As Shadowrun 4ed is starting in 2070 what kind of tech advancments (out side of the wireless matrix) have accord? Of course cyber and bioware should have gotten better but am interested in what 4ed will do to the base line tech and other more esoteric items shadowrunners run in to. One that pops to mind is the "Ares MP Laser III", its been around for a long time and has gotten smaller over the years. With a six year jump could we see reliable laser side arms making their way into the hands of various military orginizations around the shadowrun world? Could we also see blade runner like vtol cars running around the sprawls? The original art work for the cover of 4ed seemed to imply it. Any ideas or even speculation would be fun.

Won't say its terrible or not. Will say that the bases for such vehicles has been in the game for some time. Granted up till now all we have ever seen are military or police applications of this tech but as in RL tech tends to spread out from its original source. I really have no problems over a six year period having vtol vehicles finding their way into the hands of the civilian population. The higher end of the civilian population to be sure, corps and such could find many uses for such vehicles. Try running a snatch when the target travels to and from work in a vtol limousine.

Hmm... flying cars ... a shoulder launched missile ... this could get extremely ugly.

Easier to survive a crash test with four (or six) wheels on the ground.

Personally, I think flying cars being common, and common laser sidearms would be a little too much scifi for me.

I liked Firefly alot because even though it's future and scifi, they are still driving ATVs around and using slug-throwers. I like that element.

No flying cars. But I could see vtols being used by corp and gov a lot. With the tech becoming cheaper with time, I could see corps having a few vtols to move VIPs around and stuff.

Could a VTOL car be made believable?

I don't claim to be an expert on this but;

• There hasn't been a massive decrease in the size of combustion engines in the real world, that I have seen, since the introduction of the motor vehicle.
• The kind of vehicles currently capable of VTOL, as far as I know, are either rotorcraft or military jets.
• Rotorblades would be difficult to fit on the top of a limousine without risking chopping your VIPs head off every time they get in and out of the car.
• Jump jets, as I understand it, require military grade air bases or carriers to land on because their jets would melt normal asphalt in a true vertical takeoff or landing.
• The noise of a VTOL takeoff is also apparently deafening.

So the VTOL car must either have an engine comparable to an air force jet fighter or technology must have found some means to significantly compress the engine so that it will fit into the normal engine compartment of a limousine. Either all VTOL craft have specially designed military grade parking bays constructed for them (pretty darn expensive outlay for a civilian vehicle) or technology has found some way to generate the thrust for vertical lift off and landing without the associated heat/damage to the landing/takeoff surface. Finally VTOL cars are either strictly limited to isolated areas for takeoff and landing to avoid doing damage to the eardrums of passers by (inconvenient for the commuter who has to walk quite some distance after landing their car) or technology has found some way to silence the engine without sacrificing power/thrust.

I know I saw an article somewhere about a guy dedicated to building a VTOL flying car. I know I saw a picture of a prototype, and last I heard they had gotten it to successfully hover in place. In 60 years with the backing of a dedicated supercorp, sure there could be flying cars. Cost effectiveness and utility are the biggest roadblocks.

[edit] Oh, here it is. The Moller Skycar

Well, to "answer" a part of the original question, the 5 yeah jump is specifically meant to be able to bring in line the SR tech level with current day tech, menaing, yes, and overall upgrade of the tech level in SR4.

I am looking at this from the standpoint of the game tech, were it started and what advancments have been fed in over the years. A five to six year jump in time with competitive megacorps pushing development should allow for some truly startling advancments. I am not comparing it to RL because the two tech bases are way off. Now as for vtol cars, the game already has a military vtol called the "Thunderbird" that is about the size of a mini van. As shadowrunners and smugglers have used this bird as depicted in several pieces of fic the tech can't be that out of reach. So having corps and their subsideraries using the tech to create limousines to transport VIP's or say Lone Star using a roadmaster variant with vtol capability to deliver response teams does not seem to far of a reach. Slave wages having their own personal vtol car? That is probably too much of a jump. As for lasers, well I reliese that they may not appeal to some players or gm's but the fact is they are in the game and cannon has had them getting smaller and smaller even before the five year jump. In five years could they engineer them down from a belt mounted battery pack to a battery that fits in the pistol grip, yes. What would they cost and what kinda availability would there be, who knows. Am thinking that such weapons would be making there way into the corps security and military forces but that they would still be pretty rare on the street. Unless of course you took it off a dead body and then any use of it is going to bring a response completely out of contect of the capper your pulling. Kinda like a crook using a flame thrower or a rocket launcher to rob a 7-11 today, all frack is going to break loose. What are your thoughts?

