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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Random brainstorming on making burst fire real

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Feb 20 2007, 11:16 PM

Something just occured to me about a way to possibly make burst fire in SR3 more realistic than it is under normal SR3 rules.

As you all know, in SR they decided to streamline things a bit by deciding that a "burst" simply raises the damage caused by an attack and making it harder to dodge, and these effects are measured in increments of three rounds. This is faster and easier than having to roll for each bullet discharged, but it lead to a number of inconsistencies, such as a 2 round burst due to limited ammunition being drastically less effective than a 3 round burst, or assault rifles and submachine guns with really low single shot damage codes to compensate for the staging they could accomplish with autofire.

In this day and age, though, when we have computers that can roll many dice for us and process the results, or we can write simple C scripts to deal with certain portions of the rules, I think it's less important to streamline and more fun to revel in simulationism or verisimilitude. In my mind, a game becomes more engrossing and atmospheric when things happen in more realistic ways, just like realistic special effects (rather than poor ones) can make the difference between a great movie and a laughable one.

So, I have this thought for handling burst and automatic fire more realistically, and I was hoping that you could help me out by telling me if it's actually more realistic or not.

My idea is that instead of abstracting burst and full auto fire we treat each round in the air seperately. This is the way it would work:

1.) Player declares that he is going to use automatic fire or a burst on a target.
2.) Player rolls his attack. Any bonuses he gets for Take Aim actions, and any dice he adds to his attack from combat pool or karma pool or Improved Ability, all apply to only the first bullet. This is because the first bullet is the one that was actually aimed most deliberately by the hands of the character himself. The first bullet also gets no recoil penalty.
3.) Each bullet after the first is treated in the following way: the character rolls his base skill versus his target number, plus a recoil penalty adding up one at a time for each subsequent bullet, for each bullet. Thus, somebody with a terrible firearms skill who uses spray and pray tactics probably won't be effective, but somebody with a very high skill can be absolutely lethal with full auto fire.

I'd be inclined to houserule Raygun-esque rates of fire for the various firearms since 10 rounds per complex action maximum is probably unrealistically low, and I always felt that Shadowrun had weirdly low ammo expenditure during firefights anyway.

Since the basis of this system is single rounds hitting the target, I'd probably also need to "fix" the damage codes of assault rifles and submachine guns so that they can actually hurt you in semiautomatic mode.

This could also be the basis for a better suppressive fire rule than cannon, as well. Suppressive fire on a specific target could just be automatic fire actions without aiming at all on that target. If the number of bullets in the air gets very high (like it would with a mounted machine gun with a high ROF) it would be dangerous to not take full cover, or dangerous to spend multiple combat turns out of cover while being suppressed.

If you wanted to suppress an area perhaps we could just declare an area in square meters which you are suppressing. We divide your weapon's maximum ROF by the number of square meters. Anybody who enters the suppressed area gets "attacked" by *half* the rounds in that area (representing the passage of time, etc) using the base skill of the firerer.

EDIT: Part of me doesn't like that area suppression rule, though, because if ten people jumped into the suppressed square they could end up being hit by more bullets than were ever fired in that area. Area suppression is inherently difficult to deal with if we're measuring actions in terms of turns rather than real time.

Maybe it would be better just to say that area suppression per se cannot be done. However, using the almighty power of the Delay Action command, your character may wait with his weapon raised and be able to use suppression fire on anyone who might appear in the area he is looking at, and in that case the normal autofire rules would apply. That actually makes more sense from a simulationist standpoint, I think, than trying to force area suppression per se.

Comments? Thoughts?

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Feb 21 2007, 05:02 PM

It's this basically how 1st edition worked? Only without a computer to speed things up?

Posted by: nezumi Feb 21 2007, 06:47 PM

It would only work if you found someone to make a program that would do all the work for you I wouldn't use it, since it would be too work intensive as a GM though.

Some other suggestions from the SR3R thread that you might be interested in:

-Autofire problems
- Roll each shot individually
- Recoil modifiers change how many shots in a burst hit, as opposed to TN to hit with entire burst
- Auto (and burst) fire can be done 5 ways, at shooters option
1. DL increased per 3 rnds, as standard
2. +1 die to your ranged attack test per round fired to a max of your base skill
3. Increase dodge TN by +1 per round
4. Reduce uncompensated recoil by -1 per 2 rnds
5. Any combination of the above
(In all but the fourth, recoil is calculated as normal. The Power is not modified in any case.)
- More than 10 rounds can be fired in a phase, but only a maximum of 10 rounds may hit

Posted by: Turtle Feb 21 2007, 08:38 PM

QUOTE (Moon-Hawk @ Feb 21 2007, 07:02 PM)

It's this basically how 1st edition worked? Only without a computer to speed things up?

