Quoted By:
Agents, remember your basic primer on vehicle handling, right? You do. I mean, come on, Vehicles are just tools. Sort of. Much bigger, larger, heavier tools that you're... inside.
Because you're inside it and piloting a vehicle, you use it's qualities as references. A standard motorcycle (Sorry, I couldn't get any of the souped up versions) for instance, has this array:
Speed 4, Handling 3, Stability 2
Stunt 2
Seats 2
You'd drive it with Proficiency, you'd do split-second stunts with Reaction, you'd diagnose issue with Process, you'd fine-tune it with Manipulate, same Intentions as you always use.
Speed, Handling and Stability (and Stunt, sometimes), are, however, what you roll additively as the second component of your pool. No matter how good you are at Mechanical Engineering, you can't make a Speed 1 vehicle move at Speed 4, by rolling Profiency + Mechanical Engineering. Doesn't make sense, Agent! You have to operate *the tool*.
Instead, to pull off a speedy operation, you'd do Proficiency + Speed. Or to jerk and jive out of the way of incoming danger, Reaction + Speed. Your intentions, the vehicles attributes and specifics.
( Cunning mechanical engineers could, of course, push the engine to perform better, *altering* the Speed, then use it at a higher function... Your Secrets are still valuable! Just not for DIRECT vehicle operation, often!)
*However*, if you have advanced training in using these things - or DRONEOPS - you can go *fully manual* and treat these characteristics as *flavour dice* to your pool of Intent+PilotingSecret. Pushing it to some new level of potential. Trained professionals at this sort of thing pull of stuff you wouldn't *believe*. Naturally, if you're eeking out extreme performance doing Proficiency3+DroneOps2+Speed4, you're inviting extreme complications.
The same goes for other "niches". Yes, that means you can do React+Acrobatics+Stunt or Speed to do some serious wild stuff on a motorcycle. But just be *careful*, Operator. You don't always have to FLOOR IT.
Meanwhile, *stuff happens* - the Stability is functionally a vehicle's Limit for dealing with sudden stuff on the road. Slam into a bad patch of road, get 3 points worth of trouble, a Stability 2 motorcycle might not be so easy to control. The same goes for other qualities, so they pull double duty - it's *easier* to pull off Stunts on a motorcycle
Recall that incoming stuff that pushes past your limits get complicated fast, so the way to think about this is that if you get rammed on a motorcycle, take 6 Impact, bring it back under control to 3 Impact with a quick Handling roll, you still have 3 Impact past that Stability 0 that has to go somewhere. Good odds it'll manifest in a complication, **damage to the driver or occupant** or sudden vehicular problem.
... Now who's taking the genetic abnormality who has never been inside a moving vehicle before and driving her -- it -- they -- OUT of here??
