Heh, yeah, well being a Computer hardware and software developer myself, I can tell you, our mindset usually falls along the lines of ... Never do what you can write a shell script to do... even if it takes you ten times as long to write the script. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I think there is a range between "all 6 bullets or no hit someone in the eye" and "vaguely point at the right direction" in an abstract system like Shadowrun. There's also suppressive fire for when you're not trying to aim at all and appropriately skill matters far less there. Skill matters even when firing wide (extra hits add to damage) so there has to be some aiming involved.

I'd just toss out Wide Bursts. They don't really make a whole lot of sense when you consider suppressive fire.

Stick-n-Shock is 6S(e), not 8S(e).

In my opinion, it's kind of questionable that you could get any kind of bonus from a concealable holster for an SMG-sized firearm. How would it be any different in effect from a sling? Setting that aside, I think you would need to apply a chameleon coating to the holster as well if you wanted to receive the full bonus from the gun. (Unless the concealable holster completely covers the gun, in which case I don't see how the coating would come into play at all.) Additionally, I wouldn't allow any bonus from the coating if a character is being patted down during a physical search. Hands don't have eyes.

Again... The assumption is that you hit with ONLY a single bullet with Wide Bursts. Since no additional damage is inflicted by increasing the number of bullet impacts. Instead, you are increasing the chances to hit because you are spraying an area and hoping something actually hits. Yes, net hits still apply. for the round that hits. Notice that the damage is no less if you Fire a Single Shot vs. a Wide Burst... Still base damage + net hits (as opposed to a Narrow Burst which DOES add additional damage because it assumed that more than a single bullet impacts).

Suppressive fire is a lot different, because not even Net Hits matters in the damage calculation. Net hits raise Threshold instead. And suppressive fire is not really designed to inflict damage. It is designed to inflict a situational penalty to keep your opponents head down so that you can maneuver to a more favorable position with out them shooting you.

Suppressive Fire is not the Same as a Wide burst.

I would not allow a Called Shot Wide Burst, It is not thematic to what you are doing. You want to call a shot with Burst Fire, use a Narrow Burst.

Psh. You're using a wide burst to be *sure* to hit that one weak spot with *one* bullet. It's quite obvious. A narrow burst called shot would get +4 *and* +burst DV. This is different. You're paying -4 DP, so you obviously are aiming. Fair's fair.

See, Functionally, I disagree... Having fired Many Tens of Thousands of rounds, from many different weapons, I just do not agree with that concept.

It is a Silly little pet peeve of mine. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

My semi-informed opinion is that if you're not trying to hit the target (which you're not, because you're spraying around him instead of directly at him), then you're not trying to hit the target. Area fire seems more like the mechanics for suppressive fire, to me.

SR3 avoided this issue by having burst fire and full-auto attacks step up the dodge target by 1 for every 3 bullets fired, as well as the damage resistance target and damage code. Side note: burst fire in SR3 was ridiculously awful to be caught in. I had a security guard practically saw the mage's right arm off with an HK227 once.

I see SR4's point in making it more damage or harder to dodge, but I think suppressive fire covers the second condition well enough that you don't need to also do wide bursts. Especially since you can catch multiple people and block access to whole areas with one suppressive fire action, and there's no -9 penalty to your roll.

If you wanna change the rules, change them. Don't 'interpret' them to be different based on personal logic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I'm not changing the rules on Wide Bursts, I just don't see much of a point to them. If you've got enough dice to burn 9 of them on making it harder to dodge, you're probably just as well off (or better) just firing a single shot.

If I were going to change the rules, I would split the difference between -dodge and +DV somehow, but I haven't put a lot of thought into that.

There are also 3 and 6 bursts, and you shouldn't have RC 0. Duh. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Also, you probably have more Shoot dice than they have Dodge dice, so you're trading DV for greater *surety* of hitting. It's certainly a situational choice, but some of those situations are key. Shooting a vehicle or a spirit, for example, is the difference between a useless Narrow burst and a useful Wide Burst. *shrug* If I'm using SnS, it's more important to land *a* hit than a huge Narrow hit, because I want to apply the shock -2, and force a Disorientation test. See? Options are good. Called Shot is another, wholly independent option.

I actually wrote up an alternate system that collapses Wide and Narrow bursts together. It's simpler, and has worked acceptably in very limited playtesting. It's similar to the SR3 way, I guess, though it's been so long since I played SR3. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You can search for it if you want, I posted it around here.

I found this:



Just to make sure I get it, an example:

Joebob fires his White Knight LMG. He has an Agility + Heavy Weapons pool of 10, which includes his smartlink. He's using the stock, so he gets 6 points of RC. The gun has a DV of 6P.

If he fires a full auto burst of 10 bullets, he gets a dice pool of 10 +9 - ( (9-6)x2 ) = 13, and does 9P damage.

This would be instead of a dice pool of 10 - ( (9-6)x2 ) = 4, and doing 15P for a narrow burst, or inflicting -9 on the dodge attempt for a wide burst.

That about right?

Let's not mess up this (admittedly duplicate) thread about Versatile Weapon Skills, but…

I forget which version I eventually settled on. The weaker option, I think. Using a heavy weapon complicates things (x2 uncomp recoil), as you know.

Otherwise, looks about right. In simulations using the mooks from SR4A, it should produce successful attack rate and damage totals some where in *between* the existing Wide and Narrow options. You do gain a little from not 'wasting' the extra Wide penalty, and it *is* harder to clean dodge… it's all in the thread. I can dig up the spreadsheet, if you like.
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I still say Automatics are best, simply because they're the most effective in the most *common* situations.

The spreadsheet's not necessary, I can see how it would work out in various situations, and it seems pretty reasonable. I'd probably prefer it to RAW, as well.