Yep, that it is...and it is funny to see somebody trying to return to it for more realism. I have to admit that my time firing automatic weapons is a few years behind me now, but no way did the skill with firearms influence your chances of hitting something more than the first two or three bullets. Full auto basically means scattering plenty of bullets in a general direction, hoping that the area is tight enough to hit what you want. Mostly, it's used to send grouped shots of 2 or 3 bullets at an opponent, in order to make more efficient and accurate shots possible.

At least that's what my drill instructor told me. And as such, the streamlined rules that appeared in Rigger Black Book made sense to me, and streamlined play enormously.

As for other ideas on the same topic, check out this thread on page 299

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=188&st=0
I'm not going to quote my 3 years old post, it's down the last third of the first page of the thread.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Feb 21 2007, 10:18 PM

QUOTE (Turtle)

QUOTE (Moon-Hawk @ Feb 21 2007, 07:02 PM)

It's this basically how 1st edition worked? Only without a computer to speed things up?

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=188&st=0
I'm not going to quote my 3 years old post, it's down the last third of the first page of the thread.

OK, 2 things, then:

1.) I've never played SR1 but the more I hear about it the better and better it sounds! Tracking each bullet, decking that actually resembled real hacking complete with writing drivers on the fly and keeping track of global variables? It even had electric guitars in the equipment lists and rules for flipping out and riffing 80s hair metal style so that you could know if your 80s rock was cool or not in the eyes of the audience. It sounds like the most badass game ever, from what people have said about it here!

2.) I like your rule:

QUOTE

Example: Cat Who Walks Through Walls is in a nasty firefight with one flatfoot. Aiming her trusty ingram Smartgun, switching to autofire, she tries to hose down the cop who is crouching behind a trash bin. Her base TN is 4+4 (Partial Cover, still too high in my eyes) for a total of 8. She fires off 6 rounds. This raises the TNs for each bullet to 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13. Note that I didn't apply recoil to the first bullet, as it wouldn't recieve any. Her player rolls 6+4 CP dice and ends up with 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 8, 8, 10, 12. Applying this to every bullet, each bullet gets the following amount of successes: 4, 2, 2, 2, 1, 0. From that, damage can be calculated.

That way, the skill of the firerer applies to the whole spray, which reflects how on target the firearm initially was, but you still get the recoil jinking things off target. This also makes recoil compensation more badass since it would make more rounds slam into the target correctly. A supported machine gun can now nail you to the wall in fine style.

In fact, with this type of system, you could even have better rules for firing through targets, since you're making one roll and checking it against a range of target numbers.

Let's say that our hero is firing at a cop who is taking cover behind his car door like in the movies. However, as the Box O Truth demonstrates you can generally fire through car doors with handguns. We could have the hero make his attack roll with combat pool and we compare his results with 1.) the TN to hit the cop without cover and 2.) the TN to hit the cop with cover. The rounds that would have hit the cop with cover missed the door and just hit the cop. The rounds that would have hit the cop without cover had to go through the door first and thus had their Power reduced.

Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 21 2007, 10:37 PM

QUOTE (Turtle)

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=188&st=0
I'm not going to quote my 3 years old post, it's down the last third of the first page of the thread.

I agree. Single shots and short bursts are for accuracy. Full auto is for special situations like if you are being overrun, for supressing fire (though using a machine gun is better than a rifle or SMG for this), or you are trying to dominate the field.

GURPS handled autofire by using bursts. Depending on how accurate your attack roll was, the more bullets hit. I don't recall exactly the charts, but it worked something like this, keep in mind that GURPS uses target numbers and a 3D6 for the skill roll. With a 3 round burst, if you equal the TN, one bullet hits. Succeed by something like 2 to 4, then 2 bullets hit. Anything more then all 3 bullets hit.

SR3 could work something like this. Take the Target Number with all its modifiers. One Success equals one bullet hitting the target. 2 to 3 successes equals 2 bullets hitting. More than that equals all three hitting. Each bullet would be counted separately as far as damage goes. To represent the loss of accuracy in auto fire, stage damage based on net successes, going from the top of the hit range. That is to say with 4 successes total, the first bullet would be stage up 4 times, the second twice and the third not at all.

A lot more book keeping, but if you want realism, that is going to happen.

Posted by: Turtle Feb 21 2007, 10:58 PM

QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ Feb 22 2007, 12:18 AM)

Okay, so two things...

