[Mmurphy]

My next character is poor, so poor in fact, she cannot afford to buy a car (or bike) to begin with.  Looking through the rule book, lock picking will be the skill to break into a car, would this same skill be used to actually steal the car, or would I need something like hardware as well? 

Before you ask, I did talk with the GM about this and he was unsure about it as well and said he would post the question (I decided to go first) and see what everyone else thinks. 

[JackVII]

It's almost to the point where you can't steal a modern car without the ability to hack a computer, so I would go with Hardware over Lockpicking for FutureCars.

[firebug]

Cars are like drones.  In order to command one you need either to be the owner or have marks on it.  Simply breaking into it probably won't work, as you won't have the "key" or authorization to control the vehicle.  Keep in mind, as well, that if you're taking the car of a legitimate citizen, it's likely loaded with tracking equipment from simple RFID chips to GridGuide and so forth, meaning you're unlikely to get far with it before Lone Star is on your ass.

To actually steal a car entirely, you'd need to first move the car to a safe place, whether manually moving it or hacking it and driving it somewhere.  Then you'd need to remove all the things that would allow it to be tracked to you (aforementioned RFID, license plate, using Hardware to change ownership, possibly even changing the paint job because cameras are everywhere) and then if you're lucky you can use it yourself.

[Chrona]

Its not so much "Gone in 60 Seconds" as it's "I could be gone in 60 seconds but afterwards is too much hassle."

[JackVII]

P.S. Changing ownership is no joke. Unless you have dropped massive amounts of karma into the Hardware skill and have cerebral boosters, you pretty much have to do it as a team by most of my calculations, maybe with machine sprites involved as well.

[Xenon]

Is this a SR4 or SR5 question and are we just talking about stealing a car to drive it somewhere and then dump it or are we talking about stealing a car and use it as your own from that point forward?

In SR5 it is an Extended Hardware + Logic [Mental] (24, 1 hour) test to change ownership.

To make an extended test you roll an unopposed test and count the hits, notice that you can only count hits up to the [Limit] (in this case a Hardware + Logic [Mental] test) . Each roll take time (in this case 1 hour). For each test you remove one dice from your pool. If you reach zero dice in your pool the test is over and you failed. If you reach the threshold (in this case 24 hits) then the test is over and you have a successful test.

On average you need at least a pool of 13 dice and a [Limit] of 4 to make 24 hits before you reach a dice pool of null without the use of edge in any of the rolls. If you spend 8 hour per day on the task it will take you roughly 1½ days.

You can not default to Logic if you lack Hardware skill, so all assistants -if you do a teamwork test- need to have at least one point in the skill Hardware or the skill group Electronics.

[Michael Chandra]

Incidentally, that means you need to have 15 dice in Shadowrun Missions.

[Fin-man]

It's SR5, and I'm the GM in question.   

The question surrounds "borrowing" a car for temporary use.  (one to three hours)  I understand what has been written so far, but the character doesn't need (or want) to get a permanent car.  I don't want to turn the game into a version of, "Gone in 60 seconds", but there is a time for needing another (non-known) set of wheels.

Besides, he knows I would punish him for trying to make it more than a temp thing...   

[Xenon]

I would imagine that once it is reported stolen it will be remote controlled to make a controlled stop and wait for the law enforcement to arrive. Remote operations override manual control and all. But before that he could probably get through the lock with lockpicking, manually start the car with mechanics and manually drive the car with pilot.

If your character is a decker he got a few options. If he notice the owner leaving the car he can hack a mark on his commlink and then spoof command to the car as the owner. Open door. Start engine. Drive to this location.

Hack a mark on the car. Snoop traffic to and from the car. Track the owner of the car. Mark the owner. Spoof commands to the car disguised as the owner.

He can hack the car and control it with remote operations (control device matrix operation). Even from augmented reality. Ordering it to open the door. To start the engine. Ordering the autonav computer to drive you to an address. He might want to get 3 marks on the vehicle in case he want to remote control the vehicle himself (that take one complex action every combat turn). This might or might not also override the remote control to stop once the vehicle is reported stolen. Maybe a security rigger will show up at the car

Law enforcement will be sent out. Car chase... Maybe time to abandon the vehicle...

[Veggiesama]

Lockpicking is one of those incredibly useless skills that can be entirely replaced with a device, the autopicker. Unless your team wants to focus on breaking into homes in poor neighborhoods without maglocks, I wouldn't suggest picking it up for any reason.

[acolyte99]

In support of the post about the police just remote controlling the stolen car to stop: in SR4 there was a vehicle modification in Arsenal (Manual Control Override) that allowed the driver to shut down wireless and let him drive himself. This means that all shadowrun vehicles in SR4 without this modification ignored manual when wireless control sent commands. I'm not even sure if they still had steering wheels and not just a nice place to put your commlink in, so that you could drive with its Command program.

For SR5 I don't know if they have already explicitly written, that wireless overrides manual or if this will come later in an Arsenal-like book.

[Xenon]

in SR5 jumped in riggers override remote control that override manual control that override autopilot.

[Michael Chandra]

Smash the wireless, drive it through a plug or jacked in. Or hack into it and block some of its functions. After that, just use a low-rating jammer to block the RFID tags so the cops can't matrix-spot you.

[JackVII]

In support of the post about the police just remote controlling the stolen car to stop: in SR4 there was a vehicle modification in Arsenal (Manual Control Override) that allowed the driver to shut down wireless and let him drive himself. This means that all shadowrun vehicles in SR4 without this modification ignored manual when wireless control sent commands. I'm not even sure if they still had steering wheels and not just a nice place to put your commlink in, so that you could drive with its Command program.

There is pricing for Manual Control in SR5, but no description for it. It's under Vehicle Modifications.

[Aaron]

I believe that manual control is for weapon mounts, not the entire vehicle.

If you steal a car, use it and dump it is my advice. With something that valuable, you'll probably be tracked before you can change its ownership (and possibly even before you can disable the wireless).¹

But that wasn't the original question. I think you'd need more than just lockpicking to get a car started in 2075. Maybe the rigger book will have a keyed-ignition option, but I don't see it for the "standard" Sixth World vehicle.

¹And before you ask, yes, you have to be online to change ownership.