+2 dice on an enemy perception test is "blown" in your game?
&c.
Er, no. I'm sorry if I'm sending the wrong impression; I'll admit I'm not spankingly up-to-date on the vehicular sensors, evasion, and stealth rules. What I am seeing, however, again and again, is precisely what Kirk said here:
Barskor,
Have you noticed that all your arguments are "I play smart and the bad guy plays stupid?"
Your runners are in the corp territory. How deep? Well, if you're thinking they'll need a vehicle to get out they're not on the border. So your choices are stay WAY outside my airspace and use your heimdalls, or come inside my airspace and use your rifle.
If you're in my airspace and my guys start taking overhead fire, I WILL institute air control.
If you're outside my airspace, your drones get tracked. I now have a very narrow window in which to look. Your protection is not perfect. You're a balloon with a motorcycle underneath - with a lot of stealth and moving faster than any other balloon in the sky.
I keep saying this about your designs. They're distinctive.
One of the rules of the battlefield is shoot the different thing first. I tend to carry that as a general principle. If it's different but here it's important and killing it matters.
You are obvious. You are distinctive. I might shoot you down on the principle of "most likely target" and pay the fines in court. Or I might send my air control vehicles up to take a real hard look at the target airspace to see what's there, and shoot you if you fire a second burst.
Is it a matter of the table? Partially, yes, but it's also a matter of how searches are performed. Is it a matter of how
Paraphrasing the rules, and do correct me if I'm wrong, someone trying to spot a vehicle uses a basic Perception test -- Intuition + Perception by eye/ear, Sensor + Perception via vehicle, with drones using Sensor + Clearsight. If it's a vehicular target trying to sneak through, the pilot of a vehicle infiltrates using either (if jumped-in) Infiltration (Vehicle specialization, with a max of the pilot's Vehicle skill) + Reaction +/- the vehicle's Handling; if only remote-controlled, the Command program replaces Reaction. If the pilot is paying attention to other stuff (like sneaking through a corporate facility and trying not to be found) then the vehicle's Pilot (i.e. the GM) gets to toss Pilot + Covert Ops (a vehicular autosoft). For the rigger in control, is pretty good, because the pilot automatically starts with a bonus. Add in all the pricey dodges (ruthenium polymers, no-see-me electronics) and you get something that is admittedly tough to spot via eye or sensors.
Here's the problem, though, and this problem is precisely what I'm talking about in regards to Barskor's vehicular designs, action plans, and scenario suggestions:
In order to remain hidden via those sensors and eyeballs,
the vehicle and its pilot are going to have to make periodic Infiltration tests.
The GM decides when this is done; once a turn during an active alert, perhaps, once a minute during passive alerts, perhaps once every 5 or 15 or 30 minutes -- even an hour or more, in less patrolled/scanned areas!! -- during normal duties. If the rigger is not running the vehicle at the time and paying close attention to what's going on, the vehicle doesn't get to use the rigger's skills, and instead has to rely on its own programmed skills. To quote SR4a when talking about Perception -- which by implication includes the opposition's Perception:
For tactical reasons, the gamemaster should make this test secretly on behalf of the character, so that the player is unaware of exactly how well her character succeeded or failed. In fact, it may be advisable in certain cases to not let the player(s) know that a Perception Test is being made, in order to avoid raising their suspicions.
Now, one can debate whether or not the threshold should be high or low; we are typically talking about motorcycle-sized vehicles or larger, so a threshhold of 0 is really not all that out of probability. Because we're talking about a vehicle, however, we get into the terrain type. If it's a blimpy motorcycle out in the wide blue yonder, highways, flat grassy plains, no modifier. I think that most of the scenarios put him into Restricted terrain -- side streets, light woods, rocky mountain slopes. Just outside a corporate zero-zone (Open terrain) should reasonably be considered Light, though, because lines of sight and fire even beyond the double fence are going to be cleared.
But let's be gracious, and say Restricted: +2 Threshold modifier, for a total of 2. There's stuff to hide behind, clumps of bushes or trees, an outcropping of rock or the concrete-and-rebar side of a half-wrecked building, maybe another building or a high-EM-radiant zone, such as power lines. So security at the building is going to need to net 2 hits to spot the thing.
