This forum doesn't warn a body when someone posted while you were reading and typing a response :/

basically the concept seems more or less "No matter how good a shot you are, the gear you use still has its physical limits"

I wasn't being unfriendly, just ... agreeing. And we both know how unfamiliar THAT is. ;D

My problem with Accuracy is more on rather or not it'll slow down combat. It's adding yet another stat you have to track. If average Accuracy is high enough that it's ignorable, there's no benefit. If it's low enough to balance the game, it becomes one more thing you need to check each time.

Yeah...I know. Was just saying that I didn't see that post until after mine was up.

Do you find comparing Spell Force against net hits to slow combat down substantially? Because they're pretty much the same.

~Umi

Spells are slower to resolve, yes. And magic generally has a smaller dice pool than shooting, so it's less of a factor.

It's less likely that Accuracy as a limiting stat will actually balance anything, and much more likely that there will be a couple weapons that emerge as 'best.' It works for Magic since there's a Stunbolt spell and only one Stunbolt spell -- you don't get to shop around. But it won't take long for people to figure the likely number of hits they'll get and simply optimize accordingly.

Now a more robust system, where Accuracy is a factor (and gear can modify accuracy up or down, for example silencers and gas-vent systems should lower accuracy) and Recoil varies from weapon to weapon (Light Pistol = light Recoil, etc), and Accuracy and Recoil could be affected by ammo type (those SnS rounds probably aren't super aerodynamic), could probably work to actually balance things out. But it'd also probably be a drag on combat.

Yes and no.

In real life, especially-accurate guns tend to also have a lower rate of fire, and/or, smaller ammunition capacity. So that will be an internal balancing element on guns, as well: bigger capacity, faster-fire guns will be lower accuracy than a comparably-priced weapon from teh same general class.

Or ... let's put it this way: Heavy Pistols. Browning Ultra-power (300¥; 5P, AP -1; 10c) versus Colt M1991 (300¥; 5P, AP -1; 7c). Give the Cold a +1 accuracy over the Browning, and it's slightly better, but not inarguably so. Meanwhile, the Colt Manhunter (300¥' 5P, AP -1; 14c) probably warrants a -1 accuracy ... offset by the build-in laser sight, but then, a smartlink would only be worth a net +1.

See what I mean?

But then, with that example, if instead you've got 3 less dice to roll than is optimal (and thus cancel out the extra net-hit that the Accuracy affords you), then the Ultra-Power goes back to being the better pick.

And that's precisely what I like about the idea of Accuracy. Currently, weapons are very static. For two weapons with identical damage and armor penetration, you take the one with more ammunition, or the one with more beneficial mods built in standard. But with different accuracies, suddenly what is the optimal weapon for one character becomes suboptimal for another, because of their differences in skill. Instead of everyone who uses a Heavy Pistol having very little reason to run around with anything other than an Ares Predator, now you've got everyone with pistols skill X using the Predator while everyone with pistols skill Y is using the Ruger Super Warhawk and everyone with pistols skill Z is using the Colt Government 2066, et cetera.

Does it entirely do away with optimal weapons? No, it doesn't. But it definitely diversifies them. There is now no one single optimal choice for everyone, but rather different optimal choices for different people. In my book, that's a big step up.

~Umi

Indeed.

If done right, this new mechanic has a lot of possibilities to it. I can't wait to learn more about it.

I think in the long run it could bring some weapons some more "flavor" how about taking a heavier weapon that has a "flaw" in it lowering accuracy if you have a smaller overall pool. Also the excess gear will not add extra pool anymore it seems, as has been mentioned, things like Smartlink & Laser Sights will likely modify the Accuracy of a weapon & will keep pools at Att+Skill,

Some gear will probably still add dice - a TacNet, for example, which has the benefit of helping out everyone on the team, not just one guy.

I have to,admit, from what I have seen, Accuracy seems like an amalgam of two other pre-existing rules. Signature first of all. Second is Armor Penetration. Signature changes the die pool of the skill test. Armor Penetration changes the armor modifier of the intended target. That's how I see this Accuracy thing going. At that point adept centering or aiming do the same things and require no new rules. And thus Accuracy becomes a quality of a weapon. EOD.

