5M.

Now you compare that against the personal armor. It cancels out the Predator (4L vs 4 ballistic), but not the SPAS (5M vs 4 ballistic).

So, after it all, the SPAS does 1M. Does this follow?

And before someone says "Hey, thats stupid, a vehicle could just have 1 point of vehicle armor and 20 points of personal armor!" there is a limit. You can only have twice the vehicle's body rating for personal armor. There isn't a max rating for vehicle armor, but thats probably because it weighs so freaking much.

hey thats stupid!

If I get to modify vehicles, I like to use personal armor on motorcycles, since thy're CF and Load are usually too small to take even a point of regular vehicle armor. Since most bikes have a Body of 2, that lets my characters put an additional 4 point of armor between them and bullets.

Except that on a bike the driver/passenger don't get the benefit of vehicle armor for reducing attacks made on them, they're free reign to be sniped/cast on.

No. The predator first has to penetrate the 1 point of hardened armor. It does, but its damage level and power are staged down (DL by 1, power by half). This makes it 4L. That much is straight out of the example they use in SR3.

I'm saying that if you stack armor this way, once the damage is tested against the hardened armor, you test the adjusted damage against the personal armor. So, 4L vs 4 points of ballistic armor. The shot pings off.

If I ever ran into a situation where a vehicle with both Vehicle Armor and Personal Armor is attacked (non-APDS, non-AV), here's what I'd do:

1) If the rating of the Vehicle Armor is greater than or equal to the base Power of the attack, divided by two and rounded down, the attack pings off harmlessly. Else go to 2.

2) Reduce the full (modified burst/full auto, projectile type, etc. and not divided by two) Power of the attack by the level of the Personal Armor. Divide the remaining Power by two, rounding down. Reduce the remaining Power by the level of Vehicle Armor. Reduce Damage Level by 1. Go to 3.

3) The vehicle/driver rolls a Damage Resistance Test against the remaining Power and Damage Level.

It should be obvious how this must be changed when dealing with APDS or AV. Note that unless the Vehicle Armor wins out in phase 1), the attack wouldn't ping off regardless of how low the Power goes in phase 2).

apply the personal armor first... I hadn't considered it, and yes its seems more balanced that way.
And Astelaron, I wasn't so much as looking to break rules as just get the most out of my vehicle. Whereas most of the shadowrun professions can be readily supported by others (a mage can work with a merc, and so on), assistance for Deckers and Riggers is much more limited in their special areas of combat, which means they really gotta be on the ball.

Thanks for the rulings folks!