[firebug]

I started a thread before about wanting to put a flamethrower on my character's bike; I realized it just wasn't worth the fuss.  However, in working so much with the design of the bike I realized that I need some help making it capable of what I want.

The base vehicle is a BMW Blitzen 2050, with 9 Mod Slots..  What I'm trying to get is a vehicle for a courier.  It won't be the main, cargo-holding vehicle.  Instead, my character will ride alongside (or a bit behind) the main vehicle as a sort of escort.  My character is a technomancer, so her best bet for combat is for a weapon mount.  I'll post what the current version of this bike is...

== Vehicles ==
BMW Blitzen 2050 (Combat Bike)
   +Additional Fuel Tank [1]
   +Additional Fuel Tank [1]
   +Amenities, Squatter [0]
   +Armor, Normal Rating 18 [1]
   +Obsolescent [0]
   +Off-Road Tires Rating 2 [0]
   +Personal Armor Rating 10 [2]
   +Spoof Chip [0]
   +Weapon Mount (Normal, Internal, Fixed, Remote) [3]
   +Vehicle Sensor
      +Atmosphere Sensor Rating 3
      +Thermometric
      +Motion Sensor
      +Directional Microphone
      +Radio Signal Scanner Rating 6
      +Laser Range Finder

Two extra fuel tanks might be too much, but at least one seems needed.  The reason why I have it with Personal Armor instead of a Rigger Cocoon is because I want her to still be able to see, so she can take physical actions and so she can still contribute to a Tacnet with her Simrig CF.  It originally had Chameleon Coating, but since it's just a bike and didn't need to be hard to see, I removed it in case I have something else that may better fill the slot.  It has no Rigger Adaptation because I realized that having to rely on the Rating 1 Sensor instead of her Rating 6 Command CF was terrible.

The mounted weapon I picked is an Ares MP-LMG.  I honestly don't know what would be "best" for the mount.

The Armor and Personal Armor are things she has fake licenses for; I understand they stand out but they don't necessarily stand out in a criminal way, so they shouldn't draw trouble by themselves.

[Mantis]

A few things spring to mind on this. First, like you said, ditch one of those extra fuel tanks. I can't really think of anything outside a cross country run where you are going to need that. After all, that many tanks allows for 18 hours of continuous action. Your character will run out of fuel or need to take a piss break long before that.
I'd lower the armour value as having more armour than the body value of a vehicle lowers both Acceleration and speed by 20%, plus it just screams that you are up to no good. If you are willing to take the speed and acceleration hit, I guess you could leave it in, but this supposed to be a courier bike, not a tank.
I'd add a morphing license plate to go along with your spoof chip. Those two items should go hand in hand for any ground vehicle. You can usually just use the spoof chip for drones but most other vehicles should have both.
Not sure why you need off road tires. You are taking a handling hit on road to add +1 off road. Unless you drive off road mostly, you are better off keeping run flats on the bike for a +1 on both road conditions. You don't need off road tires to go off road.
Depending on how your GM is with legality, you might as well go with an Assault Rifle over an LMG. The damage is the same as is the AP value. The only advantage an LMG has is range but in most city combats, that won't really be an issue as the difference is only 250 meters. Hell, if you need the range, grab a battle rifle. Most of those are only restricted as well and the range difference is only 50 meters but the damage is higher. Mod the gun for FA and call it done.
For sensors, I'm not sure why you took out the sensors that vehicles come with. The base set up is 2 cameras, 2 laser range finders, 2 motion sensors, radar and an atmosphere sensor. If you wanted the Radio Signal Scanner and Direction Mic, just pop out the Motion Sensors. To upgrade your sensors to Rating 6, upgrade the 2 cameras and the radar to rating 6, drop whatever mods you want into the cameras (good place to put your thermometric sensors though thermographic works just as well here.) and call it done.
Consider adding a smuggling compartment as this is a courier bike so you need somewhere to carry stuff. Also ask you GM for a reasonable slot cost for a cargo module of some sort for the bike so you can appear to carry legit stuff too. You could just add something like this http://www.motorcycle-superstore.com/561/MNGR/Motorcycle-Saddlebags.aspx
I would also consider a clean car coating from Spy Games as it seals up bullet holes to hide them. Doesn't repair the damage but it does make it harder to see so the cops don't ask uncomfortable questions if you do get in a fight. Also, chameleon coating because in addition to helping you hide, you can use it change the bike colours, which can be useful in gang territory or for blending in after a job gone wrong.
Lastly, rigger adaptation so you can rig the bike when you want. Something like the Blitzen should keep you in place on the bike even without the rigger cocoon and the personal armour should help. That way you can take advantage of your upgraded sensors and fire your weapons with a thought as well as change colour patterns and get that always useful +2 for VR actions and if you have a vehicle control rig, another +2 for vehicle actions.

[firebug]

The armor is high because the bike plays the "do the fighting to protect the main car" part.  If I lower it to the BOD rating, I may as well just not have it at all, I'd think, since it's only 2 points higher than the Blitzen starts with.  It'd be a bit of a waste of money, don't you think?  The speed and acceleration don't actually bother me terribly.  Though for a car chase I suppose you want as much Speed as possible.  As for the "up to no good" aspect, I don't think it's really that bad.  I'd have the same issue with Personal Armor, I think, and I really can't afford to get rid of those.

