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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Bettering Weapons

Posted by: Dende Dec 4 2003, 06:11 AM

Okay...

I can Dikote blades, no prob. I can add mono filimants to stuff(though I don't know those rules...) The cannon companion only seems to mention that some items can't be dikoted...like what? Do they mean staffs or are they talking about foci or what? Cause really I would think any of them could be dikoted...does it have the same affect?

I just kinda wanna know exactly what I can do to each type of weapon, and what material the weapons need to be in order to do each technique.

Thanks.

Posted by: Diesel Dec 4 2003, 06:14 AM

Nothing that can't stand the searing temperature of thousand degree diamond plasma. In my game, anything else goes. Someone dikoted their cyberdeck case, though I'm still into the dark as to why. This same character made an orichalum deck (I think he was tainted by one of the board's crazies). I don't care about foci, just make sure they're not wooden staffs or something. Hehe, burnination.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 4 2003, 06:17 AM

No clue about the orichalcum, but dikoting a deck case makes a lot of sense, given the typical value of what's inside the case.

~J

Posted by: Game2BHappy Dec 4 2003, 03:27 PM

<munchkin>
Dikote your AV 14S Sniper ammo for +1 power! Your 18 armor panzer goes from resisting 5S to 6S
</munchkin>

Posted by: Dende Dec 4 2003, 04:22 PM

I asked a Physics prof and Chem Prof at my University here, neither had an exact temp at which Diamond melted and went off to look it up. While I wait...Bronze has a higher melting point than paper's and very closely clothe's burning point(452) I believe Bronze melts at 470+ Logically I shouldn't be able to bronze shoes...

How many of your parents(or you that are parents) have had your baby shoes bronzed? I'll bet more than you guys think. My parents still have mine. I know rubber melts at a lower temp than bronze, and yet you can bronze shoes...

See where I am going with that? What can I use as valid items to Dikote in your games? Sure it is easy to say "iron" "steel" etc...what about orihalcum...wooden weapons(pratice blades)...and if I did Dikote a club, would it now do physical from the diamond shell?

Just floating a few Qs here.

Posted by: Cray74 Dec 4 2003, 04:30 PM

QUOTE (Dende)

What Diesel said.

The dikoting process heats up fart gas (methane) and some excess hydrogen to about 1200C (2200F) with microwaves. The environment is designed to cause methane to decompose into carbon and hydrogen. The released hydrogen bonds with the excess hydrogen, leaving carbon to fly around in the gas until it slams into something solid, like the chamber walls or the target. In those conditions, the carbon will form diamond rather than soot.

Depending on the exact technique, the decomposition may be concentrated near the target, minimizing diamond build-up on the target. These are actually pictures of "plasma nitriding", but they're examples of how the dikoting plasmas can be concentrated (and they're cool pics):

http://www.jjcastings.com/images/plasma1.jpg
http://www.jjcastings.com/images/plasma3.jpg
http://www.nitriding.co.uk/resources/pics/plasmanitriding.jpg

Those conditions are also ideal for decomposing other things, like most organic materials (polymers, plastics, leather). Stick an armor jacket in a dikoting chamber and you'll have a big, thick layer of soot all over the interior when you're done, but no jacket. And probably one pissed dikoting operator, too. Low melting point metals like magnesium, tin, lead and aluminum will melt. The (obsolete in RL) process described for dikoting in SR takes quite a few hours, too, because the deposition rate is low so you can bet the target will reach ambient temperatures.

So, basically, ask yourself: would the object survive being heated to yellow heat for several hours on end? If the answer is "No," don't stick it in the dikoting chamber.

A short list of survivable materials:
Titanium
Steel
Ballistic Ceramics (like used in milgrade armor)

Except for the plates in "vest with plates," the only armors I allow to be dikoted in my game are military grade armors.

(Yes, putting metal in this microwave chamber is safe - the chamber is probably metal. I know the dikoting system at Georgia Tech used stainless steel construction and dikoted titanium targets).

