Vehicle design rules are just about the most difficult things to write for any game system. If they are to bear any semblance of reality, then you'll need to have a couple of R.L. engineers on the design team. Otherwise, you'll soon find yourself violating the laws of physics in countless ways.

Once you've found your engineers who, somehow, not only have time that they're willing to work for a game designers paycheck, but can also write in a sufficiently non-technical manner that the writing style appeals to gamers, you then need to get them to accept the *changes* to real world physics that your science fiction setting allows. (e.g. Optical computing in Shadowrun)

Then, once you get your team together (It'll need to be a team. Even if you manage to find one engineer who has the time and the willingness to "speak geek" he won't know both automotive and aeronautic engineering), they have to agree on everything. Then, they'll have to come to understand how the relevant game system models reality. Then, they'll have to come up with a way to translate what they know into the game engine.

Then, they'll have to be willing to re-write everything after playtesters min-max the hell out of it and completely break the model. Repeatedly.

There aren't many people who are capable of designing a system like this. This is an enormous task, especially for only 20 pages of a book. Honestly, it's probably better to just let players free-form design things, and let the GM choose to approve them.

Well we've had two spells and countless decks designed in our group. Due to the cost (Or risk of hijacking a nano-factory) no one has attempted to make a vehicle from scratch.

Please tell me I read that wrong and that you aren't trying to claim that the rules are for characters to build vehicles from scratch.

~J

Parts of those rules read as something a character would either special order or pick as a predesigned vehicle out of a catalog. However the way i read it was that most of the options are available as post-manufacturing modifications, with the ones that aren't specifically indicated (can't name any examples off the top of my head though).

I think that is an issue with the R3 rules. They are trying to cover off both those options, to different extents. The result is confusion about what the rules are trying to accomplish.

EDIT: In some ways the rules also give the impression that a PC might be able to assemble these vehicles in a kit form, customizing as they go. The quality cost factors and a few other things kinda give that impression. But i don't remember it ever it explicitly stating that, so once again purpose is vague.

Perhaps one of the least-vague sections of the rules I've seen, and yet people still fuck it up.

~J

Um you can tottally be pirate out of a glorrfied speed boat, an old freighter, hell something tht look like a yatch. The boat you use doesn't really matter in if you can or can't be a pirate. It just changes what type of pirating you are going to be doing and the scale.

If you have a small boat you go for high pay for valume if you have a large boat you can go for more targets. Subs aren't any harder to be stopped than sufrace boats. At least the sun any runner should be getting their hands on.

Do you really need values which you have to design in a complex process or do you just need descriptions for them and some reallife relations (like price ranges or monthly maintenance costs etc)? Why would a player need to design a freighter? Couldn´t he just say "Freighter, the name is "Marco Polo", 10 Man, autonav/pilot 4, 3000 BRTs" while the GM estimates the price? etc?

SYL

Yes!

SYL

.... and yet only some items are expressly confined to manufactering phase, and rules for non-manufactering additions, strongly suggests other intents. Some mods not stated or statted as limited to manufacturers are so extensive that you basically are stripping down to the frame.

But are you going to limit yourself to smallish craft for boarding and such? At least a couple for guidelines to extrapolate from.

But no special rules for "Naval" armor, body, and weapons. The new condition monitor rules seem like just using a large body & armor for the boat and a large DV and AP for the weapon should be sufficent.

No, I GM. But I currently have two riggers in my group, have run as a rigger twice, and never have seen a player use them. As a GM, I don't feel the calculations need to be quite as precise as listed, and more of the options should simply be 'customized add-ons' with a price for parts and time for labor.

Design rules as they are are just too complex. I'd prefer a 5-page section on 'vehicle design' and 15 pages on vehicle customization, perhaps mentioning a discount when the customizations are added onto the design over the current system.

That's what i mean by kit. You can basically order the custom modules for the vehicle and assemble them with a bunch of modifications.

So yes, those vehicle rules as a whole have multiple intents, and they mix the different kinds of options in side by side, and many of the options serve multiple intents.

P.S. That isn't to say that somehow envisioning a nano-factory as a requirement made any sort of sense at all.

Get past the name. Every car on the street is not a nissan jackrabit, but lots of cars on the street are in the same vehicle class as that car and will have (for the purpose of a game) nearly identical overall stats. Add a couple of customizations to increase handling and overall speed and you suddenly have the sport class associated with that vehicle class. Add a few customizations to increase durability and offroad ability and you have the offroad version. I don't get why that is so hard to swallow...

Design rules are great, but if I get a nice sized list of vehicles and a laundry list of customizations my characters can purchase or perform themselves. I'll be more than happy.

Perhaps you should have read my whole post?

I suggest complex rules for customization, since the players do that. General guidelines for vehicle design, since generally the GM's do that (or at least, it seems to be rare for players to do that). I don't believe either would preclude making up new names for something that's somehow different in the factory (a jackrabbit with +1 to handling and accel probably isn't a jackrabbit any more).