T-Birds are not the size of a mini-van.

It seems to me that people are resistant to the idea of these technologies in Shadowrun because they are trite. The jetsons have flying cars, star wars has laser guns. I also happen to think that these things are fairly trite. But it also seems to me that one of the great things about Shadowrun is how it confronts genre cliches head on. Elves, trolls, orcs, magical swords, they're all trite too. Hackers, implants, trite again.

I, personally, have confidence in the Shadowrun universe to incorporate trite ideas in new and refreshing ways that enhance, rather then detract from the game universe. Wether my confidence is supported by reality is another issue entirely.

Well, I do know they are small enough a motorcycle was made using them...

i think the bigest problem with turbines isnt so much size as it is heat. isnt much of the back end of the main us tank a radiator?

How common were the flying cars in Bladerunner? It did not look like there were many of them around.

Here's a webpage on the jet engine motorcycle:

http://www.pages4u.co.uk/c58d42.php

Now, keep in mind the engine in that sucker was originally used in a military helicopter. To get an idea, you could probably, with a large enough hood and some rearrangement, fit that engine in a car. Keep in mind the engine also has to be light, as it needs to be light enough the rider (most of whom are going to be wimpy kids) can actually pick up the motor cycle.

Now, you honestly think it would be that hard to make a car that flies using just modern tech?

Re: Wankel Engine

Ya, that's the one, i mentioned by it's informal name of "rotary engine". That page is a pretty good summary of the various aspects of the tech. If you poke around the Moller site some you'll see that as a sideline they are also selling they version of the the Wankel, offically for marine vehicle use.

I wasn't sure about the LS vehicle, whether those are jet turbines or fans. For urban use you'd think that fans would be better, just for heat reasons because LS is more constrained by what Joe and Sue Public think about their backblast. *shrug* There are these weird vapour trails left by the engines that don't really make any logical sense to me, so i'm guessing whatever visual clues you can glean are dubious.

remember that its not the first time a sr book have gotten something on its cover thats not reflected in canon tech level. dont forget the hovercar on the front of new seattle

btw, that wikipedia page linked to a diffrent take on the roary engine to. its basicly a square ina circle. but rather then having it be a solid square the sides are hinged so that hte square can deform inside the chamber or something like that. its a 1996 patent so im not to surprised that we have not heard much about it...

There was, in the 70s, a German car with a Wankel engine. It had tremendous problems with wear. The engines tended to break down at inconvenient times too.

Now, if a car breaks down on the road, it mainly stops moving. Unless the driver loses control of the vehicle somehow through secondary effects, noone is hurt. However, if an aircar's Wankel engine breaks down in mid-flight? Everyone on board dies, minimum. If the aircar was operating in populated areas, the people unlucky enough to be on the crash site die too.

And that doesn't even take into account the problems flight brings in regard to orientation and limitied range of view, or the simple question of how to regulate air traffic and keep damage in life and propwerty as low as possible with every average person piloting something through the skies. What if an aircar pilot - drunk - flies home from having a night out with friends and rams a landing A380? 9000 dead, just like that.

Even if technologically feasible and competitive economically (the times where fuel was basically for free seem to be over, even in the US) - and I don't see it being either, I don't see air cars going anywhere.

so basicly the best way to do a public air vehicle is a airship?

use carbon composits and aliminium for the frame, put some helium-filled bags in there, and use fans to control direction and height...

kinda like a blimp, but try and get rid of that sigar shape

or is it no go as you need to much helium compared to the weight lifted?

btw, no current air vehicle, save the harrier in hover mode, drops like a rock the moment the engines cut out. helicopters autorotate, aircrafts glide.

and what about having gas expanded parachutes so that they can deploy at a moments notice? at the least it can slow the fall

OK, I concede that when it comes to getting a car sized VTOL vehicle off the ground, engine power and size are not going to be a big concern.