QUOTE (Dende)

I asked a Physics prof and Chem Prof at my University here, neither had an exact temp at which Diamond melted and went off to look it up.

The diamond is NOT melted. It starts out as methane, is turned into free flying carbon, and then only forms diamond when it smacks into a target. There's never a point where the diamond is melted in the dikoting process. It's more like frost condensing out of atmospheric humidity on a cold morning.

Posted by: Kurukami Dec 4 2003, 04:46 PM

Interesting. So you wouldn't allow the plates of, say, an armored long coat or an armor jacket (both of which possess ratings comparable to the plated vest) to be Dikote'd? The novels of the system strongly suggest that both have trauma plates sewn into them.

Posted by: Saintgrimm Dec 4 2003, 05:11 PM

QUOTE

How many of your parents(or you that are parents) have had your baby shoes bronzed? I'll bet more than you guys think. My parents still have mine. I know rubber melts at a lower temp than bronze, and yet you can bronze shoes...

Plating is not the process of dipping something in a melted volume of metal. Well, not often. These days, more often than not, Electroplating is used. I am sure by the time your characters want these things done, more advanced methods of plating have come along.

However, Electroplating uses a weak acid that melts the metals, or other components, and what it is to bond to. Then an electrical current is used to add electrons and force them to bond.

For shoes, basically you metallize them by spraying them with a two-component silvering solution. One part is a soluble silver salt, and the other part is a reducing agent; when they meet on the surface of the shoes, metallic silver is deposited. Then you carefully electroplate the silver with Bronze.

Hope this helps.
S.Grimm
Son of two Master Jewelers.

Posted by: Dende Dec 4 2003, 05:23 PM

Kurukami,

I am sure he meant he would allow you to Dikote all plates made of metal, for vests, armor jackets, etc. My GM will allow us to take plates from enemies vests and replace our beat up ones from our long coat....ie all plates(for vests, jackets, etc) are interchangable...I am not sure how canon it is, but it makes sense to me.

Dikoting armor does what exactly? to a weapon it is +1 +1 right? so 6M becomes 7S...with armor is it +1/+1 Ball/Impact of 5/3 becomes 6/4?

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 4 2003, 05:37 PM

QUOTE (Dende)

My GM will allow us to take plates from enemies vests and replace our beat up ones from our long coat....ie all plates(for vests, jackets, etc) are interchangable...I am not sure how canon it is, but it makes sense to me.

Weeeellll... There's only two canon suits of armor that use rigid armor plates as part of the armor (and not as the WHOLE of the armor, like Secure and MilGrade etc): Armored Vest with Plates and the Lined Coat. The rest use flexible armor fibers, like Kevlar, or are completely made out of rigid metal plates.

Those two (LC & AV+P) certainly don't have the same kind of plates, since the plates in an Armored Vest look something like http://www.bulletproofme.com/Photos%20-%202002/Rifle%20Plate%20-%20Ceramic%20-%20Front.jpg, while the ones in a Lined Coat are supposed to only protect vital areas. Additionally, the Lined Coat has a worse armor rating (4/2 vs 4/3) than the AV+P, so it cannot possibly be as thick, because it certainly covers more area than the AV+P.

Posted by: Cray74 Dec 4 2003, 05:53 PM

QUOTE (Kurukami)

Oh, well, I let the vest benefit from dikoting since it's so out in your face about having plates, while the long coat just mumbles about them in its text and provides less armor despite more coverage.

Very logical, neh?

Posted by: Diesel Dec 5 2003, 01:00 AM

So if it were a lined coat WITH PLATES! it'd be cool?

Haha, now there's a clothing line...

"Where'd you get that shirt?"

"At WITH PLATES! dude, it can be dikoted!"

"Sweet."

"Yeah."

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 5 2003, 01:03 AM

Duuuuuuude... I gotta get me one of them.

Short answer, the only thing you can really do to better a weapon is dikote it or make it into a weapon focus. Adding monofilament is a factory-only option, there are no canon rules for it. If you want to try, that's between you and your GM.