Barskor appears to presume that with all the gadgetry on his vehicles, security ain't never gonna get 2 net hits; he presumes he is smart, and security is dumb. If this is true, then either the GM is a pushover, or else the runs being taken are all milk runs, and he's taking his vehicles, which try very hard to be stealthy and sneakery, up against people and sensors who really don't stand an ice-cube's chance in hell.
Going up against competent security guards, though, and a competent security manager, and a competent security design engineer, this is considerably less likely. They are going to be performing erratic sweeps and patrols; they are going to be 'looking for the strange'. They will not only get 'perceiver is actively looking/listening for suspicious things' with its +3, but if the GM has made the call about exotic vehicles getting that +2 for being a Distinctive Thing, they'll also get that additional 1-in-2 chance of finding the drone/vehicle -- just because they are simply doing their jobs. In fact, just for doing their jobs decently they negate a big chunk of any penalties applied against them.
Are they going to find the shadowrunner, with his 5 Agility and 4 Infiltration and ruthenium polymer suit, and who is paying attention to the guy walking down the hall past his position? No, probably not, 'cause the runner is actively hiding from a passive/active searcher. Barskor's vehicles, on the other hand, don't seem to be able to do that sort of thing. If the vehicle doesn't have a great (expensive!) Pilot with a top-of-the-line Covert Ops autosoft, moving around and actively trying to avoid detection -- or, just as bad, doing it clumsily -- the guards are probably going to have the advantage of facing an Extended Opposed test instead of a recurring standard Opposed test -- and only need 2 net successes.
So no, these aren't penalties that aren't covered in the rules; these are rules that a GM should be putting into effect, and randomly -- secretly -- checking to see if the weird drone has been spotted lingering around and trying ever-so-hard to look like it isn't there. Nothing sticks out MORE than someone trying and failing to sneak along; they stick out like a sore thumb.
"Walk like you belong here. When you stop, hide behind whatever's available, but don't sneak while you're going where we're going; just walk."
-- Paraphrased from Dragon, Vlad Taltos talking to his messmates as they infiltrate an enemy camp.
Are there ways around this? Oh, hell, yes. Sit your exotic drone on the top of a not-too-distant high-rise apartment building, ready to come running to your defense the instant you run into trouble. Scout out your target's defensive systems immediately, and see if you can't filch a friendly IFF code. All sorts of things. But one of the easiest is not using a unique vehicle, whether that be motorcycle-blimp or mechanical tiger, that functionally serves as a Distinctive Style, because nothing says 'I don't belong here' than something that simply doesn't belong anywhere.
Kontact, I don't accuse Barskor of not building his gizmos according to the rules; I accuse him of only choosing the rules that are going to apply to him, of deciding that because he has This Great Vehicle, his opposition is going to be composed of bored idiots who not only rather watch the Seahawks game than do their patrols, but actually DO watch the game instead of doing their patrols. I'm accusing him of not applying the same stringent attention to his scenario design as he is to his vehicle modification.
He's using uniquely-modified ¥18,000 vehicles (BEFORE the ¥5000 to ¥10,000 each cost of top-end Piloting, Sensor, Gunnery, and multiple autosofts); in order to support the use of risking these expensive things, should not the value of the run be worthwhile? Should not the opposition be similarly rated? They aren't going to be omniscient by any stretch of the imagination, but they are going to be attentive -- which is something that Barskor seems to be not granting them.
So yes, having your super-stealth motorcycle-blimp with its dogbrain trying to avoid sensors and patrols means there's an increasingly good chance that the thing will be spotted. And since it's looking like it's trying to be sneaky, suspicious get raised; the site goes on Passive Alert. If -- or, in my opinion, when -- the vehicle gets spotted, then it's going to attract attention.
If, on the other hand, the superbuff GMC Bulldog from *looks on the side* Ork'n'Troll MegaPizza Delivery Company is sitting two doors down, or even just across the street, looking as innocent as the night is long, then there is a major difference. It will be spotted immediately; however, it is not going to attract attention, because it looks like it's supposed to be there.
Which is why I far prefer masquerading as an upright, uptight citizen instead of trying to fit into that ruthenium bodysuit...