1. Yep, that is Shadowrun 1E. The problem is that it has a lot of wonky rule problems, like normal skill use being you using your skill against a TN, magic use was you using the Force of the spell against a TN, and decking was basically you using your Hacking Pool to aim a program, and then the Program Rating for the sucesses. Dice pools were a bit wonky, too..and a lot of people (NOT me) frowned at the variable Weapon Stagings. Hacking was always written off as too cumbersome, which can easily be dealt with with a good rules knowledge and a few additions to node functionalities. All can be fixed with a few houserules that keep the game 90% as it is...which always made me wonder why there was so much of a fuss. But mileages vary. All meaning that I still play 1E, modified, and really enjoy it. And Shadowbeat rocks!

2. Thanks for the compliment, glad you like it. So far, I couldn't try it out in my game, since the gun bunny of the group prefers bursts to full auto, and for bursts, I use the RBB rules. Makes sense to increase power and damage code when you assume three bullets hitting the same square inch at roughly the same time.

Posted by: mfb Feb 21 2007, 11:01 PM

the thing is, i would not necessarily agree that it's realistic to have the first round of a burst be more accurate than the second, third, and so on. the reason you fire lots of bullets at a target, generally, is so that there's a better chance of at least one of your bullets hitting--it doesn't matter which one. it could be the first, but it could just as easily be the third, or the tenth.

the most realistic model i've been able to come up with (and, as an omniscient being who is possessed of all knowledge, my view of realism is of course the most accurate) is that autofire and bursts should lower the TN of an attack. on hard-to-hit targets, lowering the TN gives you a chance of scoring one or two successes--winging the target with only one or two rounds, in effect. against targets of moderate difficulty, lowering the TN means you'll get a few more hits--getting a few rounds solidly into the target, or winging him with a lot of rounds. against an easy target, the TN is low enough that you get a lot of successes (if the TN is reduced to 2 or less, every further TN reduction should add dice to the attack test), which means that most of your rounds hit the target in his center mass. no need to raise the damage level of the base attack or anything else like that. haven't really decided how recoil comp figures in, though--maybe it extends the number of rounds you can fire that affect the attack TN (the rest just affect the target's dodge TN).

Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 21 2007, 11:05 PM

QUOTE (mfb)

That's also a point I considered and you are probably right. I just mentioned staging damage because it is a part of the SR combat system. It probably would be most realistic to not stage damage, which would put an emphasis on aimed single shots for doing precision damage, so to speak. Having all three rounds of an SMG burst would be pretty nasty even without staging damage.

Posted by: Turtle Feb 21 2007, 11:12 PM

QUOTE (mfb)

Depends, doesn't it? If you aim at a person and go full auto on his butt (which is what a lot of runners seem to do, for some reason), the first few bullets will be the most accurate, and then recoil will play havoc with accuracy.

If you simply want to scatter lead around an area you know is occupied by an opponent, we're dealing with suppressing fire more than aimed shots...at least from my POV...and there's different rules for that.

Posted by: mfb Feb 22 2007, 06:07 AM

QUOTE (Turtle)

you're assuming that just because you take the time to aim at someone, you're going to hit them. in cases of difficult-to-hit targets, that's not necessarily true--and in those cases, the jittering caused by recoil could very well put your weapon on-target at some point during the burst. in cases where the target is easy to hit, recoil's not going to be enough to throw your aim off at any point in the burst. targets of in-between difficulty, it could go either way.

the obvious question is, why don't sharpshooters and snipers use bursts or full-auto. the answer, to the best of my knowledge, is that sometimes they do. at closer ranges (say, shooting through a window from the roof of the building across the street), i don't believe it's unheard of for a SWAT sharpshooter to use bursts when the situation permits it (eg, no nearby hostages).

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Feb 22 2007, 06:15 AM

There's also the fact that sharpshooters and snipers do tend to hit targets they take time to aim at, and that under the conditions they operate in recoil would very often throw their aim off.

Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 22 2007, 09:24 AM

QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

There's also the fact that sharpshooters and snipers do tend to hit targets they take time to aim at, and that under the conditions they operate in recoil would very often throw their aim off.

Recoil isn't much of a factor for sharpshooters, to a point. The main reasons for their accuracy is that: One, no one is shooting at them, and Two, they are probably shooting a target that is unaware of their presence or is otherwise unable to take cover. So a military sniper shooting a target 800 yards away almost certainly has no idea that someone is about to shoot them, so they aren't going to be dodging and weaving or hiding behind cover. A police sniper's target is probably going to be busy controlling a hostage, looking at the many other and more visible officers around and so on to be worried about the sniper than can barely see.