~J

Posted by: gknoy Dec 5 2003, 02:01 AM

QUOTE (Kagetenshi)

If you want to try, that's between you and your GM.

And your local finger-reattachment specialist. =D

Posted by: Moonstone Spider Dec 5 2003, 05:27 AM

One thing I've always wondered, where are the canon silver bullets? There's loads of nasty critters running around that are weak against silver, and that people hate, why no silver bullets? Also would radical silver get a bonus?

Also in-game I recall houseruling a new ammo desinged with a variant of the hermetic circle micro-etched onto each bullet. Essentally that created magic missiles, each one contained a force 1 astral barrier that would rip into the aura of the target, normal damage vs. mundanes (Since to them it was a normal bullet) and spirits (They ignored the physical component), double damage vs. dual natured types, one astral and one physical attack.

I was having trouble with overpowered shapeshifter characters and that really scared them.

Posted by: Artemis Dec 5 2003, 07:52 AM

One thing I do know after countless hours of arguing amongst GMs and players.

Monofilament wire cannot be dikoted. You could dikote the sides of a monofilament sword and get extra damage to your stunning club attacks whenever you bludgeon somebody with the side of it, and then slice them up with the edged bit afterward.

If someone can describe a good way to make it work, I'm sure that will rouse some new debate again.

The other debate was over monofilament whips being allowed as weapon foci. I believe we resolved that it was impossible to lace a single string of monofilament with orichalcum, since it makes the chain of atoms wider than the concept mono-filament width. Same problem as with the dikoting principle.

Dikoting swords and other weapon foci is a lot of fun, the only drawback being that the extra damage doesn't translate into astral space when one goes fully astral. But any help in the physical universe is welcomed help in the life of a shadowrunner.

Posted by: Fortune Dec 5 2003, 08:01 AM

QUOTE (Artemis)

The other debate was over monofilament whips being allowed as weapon foci. I believe we resolved that it was impossible to lace a single string of monofilament with orichalcum, since it makes the chain of atoms wider than the concept mono-filament width. Same problem as with the dikoting principle.

Orichalcum does not need to permeate the entire weapon for it to be made into a Focus. It just needs to be present. It could be incorporated into the weight at the end of the whip, or the handle/ring/whatever that you use to wield it.

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 08:05 AM

QUOTE (Moonstone Spider)

Ammo is designed in the same chapter that describes customizing firearms, so I just use the Custom Finish (Silver) customization with Regular Ammo. 1,020 nuyen for 10 silver bullets.

Posted by: Moonstone Spider Dec 5 2003, 09:07 AM

Holy Freaking cow, you realize that given an exchange rate of 2 nuyen to 1 dollar US (Personally I think it's more along the lines of 1:1 given that a huge Hamburger is 3 nuyen) you could buy 100 ounces of silver for that? I don't even want to think about what caliber of bullets those are, presumably you're silvering anti-tank missiles or something.

Also SR3 page 275 indicates that a monofilament whip is not actually a monomolecule, so possibly it could actually take dikote since it's not a molecule thick in the first place. No friction might be worth the increase in thickness.

Posted by: mfb Dec 5 2003, 11:21 AM

i assume the rest of the cost goes into finding someone with experience in doing that sort of thing, as well as the materials involved. it's not like you can just dunk your bullets in molten silver and have done with it. for one thing, the bullet has to be the same diameter--that is, the same caliber--as the weapon you have to use it in; plating it with silver will make it a thicker, heavier bullet. that means you need to come up with bullets that are a few micrometers thinner than normal--which means you'll need to have them cast custom for the purpose. once they're plated, you've got to judge their new weight and balance--silver is lighter than lead, which means you'll maybe want to use a few less grains of gunpowder when you're hand-loading it.

on the other hand, silver bullets should probably be a lot more common in SR, both because they're actually effective against certain creatures, and because lots of people probably think they're effective against an even wider variety of creatures.

