LOL I was well aware of the real/full name of hte Mataba but I was trying to keep it short. A wonderful gun to shoot but impossible to conceal carry- at least for me, and a stone bitch to keep running. All the exposed moving parts meant lots of room for things to get clogged so it took a lot of maintenance.

I've never had a problem with the life of Italian guns I own. Barrel or frames but if those 2nd and 3rd hand reports had been the mucked about Bobcat I'm not surprised.

For the mag quality I think it really goes to the manufacturer and that can be an element you do or don't want in your games. Personally I've had real problems with remington rounds in revolvers that I won't buy them. The thin brass deforming with discharge making it harder to eject them, thought that might make a great glitch.

Alot of gun comfort is weirdly personal. A lot of people use to liken me RL to the Aniota Blake of the first few books and I tired a Browning High power and just didn't bond with the gun. it was just there to shoot but big deal. DLN's husband has a Webley and I've fired it but it seems 'frail' in my hand compared to a normal S&W revolver. Now these are all very good guns with very loyal owners but I just never liked them enough to keep/buy them. I really liked the feel of the Walther PPK and PPK-S but with only 7 rounds in the mag? Not going there- not spending $400-500 for a gun only marginally smally than my .380 Barretta that would go in the same holster for concealed carry.

The orinigal STEN was famed for it's unreliability, like the MP40 and american M-3 it was made of stamped metal for cheap production but it could be very good or very bad depending on the individual unit, making it more like the French Chauchat in that regard. I've heard stories that beyond the troubled feed, it could jamb 'on' full auto if dropped.

That was because of the hair trigger, and was seen as a feature rather than a fault.

More than one story I've heard of a Sten being thrown through a French Farmhouse that was being used as a barracks/MG nest like a grenade that spins around, spitting bullets at foot level.

Ha! Even if it was used that way, it's hardly a feature.

Cheaper than a grenade, and affected more rooms. But, yeah, it was mostly a, "F***, I don't have a grenade. Oh well, Sten will work."-thing.

Another story came from a friend's Grandfather (By way of said friend, due to his Grandfather no longer being with us. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) ). He was traveling along in a truck with his unit, when it hit a bump and a gun's Sten went off, unloading into a ditch. After stopping and ensuring that everyone was OK, said Grandfather beat five kinds of hell out of the guy. "Our guys could have been SLEEPING in that ditch, you F***ing idiot!"

And that, folks, is why you don't combat load ALL the time and use thing little thing called a SAFETY. (OK, for the Sten it was a hole cut in the side for the bolt, but still...).

What doesn't make sense is how it requires that a gun be modified.

Magazines are made to fit guns, not the other way around.

I've looked at it as strengthening the magazine well so that the firearm is able to use the extended magazines additional weight with no issue.

I remember hearing that this was an issue with the Beta C-Mags with the AR-15 Family.

It's a game balance thing. "You can either have a bayonet or an extended clip, but not both."

The way this should work - if it isn't already - is that you can have an extended clip with no weapon modification, but that it'll change your Concealability. If you want to increase ammo capacity without changing Concealability, then that should obviously require a modification to the weapon.

Makes sense. That *would* change a lot of builds, because most of the the people with their Extended/Dual/Drum builds already don't care about Concealability (even though they probably should?). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Presumably, these rules were for game balance, not game logic; in that respect, it's a good idea. But if it bothers all the gun nuts, that makes the game less fun for them, and that's self-evidently bad. Of all the places to inject balance-by-rule, physical stats of guns is a bad choice, because those facts are verifiable. It's like how Battlefield 3 actually applies a different gravity force on bullets from different guns. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

And those are the people usually hungry for mod slots. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Now, some of those things I can understand requiring modification - sure, a drum feed requires changes to the weapon - but I think you're right that the number of slots these things end up taking up often is influenced heavily by game balance, which isn't my personal preference, particularly, as you say, with guns, which tend [like cars] to bring out the, um, fastidiousness of those of us into them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)


(IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif) That's really strange. Do you know why they do that? That seems like a complicated bunch of physics to put in place just to break how reality actually works. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

AFAIK, it's just to make 'sniper' rifles more snipey. They get 'real gravity' (9.8 ), IIRC shotguns get 12, and I think everything else gets 15. I mean, they *also* have different effective ranges and bullet velocities, but apparently they chose to alter gravity in addition. Given the distances involved, it does change the total bullet drop by a few feet in some cases (but usually much less).