I've never heard of a sniper using an automatic rifle. Semiauto sometimes, but most are bolt action. Firing a burst even through a sniper grade rifle wouldn't improve the accuracy of the whole burst any. The recoil is still going to throw off all the rounds after the first at least a little. Since a good SWAT sniper should be able to put a 5 round group through a quarter at less than 100 yards (I used to be able to do better than that when I was on the rifle team in high school), a single shot to the head would be no trouble. No need to bother with a burst.

Shooting through a window isn't all that easy. Glass causes deflection in bullets: the thicker the glass, the greater the deflection, also the greater the angle at which the bullets strikes the glass. A good example of was seen some years back when a gang took over a department store in California somewhere. A police sniper took a shot at a gang member holding a gun. The shot was through a glass door and the target was just on the other side. The shot shattered the door but missed the target. As a result, the gang opened fire on the hostages killing several of them.

Posted by: Turtle Feb 22 2007, 09:25 AM

QUOTE (mfb @ Feb 22 2007, 08:07 AM)

Well, yeah, I do assume that I have higher chances hitting a target that I've been aiming for, in the sense of tracking the target with my muzzle so the first bullet out will be the most accurate to hit. That includes walking my gun with a moving target before firing, and all the other nifty little tricks.
Of course, with a wildly dodging target that plays rabbit on me, recoil might cause a later bullet to hit better, by accident, than the first one...but lets be honest, isn't that a rather rare case compared with the usual problem of recoil? At least in my opinion, it's rare enough to not really need a rule in SR.

I think we need to differentiate between two autofire applications anyway....between aiming autofire at a target directly, which will usually be complicated by recoil, and simply spraying an area around a target with lead in order to have SOME bullets potentially hit the target in the area. The first is pretty much covered by SR rules...the second one could be done by those suppression fire rules...although I never was really happy with those myself.

The situation with snipers you mention sounds like what I heard about a sniper firing twice in a row to shatter the window with the first bullet and hit the target perfectly with the second, without the window possibly deflecting the bullet. I heard that was done with quickly fired single shots rather than with burst fire, but I'm no sniper, and neither do I know one.

Posted by: mfb Feb 22 2007, 09:40 AM

QUOTE (Turtle)

your assumption is not correct. with a target that is hard to hit--very far away, behind a good bit of cover, hard to see because of darkness/rain/whatever--your aim may well be off. that is to say, if you fired only one bullet, you would be likely to miss even if you spent a lot of time aiming. however, by firing a bunch of bullets, you stand a better chance of hitting your target with at least one round because of the fact that the recoil will spread your burst around a particular area. basically, by firing more than one round in quick succession, you get a sort of shotgun effect--lots of rounds striking in an small area that is larger than a single round could account for.

your theory runs counter to standard training, which says that you should be firing short bursts (i learned 3-5 on the M249; i understand that it's 5-7 on the M240B and other machine guns) at every target. this is so that you stand a better chance of hitting more difficult targets.

Posted by: Turtle Feb 22 2007, 09:55 AM

QUOTE (mfb)

Can't say I feel I'm incorrect yet.

The situations you described wouldn't go under "aiming at the target" in my book, but rather under "aiming at the target's area", since I can't claim to aim at something that I can hardly see. As such, scattering the shots a little is of course the better strategy, since then you do stand a better chance of one bullet actually hitting.

But how do you express that? I was pondering on simply having the shooter blind-fire (+8 to base TN) without any other modifiers, use the number of successes equally for all bullets that hit. The target would have to announce how many pool dice it wants to spend on dodging before the success test for the shooter is rolled, so it doesn't know how many bullets actually hit, but for each pool die spent it could dodge one bullet completely.

By the way, what I learned on the good old G3 was that burst fire should be 2-3 bullets, since more would throw off any accuracy in firing. Different training methods, I suppose. With us, it was burst fire at a target, full auto at an area.

Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 22 2007, 10:33 AM

QUOTE (Turtle)

Can't say I feel I'm incorrect yet.

You would use the cover modifiers if a target is partly obscured. If they are completely behind cover, that would probably be blind-firing, though the GM could modify that some. If they were behind a tree but they were shadowing their weapon, that is had the muzzle poking around the edge and you could see it, the GM could lower the modifier but rule that you had to shoot through the tree as a barrier to hit them. If you know they are there somewhere, but not exactly where, such as lying in a field of tall grass at night, but you aren't sure just where, hitting would be at the GM's discretion since the odds would be so long.