Posted by: JAG Dec 5 2003, 12:17 PM

QUOTE (mfb)

On the other hand, silver bullets should probably be a lot more common in SR, both because they're actually effective against certain creatures.

Its amazing how effective those silver bullets are against Orks

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 12:44 PM

Isn't silver a rather heavy metal (10.5g/cm^3 vs ~7.5-8g/cm^3 for steel and 11.3g/cm^3 for lead)? And isn't it rather soft, at least compared to steel?

So why the hell couldn't you just make bullets out of silver just like you make bullets out of lead or other such materials? They shouldn't cost much more than normal bullets, and I'm sure they would be a LOT cheaper to manufacture APDS rounds (tungsten isn't exactly cheap either, and is way more difficult to make bullets out of).

"Plating" bullets with silver sounds rather dumb, when making the whole bullet out of silver would be far more effective in every respect, and cheaper to boot.

PS. Yes, I know lead bullets aren't (usually) made completely out of lead, but you could make the silver bullet with an exposed tip of silver and a full silver core with a jacket. Or, a worst case scenario, you could use a subcaliber solution and fit a full silver bullet inside a discarding plastic sabot. In all these cases, you'd end up with something a lot more believable and a lot cheaper than silver plated bullets.

Posted by: Cray74 Dec 5 2003, 12:48 PM

QUOTE

You should be able to make silver bullets. It is right there with lead and copper in mechanical performance, and you can tweak it with a bit of alloying (I mean, fractions of a percent additions, not major dilution) to get the performance you want.

Separate topic: IMO, if a weapon focus was dikoted prior to being enchanted, the dikoting bonus does translate to astral space. It's part and parcel of the object's pattern. I mean, if you can't translate dikote over when dikote was part of the original object, you probably can't translate over sharp edges or other integral, basic features of the weapon, and all weapon foci would just have a single damage code.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 12:49 PM

QUOTE (Cray74)

Exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks.

Posted by: leemur Dec 5 2003, 01:00 PM

QUOTE

Well...if you were feeling rich, you could melt down some diamonds to obtain the carbon you need, but for most shadowrunners, your probably better off with graphite

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 03:19 PM

Mass produced silver bullets tend to be rare. Hence, if you want a specialty item, especially one that's likely only made by a select few, you tend pay out the ass for it.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 03:35 PM

Banshee (Vulnerability), Bean Sidhe (Severe allergy), Animal-form shapeshifters (Moderate allergy, Vulnerability). I think that's enough reason for there to be a significant number of silver bullets on the market, when they are so easily produced. They wouldn't be common, certainly, but I'm sure well-stocked large gun dealers would have some.

Sure they'll be expensive, I don't doubt that at all, but a price over 1,000 nuyen for 10 is insanely high. That's something like 4 times as high as the price of http://matrix.dumpshock.com/raygun/ammo/special/explosive.html http://www.barrettrifles.com/test_explosive.html, which are the most expensive small arms rounds that I'm aware of. And those are military technology, extremely specialized and far more difficult to manufacture.

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 03:57 PM

Well do whatever you like. That's just the price I use, which help keeps people from loading their weapons with nothing but silver ammo. Personally, 1,020 nuyen for 10 (10!) rounds of highly specialized ammo that's only useful against a precious few threats isn't that expensive for anyone who's actually going to need them. 1,020 nuyen for a 1,000,000 bounty (or however much the bounty is for shapeshifters these days) is hardly a drain on resources.

However, if it were as common as you want to believe, then it'd doubtlessly be covered in the rules somewhere. Despite being the vulnerability of three extremely rare critters, especially as far as the general public is concerned, I still think your assumption that they'd be anywhere near "common" enough to be in a "well-stocked" gun shop.

But to each their own. And if you think 1,000 nuyen is too expensive for enough silver to make 10 bullets, whatever you do don't look at the cost for a single unit of raw, untreated silver in Magic in the Shadows. Especially compared to the cost for gold.

