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Message no. 1
From: "Jeremy \"Bolthy\" Zimmerman" <bolthy@*********.COM>
Subject: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 22:48:38 -0700
Hey all... Was reading through the Rigger 2 book, and hit the part about
vehicles resisting damage, and almost glossed over it, figuring it would be
about the same as the rules in SR2.

Oh, no. Not at all.

In SR2, it seemed like vehicles were pretty hard to hurt. You subtracted
Body+Armor from the power of the weapon, got to roll a number of dice equal
to Body+(Armor*.5), and the level of damage got staged down a notch.
Cause, hey! It's a car.

In Rigger 2, you roll a number of dice equal to your body, and subtract
armor from the power of the weapon. That's it. A Rolls Royce Prarie Cat
RV, with a Body of 4 and an Armor of 3 cannot take a bullet nearly as well
as the Former Company Man template. Unless there's a Rigger with a Control
Pool driving the sucker, it's toast.

Am I reading this wrong?Is this a mistake? I mean, I thought the fuel
capacity on some of the drones were nuts, but this has me a little blown
away.

Let's say that former company man comes out of the Stuffer Shack, sees the
above mentioned Rolls Prarie Cat drives right past him, with a non-rigger
behind the wheel. He walks out to the street, turns, and fires off a shot
with the Colt Manhunter that I've opted to equip him with for this example.

-As long as the RV is going in the same line of travel as FCM, he gets no
penalty for speed (per R2).
-The RV is big as hell, so he gets a -3 to his target number (per R2),
meaning that the RV would have to be at extreme range (41+ meters) for him
to have any penalty to his shot.
-With a SmartGun Link, his target number will also be -2 more.

So, he has Firearms of 6, a Combat Pool of 5, and a Heavy Pistol that does
9M damage. So he has 11 dice to roll against a target number of 2, and
needs to 6 six net successes to Destroy the RV.

In SR2, after the appropriate mods for armor and such, the damage code of
his gun against the Prarie Cat would be 2L. The Prarie Cat would have 5
dice (if I round down) to roll against his 11 with the same target number.
The RV would probably get a bit of spankage, but I'd be willing to wager in
favor of the RV pulling away from that one. His second shot his Combat
Pool would be all gone, and he'd only have 6 dice, and the RV would stand a
better chance.

In the R2 rules, the Prarie Cat would have 4 dice against a target number
of 6, and the Former Company Man would still have 11 dice against that 2.
So, in R2, the Former Company Man could destroy an RV with his heavy pistol
in one whole shot.

And let's not even think about unarmored vehicles, like the Hughs WK2
Stallion and the Eurocar Westwind. That's right. You got your helicoptor
hovering over a building one minute, next minute you're shot down by virtue
of a smartgun link and a heavy pistol. You shoulda invested in that
Vehicle Control Rig rather than Tailored Pheromones. ;)

So, am I just way off base on this, or is this a little messed up.
Message no. 2
From: Greg Symons <gsymons@******.TEMPLE.EDU>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 13:51:01 -0400
I realized this didn't get sent to the list. Jeremy, your reply-to is
overriding the list.

Jeremy Said:
>Hey all... Was reading through the Rigger 2 book, and hit the part
about
>vehicles resisting damage, and almost glossed over it, figuring it
would be
>about the same as the rules in SR2.
>
>Oh, no. Not at all.

[snip explanation]

>Let's say that former company man comes out of the Stuffer Shack,
sees the
>above mentioned Rolls Prarie Cat drives right past him, with a
non-rigger
>behind the wheel. He walks out to the street, turns, and fires off a
shot
>with the Colt Manhunter that I've opted to equip him with for this
example.
>
>-As long as the RV is going in the same line of travel as FCM, he
gets no
>penalty for speed (per R2).

