Of course, this and most of the other replies in this thread are from a particular gamestyle, Black Trenchcoat.

If you're looking at a more pink mohawk game, you only have to refer to rule #1:
More Dakka!

-DrZ

A lot of people equate wetwork with high bodycount and unprofessional behavior during a run, which is not necessarily the case.

Interesting question here: Aztechnology WILL come after you, no matter if you go lethal or not, and WILL make an example of you, lethal or not.

So... does this policy make it more likely their people will get killed?

Yeah, I've always preferred Pink Mohawk. Trenchcoat never was my group's style.

When in doubt, Panther Assault Cannon.

Wrong.

Always Panther Assault Cannon, doubt or no.

Yes, because if you don't kill them, they're more likely to be liquidated for their incompetence as a matter of corporate policy, or their number has a higher chance of being pulled for the yearly sacrifice.

Edit: also, LINK!

Not true! There's plenty of room for the Ogre Hammer's SA firing mode if you run into the sorts of GMs who believe the Firing Selection Change weapon mod can't be applied to assault cannons because their ammunition is allegedly "exotic". Nothing says overkill like a double tap from an anti-tank cannon! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

~Umi

C'mon mate, be professional.

Use an Ares Thunderstruck Gauss Cannon.

And sacrifice that juicy extra point of damage compared to the Ogre Hammer? I think not!

That and reloading is a pain with the Thunderstruck - you have to change both the ammo clip, AND the energy clip! Who has that kind of time?

~Umi

Half Impact Armor (rounded down) -4 means more damage on average.



The advantage is that you reload once every 5 passes as opposed to once every 3 passes. And use the belt/backpack version of the energy pack, so it becomes a non-issue (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Why in the world would the Thunderstruck inflict half impact armor?

Also, you're neglecting the fact that you have to eject both clips as well as load new ones. Assuming both are smartguns, the Ogre Hammer takes 1 Free Action to eject the spent clip, 1 Simple Action to reload with a fresh clip, and you can use your second Simple Action to fire a round that same IP. In contrast, the Thunderstruck requires 2 Free Actions to eject the two spent clips, followed by 2 Simple Actions to reload with fresh clips. This forces you to take two IPs to reload before being able to fire with the second Simple Action of the second IP. And it only gets worse if it isn't a smartgun!

Using the canteen sized belt pack or the backpack is certainly an option, but at that point I think the GM needs to start considering enforcing weight limits and non-armor encumbrance. And while Assault Cannons are never subtle, adding either of the larger energy pack options makes them even less so. You could theoretically stash a standard Assault Cannon somewhere and grab it up, ready to fire, but the Thunderstruck requires you to put on bulky and obvious energy packs, and if you're going from unarmed to fully loaded in a hurry, it takes you additional actions to grab up the energy packs, equip them, and plug them into the gauss rifle.

~Umi

Guass weapon like the Thunderstruck are supposed to have much higher velocity (Mach 6+ for hypersonic category) than normal weapon rounds (which are supersonic at Mach 1-3+ usually), basically slicing through armor like butter, hence the half impact value.

Point.

I like the way you think.

@Sendaz

Where is this? What rulebook says anything even remotely like this?

I've simply never seen anything even hinting at something so absurd. "Elemental" damage on one of the heaviest "man portable" weapons in SR4? That'd be obscenely imbalanced, removing it entirely from the power level of other assault cannons.

It also doesn't make any sense. Ballistic armor is designed to resist high velocity, low mass attacks. Impact armor is designed to resist low velocity, high mass attacks. An axe, sword, club, or punch is resisted by Impact because it relatively heavy and slow. A bullet is resisted by Ballistic armor because it is lightweight and moves at extreme velocity.

Gauss rifles rounds are neither heavy nor slow moving, so they should not be resisted by Impact armor. Given that they fire relatively lightweight rounds at very high velocity, they cleary should be resisted with Ballistic armor.

Furthermore, bearing everything else in mind, any armor penetration that is inherent to the weapon is already written into its stats. There is nothing which indicates that the Thunderstruck is intended to halve the target's armor, either Impact or Ballistic. Unlike the various "elemental" weapons and spells which clearly indicate their halving of armor with the tag "-half" for their armor penetration quality, the Thunderstruck simply has a standard format firearm AP value, set to -4.