Another thing about burst fire that isn't covered in the rules is range. Auto fire and bursts from rifles and such are only effective out to 100 yards or so. Beyond that, it is better to use single aimed shots. Machine guns, on the other hand, are meant to be fired in bursts or full auto and at area targets, so that doesn't apply to them.

Posted by: Crakkerjakk Feb 22 2007, 08:15 PM

Rifles-3 round burst. There's even a specific setting on a lot of them that allows this.

Machine Guns-3-7 round burst(Depress the trigger long enough to rapidly say, "Die, Motherf***er, Die." Yes, this is what is really taught at USMC boot/Combat training.)

Difference? Rifle sights are generally easier to aim through, hence more accurate. Machine guns tend to rely on saturating an area with lead. Usually a small area, when aiming at a single target, but an area nonetheless.

Posted by: mfb Feb 22 2007, 08:22 PM

QUOTE (Turtle)

you can aim at something you can hardly see--it's just harder, as represented by the TN mods imposed by concealment, range, darkness, etcetera.

i think part of the problem is, when you say "aiming", you're talking about taking five or six (or more) seconds to make sure you're taking the best shot you possibly can. when i talk about aiming, i'm generally talking about taking a second or two to pause your breath and make sure you've got a good sight picture.

the times you'll need to take a long time to aim, you're probably shooting at very distant targets. in that case, yes, your first round is more likely to strike, and your second+ rounds are less likely to strike. but that is, honestly, a very rare situation, and can be easily handled by giving bursts/autofire diminishing TN bonuses over longer distances. in most cases, you're not going to have time to sit there and aim for six seconds at a half-seen target; you're going to spot a target, get a quick sight picture, and squeeze off a burst. in my experience, this is best represented by using the normal shooting rules, and using burst/autofire to reduce the TN of the shot.

Posted by: Turtle Feb 22 2007, 09:14 PM

QUOTE (mfb)

in my experience, this is best represented by using the normal shooting rules, and using burst/autofire to reduce the TN of the shot.

Sorry, I'm simply going to steal that indeed for such situations where the shooter doesn't try for a more or less accurate hit, or for making as many bullets as possible hit somebody, but only for at least one bullet hitting a target that is mostly out of sight. Calculate base TN as usual (distance, lighting, cover/concealment) and reduce TN by one per round fired. Target can use dodge dice to eliminate one bullet per die sacrificed, and successes from the attack go into increasing damage from one bullet that actually hit.

This would be great for firing at invisible targets, for example. Base TN+8...send 10 rounds in the general direction, one might actually hit, calculate damage from that. Hmmmm...seems workable. Thanks for the inspiration.

Posted by: Sir_Psycho Feb 22 2007, 09:57 PM

Uh if i'm not wrong, we have rules for all of this. The standard autofire rule is pulling the trigger and trying to hit a target as many times as possible, to tear them up. You can also walk the fire from one target to another. You can also use suppressive fire, or searching fire, which throws as many bullets over an area, either hoping you hit some-one, or making them stay the hell out of the way of all the bullets.

As for the one bullet rule. God, I find all the different steps and processes to just shooting some-one in Shadowrun complex enough, thankyouverymuch.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Feb 22 2007, 10:00 PM

Searching fire suffers from the fact that all bullets count towards recoil. If that were removed, it'd be a lot more useful.

~J

Posted by: mfb Feb 22 2007, 10:19 PM

QUOTE (Sir Psycho)

Uh if i'm not wrong, we have rules for all of this. The standard autofire rule is pulling the trigger and trying to hit a target as many times as possible, to tear them up.

the existing rules are crazy. in the existing rules, if you fire lots of bullets, it is more likely that all of your bullets will miss than that any of them will hit. that's the exact opposite of how things work in real life. searching fire and suppressive fire mildly ameliorate this issue, but they don't do nearly a good enough job to satisfy my sense of realism. searching fire, for instance, is incredibly crappy. i've never used it, because mechanically, the penalty for using it is too high and the reward too low.

the basic problem with SR's take on autofire is that it assumes that if you fire a bunch of bullets, they'll all hit or miss the target, barring action on the target's part. in other words, if i fire ten rounds at you, and you don't dodge, i'm going to hit you with all ten rounds (assuming i hit at all). this is craziness. very few weapons have such low recoil that all ten rounds will hit the same spot. by the same token, no firearm i'm aware of that is usable by metahumans has such high recoil that firing ten rounds will cause all ten to miss, where a single round would have hit.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Feb 22 2007, 10:44 PM

So, from this discussion, it seems to me that since area suppression is such an important part of using a machine gun, I get the impression that SR needs better suppression fire rules.