Posted by: Traks Dec 5 2003, 04:14 PM

Make yourself a cyberzombie and dikot yourself.
What a style. Cyberbabes will love your shiny look

Posted by: Saintgrimm Dec 5 2003, 04:16 PM

Yeah, but one unit is what, 10 Kilos for Metal?

That comes to roughly 2000 per Kilo of Gold(Refined). That comes out to about 35 regular oz. of Gold. Which results in around 32 Troy oz of Gold. Gold runs at about 400 Dollars a Troy oz right this moment....

Damn, I need to invent Time Travel.

Hehe

EDIT: BTW, Hard core gun lovers often learn about reloading and bullet making. I personally have made bullets and dones some reloading. Get some refined Silver, and you can make the bullets yourself, if you have the skills.

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 04:33 PM

Can you give me a page reference on where one unit of raw materials equals 10 kilos?
EDIT: Nevermind, I found it (MitS p. 40). Groovy, I always wondered just what a unit constituted.

In any case, if you really feel the 1,020 nuyen is too expensive, just apply the Custom Finish to an entire "group" of ammunition. For regular ammo, that would drop it to 120 nuyen.

Posted by: Saintgrimm Dec 5 2003, 04:37 PM

Very cool. Either way, it can be done. As for paying out the ass, doesn't bother me too much. Costs about the same as a Force 1 Elemental... and you may or may not get 10 services from one of them. lol. Yes, I know it's not a real good comparison... I was just saying.

Posted by: Game2BHappy Dec 5 2003, 05:00 PM

QUOTE (Saintgrimm)

Yeah, but one unit is what, 10 Kilos for Metal?

That comes to roughly 2000

per Kilo of Gold(Refined). That comes out to about 35 regular oz. of Gold. Which results in around 32 Troy oz of Gold. Gold runs at about 400 Dollars a Troy oz right this moment....

Damn, I need to invent Time Travel.

We've always ruled that the "Raw materials" indicates barely past ore stage and "Refined Materials" represents the minimum needed to work with. At refined each unit is still 5kg and one troy ounce of gold is 125

. A little more reasonable - the rest we'll account to supply/demand/inflation/conversion.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 05:01 PM

Well, the price bit got sorted out already, so I don't need to comment on that...

However, there are tons of stuff that should be all means be common enough to be found in well-stocked (gun) stores in the 2060s that get no mention whatsoever in the rulebooks. So that doesn't really work as a counter-argument.

If you drop the price to 120 nuyen per 10, then that sounds quite OK. I guess I'm only against that in principle, because it sounds really whacky to get a custom silver finish on bullets when it'd be more effective just to make the things out of silver in the first place... Oh, nevermind.

Posted by: moosegod Dec 5 2003, 05:03 PM

As a GM, I'd rule that the whole bullet had to be made of silver, because of the laws of magic and nature.

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 05:06 PM

<just smacks his forehead repeatedly on the desk>

"Custom Finish" is a game mechanic term. Nothing more. It was just being used as a price guide for silver bullets in this case. I just can't comprehend why so many people around here lock themselves into such narrow-minded corners by taking the name used to describe a game mechanics so seriously.

Posted by: moosegod Dec 5 2003, 05:07 PM

Well, finish implies a coat, right?

All I'm saying is you need a solid lump of silver.

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 05:08 PM

<pauses and blinks a few times, then returns to smacking his forehead>

Posted by: moosegod Dec 5 2003, 05:12 PM

Keep that up, and you'll finish off what brain you've got left.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 05:35 PM

And I guess it doesn't strike you the least bit narrow-minded to try to look for some rule that only barely has something to do with what the player is going for (Custom Finish to make all-silver bullets), then screw around with that rule a bit (make it apply to 10 bullets instead of 1) to get the required effect?

I rather be the kind of narrow-minded person who just makes up numbers (and rulings) that make sense to me than the kind of narrow-minded person who tries to look for existing rules and change them around to make them apply to things that they didn't apply to in the first place.