There isn't even any fluff I can find to suggest anything remotely like the Thunderstruck having superior penetration power compared to other assault cannons! The fluff actually says essentially the opposite - it is said to trade damage for a faster rate of fire!

~Umi

@Umidori

For the rulebook concerning this, specifically as per Arsenal Errata v. 1.3.2 September 12, 2008

p. 30 Ares Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle
Add the following sentence to the end of the weapon description:
“Halve all armor but smart armor against the gauss
rifle (before applying the AP modifier)”.

So it is even worse that you think, because it gets to halve that armor value and then still apply the AP modifier just to add insult to injury.

So there was one small error by us, by referring to impact instead of the ballistic but considering most armors had only a 2 pt difference between their Ballistic and Impact values you can forgive one if we defaulted to the impact value for this discussion since elemental effects are so common and its easier to remember halve impact.
Especially when things like Metal Elemental effects still go against half impact, when really they should be against ballistic (high speed metal shards after all) but it was probably easier for the devs to keep it all in one formula.

In regards to fluff mentioning trading damage for faster rate of fire, they are not referencing to other assault cannons but to earlier versions of guass/railguns like the RELÁMPAGO 120MM Railgun (Aztlan pg 179), which had the abysmal rate of fire of 1 every second combat round as it took a full Combat round to recharge the capacitors. With an original damage of 20D, personal body armor was a secondary notion to this bad boy.
Course this was the heavy version meant for mounting on vehicles but thanks to some clever techies somewhere they have made it a bit more portable with a better ROF, if less damage, in the form of the Thunderstruck.

I can not find it now, but there was a jeep mounted version of the Relampago somewhere that had two barrels so the ROF went up to 1 per combat round, ie Barrel 1 fired 1st round, Barrel 2 fired on 2nd combat round while barrel 1 was recharging. Might have been an adventure or other piece....

Again, you have to remember you are making the leap from supersonic bullet velocities from regular weapons (again 1-3+ Mach) to Hypersonic velocities (5+ Mach).

This kind of damage from the ramp up in energy to push a item to these speeds is outside what standard ballistic was designed to protect against.

Right now the RL Navy has been playing with this sort of tech but it's still hideously big,but this vid is from 3 years ago so some improvements can be expected.

Of course we are currently looking at shipboard cannons so size is not so much an issue. Making them comparable at smaller scale will take some time.

The real leap will be if and when we get decent room temp superconductors, used for both power storage and ramping up the magnetic thrust potential, then expect to see railguns become more feasible.

Now if you are facing off with some loony using one and they have the added power packs I would do called shots on the power cells. At the minimum the cells short out and no more shooting by loony, best case something go crackle, crackle, ZAP (if it shorts/grounds out through the wearer) or Boom (depending on cell composition).

Engulfing by a water elemental is always entertaining as well, though depending on the level of discharge it may wreck the pet.

From the Arsenal Errata:


*edit: Ninja'd (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Errata? You fight dirty! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Seriously, that's nuts. That makes the Thunderstruck the most powerful assault cannon by far.

That said, it's still resisted with Ballistic Armor! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

~Umi

I wasn't kidding when I said the Gauss rifle was the superior, professional choice for high-end mercenaries. It's just that much better than other assault cannons, and I don't consider the belt pack that detrimental due to the massive advantages otherwise conferred by the weapon.

That said, the laser rifle is a portable alternative, with sporting rifle damage and range but half impact armor.

Btw, the German book already included the updated version, so I assumed it was common knowledge.

High end is right, this is not a toy for the regular grunts, if solely on the power consumption.

Extended battles in remote locations or even behind enemy lines means added difficulties in recharging.

Unless they added a wireless recharge by induction option in SR5 I suppose. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

There's a spell in WAR! that recharges power packs. It was designed specifically for this purpose.

And please don't argue how WAR! is powercreep. People who pull out asscannons at the slightest provocation are the target audience for WAR!

Asscannons? Got any stats for that?

The argument is inherent in mentioning anything from WAR! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Not everything in WAR! is bad, though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

The page numbers are pretty inoffensive, I'll give it that.

I rather liked the port town of Bogota.