Approximately how much shold be charged for each point of handling? How much per... Simplier is better. There were a lot of numbers to keep track of and no indication of what they mean without reading most of the chapter (discounting the actual inventory. It's still about 5 pages of rules for a GM to wade through if he just wants to make 'a big, old, Russian made truck' or something else silly.)

... get a calculator, get pain in the head because of several rules, get finally something like a usable vehicle ... and then get the GMs approval. If no, GOTO 10.

To be honest: I would prefer a large list of interesting and well-thought vehicles and some customizations, which give me a certain sense and feeling about the sixth world. But for that, I need examples, not site-long rules. Instead of the design rules, they could have includes dozens of new vehicles and modifications ... something I consider much more useful for players and GMs.

Btw: I consider large ships like freighters, submarines, frigates or aircraft-carrier as plot devices ...

SYL

Jackrabbit => similar models include the Ztana, Swift, Glow, Squirrel.
Note: similar models does not mean, that every stat is the same.
Don´t tell me that you need rules to invent a new name, a new producing company or to change the speed vom 90 to 95, while the price goes up from 15500¥ to 15999¥.

SYL

my point is the following, there are for example no fuel cell based tbirds among the example vehicles, but with the design rules, i created one.
it is not that many numbers, the rules for vehicle design easily fit on 5 pages, if you put the design options to the customizations.

I also know, that GMs rarely design new vehicles. They simply change a few stats, unless they want to create a very special vehicle with plot importance. rigger players build vehicles more often and put a lot detail in it, because its their baby and they are paying for it....
the point is, when the GM changes a few stats for an npc vehicle its completely different from the GM setting the prize for PC vehicle as he sees fit. you can bet your ass that the player will argue about the prize.

and about tracking the FP that was more with customizations than with design.


in the end my point is if there is vehicle design or a SR3 vehicle conversion guide, nobody is going to be pissed off, the ones, who like and need it, will use it, while the others will simply play without it. Everbody's happy!

Leave it out of the arsenal, and a major or minor fraction is going to be pissed, because they feel ignored.....

Not kidding, I told my group that should someone survive B&E into a state of the art nano-facotry, roll good enough to use the equipment, and get the vehicle out of there, they could have it...(It was a death trap that everyone wisely avoided)

I can agree, but only to a certain point. The rules can't cover everything, and some things either don't make sense as explicit rules, or would take so much effort to make coherent rules that it's impractical.

That said, if someone could develop a system similar to the old Classic Battletech rules for vehicle creation, that would be cool.

Actually, I was kinda hoping for those. My players like to build their own houses after about six months.

Page 157.

I'm not sure where the Speed, Accel, and Handling values for houses are though.

As i said it would be a nice to have. I don't want the big mass of crud that came with them in R3. Everything i'm looking for would fit into about a 1/2 page, maybe less.

I've actually found the vehicle design rules in Rigger 3 to be quite comprehensible. I have written up a large compendium of additional cars, bikes, military/security vehicles, planes, and ships to flesh out the world I run. Usually takes me about 15 to 20 min or so to whip up a concept from a basic framework including cost. I would like to see how this is handled in SR4.

Read my post again, I said you can do it iwht many type of boats, and soem of those boatas abtter than tohers. I was saying you didn't need a sub to do it. I did nto say you had to have a small boat,I was saying you could do it in a small boat. If you think those ar eth same, then bye.

Sorry, misunderstood that part about the larger ships.

Still why not subs? Or a battleship/cruiser/aircraft carrier? Though the later is more for noting it's speed, sinking smaller ships, and leveling near coast targets via jet/artilery, the former is applicable to a modern 'pirate' and very applicable to a smuggler.

P.S. Definately a ship somewhere in the Coast Guard cutter range. Something with a helipad too, maybe a larger yacht?

How about a 3/4 page then? I got to thinking about it a bit more, and the descriptions should fit in 1/2. But they tend to like putting the vehicles in a stat table too, so that's another 1/4 page or so.

Umm, I'd like to note that there are no Spell Design rules in SR4 and the Programming rules are very VERY bare bones.

Alright, so as it stands you'd choose the chasis, choose the options to alter the handling, choose the seats, choose the hardpoints, choose the armor... And FINALLY you have a craft. You multiply the design points by something based on the chasis and get a monetary cost.

Wouldn't it be easier if the rules said 'to change a vehicle's power source to fuel cells, you get the cost of the original power source (some amount * a simple number in nuyen) and add on the cost of the new source (some amount * a simple number in nuyen).

Make each step compartamentalized and independent so those who just want a quick tweak, like your example, can do it without giving yourself a headache or reading 5 pages of rules and 15 pages of odd doodads you want, and people like Kage who really love this can just step through each change without needing too much explanation, and just has to adjust a few numbers at the end if anything is unreasonable.