I'll add the morphing License Plate.  Dunno why I didn't have it before.  Switching to just runflat tires is also doable.

A battle rifle made to do FA is a good idea, thanks.

I didn't remove any sensors from the vehicle.  I'm using Chummer, and I assumed the things I paid money to add were things on top of the usual stuff.  Though, I wasn't aware what the original set up was.  It starts off blank.

A smuggling compartment and saddlebags are doable as long as I have room after all the other stuff...  Like I said, the bike isn't intended to be the one carrying things, just protecting the cargo mostly.

Your comment about the usefulness of the Chameleon Coating is legitimate, and I like the thing you mentioned from Spy Games.

Like I said, I use Chummer, and I'm not sure I understand how to upgrade the Sensor rating of a vehicle with that program.  No matter what I do the stat block for my vehicle still says the sensor is Rating 1 with a Signal Rating of 5.

[Mantis]

Yeah that is a bit of problem with Chummer. It doesn't equip vehicles with the default Sensor setup. If you look on pg 105 of Arsenal, you can see what the default for vehicle sensors is. The things that have ratings (cameras, etc) are all rated at the base Sensor value for that vehicle. To upgrade, you just upgrade the bits that can be and average out the values. So for a standard vehicle, 2 cameras at rating 6, the radar at 6 and the atmosphere sensor at 3 will give you an overall rating of 6. The motion sensors and laser range finder have no rating so don't get counted. Chummer will calculate this for you.
If I leave things like the range finders in, I add them for free as they are part of the base sensor package. Here is an example from my current character's car. The bits in bold are the items I upgraded and the others are default and should just be added free.

Eurocar Westwind 3K (Sports Car)
   +Vehicle Sensor
      +Laser Range Finder
      +Laser Range Finder
      +Motion Sensor
      +Motion Sensor
      +Radar Rating 6
      +Camera Rating 6 [Flare Compensation, Low Light, Thermographic, Vision Enhancement 3, Vision Magnification]
      +Camera Rating 6 [Flare Compensation, Low Light, Thermographic, Vision Enhancement 3, Vision Magnification]
      +Atmosphere Sensor Rating 3

As for the armour, I guess you play a more lethal game than we do. Or at least the cops aren't quite as in your face about over the top armour. The speed issue is legit though as for every 10 meters of speed advantage you  have gives you an extra +1 dice for the opposed vehicle test which is important for breaking off or pursuit in a car chase. The extra armour sacrifices a potential 5 dice from this test. It also knocks 10 meters off your running acceleration which you need to make up with 2 more hits on a vehicle test.  Can be important for opening range or closing with a target. My philosophy on combat is don't get hit, so I try to do as many things as I can to boost my dodge capability over damage soak. So things like getting a high handling, good response or reaction score, using a tacnet and anything else you can do to boost that score is good. On a bike I would also imagine most folks would target the rider over the bike itself as you don't need to get through hardened armour on the rider and even if he has lots of armour, he can't dodge all that well (-3 for being in a vehicle) and stun will take you down as well as physical. Anyway, just my thoughts.

[firebug]

Yeah, for some reason, Chummer doesn't calculate it for me...  I did exactly as your example for my bike, but no dice.

I'm GMing the game (say what you will about it, but I am able to have my character act without any metagaming despite being GM) and my interpretation of the description of the armor mod (specifically the "Vehicle armor is easily seen and will certainly raise some questions in some parts of the metroplex" line) was that it was odd, but not threatening or suspicious enough to cause police intervention.  But that's something we can agree to disagree on.

Your point about is affecting your manueverability, and how people are more likely to shoot at the rider (even with Personal Armor, simply to avoid shooting at a Hardened Armor target who doesn't take wound penalties) makes it seem significantly less necessary.

I think with your help I've decided on the things I want her bike to have; thank you very much!  Now if only I could get chummer to calculate the Sensor Rating properly...

[Mantis]

Weird that Chummer isn't doing that correctly. It has worked fine for me. Are you adding the sensor bits under the actual vehicle sensor heading? That is selecting vehicle sensor and then add plugin? If you just add the sensors to the vehicle itself I don't think it will work. It needs to be under the actual sensor tree.
As for GMing and playing, well sometimes, when you don't have enough players, it's all you can do. And playing a hacker or technomancer can be one of the better choices as it takes what can be a difficult or boring aspect of the game out for the players and lets you as GM drop in what info they need when they need it via the matrix. Plus, sometimes it's the only way you ever get to play. 

[firebug]

Yeah, I'm right-clicking the Vehicle Sensor under the Blitzen's junk, selecting Add As Plugin, and then selecting the options from the Sensor Functions category.  I dunno, maybe it's some weird bug that will be fixed in an update or something...

[Mantis]

There is an option to use calculated vehicle sensors on the optional rules tab under options.. Make sure that is also checked or this won't work.