Since you need a factory pretty much to build the vehicle, you are probably right. Another section pretty much beyond the resources of most runners. What they could have done instead of however many pages they used for creation rules for the Ferrari was devote a page or two to stats for extreme machines. The price, availability, SI would have been there. Then, hopefully, a player could choose what he wanted and customize it.

Surely the designer realize that players are going to want the "best" setup possible for some stat they feel is important (speed, handling, load) so give some basic choices in a few different types of vehicles and let them customize from there.

I think the only time I have actually played (I've tried designing dozens) a vehicle using the creation rules was for a Cobra Kit Car. Hardly a death machine, unless you happened to be riding in it.

Ahh soo...I stand corrected on the sail boat issue.

I do hate the design rules. All it does is confuse new rigger players until they reach the end of the chapter and see the CUSTOMIZATION rules which are far more reasonable and likely to be accessible to runners. If a player wants a type of vehicle that is not in the rules already then I sit down with them and we work together to come up with something that's reasonable.

Most of the time players just wanted different models of the same type of vehicle. That was a really cool addition in the book. They got tired of always having a Ford Americar (although we make it the default sedan for government/corp types) and Eurocar Westwinds. The Honda Accord is exactly the same but it has a different name (and I can't believe they ripped the product off that much) as does the Ferrari 770 Spider but it has a different name. It just makes it feel different.

I'd say that runners are more likely to get their hands on military-grade equipment (ie mortars, field guns, and small automated ships like frigates and mini subs) than they are on a vehicle factory and the technical know-how to actually design and build an entirely new vehicle.

Personally, I never play mages or design spells. The entire Magic in the Shadows book should have been scrapped in favour of a complete vehicle design book so that the space in Rigger 3 could have gone to further detailing warships, trains, and aircraft.

We can make this even more ridiculous if you want.

~J

Surely by using an existing chassis, engines and panelling materials (as the rules cover), it would be relatively simple with a car shop? I mean, look at the real life kit car business, or the fabrication of total customisation body kits. We're in the 21st Century. It is massively, MASSIVELY possible someone in the future could, with a little help from some drones or fellow riggers, fabricate a car from scrapyard materials.

Yeah...but then you're not actually using their rules. I agree with you, you should be able to build vehicles out of scrapyard parts and that is usually what I allow. Heck, in the rules as written you can't even take parts from various cars and put them together into one whole without a vehicle facility. My group house rules so that you can do it with penalties but that's a house rule and it is hardly used.

I don't really use the spell design stuff either Kagetenshi and when I play I always play a decker, rigger, or a combination. I have only seen one or two players actually design a spell with those rules and when they did I had to step in and fix the spells to make them more reasonable. I also would say that the spell design section was largely superfluous and could have been better spent on other things.

In fact I can think of a lot of things in SR3 that were largely superfluous and took a lot of space in the various books--Stress, Spell Design, Vehicle Design, Gun Design, Maneuver Score, drekcetera. Hopefully, for the game's sake they don't do this again in SR4.

This is all our opinions and idle conjecture on a lazy sunday afternoon.

Why ridicule me even more, you still have not shown a single instance that you, someone who loves riggers and thoroughly understands everything about them, has used the 9 page section on ships.

I just looked through it again. Page 51 defines ships and cavitation threshold. Page 52 defines more terms among them crews. Page 53 is a reprint of artwork. Page 54 continues defining crews, has a overblown terrain table (with boat terrain snuck in there, something useful and misplaced), and ramming maneuver. Maybe ramming a boat into a ship is useful, but how often does it happen and how fewer does it work?

Page 55 has running aground which is directly related to terrain, so put the boat part with the boat terrain under the boat section of vehicle creation. Also on this page is general info on ship weapon systems. Page 56 is long range missiles and missile defense. Page 57 is scaling naval damage and repairing ship damage. Page 58 is more ship damage and letting you know spells are probably not going to hurt a ship. Page 59 says ships will probably devastate spirits and that they are hearth domains of spirits, but ignore how ships are effected by spirit powers. Are there special rules like the rest of magic? Maybe they didn't know how to reduce the powers so they hoped no one would notice the omission. Also on page 59is a justification of how shadowrunners with submarines can now embark on pirate careers. Page 60 goes into submarine rules, which may be somewhat useful for said pirate game.

There are about 8 more pages there than need to be to say the few things that have much meaning and bearing on a game. If they gave the simple rundown they gave for railroad stuff, it would have done about as much good.

As far as MitS, I like playing mages and have yet to read sections of that book. Some of it is quite silly to me. Could it have been cut - probably. Stuff on the Wild Hunt, who gives a flying frag? How often is it going to come into play? Stats for the different entities it conjures up, who cares. If the GM wants to have that in his game, let him wing it. Same for drek like Path of the Righ, not available to PCs and likely an immortal elf NPC, so how much do you need to know?

The spell creation rules allow for game breaking spells to be created. I don't think the player even needs to be magically active to design spells so there isn't the barrier that trying to obtain a ship or factory poses. Should there be a spell design section? Maybe not, but there should be a customization section. Few of the games I have been in allow totally new spells, but almost all allow for a customized spell. By this I mean changing the range or limiting it to self, etc..

Anyway, it does not really matter. That system is gone, so let it rest in peace not pieces.