As I said in my first post I think the problem with area suppression is how SR handles time. Since actions happen instantaneously when you get your actions it's hard to simulate something which is constantly taking place over multiple combat turns.

The other issue is how we would gauge the level of risk for people running through the suppressed area. How can we set things up so that if 20 rounds are flying in the suppressed area no one person in that area can be hit more than 20 times, or that if more than 20 people run through that area only up to 20 people will be hit?

Posted by: mfb Feb 22 2007, 11:09 PM

i don't think it's necessary to count how many rounds actually hit. after all, a person can be winged by 20 rounds and come out of it almost completely unimpaired; another can take a single round through the face and be dead.

Posted by: Crakkerjakk Feb 23 2007, 12:18 AM

One thing that is poorly modeled in ANY game is the unwillingness of a sane human being to run through machinegun swept ground. It's hard to emulate how intimidating suppressing fire is, and until you've actually had bullets "whip-crack" past you, it's not an easy concept to grasp.

Just offhandedly saying, "well, I'm in enough armor I'll probably be alright" generally doesn't happen in the real world, unless it's in an armored vehicle, and if its a big enough round, even that will sometimes punch through.

Watching films like Saving Private Ryan and Flags of Our Fathers gives some idea just how deadly a machinegun nest can be, and the visceral fear of a wall of lead is really hard to model accurately, IMO. Another point, some folks don't realize that for every tracer zipping by, there are four real rounds in between(generally).

Posted by: Butterblume Feb 23 2007, 01:16 AM

Can't even remeber the SR3 rules. In SR4, you get hit by suppressive fire (dealing base damage), or not. That's easy and logical (and most likely not realistic). The one unlogical thing is the suppressed area.

The mini series Band of Brothers has very realistic combat scenes. One can really hear the scariness of Hitler's buzzsaw (as the maschinegun 42 was known, with double the firerate of most allies weapons).

Posted by: Sir_Psycho Feb 23 2007, 04:14 AM

QUOTE (mfb)

Oh. I must be wrong then.

I thought you made a test every 3 rounds and the recoil got much worse with every test. That would make more sense, wouldn't it?

edit: I am talking about plain autofire here.

Posted by: mfb Feb 23 2007, 06:25 AM

in the existing SR3 rules, you make a single attack test with a TN penalty equal to the number of rounds fired during your phase. so if you fire two 3-round bursts, you get +3 TN for the first burst and +6 TN for the second (before factoring recoil compenastion). for every 3 rounds fired, you get +1 damage level (M to S); for every round fired, you get +1 power. minimum number of rounds for autofire is usually 3.

what you're talking about sounds like burst fire--a simple action to fire 3 rounds.

Posted by: hyzmarca Feb 23 2007, 04:52 PM

The big problem with a lack of power increases is that it makes troll tanks nearly invincible. It is not terribly difficult to get a TN2 or TN3 for resisting every ammo type except APDS and AV. Armored jacket + FFBA + Kevlar/Titanium bone lacing gives any character 8 ballistic armor.

With Dermal Sheath 3, Titanium lacing, and 12 BP invested in body a starting troll can be rolling 18 dice to resist damage and he can roll 19 if you allow Bonus Attribute Point. At TN 2 (TN 3 with Ex-Ex in a heavy pistol) it is highly improbable that this troll will fail to stage any small arms fire down to nothing.

The only way to deal with the 18 dice/8 balistic troll tank short of assault cannons and rocket launchers is to use that +1 per extra bullet power increase to crank up his TNs.

Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 23 2007, 06:21 PM

QUOTE (hyzmarca)

Or use spells that target the troll's willpower.

Posted by: hyzmarca Feb 23 2007, 06:57 PM

Make him an albino changeling with Exceptional Attribute: Willpower, Bonus Attribute Point:Willpower, Magic Resistance 4, and Astral Hazing. That gives the mage a base casting TN of 9 before the mobile background count is applied and gives the Troll 13 dice to resist. Add in the Dermal Deposits SURGE effect for an extra point of damage resistance while you are at it.

Posted by: Thane36425 Feb 23 2007, 07:10 PM

You could always get one of these from your Fixer. Should be pretty rough on the troll.

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003285.html

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Feb 23 2007, 07:38 PM

QUOTE (hyzmarca)

Baby Jesus sees your crimes.
And he's jealous.

