I believe that the group of people who believe that summoning is not overpowered are so used to overpowered summing, and so used to shadowrun, that they have come to justify the imbalance instead of addressing it.
I am not so pretentious as to believe myself infallible.
You do realize that your first statement basically reads: "You are wrong because I alone am enlightened enough to see the truth, therefore I am right", do you? Your second statement bought you the benefit of the doubt, but I would suggest you rephrase the first one anyway. As it stands, it's a major insult to a lot of people's intelligence and quite arrogant.
It's not just the potential damage output and defences of spirits that makes them dangerous their mobility is a huge edge. The posters don't take into a account that spirits clan fly invisible through astral space at near light speeds and then manifest themselves at where their target happens to be. Incoming enemy gunship- no problem have the fire elemental manifest in the cockpit. Enemy guards have cover in a bunker- again no problem. Of course there are counter measures (like always having an elemental or two traveling with your choppers or having a mage in astral to back them up, having astral barriers protect your bunkers etc…), but then you risk getting into a nasty arms race that I think can easily leave other PCs out in the cold. Furthermore using such counter measures requires additional rules subsets to constantly be in play that can make an already complex game even more complicated.
I suppose if you strictly played shadowrun and got to know the system inside out it probably wouldn't be so bad, but when you run it on a more occasional basis and don't have time to commit to learning each rule subsystem inside out, toning back certain elements makes sense.
Say Hi to your GM for me. Also tell him that I do take the spirits mobility into account. Its just a non issue because:
1. Corps that fly into a combat zone have spirits of their own to defend their aircraft. There is such a thing as standart operating procedure. Corp security are para military groups. They don't send out choppers without magical support. If a GM is too lazy to deal with that, have the spirits just counter each other and thus take them out of the equation. Problem solved.
2. The described situation might be overpowered if the magician was the only one who could take out the pilot of the approaching aircraft. But he isn't. The decker can brick the aircrafts controls, the rigger can launch drones, the sam can use his sniper rifle. Or, given that you are talking high force spirits, his assault cannon or rocket launcher.
3. Bunkers are fortified defensive positions, fixed in relation to the Gaia-Sphere. Any Corp that builds a bunker and does not ward it (Ritual P.297) deserves to have a spirit blow it up. Not warding it is akin to having a bunker with hardened armor and a wooden door. Being a defensive structure against all possible methods of intrusion is the point of a bunker. Their security systems interrogate fresh air before they let it in.
4. Elementals cannot operate outside of 100*Magic meters of the magicians range or it becomes a remote service. Spirits are sentient beings, but they are not all knowing and they are limited to their senses. Unless a magician can describe a persons aura in sufficient detail, the spirit will not be able to pick out its target beyond the most basic of features. Spirits ALWAYS perceive astrally, never physically.
When materialized, the spirit uses astral perception (its only perception) to perceive the physical world.
(P. 301 Core)
The spirit may be able to get where you want it to go, but your description of the person means nothing to the spirit. If you want to use a spirit as a hit and run attacker that approaches his target invisibly, you will have to assense his aura to a degree that allows you to recognize it again and then relay that information to the spirit. In your gunship example, unless you can describe the pilots aura or his position relative to the shape of the aircraft, you have about a 1/x chance to get the pilot, where x is the number of people inside the aircraft.
5. If the spirits leaves the radius mentioned earlier, it becomes a remote service and all remaining services are gone once the task is finished. You don't even get a success report. If the spirit is bound this does not happen and the spirit returns.
6. The refered to arms race has been in progress ever since the awakening and its part of the fundamental setting of Shadowrun. It is also the very reason why most Shadowrunners refrain from using excessive amounts of magic (aka overkill), because it is a race they cannot win. The corp is already further along and just needs to activate those assets. The only rules required here are the ones presented in the basic rulebook and a simple "right tool for the job" approach. You don't use a F10 spirit when a F5 one will do, just like you don't lob grenades to stop a pickpocket. The colateral damage is simply not in your interests.
Heck, the reason most NPC Shadowrunning teams have a mage is so they can counter the corps mages. Not the other way around.
7. Granted, if you are lazy and do not want to read the rules, eliminating the elements you do not fully understand is a sound approach. There is however a vast difference between saying "I do not understand it and therefore believe it could unbalance my game" and your combined "spirits are overpowered". One is a table limitation, the other is a judgement on the system as a whole.
Godwyn makes many valid points, especially concerning that impression that both you and your GM seem unwilling to deal with the multi plane approach of the Shadowrun setting. If you want to treat the game as a glorified cyberpunk system, that's your call and none here will critizise you for playing the game in a way that's fun for you. But there is a vast difference between playing the game your way and making a statement regarding the systems integrity and people's understanding of it.
I'd also like a look at that math of yours if you don't mind.
