As the title says, if you were to allow tinkerer to be used to grant a hard point to a pair of rocket boots (or jet pack, or similar) and then allow that hard point to be used for a vehicle attachment, what's the worst that could happen regarding attempted player abuse of such (misguided) trust?

I'd add that it would be a vehicle attachment within reason, but:
1. It should be self evident that everything should be within reason, and...

2. It´'s with the players who blankly ignore reason or have a vastly different understanding of it than you that would be the problem.

So, what attachments would be the most ludicrous abuse of such a ruling while still technically by the rules (ie no attachments prohibited by silhouette size and the like)?

I'd say that they couldn't add vehicle attachments. Rocket boots aren't vehicles themselves. They "enable a person to function as a ... vehicle".

2 minutes ago, Ahrimon said:

I'd say that they couldn't add vehicle attachments. Rocket boots aren't vehicles themselves. They "enable a person to function as a ... vehicle".

I see your point, but the question was, "If allowed, what's the worst that could happen".

Of course, I'd also be curious, whether one should allow armor attachments, and which ones, if any would be useful and/or ridiculous.

Hyperdrive-rocketboots

Could install a droid brain for autopilot rocketboots/jetpacks.

6 minutes ago, VanHippo said:

Hyperdrive-rocketboots

I don't there's a 1-HP attachment for that outside the ship building rules, but regardless this would be funnier with Jump boots, as it would allow you to jump to hyperspace, but limit you to maximum altitude of 35 metres...

That's what I get for glossing over the details...

Hmm, Hyperdrive? Shield generator? Armor? Those could probably be tossed out. I suppose you could allow the maneuvering jets or improved ion engines to improve the boots' stats. Maybe the quasi-stealth field thing or whisper-thrust engines.

1 minute ago, penpenpen said:

I don't there's a 1-HP attachment for that outside the ship building rules, but regardless this would be funnier with Jump boots, as it would allow you to jump to hyperspace, but limit you to maximum altitude of 35 metres...

Yeah. I didnt read the rules before posting that. But now that I have I can make it worse, if hyperdrive is still allowed.

Rocketboots with hyperdrive and astromech socket (because it is obviously a starfighter). It also has a astrogation droid brain, autopilot droid brain and a gunnery droid brain. Bonus! Droid brains argue when installed together, so you basicly become Rogue Trooper.

Craft airspeeder, reduce sil, add armor and engines.

3 minutes ago, panpolyqueergeek said:

Could install a droid brain for autopilot rocketboots/jetpacks.

I'd have no trouble allowing someones droid controlled jetback coming to pick them up when needed. In fact, it'd be cooler than walking around with it strapped to your back all the time.

Autonomous rocket boots, on the other hand, would look a tad bit less dignified...

2 minutes ago, Ahrimon said:

That's what I get for glossing over the details...

Hmm, Hyperdrive? Shield generator? Armor? Those could probably be tossed out. I suppose you could allow the maneuvering jets or improved ion engines to improve the boots' stats. Maybe the quasi-stealth field thing or whisper-thrust engines.

Yeah, I think ECM would technically be allowed. Ion turbine too, but since it drops the strain threshold, which is already laughably low, the extra point of speed would be a fair trade. ECM, Nightshadow coating and stuff like that could drop your silhouette down to zero, I guess, but I doubt that't matter much as your main worry would probably be prsonal combat where most people are Sil 1.

Whisperthrust engines is actually pretty **** cool.

4 minutes ago, VanHippo said:

Yeah. I didnt read the rules before posting that. But now that I have I can make it worse, if hyperdrive is still allowed.

Rocketboots with hyperdrive and astromech socket (because it is obviously a starfighter). It also has a astrogation droid brain, autopilot droid brain and a gunnery droid brain. Bonus! Droid brains argue when installed together, so you basicly become Rogue Trooper.

Tinkerer only gets you the one hard point though. I guess you could squeeze another two out of intuitive enhancements though. Still, droid sockets are explicitly only for Sil 3 starships and up.

8 minutes ago, Darzil said:

Craft airspeeder, reduce sil, add armor and engines.

That's not really rocket boots as much as it is, well...