I did say my knowledge of all things automotive was poor and it seems I've demonstrated that quite well. So now instead of taking guesses at things I don't know enough about I'm going to throw out a few questions to those more knowledgeable than me in these areas.

Exactly how much power is required from an engine to to lift it and it's load off the ground either by vectored thrust or spinning rotor blades and how does that compare to the power output of modern day vehicles? If say a formula 1 racing car's engine and drive shaft was disconnected from the wheels and hooked up to a rotor blade welded to the top of the car would it produce enough power to lift it off the ground? What about if the same thing was done to a sports car? sedan? station wagon? 4WD? Would it make much difference if these vehicles were carrying their full passenger and luggage load?

What kind of effects could make it hazardous to pilot a flying vehicle the size of a car? If you had the typical nuclear family out for a 'drive' in their flying car and the kids in the back are not sitting still would that impact upon the drivers ability to handle the vehicle at all? How much difference would weather conditions make to a vehicle that size?

I will say I was more interested in were people thought the tech would go in the six years that Shadowrun is skipping rather than comparing it to RL tech when I started this thread.

Yes, Fanpro is trying to bring some aspects of the Shadowrun world tech in alignment with the RL but remember were talking sixty five years down the road from today. Who knows what that amount of time could bring? Besides which this is a fantasy/scifi game and vtol and hover cars are already cannon in it. So are lasers for that matter, lol. I mean people are saying based off of real life tech flying cars are just not possible when in the same game setting you have individuals throwing fireballs with the utterance of a few words and hand gestures?Yes Fanpro could do away with them in trying to bring the tech more in alignment with the real world but I don't think that is what they were really thinking about. Could be way wrong of course.

So my original question was and is:
Based off of the exsisting tech in game were do people think things will go with a six year jump forward?

Also I appoligize if I offended anyone not my intent above.

I believe the vtol cars he is referring to are t-birds and the like. Their not exactly flying cars, but they have been depicted as such on occassion. Look at the New Seattle sourcebook cover.

I never said I agreed with his definition, just that I believe that is what he was referring to.

Though, just because the banshee is that large, doesn't mean all vectored-thrust vehicles have to be. The bare minimum million+ price of them certainly does put them out of the reach of normal civilians. There could be some rich bastard with the money to waste on building a custom one for himself though.

Actually, I believe in Bladerunner it was more that there just weren't that many people on Earth anymore, especially not ones that could afford such things. If you ever read the original book it's based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, you would know that it was a pretty desolate world with pretty much only the poor still living on Earth.

Of course, the movie was almost nothing like the book so who knows what it was supposed to be?

Ok, just for clarification was talking about VTOL's and hover cars, not flying cars. Both of which (vtol and hover cars) can be found in the main rule book (pages 309 and 310) fields of fire (page 108 and 109) but more fleshed out in rigger 3 which has listings for specific types and chaises for making medium and large VTOL vehicles. Don't have Rigger three with me so no pages. I was not the one to bring up the term "flying cars". I may have picked it up after reading some of the posts here though. I did say that the average wage slave would probably not have such a vehicle but that corps, law enforcment and militaries probably could if the tech advanced but a little. The under pinnings of the tech exsist in the game in useable formats so pushing the tech forward six years could produce a much more exploited tech. I am not saying that the average wage slave could own a vtol "car". I am saying for example, that Lonestar could have a vtol version of a mob master for rapid deployment of swat teams or Ares could have a vtol capable "limousine" for transporting vip's from location to location in a city were they have more than one facility. Either of these examples does not really change the game play of Shadowrun as both can be done with older forms of tech. Its just older tech being replaced by newer tech to serve the same purpose.
As for lasers, well they are listed in Fields of fire as well as, I believe the older samaria catalog showing a progression of miniaturization and affordability. Rigger 3 also lists vehicle and ship mounted lasers. I am not advocating turning Shadowrun into Star Wars or anything else am just looking at the exsisting tech and saying ok were could it go in six years, thats it. That make more sense?