Wrong. I don't have any idea where you got this, but _any_ time a
target vehicle is moving, there is going to be a speed difference
(unless, obviously, the attacker's moving at the same speed:) , and
therefore a modifier. In this case, as long as the Prairie Cat is
moving faster than 2, there's gonna be a modifier. Any faster than 4,
and it's gonna be a +6. On top of that, the Prairie Cat is moving
away, for an additional +1, bringing the most probable total to +7

>-The RV is big as hell, so he gets a -3 to his target number (per
R2),
>meaning that the RV would have to be at extreme range (41+ meters)
for him
>to have any penalty to his shot

This modifier is correct, almost. With a body of 4, the Prairie Cat is
equivalent to a light truck... _not_ a tractor-trailer. Light truck
modifier is -1. Bring the modifier down to +6
.
>-With a SmartGun Link, his target number will also be -2 more.

Bring the modifier down to +4

Now, let's assume the RV is moving at 30 (one-fourth it's speed
rating). That would put it 30 meters away by the time he got into the
street and drew his pistol (I'm going to assume for simplicity that he
was surprised, so didn't got an action the first turn). This would put
the RV at long range for a base TN of 6. +2 from the modifiers. His TN
is 10.

>So, he has Firearms of 6, a Combat Pool of 5, and a Heavy Pistol that
does
>9M damage. So he has 11 dice to roll against a target number of 2,
and
>needs to 6 six net successes to Destroy the RV.

8 successes. Unless he's firing vehicle ammunition (which IMHO
shouldn't exist for small arms:) the Damage is staged down
automatically to L.

>In SR2, after the appropriate mods for armor and such, the damage
code of
>his gun against the Prarie Cat would be 2L. The Prarie Cat would
have 5
>dice (if I round down) to roll against his 11 with the same target
number.
>The RV would probably get a bit of spankage, but I'd be willing to
wager in
>favor of the RV pulling away from that one. His second shot his
Combat
>Pool would be all gone, and he'd only have 6 dice, and the RV would
stand a
>better chance.
>
>In the R2 rules, the Prarie Cat would have 4 dice against a target
number
>of 6, and the Former Company Man would still have 11 dice against
that 2.
>So, in R2, the Former Company Man could destroy an RV with his heavy
pistol
>in one whole shot.

To recap the corrections:

FCM 11 dice, TN:10 8 successes to stage up to Deadly
RV 4 dice, TN:6 2 successes more than FCM to shrug off the damage

Conclusion: The RV is going to take some spanking, but it certainly
_shouldn't_ be destroyed. Could it be? Yes. Is it likely? Not really.
Even throwing 11 dice, I'd say he's gonna get 3, maybe 4 successes,
not enough to stage up to deadly, while the RV's gonna get 1 or 2,
which should keep the damage in the Light to Moderate category.

>And let's not even think about unarmored vehicles, like the Hughs WK2
>Stallion and the Eurocar Westwind. That's right. You got your
helicoptor
>hovering over a building one minute, next minute you're shot down by
virtue
>of a smartgun link and a heavy pistol.

Anyone running in a vehicle without armor _deserves_ to be shot at:)

You shoulda invested in that
>Vehicle Control Rig rather than Tailored Pheromones. ;)
>
>So, am I just way off base on this, or is this a little messed up.

You're way off base. But that's ok. R2 is a little hard to digest at
times. In fact, when you first mentioned this, I thought maybe I'd
misread something myself:)

Greg


*********************************************************************
* *
* \ (__) Greg Symons <gsymons@******.temple.edu> *
* \\(oo) Seanchai/ and Follower of Bri\de *
* /-----\\\/ *
* / | (##) "Hearken closely and you shall hear the *
* * ||----||" sound of cows and bagpipes upon the heath" *
* ^^ ^^ *
*********************************************************************
Message no. 3
From: Adam Getchell <acgetchell@*******.EDU>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 11:11:53 -0700
I also agree that destroying vehicles are way too easy.

Let's just take a parked car, body 3, no armor.

A street sam with a Firearms of 6 and Combat Pool of 8 can toss 12 dice
with a target number of 2. Firing a Predator II 9M, he does base damage L.
He needs *six* successes (2 to Moderate, 2 to Serious, 2 to Deadly) to
utterly destroy the vehicle.

The vehicle rolls 3 dice with a target number of 9. If the sam can get 9
successes (not hard with a Target of 2) he can unequivocably destroy the
vehicle, since it can't get more than 3 successes.