Posted by: hyzmarca Feb 23 2007, 09:23 PM

I could have suggested also making him a ghoul for the extra +2 body and +1 willpower, but I didn't because that would be munchy.

Posted by: The Stainless Steel Rat Feb 24 2007, 05:45 PM

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=8709&hl=

Yeah, it's a long post and looks complex, but read the thing - it's actually pretty quick and simple and has been working well for our group for over a year and a half. It directly addresses the idea of saturation/suppression discussed above.

One minor change implemented since this post and a clarification: Extra successes do not stage up damage, but must be matched by defender before staging down. Smartlinked gunners can declare the exact # of bullets fired and do not need to roll to determine burst length.

Posted by: Arethusa Feb 25 2007, 11:18 PM

QUOTE (mfb)

The problem I have with this is that it takes you to the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Instead of SR3's currently absurd economy of combat, you get people spraying everywhere all the time. I realize the intent is not to be particularly simulationist, but TN reduction is extremely granular, and there's no particular incentive to use short, controlled bursts. You'll pretty much end up with American soldiers spraying into the bushes in Vietnam and hitting Hitler because the theory of quantum indeterminacy states that if they keep doing that long enough, their chances of success approach 1.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Feb 25 2007, 11:23 PM

QUOTE (Arethusa)

You'll pretty much end up with American soldiers spraying into the bushes in Vietnam and hitting Hitler because the theory of quantum indeterminacy states that if they keep doing that long enough, their chances of success approach 1.

Oh my god. That's the most genius thing I've read all week.

Maybe the solution is to give really really enormously massive TN penalties to Spray and Pray tactics at Long and Extreme range?

Also, +8 TN for Blind Fire always seemed a little too forgiving for me. Considering Blind is the worst off you can get visually, the sum of the Blind Fire penalty should be an unholy addition of ALL the visual penalties on the chart put together.

Posted by: mfb Feb 26 2007, 01:19 AM

QUOTE (Arethusa)

The problem I have with this is that it takes you to the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Instead of SR3's currently absurd economy of combat, you get people spraying everywhere all the time. I realize the intent is not to be particularly simulationist, but TN reduction is extremely granular, and there's no particular incentive to use short, controlled bursts. You'll pretty much end up with American soldiers spraying into the bushes in Vietnam and hitting Hitler because the theory of quantum indeterminacy states that if they keep doing that long enough, their chances of success approach 1.

to be honest, i view that as a strength of the mechanic. i like the idea that any random housewife can pick up an AK and fuck up your whole day, even if you're behind total cover and it's pitch black and she's only got one arm and no legs. automatic weapons are dangerous, and you can't predict with 100% accuracy what's going to happen when someone pulls the trigger on one. (i'm not saying that the triple-amputee should be confident she can get a round into you, i'm saying that the possibility should worry you and make you seek cover.)

the biggest weakness i see with the system is that there's no easy way to simulate colleteral damage, which is one of the two big reasons why spray 'n pray is not always a good idea in real life (the other being ammo consumption).

QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)

Maybe the solution is to give really really enormously massive TN penalties to Spray and Pray tactics at Long and Extreme range?

i'm personally in favor of a flat, irreducable +1 TN mod per 100 meters of actual distance between the shooter and the target, in addition to the normal range mods. truly long-range TNs should be up around 10 or more, even with a scope. i've never heard of someone taking a thousand-yard shot without aiming, but because of the way range works in SR, that's easily possible.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Feb 26 2007, 01:35 AM

QUOTE (mfb)

the biggest weakness i see with the system is that there's no easy way to simulate colleteral damage, which is one of the two big reasons why spray 'n pray is not always a good idea in real life (the other being ammo consumption).

Well, that's easy, if you've got suppressive fire rules you like. Just treat everything in the area being fired on (conceptualized in 1 square meter units) as being under suppressive fire.

Posted by: mfb Feb 26 2007, 02:22 AM

eh, there's a difference between suppressive fire and what i'm talking about. suppressive fire is hosing down an area to deny it to the enemy. i'm talking about actually shooting at someone on full-auto with the intent of killing that person. they're two different things in real life.

Posted by: Link Feb 26 2007, 02:53 AM

In terms of suppressing an area and the risks posed of collateral damage from stray rounds I think the effects are similar enough that, ideally, a good rule could simulate both. Now for the good rule...

Posted by: hyzmarca Feb 26 2007, 03:24 AM

I can write a rule, but it requires battlemaps and and protractor.

