Stahlseele wrote:i read them once when SR4 first came out . . and then after reading them my brain cache wiped because of FUBAR.
they were one of the reasons for my whole group deciding that we were going to stay with our modified SR3 version.
SR3 vehicle rules are also FUBAR. Vehicular damage codes don't work. Like, at all. Also, the meters per three seconds thing with driving tests adding multiples of the vehicle's acceleration to the top speed for three second periods is simply fucked. That's not what acceleration is, and getting five successes on a driving test to get your car an extra thirty meters of absolute distance is not going to get a freeway chase meaningfully closer to a conclusion.
Bottom line: you need to fix the combat turn so that it lasts long enough that you can abstract away acceleration and deceleration times, and you need to fix damage so that it scales smoothly to large targets. Every edition of Shadowrun has failed on those two core principles, and the vehicle rules in every edition of Shadowrun have been bad for that core reason.
full agreement.
see the modified SR3 version part.
matrix and vehicles were house ruled so we could use them and they made sense to us . .
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FrankTrollman wrote:
It actually keeps looping back around to the shitty vehicle damage rules though, because crash tests generate crash damage, and the crash damage calculation is batshit fucking insane.
-Username17
This. I used to not pay attention to the crash rules as a player and said a bunch of dumb crap about them back on dumpshock back in the day. Then I started MCing more and noticed li'l things like the way it's much safer to crash a motorcycle at 96 km/h than it is a van. That is because crash tests are handled by eating your own ramming damage and everyone in the vehicle has to resist it too.
Also, any GM will tell you "Lol, no, but nice try" if you do this, but by the RAW you can attempt to cut someone off and it'll be an opposed test to see who has to make a test to avoid crashing regardless of the discrepancy between vehicles--the guy you cut off can't just choose to go ahead and hit you. So, trying to take out a Citymaster by cutting it off on your Dodge Scoot is a pretty solid tactic, and since watercraft use the same rules you could conceivably try taking out a super carrier with your seadoo.
Last edited by Whipstitch on Sat May 25, 2013 9:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I think imma take my best crack at it and post what I come up with here. That way the discussion can at least be a bit less abstract and more focused.
So far it seems like the big problem most people had with the rules were the damage and specifically crash damage rules. To me, those were just icing on the cake, the real problem was that a car chase could go on for like 60,000 rolls WITHOUT anyone crashing or it resolving or ending in any way.
Last edited by Heisenberg on Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
Yes, there are too many die rolls. But that's an emergent problem from the fact that the combat rounds are too short. The car chase in Bullit is eight minutes and forty five seconds long, which is one hundred and seventy five combat rounds in SR4. During each round, a dedicated vehicle driver would be expected to get three actions and to make a pilot test on each of them. That's five hundred and twenty five rolls for one fucking driver. Plus initiative checks (all 175 of them, for each participant - including passengers) and additional pilot tests made on enemy turns due to actions taken. Not to mentions that guns are actually being fired, which another three rolls per shot (that gun is fired four times, lord help us if he had had a semi-automatic weapon).
I conservatively estimate that doing that iconic chase through the streets of San Francisco would require two to three thousand rolls. But that's because the combat round is so short. With a longer combat round and driving tests made just once per round rather than once per initiative pass, you could get that entire chase scene and fire fight down to less than a hundred. Which is still more than I would think is strictly necessary, but is certainly something that can be handled.
-Username17
Last edited by Username17 on Wed Jun 05, 2013 10:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