Of course, it fits in with Hollywood since one bullet to the gas tank is
all that is necessary to blow up a car ...

In real life, of course, you need a .50 cal round or larger to accomplish
that trick.

The practical import of the Rigger 2 rules is that street samurai are
tougher than most all vehicles. It's easy to design a character with 9 or
10 Body ... no vehicle less than an MBT will have that body. Body *does*
make a difference because, regardless of armor, you only have body dice to
resist. A sentry gun itself can roll 18 dice or so to hit, and against a
stationary target (or other target with low TNs) will destroy it as long as
the armor doesn't bounce the rounds. No matter how much armor you have, if
the armor itself can't bounce the round, then the numbers of dice tossed
are critical. And body dice don't keep up with Firearms/Combat
Pool/Tracking Pool dice.

Some people like this, some don't. I personally think vehicles should be
tougher than characters.

Fine, you say, just give vehicles more armor. Okay, go back through the
Vehicle design rules and try to design, oh say a Drone with 2 body, with
Armor. You'll get 1 point, maybe 2. Armor costs Body^2 * 5 in Load. Even a
customized power plant off the table won't give you much more than 40 kg
extra load for that size. That's 2 points of armor.

In order to decently armor a vehicle, it has to be a cargo variant. Want a
cargo drone? Out of luck. How do they design those Wandjinas? Try to design
the equivalent of James Bond's Aston Martin; that is, a sports car with
enough armor to bounce small arms (Say Armor 9). Try to design a commuter
car with decent armor (say, 6). Although even with armor 6 a samurai can
still destroy it. Only get 3 resistance dice. An Ares Alpha can do 18D with
enough recoil compensation. Strong characters (i.e. trolls) can fire off
17D bursts without target modifiers for recoil.

And let's not even get into APDS.

What was that about FOF saying the high end Armor technology beats high end
AP tech? That's not reflected in the game (or reality).

I'd be happy to be wrong ...
--Adam

acgetchell@*******.edu
"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability in the opponent." --Sun Tzu
Message no. 4
From: Alexandre van Chestein <havoc@****.CA>
Subject: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 01:39:00 -0400
> Upon the pages of time's almanach, Adam Getchell meticulously scribed:

> I also agree that destroying vehicles are way too easy.
> Let's just take a parked car, body 3, no armor.

> A street sam with a Firearms of 6 and Combat Pool of 8 can toss 12 dice
> with a target number of 2. Firing a Predator II 9M, he does base damage L.
> He needs *six* successes (2 to Moderate, 2 to Serious, 2 to Deadly) to
> utterly destroy the vehicle.

> The vehicle rolls 3 dice with a target number of 9. If the sam can get 9
> successes (not hard with a Target of 2) he can unequivocably destroy the
> vehicle, since it can't get more than 3 successes.

> Of course, it fits in with Hollywood since one bullet to the gas tank is
> all that is necessary to blow up a car ...

> In real life, of course, you need a .50 cal round or larger to accomplish
> that trick.

I do agree that vehicles are too easy to destroy, though I suppose
it DOES make a modicum of sense that a good shot with an off-the-shelf
Predator could blow up a car with the first bullet. Essentially, as I see
it, the more successes you get, the better you aimed the shot, directing
the bullet into the place where it can do the most damage (in the case of
our dearly beloved Eurocar Westwind 2000 Turbo, the gas tank). Even with
a less-than-heavy pistol (since light pistol are 9mm in caliber (the NAGTRL
shows the picture of a light pistol with "9mm" written on the barrel), a
heavy pistol might actually reach that .50 caliber requirement), the shot
is possible, however unlikely. You can always get lucky (the game being
die-based, luck plays a large part) and punch a hole through a weak point
in the vehicle (an unarmored surface, a thin space between two armor plates)
and directly into the gas tank.

> What was that about FOF saying the high end Armor technology beats high end
> AP tech? That's not reflected in the game (or reality).

Reality is right. No tank is safe from the oh-so-feared HEAT ravages
of a tank killer chopper or plane. Currently, and as far as my recesses of
knowledge are concerned, armor-piercing is winning over armor. Unless new
types of armor are researched, it shall remain this way.