1 minute ago, penpenpen said:

Tinkerer only gets you the one hard point though. I guess you could squeeze another two out of intuitive enhancements though. Still, droid sockets are explicitly only for Sil 3 starships and up. 

Oops. Missed that. Droid Brains are 0 HP so they should be ok

10 minutes ago, VanHippo said:

Oops. Missed that. Droid Brains are 0 HP so they should be ok

Droid brain autopiloted rocket boots, the slippers that fetch themselves.

26 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

That's not really rocket boots as much as it is, well...

I'm totally using this next time someone talks about using the reduced silhouette to make an iron man suit.

**** that durasteelman all the way!

Fabritech Fogger Smoke Generator (DC p.61). Stormtroopers? No problem! Turn on a cloud and fly out the back door with my smoke boots. Also equally good for dramatic entries like an 80s rock video.

Second option: Nightshadow coating (FC p.63) on Jet Boots worn by a Chandra-Fan. The player proceeds to argue that since he is a silhouette 0 creature he should be considered silhouette -1 in combat, despite the equipment description says operate as a silhouette 1 vehicle or there’s no such thing as silhouette -1.

16 hours ago, Ahrimon said:

I'm totally using this next time someone talks about using the reduced silhouette to make an iron man suit.

That thing is the size of a speeder bike which is sil2, so I don't think it's relevant to the iron man suit discussion.

1 hour ago, EliasWindrider said:

That thing is the size of a speeder bike which is sil2, so I don't think it's relevant to the iron man suit discussion.

Not all speeder bikes need to be Sil2...

24 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

Not all speeder bikes need to be Sil2...

True, it (small airplane) is the size of a speeder bike from RotJ which is sil 2, and larger than the tpm driven by Darth maul speeder bike which is about as large as could be argued to be sil 1.

Ok, so racking my brain and being quite overly generous, I'm thinking that you could add hard points to a set of rocket boots/jump boots/jetpack through various means.

1 - Tinkerer
2 - Intuitive improvements
2 - Signature vehicle + Custom Loadout (pushing it, since this is applicable to vehicles and the ones above are applicable to items. I'd figure you could have one or the other)

Then Fully operational adds other possible options, even without the shipbuilding rules, like spending a triumph to get the Reverse Engineering on an engineering focused check and the Converting Civilian Vehicles rules. Granted, with the utterly low strain threshold of these "wearable vehicles" the latter would be pretty limited.

But hey, if you're a generous GM, you can quite easily allow four or so hardpoints to be added through various means, with just the slightest of wiggle room to the RAW.

How could your players reward your generosity by abusing the crap out of this?

Things that would automatically disqualify an attachment would be an incompatible Silhouette rating or being available only to starships, but with that in mind, let's be generous.

First, the 0 hard point-attachments that could technichally be added anyway.

* Droid brains. Only the autopilot one would actually be able to do anything, as I haven't found a way to add a hyperdrive and the weapon options are... problematic. Besides the fact that it could operate your boots/pack autonomously (useful when you're busy fighting) having it's assistance might be well worth it. Of course, that fact that it costs 2-3 times as much as the boots/pack may not.

* Encrypted computer. If you add droid brain to pilot your boots/pack. You might not want to get it sliced, just saying.

* Security Measures. Well, you don't want your precious boots/pack stolen, but it seems to do nothing to prevent some one from picking them up and walking away. Maybe you could lock them onto your body, but don't blame me if you wake up in a dark alley with your feet cut off.

* Augmented Buffer. This little gem from Jewel of Yavin would mitigate the largest drawback of these "wearable vehicles" by upping their strain threshold. Granted, the low strain is implied to primarily be to symbolize their limited fuel capacity, and since the this attachment, fluff-wise is more about redundant electronics, there's good case for disallowing this one in particular. Otherwise it'd be mandatory for anyone with 750 credits to spare.

1 hard point:

* Amphibious Modification. This is just plain cool. I'd argue you'd still need a separate way to breathe.

* Briefing Auditorium. This requires a Sil 5 vehicle, so sadly, you can't call a meeting in your boot.

* Smuggling compartments. I guess you'd first have to apply the Hidden Compartment talent, and all this would do is to make it very hidden.