Don't confuse VTOL aircraft and hovercraft! those work significantly different. And you explicitly said " blade runner like vtol cars". Those are, in SR terms, thunderbirds, and as such not fit for anything but overland transport.

As for VTOL mobmasters ... this just doesn't fly. You cannot just make mobmasters airborne by putting Back-to-the-Future-like jets inside it's wheels. I also doupt Lone Star would risk the massive damage to property a VTOL would mean if deployed in a densely populated inner city zone. You know, these vehicles fly only because of their massive exhaust, exhaust which is quite hot to boot ... think of what it would do to windows, or shops, or small cars. and no, unless there's anti-grav fields, no advance in technology can change that fact.

A VTOL limo would disqualify itself just because f that. Not even a AAA corp CEO can afford to kill lots of pedestrians every time he goes shopping.

As for lasers: A ship mounted weapon is a tad different than a hand held weapon. It's feasible we will soon see ship-mounted lasers and rail guns (and those are in SR, and rightfully). But that's a far shot from cheap, efficient laser pistols. And yes, there's the Redline. But it's a very high-end weapon, a weapon that costs more than a medium tank. Not what I call feasible. But if the devs decide to make these a bit more common, meh, better than air cars.

Where do you get your ultra-budget-discount tanks that cost less than a Redline? I want one.

Wasn't the Redline 300.000? The Ruhrmetall Wolf II APC is 332.200 (APC, small turret), a Steyr-Daimler Crusader mobile artillery system (comes with Railgun) is only 279.400 . Finally, for the merc on a budget, the BAE Agincourt comes with autofire mortars and costs as little as 256.700 .

Source: SOTA 2063, German version (though I think the English book had the vehicles too).

Other than that, Ellery, as a general rule, whenever there's any equipment in American SR supplements, you can expect similar products in German publications, just that these are a tad better and cheaper. There's a German Ares HVAR copy, for instance - just that it has twiche the amo capacity and a -6 recoil compensation. You get the idea.

One of many reasons why I don't like the german supplements is their tendency to overpower the setting.

Not sure of what you speak of by "Redeye" but the Ares MP Laser III (Fields of Fire, page 49) costs 120,000. It is a belt carried battery powered "laser gun". On page 50 of the same book Ares also has the fire lance, a laser weapon system for small to medium vehicles that only costs 300,000. While pricey for a street level runner its not totaly out side of the realm of possibility. Especially when you consider that a starting character can have up to a million nyuen to buy equipment and such. Again not the most likely of events and completely under the control of the gm but not impossible by any stretch of the imagination.

As for the vtol and hover car debate, lol. Well I did indeed use the description of "Bladerunner like vtol cars" because it was the first description that popped to mind that I new most people would get. Will say probably not the best description.

Putting the idea of hover vehicles aside vtol propulsion systems are used by corps in cities already. Granted its a much smaller version and a drone but the "Ares Guardian" is vtol propelled and can be found being used by security and law enforcment in the sprawls. Rigger three also lists at least two variants of this design manufactured by other companies as well. The main rule book also lists at least two non-combat drones that are vtol driven systems. Ones the dalmatian and the other is a snooper drone. No, there not the size of a T-bird but there can be alot more of them.
As for the FAA or what ever passes for it in 2070 not allowing or being able to control the situation of vtol vheicals prolifirating wildly. The number of drones alone in the air of a spawl would make it impossible for such a orginization to operate. That would be why most vehicals in shadowrun accourding to Rigger three have sensors built in, so they can avoid flying into each other.

The Ares MP Heavy Laser Plus, which has an underbarrel tripod and thus doesn't have to be mounted on a vehicle, is 300000.

The availability of such weapons to the street level Shadowrunner is pretty much laughable. Sorry if I indicated otherwise. What I was trying to say was that from a cash only standpoint the weapons are not really out of reach. This however does nothing against corps or law enforcment packing such fire power. No I am not talking about the local beat cop, I am talking about the respounce team sent because there is a report of a troll with a vindicator minigun running amok in a downtown highrise or some such.