And I concur that Automatics are the most versatile.

You obviously haven't done much hunting, then. Calling a shot with burst fire or a shotgun with birdshot is a common practice.

Anyway, I'm going to go Pistols on this one. They're cheap, easily obtainable, legal in most areas, and can do a lot of what you want them for. As a backup combatant, you don't need the power punch of a heavy weapon or longarm; if you do need a bigger kick, go for called shots and specialized ammo. If you really want to cause a mess, load any hold-out with SnS and go to town.

Honestly, I never even thought of doing that! If I ever get to play my weapons expert again, I'll have to do that more often when I'm carrying burst fire shotguns.

On a rigger any way (assuming your a drone rigger with a half decent setup on combat rigging) I would go gunnery. Gunnery is all weapons attached to a drone, regardless of what skill normally would normally apply to the gun, allowing an unmatched versatility. There are many cheap drones out there allowing a decent range of selection of drone bodies, and allow you to purchase multiple drones, each with a different weapons payload. If you rigger is a wheelman and not setup for drone rigging, defenitly go automatics (depending of course on the house rules in play.) You may want to talk to your gamemaster about what specific house rules/rules interpretation are in use. For example at our table automatics only comes into play when a gun is being fired in an automatic fire mode (burst fire, full burst.)

Well, lets see, I have hunted for well over 30 years... And I am sorry, I do not send Automatic weapons fire into my flight of geese or ducks. One Shot. Maybe Two.

Calling a Shot with Burst Fire is NOT common in any place that I have ever hunted (How many Automatic Weapons do YOU hunt with routinely? I know a BATF person who would like to speak with you). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Sorry, but I do not generally hunt with automatic weapons. Shotguns are their own issue, since there is more than a single chunk of lead coming down range with a single shot. I do agree that it is harder to avoid, especially with shotguns with Cylinder Chokes. Which is why they use the Wide Burst Mechanic. Not because they are firing more than a single round, but Because it makes it harder to avoid the shot. However, it still remains that a shotgun is NOT using a Burst Fire to set this up, unless it is (an Automatic Shotgun, which you only find in the military, and is not a hunting weapon, unless you are hunting people).

Same goes for Land based animal hunting, including People. Spraying Automatic weapons fire is for keeping someones head down. Targeted narrow groups are the purview of what SR4 calls Narrow Burst. 3 rounds, AIMED, on target. A wide burst is to put rounds in the General Direction in the Hopes that you can actually hit someone that is trying not to be. It is a completely different mecahnic from the target narrow burst of the Spec Ops team trying to eliminate their target. Suppressive fire is neither of the two.

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As for weapon Choice. I prefer Pistols, but Automatics is often hard to pass up for its versatility.

I'm factoring in narrow burst bonus damage into those calculations so 6S(e) + 2 is 8S(e). Honestly if SnS didn't get bonus damage from narrow bursts, it'll help a great deal to keeping them in line. Sadly that's a houserule.

As for concealable holster for SMGs, it's fair to allow it. There are plenty of small SMGs out there in real life and while they all have +4 concealment mod, that's still concealable. As for no penalty from chameleon coating for pat downs, while not RAW, I agree with you. However, that's still not that much a difference. Since concealment modifiers are halved, a SMG is only +2 dice over a heavy pistol and 3 over a light pistol. A machine pistol with the oddly restricted shortened barrel mod is as concealable as a heavy pistol. A similarly modded SMG is +1 over a heavy pistol and +2 over a light pistol. Also a lot of concealment boils down to the opposed palming check so if you want to hide anything, you better invest in that.

There's a difference, but it's so minor for the larger degree of options and power you get out of it. Automatics isn't a case of being the best of every niche. It's got a solid answer to every common situation a shadowrunner will find himself in while being among the best at the majority of shadowrun combats (SnS spam against living beings).

I'm assuming you already have Gunnery and are just looking into an option for when you have to show up in the meat. If not, follow the advice of the others and grab that first. Something you use rarely isn't as important as something you'll use most of the time. Also, if you have a respectable Agility score, you might be able to skip buying a skill and just default. Between smartlinks and tacnets (up to 6 dice), you might have decent enough roll to just live with it and use the karma elsewhere. I would aim for a reliable dice pool of 12 before doing this though. That way, you have a 70% chance of hitting a Renraku Red Samurai (Reaction 7). If you wide burst, you can go lower (much lower if you wide long burst).

I could point you at any number of NRA events, but why bother? I'll just call Bulldrek on this one and let it be.

Anyway, pistols. Yes, I agree with you on pistols. I don't find automatics to be especially versatile, although they do occupy the niche between pistols and automatic heavy weapons.

Hunting is not target shooting, and neither is combat.

What you might do at one, you often would never do at another.

Before I moved to NY from Texas and had to give up my guns, I also hunted regularly. Never have I seen hunters using burst fire at animal targets, even the ones I knew had FFL title 2 licenses. I will qualify this that when I say hunting, I mean going into the woods with at most a handful of other people and spending hours either stalking or sitting in a blind waiting.

Saw it plenty at shooting events, but those were mostly directed at targets like paper bullseyes and junk cars. I tend to put those NRA events where a whole mob of shooters is gathered in a fixed firing area to shoot released birds or other game into this category, as it's not really hunting in my eyes. It's target shooting, just with moving targets.

I have never been in actual gun combat so I cannot speak to that situation.





-k

NRA Events ARE NOT HUNTING... I thought that you knew that Cain. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)



Indeed...

It's not called a 'niche' when it's huge. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Sure it is, it's just a big niche.

What's the most versatile weapon skill?

The one you have to use whatever is available after you've been severely beaten and left for dead while the ghouls come up to eat your bones...