I was trying to check how the Custom Finish thingie is supposed to work, but I couldn't find it in CC on a brief glance. Where is it located?

Posted by: moosegod Dec 5 2003, 05:37 PM

It's in the section on modifications (after gun design).

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 05:48 PM

Oh, right, so it doesn't originally have anything to do with bullets, either. I was just looking for it under the Ammunition bits.

Posted by: Game2BHappy Dec 5 2003, 06:10 PM

Far be it for me to judge the open-mindedness of our rather opinionated Doc , but in this case I believe the good Doctor Funk was merely making a suggestion when he stated that he uses the Custom Finish option from gun customization to help him determine the price of silver bullets.

I too prefer to look at similar rules to get a ballpark figure before converting it to something that works for our game. I think using the Custom Finish Option and the prices of silver from MITS are excellent ways for us to come up with some number that works for our game.

I do not believe that he was implying that the bullets would only be "finished" with silver, but rather that for his game this was a convenient existing rule to crossover in application to making silver bullets for his players.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 06:14 PM

QUOTE (Game2BHappy)

I do not believe that he was implying that the bullets would only be "finished" with silver, but rather that for his game this was a convenient existing rule to crossover in application to making silver bullets for his players.

That's what I think, too, I simply think that you get better results by using common sense than by changing existing rules. I know I should've put a smily on the end of the "Oh, nevermind." bit, because I really don't care if people use modified Custom Finish rules to make silver bullets. I just wanted to make it clear why that is not an optimal solution, and that are other ways of doing it. And got carried away, like I always do.

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 06:15 PM

From my original post on the subject:

QUOTE

Ammo is designed in the same chapter that describes customizing firearms, so I just use the Custom Finish (Silver) customization with Regular Ammo. 1,020 nuyen for 10 silver bullets.

And if you read the actual rules for Custom Finish, you'll find the following text:

QUOTE

A shop is required if the entire frame or any parts are to be nonfactory steel (gold, silver, nickel, or chrome).

The last time I checked, ammo constitutes a part of a firearm, albeit an external part. You need to have an Ammunition Shop to do so -- a kit won't suffice -- and it takes a base time of 24 hours with a TN of 4 to do it on top of the normal time to create the base ammunition type. The exact same skill is also being used (B/R for the appropriate firearm). If you just add it to the price of the ammo, it comes to the equivalence of a +100 nuyen cost, hence 120 nuyen for 10 regular silver bullets (I apply the mod to each bullet individually, hence my original 1,020 nuyen, and I'm sure if I had stated 120 originally, many of the same people would have complained that it wasn't expensive enough).

But yes, that's just silly. It's called "Custom Finish" and does everything you need, so naturally it's better to just make up some rules on your own even though a perfectly sensible and approriate rule already fits the bill. I really need to learn to be more open-minded.

Posted by: moosegod Dec 5 2003, 06:26 PM

Keep it cool man, keep it cool.

To get back on subject, who about dikoting flechettes? It came up in FoF. How much would you charge for it?

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 06:42 PM

Never called myself open-minded. I called myself a different kind of narrow-minded. However, I can see you are already at the point where what I actually said doesn't really matter as much as winning.

Ammunition is not that obviously a part of the firearm. But I'm sure I don't have to tell you that, because neither can prove either way.

I truly am sorry I'm not a native speaker of English so I can't go down in a pissing match to see who can insult the other more. So I'll just say that, yes, Custom Finish does "fit the bill" because it gives you a price on putting silver on something. And yes, it can even give rather sensible numbers when you change it around a bit, just like I said already several messages ago.

QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

[...] nevermind.

Posted by: nezumi Dec 5 2003, 06:44 PM

dikoting flechette?? I'd rule 'no'. MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE you could have the flechette bits actually be diamond instead of lead, but that would probably be less, not more effective (less mass -> less inertia). But as Raygun has pointed out, the idea of flechette is pretty silly to begin with. I suspect that covering the thing in diamond wouldn't help (I'd also guess covering a normal bullet in diamond would only do bad things too).