* Electronic Countermeasures. You can drop your effective Sil to 0, which generally doesn't help much. Also, everyone knows you're here. I think it's fair to rule that this would have no effects on non-vehicle mounted weapons (unless they're using some kind of fancy targeting system) even though this isn't explicitly stated.

* Electronic Counter-countermeasures. I guess. But why would you?

* Enhanced Repulsorlift. Would be awesome, but but is explicitly only allowed for air- and landspeeder. Which your boots/pack isn't.

* High-Output Ion turbine. This on the other hand is for "any ship or vehicle" and it drops your strain treshold, making it a great and balanced option in my boot book.

* Interior Broadcast suite. I've seen Iron Eagle. When you're flying, you definitely need the right music. In your boots.

* Luxury Passenger Compartments. Sadly applies only to passengers, not crew. Jet packs and rocket boots should add boost dies to social checks anyway though. Why? Because they're awesome. Not jump boots though. They look stupid.

* Maneuvering thrusters. Actually useful, and not expensive.

* Nightshadow coating. I'd argue you'd need to cover the entire vehicle, ie person for this to work. I have the sneaking suspiscion a lot of players would be fine with that. Regardless, going from Sil 1 to 0 isn't amazing and I'm fairly sure you can't hit negative numbers by stacking it with tricky target and/or ECM.

* Onboard Amenities Unit. This makes you awesome when you wear your rocket boots. This is as it should be. I'm going to assume "amenities unit" an euphemism for this .

* Overcharged Shields. Functionally a short term energy shield that takes an action to activate. I guess that's not too bad or unbalanced.

* Physical countermeasures. I don't know if it's reasonable, but it'd probably look cool .

* Psuedo-cloaking Device. Some places make you take off your shoes before coming inside. I'd argue this'd help convince people that you're not wearing any. Also be useful for masquerading as an amputee.

* Rapid Cargo Evacuation Chute. When you really need to get that rock out of your boot.

* Repulsorlift Enhancement. This is pretty good.

* Repulsorlift Boost. This is even better. And cheaper. And eats all your precious system strain.

* Sensor Baffler. I guess it's good for hiding from sensors. And to not get hit by gunnery weapons.

* Slave circuit. Perhaps more feasible than a droid brain, but also damned expensive.

* Smoke Generator: As someone mentioned above, this is just awesome in every way.

* Tactical Command, Control and Communications suite. Boots of command? Also, comlink sold separately.

* Tactical Tractor Beam. This actually has no qualifiers to what vehicle it can be attached to. Good for getting dragged along and if you desperately want a use for your gunnery droid brain and/or various targeting attachments. Funnily enough, if we want to be rules lawyerly about, you can only target "ships" with it. Not vehicles. And boots/packs don't work in space.

* Whisperthrust Engine. Just plain damned cool.

Now, for the ridiculous, 2 or more hardpoints:

* All-terrain legs. Boots on your legs and legs on your boots. Only for airspeeders and starships though. Thank god.

* Environmental simulators. Climate controlled boots. Neat.

* Hardened Circuits. Like Augmented Buffer, but takes 2 hard points and is expensive as Hel.

* Holonet Pirate Array. It's the last place they'd look!

* Hydraulic Control Circuits. Trade handling for strain might be worth it in this case. Also, stops ion weapons from abruptly interrupting you while flying around and being awesome. Also "leaky boots" might take on a new meaning.

* Minelayer. Starship only. **** it.

* Oversized External Weapons Mount. Holy **** that would actually work! Granted, your boots will now most likely have a negative strain threshold, which would be a good way to symbolize that in actuality you've stuck your boots to a blaster cannon, not the other way around. Also, the " the GM is the final arbiter of feasibility of such designs and may impose additional penalties for the weapon’s use". Heh, I can think of few. Might still be worth it.

* Ram attachment. Or maybe just a crash helmet.

* Reinforced Shield Generator. Well, this should perhaps not be allowed under any circumstances.

* Retrofitted hangar bay. Oh, I wish.

* Plasma Drill. If you can scrape together 3 hard points, you can mount a Damage 9 Breach 3 vehicle weapon on your boots. Granted, only if you interpret RAW quite liberally and because someone neglected to put in a minimum Silhouette of the vehicle this can be mounted to. Where's my Sil 1 speeder bike?