When a character fires make a straight line between the character and the target. This line is considered 21 degrees to make the next calculation easier. When a character misses, roll 6d6 to determine the actual flight angle of the bullet in relation to the character firing it. This allows the bullet to miss by +-15 degrees and using 1 as a base saves us from having to deal with negatives. Any character in the bullet's flight path, out to the maximum range of the weapon, has to resist the base damage of the bullet. This may be staged up by 1s on the attack test at the GMs discretion.

Should the power of a nondeforming and nonexploding projectile exceed the target's armor rating + body then the attack overpenetrates and hits anything that is directly behind the initial target for [(base power)-(initial target's armor)](Base damage level). If the [(power)-(initial target's armor)] exceeds the second target's armor+body it also overpenetrates and subtracts both target's armor ratings from its power. This continues until the bullet's power is no longet exceeds armor+body of a target. If a target is a barrier use the rules for shooting through barriers instead.
When APDS and AV ammo is used, divide body in half along with armor for the purpose of determining overpenetration.

Posted by: nezumi Feb 26 2007, 03:32 AM

Why not just define it on position relative to the target? Everyone within 1 meter of the target or behind the target is potentially hit. Anyone who the GM is uncertain of has half the TN to dodge and power is reduced by half.

Posted by: Link Feb 26 2007, 03:47 AM

Should the power of a nondeforming and nonexploding projectile exceed the target's armor rating + body then the attack overpenetrates and hits anything that is directly within 1d6 degrees of deviation as dictated by deviant bullet rule above (Use rule of 6 to represent potential for magic bullet) behind the initial target for [(base power)-(initial target's armor)](Base damage level). If the [(power)-(initial target's armor)] exceeds the second target's armor+body it also overpenetrates and subtracts both target's armor and body ratings from its power. This continues until the bullet's power is no longet exceeds armor+body of a target. If a target is a barrier use the rules for shooting through barriers instead.
When APDS and AV ammo is used, divide body in half by three quarters along with armor for the purpose of determining overpenetration. If APDS or AV ammo is used halve armour and body.

Posted by: hyzmarca Feb 26 2007, 03:56 AM

QUOTE (nezumi)

They'll work, but the problem is determining who and what is hit. You can't have the guy directly left of the target and the guy directly right of the target both hit by the same bullet.

Posted by: nezumi Feb 26 2007, 04:32 AM

Not by the same bullet, but it's full auto, which means there are more than 4 bullets. Keep in mind, this is also a very abstract system. If we're not figuring out if a bullet hits the head or the big toe, there's no reason to bother determining if a bullet goes to the right or the left.

Posted by: hyzmarca Feb 26 2007, 04:56 AM

At that point we're back to the old suppressive fire rules and it doesn't account for stray semi-automatic fire.

Posted by: Link Feb 26 2007, 05:43 AM

This is a reference/summary of sorts of Steel Rat's old post referred to above.

QUOTE

Divide # of bullets into two groups - Damage and Spray

The bullets in the Spray group will be used to lower the target number.

Also thinking each -1 to tgt# will result in a +1 to a target's dodge attempt.

What I'm trying to model is that in some cases a gunner will be trying to saturate an area rather than trying to put every round into the target, and the ratio of Damage to Spray models how tight a grouping the gunner is trying for.

1. Controlled (i.e. compensated) Autofire would represent 'Damage' and would be conducted at the single shot TN. The recoil compensation value +1 (for the first round) would represent this tight grouping of rounds. No mod to the target's dodge attempt due to this tight grouping.

The recoil compensation value is added to test successes and damage is that of the weapons base damage.

2. The remaining rounds (up to the weapons max rate of fire) would be 'Spray' and these would reduce the TN and add to a target's dodge attempt. This would also represent 'searching fire'.

A shooter could use 'searching fire' despite having recoil compensation.

Damage is that of the weapons base damage.

3. Suppressing fire would work akin to searching fire but distributed over an area (rounds per square metre)

Damage is that of the weapons base damage.

Hope this makes sense. I'm trying to assemble the collected wisdom here into a workable system. Where's Nezumi to summarise this thread when you need him?

Posted by: nezumi Feb 26 2007, 02:15 PM

QUOTE (hyzmarca)

At that point we're back to the old suppressive fire rules and it doesn't account for stray semi-automatic fire.

What I am interested in is having a chance of people getting hit when nearby someone who is getting sprayed with ammo. The Suppressive Fire rules work for that, because they are designed to spray everyone in that area with ammo, however conventional FA rules do not. There is no such thing as a hostage situation in SR because, regardless as to how many nuns the bad guy has around him, a 10 round burst will either hit the guy or disappear into space (not that this stops me from killing the hostages first anyway, mind you. For realism and all.)