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 06:50 PM

QUOTE (nezumi)

(I'd also guess covering a normal bullet in diamond would only do bad things too)

I can think of exactly one situation where Dikoting a bullet might help, albeit by a rather insignificant amount: APDS. If you only Dikoted the penetrator part (obviously not the plastic sabot), it might help the penetrator to stay intact when it hits something very hard. The penetrator wouldn't expand or fragment when hitting flesh anyway, so you wouldn't be screwing with its terminal ballistics, either. How much Dikoting a tungsten carbide penetrator would actually help, Cray might know.

In just about any other case, you wouldn't want to Dikote a bullet. Completely useless and counter-productive on an expanding or fragmenting bullet, cannot be used on the jacket anyway (because it'd ruin the barrel).

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 06:51 PM

QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

It didn't seem to stop you from ignoring what I was actually writing to, as pointed out in the original post. So welcome to the club.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 07:02 PM

QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)

It didn't seem to stop you from ignoring what I was actually writing to, as pointed out in the original post.

? This is probably just me being my ordinary moronic self, but I don't get this bit.

As for the second bit, I enjoy losing much more. And I know better than to continue an argument with you, I know you never give up.

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 07:05 PM

QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)

QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)

It didn't seem to stop you from ignoring what I was actually writing to, as pointed out in the original post.

? This is probably just me being my ordinary moronic self, but I don't get this bit.

From a post of yours earlier today:

QUOTE

And again from my original one:

QUOTE

Ammo is designed in the same chapter that describes customizing firearms, so I just use the Custom Finish (Silver) customization with Regular Ammo.

Posted by: moosegod Dec 5 2003, 07:06 PM

Give it up already. The man ceded the fight to you.

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 07:07 PM

He was asking for clarification so I gave it to him.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 07:14 PM

Yeah, I asked for a clarification and I'm glad I got it. No worries, moosegod.

But seriously, I hope you don't actually believe that I didn't read your first msg through because I was already then "only wanting to win". After all, I had no idea it was going to end up as an argument between us back then.

It does prove that I don't spend enough time trying to understand text, though.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 5 2003, 07:22 PM

Admittedly the canon Shadowrun monowhip isn't actually a monowhip, but if it were it probably wouldn't be too difficult to stick some orichalcum inside the carbon nanotube. It depends on the configuration (and thus width) of the orichalcum.
It's possible that silver bullets are common, but I personally am going to keep that to the paranoid in my games ("the little grey men are coming to get me" paranoid, not "the corps are out to get me" paranoid). I really just don't see any of the threats you mention being common enough for even large suppliers to usually have them immediately available, though certainly by special order...
Which in turn would probably send the price through the roof, as they can then charge people who probably won't ever need the things but are certain that it's a matter of life or death, and thus will pay about anything.

~J

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Dec 5 2003, 07:28 PM

Actually, corps wouldn't be able to charge very large sums for such bullets because, as has been mentioned, most people could easily make their own silver bullets very cheap. If the average gun-afficionado can make a significant number of them for a very small price, then no one would ever buy them from the corps anyway, and they'd simply be sold in specialized (and sometimes slightly less legal) stores for a low price.

Of course you might simulate that with an extremely high price but an extremely low Street Index, e.g. 250 nuyen for a box of 10, SI of 0.5. [Edit]Of course, all of this is moot if you use Custom Finish the way Doctor Funkenstein suggested.[/Edit]

Posted by: Moonstone Spider Dec 5 2003, 08:03 PM

Just for the record making silver bullets or even silver coated bullets is pretty easy.

To add a layer of silver say, .1 mm thick, all you do is take a certain solution and dunk the bullet in it. Silver tends to coat both copper and lead since they are less chemically active and voila, bullets with a thin silver coating. Such a thin coating won't screw up your ballistics or your chambering the round (Unless you're using something with really insane tolerances such as a custom sniper rifle.) The solution would eventually get weak but you can buy it pretty cheaply from Rio Grande, I'd call it a chemistry (3) test and use a chemistry kit, ammo kits have no reason to be involved.