IRON MAN BONUS ROUND!

Of course, you really don't need any attachments at all to be Iron man. Pick the Rigger Spec and make your jetpack your signature vehicle and you can give it a +2 handling, Armor 1, +2 system strain, HT 1 and Armor 1. Then spec to rigger for the custom loadout talent and add Reinforced Armor Plating from Fully Operational , allowing you to add +2 armor and +6 HT.

Your jetpack is now a vehicle with Sil 1, Speed 2, Handling +1, Armor 3, HT 7 and SST 5. Costing you just north of 10K credits and 165-230xp.

I hear suggesting this to your GM can be a punishable offense in some parts of the world.

You can also add in Reverse Engineering from Fully Operational. When doing an engineering focused check you can spend a triumph to add 1 HP to whatever you are working on. It can only be done once.

On 5/11/2018 at 12:28 PM, penpenpen said:

Ok, so racking my brain and being quite overly generous, I'm thinking that you could add hard points to a set of rocket boots/jump boots/jetpack through various means.

1 - Tinkerer
2 - Intuitive improvements
2 - Signature vehicle + Custom Loadout (pushing it, since this is applicable to vehicles and the ones above are applicable to items. I'd figure you could have one or the other)

Then Fully operational adds other possible options, even without the shipbuilding rules, like spending a triumph to get the Reverse Engineering on an engineering focused check and the Converting Civilian Vehicles rules. Granted, with the utterly low strain threshold of these "wearable vehicles" the latter would be pretty limited.

But hey, if you're a generous GM, you can quite easily allow four or so hardpoints to be added through various means, with just the slightest of wiggle room to the RAW.

How could your players reward your generosity by abusing the crap out of this?

Things that would automatically disqualify an attachment would be an incompatible Silhouette rating or being available only to starships, but with that in mind, let's be generous.

First, the 0 hard point-attachments that could technichally be added anyway.

* Droid brains. Only the autopilot one would actually be able to do anything, as I haven't found a way to add a hyperdrive and the weapon options are... problematic. Besides the fact that it could operate your boots/pack autonomously (useful when you're busy fighting) having it's assistance might be well worth it. Of course, that fact that it costs 2-3 times as much as the boots/pack may not.

* Encrypted computer. If you add droid brain to pilot your boots/pack. You might not want to get it sliced, just saying.

* Security Measures. Well, you don't want your precious boots/pack stolen, but it seems to do nothing to prevent some one from picking them up and walking away. Maybe you could lock them onto your body, but don't blame me if you wake up in a dark alley with your feet cut off.

* Augmented Buffer. This little gem from Jewel of Yavin would mitigate the largest drawback of these "wearable vehicles" by upping their strain threshold. Granted, the low strain is implied to primarily be to symbolize their limited fuel capacity, and since the this attachment, fluff-wise is more about redundant electronics, there's good case for disallowing this one in particular. Otherwise it'd be mandatory for anyone with 750 credits to spare.

1 hard point:

* Amphibious Modification. This is just plain cool. I'd argue you'd still need a separate way to breathe.

* Briefing Auditorium. This requires a Sil 5 vehicle, so sadly, you can't call a meeting in your boot.

* Smuggling compartments. I guess you'd first have to apply the Hidden Compartment talent, and all this would do is to make it very hidden.

* Electronic Countermeasures. You can drop your effective Sil to 0, which generally doesn't help much. Also, everyone knows you're here. I think it's fair to rule that this would have no effects on non-vehicle mounted weapons (unless they're using some kind of fancy targeting system) even though this isn't explicitly stated.

* Electronic Counter-countermeasures. I guess. But why would you?

* Enhanced Repulsorlift. Would be awesome, but but is explicitly only allowed for air- and landspeeder. Which your boots/pack isn't.

* High-Output Ion turbine. This on the other hand is for "any ship or vehicle" and it drops your strain treshold, making it a great and balanced option in my boot book.

* Interior Broadcast suite. I've seen Iron Eagle. When you're flying, you definitely need the right music. In your boots.

* Luxury Passenger Compartments. Sadly applies only to passengers, not crew. Jet packs and rocket boots should add boost dies to social checks anyway though. Why? Because they're awesome. Not jump boots though. They look stupid.