> I'd be happy to be wrong ...
> --Adam

I do think the Fields of Fire reference to armor winning the fight
is inaccurate - as was demonstrated, it is infinitely easier to get an assault
rifle with APDS rounds than it is to design a cost-efficient means of armoring
a vehicle without effectively grounding it.


---=== "Those who do not believe in magic will never find it." ===---
- Roald Dahl

Alexandre van Chestein - Havoc - havoc@****.ca
Message no. 5
From: John Dukes <dukes@*******.NET>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 01:25:27 -0500
> I do agree that vehicles are too easy to destroy, though I suppose
>it DOES make a modicum of sense that a good shot with an off-the-shelf
>Predator could blow up a car with the first bullet. Essentially, as I see
>it, the more successes you get, the better you aimed the shot, directing
>the bullet into the place where it can do the most damage (in the case of
>our dearly beloved Eurocar Westwind 2000 Turbo, the gas tank). Even with
>a less-than-heavy pistol (since light pistol are 9mm in caliber (the NAGTRL
>shows the picture of a light pistol with "9mm" written on the barrel), a
>heavy pistol might actually reach that .50 caliber requirement), the shot
>is possible, however unlikely. You can always get lucky (the game being
>die-based, luck plays a large part) and punch a hole through a weak point
>in the vehicle (an unarmored surface, a thin space between two armor plates)
>and directly into the gas tank.

They changed this a bit in SR3. Instead of just -1 level, you halve the
power as well. Then apply armor as hardened. So a 9M pistol does 4L against
vehicles (and wont penetrate anythign with armor at 4 or higher).

-Teeg
Message no. 6
From: Adam Getchell <acgetchell@*******.EDU>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 00:29:05 -0700
> Reality is right. No tank is safe from the oh-so-feared HEAT ravages
>of a tank killer chopper or plane. Currently, and as far as my recesses of
>knowledge are concerned, armor-piercing is winning over armor. Unless new
>types of armor are researched, it shall remain this way.

Right. HEAT shells generally penetrate from 7 to 10 times their diameter in
Armor. APDSDU rounds tend to penetrate armor on the same scale as their
length.

> I do think the Fields of Fire reference to armor winning the fight
>is inaccurate - as was demonstrated, it is infinitely easier to get an assault
>rifle with APDS rounds than it is to design a cost-efficient means of armoring
>a vehicle without effectively grounding it.

Especially since if you have a wonder material to make armor out of then
you can make a kinetic energy penetrator from the same substance. Or you
can make the projectile top attack. Or you can launch it from a rail gun.

Current Naval 5 inch gun (equivalent to Army 155 mm Howitzer) has 8
Megajoules of muzzle velocity. "Incremental" improvements are expected to
push it to 16 MJ. Next generation of gun systems are designed to extract
the maximum possible energy from the propellant and push the muzzle energy
to 33 MJ.

A notional rail gun under consideration is expected to produce a whopping
300 MJ of muzzle energy. It will deliver a 150 pound, smart, terminally
guided munition a distance of 400 miles with an impact velocity of Mach 6,
and will fire 6 times per minute. A future naval destroyer would have at
least 2 of these.

Any conceivable MBT would be a smoking crater. The kinetic energy alone
from this round (and it could be made explosive) would generate a 10 foot
deep, 10 foot wide hole.

They're also considering a fleet of 20 unmanned combat vehicles (aka
drones) to supplement the destroyer's air wing. Each of these UCAVs would
have the ordnance payload of a modern F-18.

Serious future firepower ...

Perhaps I should bop over to the Shadowrun archive and do a future navy
writeup... ;-)

> Alexandre van Chestein - Havoc - havoc@****.ca

--Adam

acgetchell@*******.edu
"Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability in the opponent." --Sun Tzu
Message no. 7
From: Alex Yang <gt0697b@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 06:16:54 -0700
Jeremy "Bolthy" Zimmerman" wrote:

Hey all... Was reading through the Rigger 2 book, and hit the part
about vehicles resisting damage, and almost glossed over it, figuring
it would be about the same as the rules in SR2.