Magazines are thin plastic. Mag wells are ~0.2" of heat-treated aluminum. The mag well will not break first.

I've never seen any evidence that the people in charge of writing SR have ever actually fired a gun.

I don't see why that'd matter. The issue is just looking up the facts, and then not breaking them. I have nothing against balance-by-rule, but it's just a bad idea to do it somewhere the fanatics are going to take offense. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) SR is the kind of game that works best when everything is logically coherent (that is, 'don't lie about science').

It's a problem of trying to write detailed rules and mechanics about things that you don't understand and don't care about.

The Beta C-Mags are, well, I'm not sure what they're made of (Or were, they apparently fixed the problem), but they were a dual-drum system that held 100-rounds of 5.56mm NATO. That's a lot of weight, even for heat-treated aluminum. Especially for aluminum. I don't know, just something inside me tells me I should be trusting nice, heavy gunmetal more than lightweight aluminum.

Maybe it's all the aluminum... Everything that I've bent over the years. It's why I wasn't allowed in any shop class after awhile...

One thing i do not (logically) understand is why the heavy barrel mod uses 3 mod slots - all autofire-capable weapons i fired (Steyr AUG, MG74 = austrian version of MG42) can change the barrel in about 20 sec, and could accomodate a heavier barrel with absolutely no modification. Changing the AUG from Assault Rifle (20") to Carbine (16") to Subcarbine (14") to DMR (24"+Bipod) just needs a change of barrel, whereas the LMG (24"+Bipod) also uses an open bolt configuration.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I'm just saying, kzt, that "things that you don't understand and don't care about" is not the same as 'never fired a gun'. We want them to get the facts right, not some vague anecdotal evidence. Even in this thread, the aficionados disagree about the Desert Eagle, right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Rules written by fans are just as bad; imagine katana stats written by a fan, instead of someone trying for realism.

In any case, I very seriously doubt the extended magazine rules are the result of someone simply thinking that the magazine is a part of the gun. It's possible, but my money is on intentional balance. That's why I agreed with 3278's point: balance through realism, instead.

--
Sounds like more balance to me, NiL. RC is the single most important thing to balance, after all. I agree that Heavy Barrel is a poor job, of course. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

It's never come up yet, but if anyone in my groups while I'm running tries to belt-feed/drum feed and fire an assault rifle continually, they're going to have smoke and possibly fire quickly.

Then maybe some barrel droop, and... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

Haha, oh jeez. I don't think that level of realism is a great idea for SR, where a lot of abstractness lets it be fun and fast(er). I just think that, when factual details are present, they shouldn't make people cringe. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I can see why you can't have mods in the same place- ex a bayonet , under balley weight and a granade launcher. sure it can be workedo ut but it is for game balance etc- only one mod in that area- but when it's mods in different areas that become exclusive I don't get it.

A good area for problems is a drum mag. DLN's husband re-enacts the first world war and I've gotten to see, if not fire, some interesting full auto guns. One gentleman with an m08 (I think that's the designation, the WW1 German sub machingun) Said it can take around 30+ rounds in the mag but he never puts in more than 20 for fear of damaging the spring. Apparently the 50 round drum on tommy guns jambed badly and was a real pain to fix which is why they went to the 20-30 round stick mags. Loading those can be enough of a bother- I know that from my own hand guns and the SP-90.

I've seen the work taken to load the 30 round drums for a lewis gun, each round put in place, and then a screw like tool turned to make a space. Painfully slow and I hope belt feeds are easier it really gives you a sense of what it's like to load.

Things like what "high velocity" mean in SR suggest to me that they don't have the faintest idea about anything related to firearms. And don't care.

Again, fine, but that's not personal, anecdotal information. That's all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) My whole point is 'get the facts right'; you can do that with Wikipedia.

'High Velocity' is nothing but a naming issue: they chose a bad (misleading) name for an abstract 'increase RoF' mod, that's all. Short of implementing RoF rules for all guns, I don't see anything wrong with it in that sense. (Personally, I hate HV in SR, but whatever.)

What's so horrible about guns that have higher then norm rate of fire and are equipped with specially designed barrels that dont over-heat as easily?
Also remember that "high velocity" weapons are from 2nd edition, their not current writers invention.

There is nothing wrong with high-RoF guns, it is just the name that is horrible - because a high velocity gun fires high-velocity projectiles ... also, the "magazine" and "clip" designations are completely wrong ... a clip would be the "internal magazine"