I think that having characters able to damage vehicles with non-bladed weapons should be added to the game.
Let's discuss the Pros and Cons of it.
Pros :
More conflict
More business for mechanics
'attack (vehicle)' does not work
I did not see any relevant commands on 'ex (vehicle)'
Judges can ticket / fine vehicles on Gold and Green for being damaged. Within reason. Perhaps with certain limitations. For example, a heavily damaged or destroyed windshield. Not a damaged fender.
And you shouldn't be able to, so that's good. Attacking endlessly with no one in it and no one around and with minimal risk or investment isn't a fun time.
Further, the game provides a way for players to keep their vehicles safe off of the street that you can use if you don't want to risk it being damaged. Go park it in a garage. If the game gives you a way to pay for a safe haven for your vehicle, I'm not sure I understand the decision to greatly reduce the value of garages by not allowing them to be damaged unless the occupant is in them.
Even if it's decided that vehicles should get a free level of protection, I would suggest that the standard be that the owner or one of it's authorized users is online. No need for them to be in the car. It feels more balanced to me as it gives characters a chance to worry over the safety of their vehicle in various ways and potentially react to threats while still allowing the vehicle to be damaged without an occupant.
I see you get out of your vehicle and go into a bar? I can go to town on it! I see you park and head into some apartments, I an mess with it! If I intercept you before you can climb into it? I can beat you down and let you watch me thrash it. I see no reason why I should have to get you back into your car first.
You can damage vehicles regardless if someone is inside.
Attacking vehicles with an attack command was only added in the last three years. It's part of the vehicle combat system. There are conditions to all parts of vehicle combat that change the effectiveness. One of those conditions is that someone has to be inside for the vehicle to be targeted with the attack command.
You can still damage vehicles with or without someone in them. Like it's always bee. You just can't use the attack command on them if they're empty.
And being able to directly attack a vehicle with a command is a fairly new addition to the game.
"…being able to damage a vehicle without an occupant present in the vehicle would lead to every vehicle having its side mirrors kicked off and its windshield shattered..."
You mean a logical extension of parking your ride on Ashlin next to the pile of corpses? Welcome to The Mix. Buy a reinforced windshield and kwitcherbitchin. Be happy it's still there.
Would it suck to wake up to walk out to find your ride totaled? Yeah. It would. Good thing there are logical counters to someone fucking up your ride.
-Not making an enemy of someone capable of destroying your ride. Having your ride fully slagged out and unrecoverable means you pissed off somebody with serious hardware.
-Paying the local gangs not to fuck with your ride. Maybe even paying them to defend your ride if the other gangs decide to step.
-Installing security systems for when people fuck with your ride. Possibly one capable of returning a lethal deterrent to the person touching your ride.
-Parking your car in the garage where nobody but yourself can access it.
-Parking your car on Gold or Green. Fucking with your ride is known as vandalism. Vandalism is a crime. Crime requires an XHelp if it's on Gold or Green. So yes, there probably will be a response by the Hall in regards to car alarms and heavy weaponry going off at the same time.
Also, vehicles probably still wouldn't be destroyed randomly willy nilly. There's enough systems in place that actually fucking up a vehicle to a discernable degree is going to garner attention. Either the miniguns have come out for that 1 minute trashing (which would actually warrant a response by TERRA), or you're going to be spending a good long time trying to destroy a car with your fists and someone is bound to mention your anger issues on SIC. Regardless of your choice, someone is going to have paydata that you did this. Getting caught is usually a good enough deterrent to stop most crime.
And as I point out above, WHAT exactly is your car going to be damaged with? Go on. Run through all the weapons you think could mess up your ride.
*I doubt small blades would do anything unless you got a lucky hit on a tire.
*Long blades too for the most part.
*And a baseball bat, while effective at smashing will still leave a car driveable.
*You can go Street Fighter II and try to destroy the car with your fists. That might take time.
So that leaves firearms.
*Smaller calibers might damage, but they wouldn't disable and can be countered by things like armor. Poor tires and doors but engine is still probably startable and or drivable. Just not in any good condition.
*And calibers progress upwards in terms of actually destroying your ride, they become not only more rare but also more and more cost prohibitive to "randomly" use against you. If someone burns through 15K worth of ammo to slag your ride, odds are you're not going to get away with playing the completely innocent victim here. You losing your ride is a consequence of your actions, whatever they were.
As with the sentiment that you refuse to buy a car if you're going to lose it? Ok. Don't field what you're afraid to lose. Simple as that. Six figures worth of chrome can easily go bye bye if you walk into the wrong shroud convention. Why should your Transtech Limo be protected when you're stupid enough to leave it parked in The Mix? But all those weeks and months of investment in my chrome is okay to be wiped away in a bloody minute? Yeah, that's fine.
Oh wait, you all ARE perfectly fine with rides being demolished while the owner sleeps. As I tried to point out, hotwiring is a complete wipe and can be done whether or not you're online. Smashed windshields can be repaired. Slashed tires can be replaced. Even a completely destroyed hulk still has the inherent value of being a hulk that can be rebuilt. You can't repair what is stolen though. So either there needs to be a hotwiring kit for every vehicle (maybe even a generalized one), or no hotwiring kits at all.
I mean, rides being hard coded safe from hotwiring and others not? Does that not go against the spirit of roleplaying when the vehicles owner or borrower cannot retaliate with vehicular combat or the act of driving off to prevent further theft?
Not only are you giving a lot of data, but you're giving a lot of flat out wrong data on the outcomes of engaging a vehicle with the attack vehicle system.
Again, you can still damage vehicles when someone isn't in them. You just can't attack them.
Mostly I would say players are still not largely in great positions to speak broadly to what changes should be made this way or that as far as vehicle combat is concerned, because it's just going to need a lot more actual active use across a larger group of total players with different resources before it's going to evident whether the controls that are in place are not effective or too effective or what.