Oh, no. Not at all.

In SR2, it seemed like vehicles were pretty hard to hurt. You
subtracted Body+Armor from the power of the weapon, got to roll a
number of dice equal to Body+(Armor*.5), and the level of damage got
staged down a notch. Cause, hey! It's a car.

<Example snipped>

So, am I just way off base on this, or is this a little messed up.

My response:

We've recently run across this problem, when the rigger's van was
first pummeled by Wrecker and then hit with a round from an assault
cannon. We were confused about weapons damage, and the van resisted
using only body, taking Deadly damage after Power was reduced. Boom.

Our interpretation of the rules:

Anti-vehicular (AV) munitions do not stage down the power level.
Luckily, AV munitions are limited only to certain rockets and
missiles, as they are the only weapons which explicitly state AV
capability.

Armor-Piercing (AP) munitions reduce their power by only half the
armor of the target. AP includes, but is not limited to, APDS rounds,
assault cannons, and autocannons.

Armor is Hardened. Thus, your HV-LMG bounces off a van with 6 points
of armor, unless you're using APDS rounds.

Body of the vehicle also reduces power, but is not hardened. Thus,
firing your Predator II at an airliner may destroy it, as it still
needs to resist 2L base damage (9M scaled to 9L - 9 Body, non-hardened).

You still only roll Body of the vehicle to reduce damage, plus Control
Dice. Your armor only helps to reduce the Power of the attack.

Hope this helps!
Alex
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @*****.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Message no. 8
From: Bai Shen <baishen@**********.COM>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 17:53:21 -0400
> shows the picture of a light pistol with "9mm" written on the barrel), a
> heavy pistol might actually reach that .50 caliber requirement), the shot

My impression is that the Light Pistols are 9mm's, while the Heavy
Pistols are more in the .44-.45 catagory.
--
Bai Shen
Nemo Me Impune Lacessit
http://www.series2000.com/users/baishen
UIN 3543257 (Don't ask to join if you aren't going to send me anything.)
Message no. 9
From: "Jeremy \"Bolthy\" Zimmerman" <bolthy@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 06:14:53 -0700
----------
> From: Greg Symons <gsymons@******.ocis.temple.edu>
> To: bolthy@*********.com
> Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
> Date: Sunday, August 09, 1998 11:36 PM
>
> >-As long as the RV is going in the same line of travel as FCM, he
> gets no
> >penalty for speed (per R2).
>
> Wrong. I don't have any idea where you got this, but _any_ time a
> target vehicle is moving, there is going to be a speed difference
> (unless, obviously, the attacker's moving at the same speed:) , and
> therefore a modifier. In this case, as long as the Prairie Cat is
> moving faster than 2, there's gonna be a modifier. Any faster than 4,
> and it's gonna be a +6. On top of that, the Prairie Cat is moving
> away, for an additional +1, bringing the most probable total to +7
>

Page 57, under "Relative Motion":

If the attacker and target are moving along the same axis of travel, the
modifier does not apply. If the attacker and target are moving at right
angles, however, it does.

So in my example, if the FCM stepped out behind the vehicle as it drove
off, no modifier.

There goes that +7. Though, on another note, if the Rolls Royce just
happens to be stopped at a light, it would really get spanked.

> >-The RV is big as hell, so he gets a -3 to his target number (per
> R2),
> >meaning that the RV would have to be at extreme range (41+ meters)
> for him
> >to have any penalty to his shot
>
> This modifier is correct, almost. With a body of 4, the Prairie Cat is
> equivalent to a light truck... _not_ a tractor-trailer. Light truck
> modifier is -1. Bring the modifier down to +6
> .

I just did a rough guess on that one. I didn't compare Body guesses on
that one.