Yeah... I wonder if that was a misinterpretation of my words. I agree with and like customization stuff but not the full, "ground up" creation rules of the three books.

I wasn't trying to ridicule you tisoz, or were you talking to Kag?

I have to say that I have found all the ship stuff to be largely irrelevant in my games compared to the vast bulk of other stuff.

It's also why I'm very skeptical about this tradition design system they mentioned for SR4. My group and I managed to get along just fine coming up with stuff without rules for it such as our Remora (sp?) shaman. If the rules are something that makes the overall rules streamlined and easier to play I have no problem. The ship rules and all three design rules were separated from the core rules and didn't work very well with them.

I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the design rules. The design rules are explicitly not for characters to design their own vehicles—they say this very clearly before the design section. They're for players (or gamemasters) to design vehicles that are stock vehicles in the Shadowrun world. Vehicles out of design should have a specific, significantly-sized target market and an internal consistency, and should be available to any NPC or NPC organization with sufficient funding. If the player wants something no one else has, that's what the customization rules are for.

~J

I wasn't misunderstanding them...I'd just never seen them in that light nor had anyone mention it to me so why say this discussion is ridiculous?

Looking at it in that light I can see a marginal need for it but I still fail to see the need. Each vehicle has a couple of alternate makes for it and overall there is a good spread of vehicle types available in the most common vehicle categories. But again it is something that can be easily sorted out between players and GMs without the need for a ruleset for it.

And in case no one has noticed, I am pretty anal about rules so to not use a set shows little need for them. But hey! That's just me.

Well, your position on it makes orders of magnitude more sense now that I know that you missed that section in Rigger 3 (not that it's hard to do, I suppose, especially if you don't read things like that cover-to-cover multiple times (yes, I read Rigger 3 for fun. Sad, eh?)). I still disagree with you, however.

~J

mfb wrote:

So don't come to dumpshock...nobody put a gun to your head on your honeymoon and said log on (to project someone else on you)

No, nobody did that. And nobody told me I would be greeted with responses like that either.

Can we just agree not to attack eachother´s play styles anymore, people? I did it and, though I didn´t start it, I´m sorry.

[edit] "project someone else on you"? Are you suggesting that I´m blaming Critias for me saying the things I said? It was provoked by his post! You make it sound like it was wrong to explain that. I swear, it makes me real mad if that´s what you said. A lot of things that are said here when you spew vitriol over SR4 indirectly target me, because I play in a way that seems to be advantaged by the new edition. A little understanding for my single outburst would be nice.

I don't believe anyone is shoving their style of play down your throat. They are just saying that an RPG with a solid rules system can be played in any manner, whereas an RPG with a looser rules system is more limited to only being played in the manner you describe.

Cheops was not projecting Critias on you. it's best if you just go ahead and ignore that whole post, as it adds nothing and detracts quite a bit from the conversation.

I just work here.

especially since the thread I was referencing is closed...

my group still gets a laugh out of that

Ah, inside joke, got it.

Fortune: Well, if the rules are solid, fine that might be the case. If they are SR3 though, I don´t beleive it´s easy to play them any way you want to.

Critias: Just wanna say that I beleive you exagerated a bit to blow of steam in the post I´ve been talking about. And that´s fine by me. It was just that behind it lay something that has been bugging me for a long time: This notion around here that people who don´t embrace all of the rules don´t do so because they are less able to. So the pot boiled over.

People are different

Here's the thing about vehicle creation and customization: I don't have a problem with the *idea* of those rules. However, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. You have to track so many stats, calculate so many things, it becomes an incredible chore to build the tiniest thing. Heck, you can't even use a standard calculator for some things-- you need a scientific calculator with an exponential function to run some of those numbers.

I don't see that as a problem (or agree with you, most of the exponents involved are pretty small—small enough to be done in one's head).

~J

I find that I use a laptop like you'd expect from the name, making table considerations largely irrelevant.

~J

I think he´s saying that the table will not be burdened with his laptop as it will be, in his lap.

(when someone complains that something is complex enough that you need a computer to calculate it, the answer is that everybody has one? The rules aren´t bad at all you just need to structurize everything in Excel tables? I am so far removed from that kind of thinking. )

I must admit to not knowing where Gôtet is, but working off of his signature: Sweden was nominally and officially third-world, but there is a certain amount of evidence that it undertook decidedly first-world activities (spying on the USSR for NATO, for example).

~J

Hey! At least 3:d is closer to 6:th than your precious 1:st.

I agree with Kage, btw. The term only ever applied in a nominal sense.

I live in Gothenburg. For some reason I decided to write it in dialect.

Personally, Notepad and Calculator are the only programs I need.

the rigger rules--including vehicle creation--are one of the things i want to see rebuilt completely. like the Matrix rules, they're overly complex and underly (if that's a word) realistic. i can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people i know who enjoy using them (including myself). there are not enough fingers on all of dumpshock to count how many people dislike using them, or simply don't use them at all. therefore, it's safe to say that the rules need to be streamlined (oh, how i despise that word now).

streamlined doesn't necessarily mean simplified or stupidified. the best example i can think of is the change from THAC0/AC in AD&D2e to BAB/AC in D&D3e. mathematically, there is no difference; all you do is flip the AC and to-hit modifiers, and you end up with the same equation for determining hit and miss. but the 3e method is much, much, much simpler.