Also Shadowrun companion page 37 specifies that weapons with only a silver coating get the full bonus vs. shapeshifters, so reasonably they would also work against all the other nasties with a weakness to silver.

Posted by: Cray74 Dec 5 2003, 09:06 PM

QUOTE (Kagetenshi)

A carbon nanotube is made of a tube of about 6 carbon atoms in a ring. Anything that fits inside a nanotube would have to be on the order of an atom in size.

Which means you'll end up with a string of individual gold, copper, mercury, and whatever elements go into orichalicum, not orichalicum (IMO) and you'll definitely need some very high-tech means of processing orichalicum into a string of individual atoms, which will probably mesh poorly with that whole magical aspect of orichalicum.

Yes, monofilaments are made of multiple molecules, but that doesn't really make getting orichalicum into the monofilament any easier.

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 09:08 PM

Like Fortune said, it doesn't matter. Orichalcum just has to be a part of the enchanting process; it doesn't have to be included in the "killing part" of a weapon focus. It can be in the handle or any other part.

Posted by: Shockwave_IIc Dec 5 2003, 09:14 PM

Can you not go for the stupidly high Tn's and go without orichalcum?

Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Dec 5 2003, 09:18 PM

Using nothing but the Enchanting rules in Magic in the Shadows, yes, it's possible. The only place it states that orichalcum has to be used in the construction of a weapon focus is the fluff description of them in the core rulebook... so a lot of GMs tend to take it to heart.

Personally I think there's more than enough incentive to include orichalcum in the construction of weapon foci that making it a requirement isn't vital, but I tend to be a lenient GM.

Posted by: Moonstone Spider Dec 5 2003, 09:26 PM

QUOTE (Cray74)

QUOTE (Kagetenshi)

Molecules don't really work this way. A molecule of water is about the same size as a molecule of oxygen without the hydrogen, and an ozone molecule (O3) is the same size as an O2 molecule. Since an atom is mostly empty space anyway they can get away with such weirdness on that scale.

Of course there are larger structures, polymers can produce huge molecules an inch long with trillions of atoms in them, but you still can't see the individual molecules even when they are that long.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 5 2003, 09:32 PM

Fair enough; I was thinking of the carcerands when I was saying that, but thinking about it, a chunk of molecules and atoms big enough to be orichalcum as opposed to random molecules of various metals would be too large.

As for charging large amounts for the bullets: there are a lot of people out there willing to spend money on useless stuff that they could make because they don't know how and they might not realize that they could make it themselves.

~J

Posted by: Lilt Dec 5 2003, 10:08 PM

The doc speaks true. You could have a monowhip weapon focus with an orichalcum handle. The whip itself does not need to be made of orichalcum.

Not that it'd pe particularily easy by the focus enchanting rules. The OR would be around 8, even 10 if the GM is having a bad day. It'd take a lot of radicals and orichalcum to get that TN reasonable (from a starting 16+force)... Or you could just buy one from a store.

Posted by: cykotek Dec 6 2003, 12:21 AM

http://www.livejournal.com/community/shadowrun/63827.html

The discussions across that link have a lot of discussion about dikoting ammunition buried in there.

For the dikoting flechettes, I say only if you subscribe to the "single aerodynamic dart" definition of flechette. Dikoting any sort of armor penetrating round should work out well, while using it on any round requiring expansion would probably be a poor idea. Using dikote on any round where the dikote is in direct contact with the barrel, the user should be prepared to replace the barrel due to land/groove erosion really fast.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Dec 6 2003, 12:33 AM

I still say that any blade intended for a weapon wouldn't have a fine enough edge to cut glass.

~J

Posted by: Cray74 Dec 6 2003, 01:19 AM

QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)

Fair 'nuff.