And as one of those 20+ year 'runners whose games regularly crack the karmic stratosphere, skill caps are nice to a point, but do not resolve the long term issues of game balance. Same with any kind of "caps". Attribute caps become one of the things players work the hardest at breaking/maxing out because the damage resistance tests are heavily based here. Who cares if you can hit the other guy with your gun/spell/fist ... If you can't take what you are going to dish out, then stay in your own sandboxes.

The mechanics would be far easier to flex out and adapt to if they were simply allowed to do so. When SR4 was released, it was obvious that the game designers-in-power didn't desire anything above "street level". That was the problem. Gamers want escapist release. And when the game mechanics were created with inherent inflexibility, the first real problems and imbalances were easy to make out.

There have been and remain to this day two principle areas where the rules break. Barriers and Vehicle Integration. Within the realm of barriers can be found the hardened, vehicular, structural armor issues. And vehicle integration ... Well as long the adrenaline pumping action of vehicle chases and combat exist, then there's the focus to look upon.

In your games perhaps yes. But not in our ours. Action resolution usually falls to how well players and referees comprehend what adds and what doesn't. And by limiting the spell effect by the spell force in hits, we get some incredible limitations at the higher ends. And with spell force influencing area effect as well, effect resolution is actually easier than say grenades and or explosives which have a more flexible potential.

As long as Accuracy doesn't have the problems that other ideas for hit caps have. If a pistol is Accuracy 6, that's hardly a limiting factor for 99.9% of characters. So Accuracy 6 should be the pinnacle of accurate weapons, fairly rare...or something like this...(math is hard)

Problem with Tacnet rules is that it still uses the one channel per sense bs. Multi send and quantum interfaces what they are now in shadowrun and this exists??? Want to fix a Tacnet mechanic, get rid of that multichannel crap. Information overload is going to fall into the realm of the user more than the devices in that age. And since when does a Tacnet have it's ability to project and advise requiring multiple points??? That's what things like human eyes and ears do now, and they are in pairs "stereo". Sure, more people mean more points of reference, but that still doesn't mean a tactical computer shouldn't give help to even a single user acting alone.

That's an entirely separate issue, and can be fixed in ways that have zero bearing on the DP mechanics.

Okay, so to open another box of worms. How do you think accuracy interacts with burst fire and auto fire?

I could see it increasing accuracy on wide bursts, because you're spraying a bigger area, so the accuracy of individual shots don't matter. Then it becomes possible to hit even a very evasive target with an otherwise inaccurate weapon.

And decreasing accuracy on a narrow burst, you're increasing damage by focusing your fire but the holding on target gets harder.

Also unrelated to autofire, I am really hoping that accuracy puts an end to called shots with an assault rifle from more than a football field away and makes sniper rifles worth the money again.

I suspect that a narrow burst will work the same as now, a direct DV boost.

Wide Burst may offer the shooter a choice: increase their own accuracy, or, decrease the target's defenses.

Which raises another problem: Since "accuracy" is a fairly specific term, the same mechanic will have fifteen different names in fifteen different situations...which is bad design, really.

On the other hand, I've warmed up to the idea of using attribute + skill in the matrix when combined with caps imposed by your equipment. It captures what I said earlier, that crappy hardware limits how much good your reflexes are in a FPS.

the way they explain it in the article invokes the idea of Pistols having lets say a 4 base accuracy that can be modified with attachments etc, heavier pistols maybe up to a 5. Assault Rifles might have a 6 or 7 base accuracy. Shotguns probably around 5-7. Sniper Rifles will probably have an 8-10 these will be the max amount of extra dice they can add to the DC from net hits. Some gear will add to Acc also I imagine Recoil will have some effect on Acc as well. Beyond this...I imagine Distance modifiers will be working for & against Accuracy as well.

That exact scenario is why I'm curious to see how they implement this. If, as you say, 6 is a rough peak for accuracy, then it means that 3-4 will be the "typical" for the older/cheaper gear. Which means anyone wielding such a weapon, whatever their skill, is going to be capped to 3/4 successes. Assuming similar damage values to SR4, that's going to be a low lethality game...

Having high-end equipment cap players at six hits would be quite harsh

They didn't call it accuracy. We did. The actual blog post referred to the game-term as Limits.