So I am confused about a couple of things. First why is the drum magazine mod said to be only for SMGs and assault rifles when there is also a shotgun that uses a drum clip? Is there an errata somewher that changes this or is this just a situation of most GMs would just change it for logical reasons. Second why take an extra skill for LMGs when you can get the same effect with an assault rifle and a drum clip and third can you add underbarrel weapons to MGs?

Thanks for the help in advance.

mods that are on the gun from the factory (ie before they're modified) don't have to follow the rules. you could probably change it if you wanted, i don't see any huge problems (for shotguns at least... for a pistol, you'd have a problem).

you would take LMGs for the range. and also because they're the largest weapon that fit on a standard drone mount, and because they can have belt feeds. you don't use an LMG for the same purposes as you would use an assault rifle, that's just silly. also, your LMG uses the same skill as rockets, grenade launchers, etc, whereas your assault rifle skill is certainly useful for a variety of guns, most of them don't blow stuff up in the same way.

and yes, you can mount underbarell weapons on an MG.

Ahhh I see, thank you. Thats a big help.

I would imagine that the obvious answer is that shotguns generally use shells while SMGs/ARs use bullets, and though a drum for one of those will hold either 50 or 100 bullets, a drum for a shotgun will hold under 20 shells. The reasons for the lower count on a shotgun drum is the shell weight, volume & recoil. Can you imagine trying to lug around a weapon that weighs 15 pounds because it has 50+ shells attached? More importantly, after 2-3 shells leave that drum, you are going to need a lot of strength & skill to keep the rest on target.

Though, most important of all, if you need more than a full shotgun magazine, you brought the wrong weapon.

Oh, you mean like this?

Personally, I'd allow someone to put a drum feed on a pistol, but it'd be about as stupid in SR as it is in reality.

Machine Pistol+Drum = +5 Concealment. So it's bulkier than a real SMG, has far less range, and utterly defeats the point of using a sidearm in the first place.

What's not to like! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

So if you didn't guess yet the reason I am asking these question is because I am working on a heavy weapons type character. While looking up guns in arsenal I thought A minigun would be fun to have so why not get the one thats ready at chargen. Then I noticed it said firing a mini gun causes a - 14 dice pool modifier. My question is simple. Why? Why get a minigun if it kills your dice pool before you even fire?

Let's see how much recoil compensation you can get:

- Gas Vent: 3
- Cyberarm gyromount: 3
- STR >= 10: 2
- One anchor in each foot: 2
- Hip pad: 1
- Heavy barrel: 1
- Personalized grip: 1

TOTAL: 13

That's only a -2 dice pool. If you can pump your STR up to 14 (redlining is your friend...), you cancel it all.

But the main purpose of a mingun is suppressive fire, not sniping, even if it's fun to lodge 15 bullets in the same hole (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

..normal Gyromount Stabilization gives 6 RC..

Underbarrel weights don't stack with gyros.

Just get the full gyromount for 6 RC so you can drop the cybrearm mount and 1 more pint of RC

The external gyro-stabilization is really clumsy: can you afford 5 minutes before being ready to fire? It might be OK for some heavy assault troopers, but hardly for runners. With my build, you can bring your minigun along when raiding Cyberdyne Systems.

Or get a drone next to you to fire the weapon. It seems that it can ignore recoil...

If your lugging a minigun you'll be in heavy combat armor for sure thus why not tke the extra time pre run to strap on the gyoromount. Really minguns arent nrmolay slteathly however if you mod one right then can be but the you need another 3 RC cos no gas vent

You can't use sound suppressors on Machine Guns, which the minigun is. All you can do to "silence" it by RAW is electronic firing and subsonic ammunition. Slow Ammunition in a Machine gun however sounds pretty silly to me

I believe Arsenal recommends using the vehicle's Body as built-in recoil compensation as an optional, and entirely logical, rule.

Only if the weapon is very large and the drone very small.

While true, I think the rule still works well on almost all sizes of vehicle, particularly when the weapon can be further modified to increase recoil comp.

Generally using this rule is just a waste of time and money for me. Also it favors the Ingram White Knight a bit too much IMHO. For cars it is irrelevant anyway because a weapon cannot produce that much recoil, and Combat Drones should be able to do more than suppressive fire.

I would say you can't do anything for the minigun: even if you could silence the firing, there would still be the noise of the rotating barrels.

But anyway, my point about stealth was not about using the gun stealthily, but being able to bring it along in a stealthy run so you can still force your way out when things go wrong. That's why there are troll runners at all. In an open combat situation, it is true that you can get cheaper firepower from drones.

If you can hide the minigun you can probably hide a gyrostabilization unit as well. I have not read anything that the harness is particularly bulky.

Yeah, but it takes a little longer to but on a gyrotabilizaton unit, then it does to just grap the minigun from the gym-back.

And thus Physical Mask is the most devastating combat spell ever.

If your mage can beat the cameras' and goggles' OR.
BTW I don't know if the Physical Mask Spell changes equipment.

With great power comes great drain codes.