> >-With a SmartGun Link, his target number will also be -2 more.
>
> Bring the modifier down to +4
>
> Now, let's assume the RV is moving at 30 (one-fourth it's speed
> rating). That would put it 30 meters away by the time he got into the
> street and drew his pistol (I'm going to assume for simplicity that he
> was surprised, so didn't got an action the first turn). This would put
> the RV at long range for a base TN of 6. +2 from the modifiers. His TN
> is 10.
>
> >So, he has Firearms of 6, a Combat Pool of 5, and a Heavy Pistol that
> does
> >9M damage. So he has 11 dice to roll against a target number of 2,
> and
> >needs to 6 six net successes to Destroy the RV.
>
> 8 successes. Unless he's firing vehicle ammunition (which IMHO
> shouldn't exist for small arms:) the Damage is staged down
> automatically to L.
>

I got the light damage bit. Figured in.

2 successes = Moderate Damage
2 more successes = Serious Damage
2 more successes = Deadly Damage

6 successes. I do

> To recap the corrections:
>
> FCM 11 dice, TN:10 8 successes to stage up to Deadly
> RV 4 dice, TN:6 2 successes more than FCM to shrug off the damage
>
> Conclusion: The RV is going to take some spanking, but it certainly
> _shouldn't_ be destroyed. Could it be? Yes. Is it likely? Not really.
> Even throwing 11 dice, I'd say he's gonna get 3, maybe 4 successes,
> not enough to stage up to deadly, while the RV's gonna get 1 or 2,
> which should keep the damage in the Light to Moderate category.
>

Recap:

You missed the rule for same axis of travel.
You bungled the staging.
But you did get me on vehicle size. So it has to be in Medium Range.

I'm voting the RRPC gets spanked by the Heavy Pistol.

> >And let's not even think about unarmored vehicles, like the Hughs WK2
> >Stallion and the Eurocar Westwind. That's right. You got your
> helicoptor
> >hovering over a building one minute, next minute you're shot down by
> virtue
> >of a smartgun link and a heavy pistol.
>
> Anyone running in a vehicle without armor _deserves_ to be shot at:)
>

But really, a heavy pistol taking out a helicopter in one shot?

> You're way off base. But that's ok. R2 is a little hard to digest at
> times. In fact, when you first mentioned this, I thought maybe I'd
> misread something myself:)
>

Reread that relative motion rule and see if I'm still way off base. =)
Message no. 10
From: "Jeremy \"Bolthy\" Zimmerman" <bolthy@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 06:19:33 -0700
----------
> From: John Dukes <dukes@*******.NET>
> To: SHADOWRN@********.ITRIBE.NET
> Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
> Date: Monday, August 10, 1998 11:25 PM
>
> > I do agree that vehicles are too easy to destroy, though I
suppose
> >it DOES make a modicum of sense that a good shot with an off-the-shelf
> >Predator could blow up a car with the first bullet. Essentially, as I
see
> >it, the more successes you get, the better you aimed the shot, directing
> >the bullet into the place where it can do the most damage (in the case
of
> >our dearly beloved Eurocar Westwind 2000 Turbo, the gas tank). Even
with
> >a less-than-heavy pistol (since light pistol are 9mm in caliber (the
NAGTRL
> >shows the picture of a light pistol with "9mm" written on the barrel),
a
> >heavy pistol might actually reach that .50 caliber requirement), the
shot
> >is possible, however unlikely. You can always get lucky (the game being
> >die-based, luck plays a large part) and punch a hole through a weak
point
> >in the vehicle (an unarmored surface, a thin space between two armor
plates)
> >and directly into the gas tank.
>
> They changed this a bit in SR3. Instead of just -1 level, you halve the
> power as well. Then apply armor as hardened. So a 9M pistol does 4L
against
> vehicles (and wont penetrate anythign with armor at 4 or higher).
>

Is SR3 out already? I haven't seen it in stores yet, though I haven't
exactly been watching madly for it... =)
Message no. 11
From: Jon Szeto <JonSzeto@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 19:50:52 EDT
Alex Yang <gt0697b@*****.COM> wrote,

> Our interpretation of the rules:
>
> Anti-vehicular (AV) munitions do not stage down the power level.
> Luckily, AV munitions are limited only to certain rockets and
> missiles, as they are the only weapons which explicitly state AV
> capability.
>

During playtesting for SR3, I also suggested including assault cannons,
autocannons, HMGs, and MMGs. However, these were not included in the final
edition. If you wish, you might consider including none, some, or all of
the above as AV. As always, YMMV.