* Maneuvering thrusters. Actually useful, and not expensive.

* Nightshadow coating. I'd argue you'd need to cover the entire vehicle, ie person for this to work. I have the sneaking suspiscion a lot of players would be fine with that. Regardless, going from Sil 1 to 0 isn't amazing and I'm fairly sure you can't hit negative numbers by stacking it with tricky target and/or ECM.

* Onboard Amenities Unit. This makes you awesome when you wear your rocket boots. This is as it should be. I'm going to assume "amenities unit" an euphemism for this .

* Overcharged Shields. Functionally a short term energy shield that takes an action to activate. I guess that's not too bad or unbalanced.

* Physical countermeasures. I don't know if it's reasonable, but it'd probably look cool .

* Psuedo-cloaking Device. Some places make you take off your shoes before coming inside. I'd argue this'd help convince people that you're not wearing any. Also be useful for masquerading as an amputee.

* Rapid Cargo Evacuation Chute. When you really need to get that rock out of your boot.

* Repulsorlift Enhancement. This is pretty good.

* Repulsorlift Boost. This is even better. And cheaper. And eats all your precious system strain.

* Sensor Baffler. I guess it's good for hiding from sensors. And to not get hit by gunnery weapons.

* Slave circuit. Perhaps more feasible than a droid brain, but also damned expensive.

* Smoke Generator: As someone mentioned above, this is just awesome in every way.

* Tactical Command, Control and Communications suite. Boots of command? Also, comlink sold separately.

* Tactical Tractor Beam. This actually has no qualifiers to what vehicle it can be attached to. Good for getting dragged along and if you desperately want a use for your gunnery droid brain and/or various targeting attachments. Funnily enough, if we want to be rules lawyerly about, you can only target "ships" with it. Not vehicles. And boots/packs don't work in space.

* Whisperthrust Engine. Just plain damned cool.

Now, for the ridiculous, 2 or more hardpoints:

* All-terrain legs. Boots on your legs and legs on your boots. Only for airspeeders and starships though. Thank god.

* Environmental simulators. Climate controlled boots. Neat.

* Hardened Circuits. Like Augmented Buffer, but takes 2 hard points and is expensive as Hel.

* Holonet Pirate Array. It's the last place they'd look!

* Hydraulic Control Circuits. Trade handling for strain might be worth it in this case. Also, stops ion weapons from abruptly interrupting you while flying around and being awesome. Also "leaky boots" might take on a new meaning.

* Minelayer. Starship only. **** it.

* Oversized External Weapons Mount. Holy **** that would actually work! Granted, your boots will now most likely have a negative strain threshold, which would be a good way to symbolize that in actuality you've stuck your boots to a blaster cannon, not the other way around. Also, the " the GM is the final arbiter of feasibility of such designs and may impose additional penalties for the weapon’s use". Heh, I can think of few. Might still be worth it.

* Ram attachment. Or maybe just a crash helmet.

* Reinforced Shield Generator. Well, this should perhaps not be allowed under any circumstances.

* Retrofitted hangar bay. Oh, I wish.

* Plasma Drill. If you can scrape together 3 hard points, you can mount a Damage 9 Breach 3 vehicle weapon on your boots. Granted, only if you interpret RAW quite liberally and because someone neglected to put in a minimum Silhouette of the vehicle this can be mounted to. Where's my Sil 1 speeder bike?

IRON MAN BONUS ROUND!

Of course, you really don't need any attachments at all to be Iron man. Pick the Rigger Spec and make your jetpack your signature vehicle and you can give it a +2 handling, Armor 1, +2 system strain, HT 1 and Armor 1. Then spec to rigger for the custom loadout talent and add Reinforced Armor Plating from Fully Operational , allowing you to add +2 armor and +6 HT.

Your jetpack is now a vehicle with Sil 1, Speed 2, Handling +1, Armor 3, HT 7 and SST 5. Costing you just north of 10K credits and 165-230xp.

I hear suggesting this to your GM can be a punishable offense in some parts of the world.

Bumping this thread with the hopes it gets archived. In particular, I want to save penpenpen’s ridiculous and amazing post which I love!