> Armor-Piercing (AP) munitions reduce their power by only half the
> armor of the target. AP includes, but is not limited to, APDS rounds,
> assault cannons, and autocannons.
>

IMHO, the weapons designated as AV in SR3 are also AP. This implies, of
course, that there could be AV weapons that are *not* AP (the list of
weapons I mentioned before would qualify as this, as would Block IA
Outlaw DP-ICM munitions from R2, p. 93).

> Armor is Hardened. Thus, your HV-LMG bounces off a van with 6 points
> of armor, unless you're using APDS rounds.
>

Correct.

> Body of the vehicle also reduces power, but is not hardened. Thus,
> firing your Predator II at an airliner may destroy it, as it still
> needs to resist 2L base damage (9M scaled to 9L - 9 Body, non-hardened).
>

Not quite. In and of itself, Body has no effect on the Power of the attack.
HOWEVER, by SR3 rules, a vehicle AUTOMATICALLY cuts the Power in half,
before applying Armor. (This applies to ALL vehicles, regardless of Body)
In the procedure for resolving ranged combat (SR3, p. 109), this occurs
between steps 4 and 5.

So in your cited example, the Airliner would make its Damage Resistance
Test from the Ares Predator (9M) against a Damage Code of 4L.

> You still only roll Body of the vehicle to reduce damage, plus Control
> Dice. Your armor only helps to reduce the Power of the attack.

Yes, and....

By SR3, a rigger may make a Dodge Test, just after the attacker's Success
Test and just before the vehicle's Damage Resistance Test (step 4 of the
Ranged Combat procedure). Only Control Pool dice are used (up to the
normal max), against a TN equal to the vehicle's Handling (plus
appropriate modifiers). If the rigger gets more successes than the
attacker, the result is a clean miss.

Of course, the rigger can still add Control Pool dice to the Damage
Resistance Test.

-- Jon
Message no. 12
From: David Goth <xaos@*****.NET>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 02:13:34 -0500
> > Armor is Hardened. Thus, your HV-LMG bounces off a van with 6 points
> > of armor, unless you're using APDS rounds.
> Correct.
> > Body of the vehicle also reduces power, but is not hardened. Thus,
> > firing your Predator II at an airliner may destroy it, as it still
> > needs to resist 2L base damage (9M scaled to 9L - 9 Body, non-hardened).
> Not quite. In and of itself, Body has no effect on the Power of
> the attack.
> HOWEVER, by SR3 rules, a vehicle AUTOMATICALLY cuts the Power in half,
> before applying Armor. (This applies to ALL vehicles, regardless of Body)
> In the procedure for resolving ranged combat (SR3, p. 109), this occurs
> between steps 4 and 5.

YAY! Yet another example of SR3 deviating from the latest sourcebooks. Kinda
makes you wonder what kinda twisted f*cker at FASA is responsible for their
release schedule. (At least now as compared with the time of SR2/RBB).

> By SR3, a rigger may make a Dodge Test, just after the attacker's Success
> Test and just before the vehicle's Damage Resistance Test (step 4 of the
> Ranged Combat procedure). Only Control Pool dice are used (up to the
> normal max), against a TN equal to the vehicle's Handling (plus
> appropriate modifiers). If the rigger gets more successes than the
> attacker, the result is a clean miss.

Rock! I wanna DODGE with an 18 wheeler!

Ludicrous! (Of course, I didn't read the example given too closely, so I
could be misinterpreting entirely).

-Dave-
Message no. 13
From: MC23 <mc23@**********.COM>
Subject: Re: Rigger 2: Resisting damage?
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 03:35:09 -0400
Once upon a time, David Goth wrote;

>YAY! Yet another example of SR3 deviating from the latest sourcebooks. Kinda
>makes you wonder what kinda twisted f*cker at FASA is responsible for their
>release schedule. (At least now as compared with the time of SR2/RBB).

It's possible that it might have to do with something I started.
(Not that I have anything to do with it now).

Now you have a target for your name calling.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

CRY HAVOC! And let slip the flames of SR3

I am MC23

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Thwap!