See, me, I took it as: 250 round magazine/"clip", a drum for holding a belt(since Belts come in 100, 200, 500, and 1,000 round increments...or, at least, used to) for belt fed weapons, or doubled the ammo load for assault cannons, rocket launchers, etc.

Not sure if you are agreeing or not, but the fact stands that a Pistol/SMG/AR cannot use a Belt... so regardless of whether it is in a Drum/Clip for explanatory purposes, you still cannot mount a Pistol/SMG/AR on a weapon mount and benefit from Belted ammunition. The feed mechanism is totally different between Belted Ammunition and Non-Belted Ammunition...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

First, why would you mount a pistol on a weapon mount? But, no. I am saying that the mechasim would be something like this:
If you are putting a pistol, SMG, shotgun, or rifle onto a weapon mount, you are not giving it a belt feed. You are giving it something like a big drum "clip," so it holds and extra 250
shots beyond its normal allotment.

If you put a Belt Fed weapon in their, the weapon mount is putting in a bin to hold the belt, and stuff to make sure the belt is fed through at an even ration, etc. I.E., a Belt Feed.

Anything not a "small arms" weapon(grenades, missiles, assault cannon shells, etc), it doubles the ammo.

Thus, the text is accurate, and you can add 250 shots to something that is not belt fed, while you can fit a pretty big belt into the "belt feed" option.

See... I disagree here... if you want extra ammunition for Small Arms, You modify the Small Arms, not the Weapon Mount or the Ammo Bin... That is the contention here...

If You want an AR capable of Firing A Lot of Rounds from a Drone, Mod it with a Dual Drum System and you have 200 Rounds available... Ammo Bins are really used for Belt-Fed Weapons, or for Larger Launch Weapon Ammunition, as that is what they are adding, per the Rules (which some are contesting)...

Keep the Faith

Okay...

One... grammarians... the term 'belt feed' doesn't stand well on it's own if you deconstruct the sentence, so I have to say it's most likely a conditional clause for the first part.

Two: This is a VEHICLE mod, not a WEAPON mod. There is NO MOD allowing you to change a weapon into a belt-fed weapon thankfully. (the only way I'd support such a mod if is it was an extensive rigger modification eating up say 4 slots of mod space which rendered the weapon only usable in weapon mounts, or say 3 points and requires smartgun if not already installed).

Three: With a little work you can take the weapon out of the mount and use it normally. So no, you suddenly don't have a belt-fed AR (and make LMG's even more completely pointless than they already are in the system.

Four: it is possible to modify a AR/SMG to have dual fed 100 round drums for 200 rounds of ammo w/ normal mods (which is plenty enough close enough to belt feed w/ severe weapon alteration).

Five: that said for some oddball situations like a small drone w/ a machine pistol where ammo is a serious problems and other mods like ammo/drum isn't an option. I could see constructing a special magazine... which strips rounds off a belt and holds them normally so the gun doesn't know it's being belt fed, it only knows it has a mag which never seems to empty itself. (but for reasons above, I'm hesitant to allow it for say an AR/SMG). (this passes two of my tests, it's not a gun modification... if the gun is removed it's not now magically a belt-fed MG, two it's a vehicle mod as it modifies the vehicle 250 rd ammo bin by adding a special feed mechanism on the end rather than giving 250 more rounds. ).


Again: look at the AR vs. MG thread... there's very little point to LMG's if anything can be easily belt-fed.

Ares Alpha: 1700 - 12F
Built In: Smartgun, RC2 special, Underbarrel GL, 42rd mags, SA/BF/FA

White Knight: 2000 - 12F
Built In: GasVent5, folding stock (RC1), belt-feed and/or magazine. BF/FA only
Restrictions: can't be suppressed, double uncompensated recoil penalty.

Have fun modding the two... Ares gets a huge head start... but throw on a barrel accessory gas-vent3 and they both start w/ 5 points RC. (or 2 points internal special + suppressor if you prefer on AR). It's not even close. Some mods like high-velocity aren't even options for the LMG! by the text (limited to AR's and SMG's).

The one thing that you missed Falconer was the ability to turn a Machine Gun into a Minigun (which you cannot do to an Assault Rifle), which is arguably better than an HVAR in my opinion (15 Rounds vs. 12 Rounds)...

Keep the Faith

But its not ruled. Though the high-velocity mod if for ANY FA capable gun.

Arguable... HVAR is a lot more flexible and also is instantly ready.

HVAR:
Normal free action to change fire mode as smartgun.
I can make 2 long-bursts as 2 simple actions... or one complex 12rd full burst.
Using multi-targetting rules... I can split the long into 2 short bursts against adjacent targets which means I can attack 2 adjacent targets twice simultaneously each, or attack 2 sets of adjacent targets who would be too widely seperated to split up a single long burst up against.


Minigun:
simple action to spin up, which eliminates surprise (which gives perception penalties), and you can't fire it the round you spin up because....
Only fires complex action full bursts.
Complex action allows me to split up attacks against closely packed enemies into a mix of up to 5 SB or a mix of SB and LB attacking a minimum of 3 people (2long + 1short).
Recoil comp is a problem (only large vehicles going to have enough to handle it).
Though big advantage I can see is the 15 rd full narrow burst for +3 extra DV.
On wide bursts... -11 vs. -14 reaction is almost never going to make a difference, zero is zero reaction pool.
Suppressive fire (30 rounds but you actually get a +50% damage increase out of it).


Balance: I'd much rather have HVAR and not have to deal w/ minigun (which also disallows things like underbarrel GL's and the like!). Instantly available... a lot more options for how to use it. A lot less obvious (and things like underbarrel are still quite viable... while most GM's will balk at an underbarrel weapon on a minigun which ironically isn't forbidden.. though underbarrel mod highly suggests not allowing it).

Generally for damage purposes... you're better off firing 2 damaging shots than 1 slightly higher damage shot.

The only time I'd care for the minigun is when I'm looking at doing regular suppressive fire and have a monstrous ammo budget!


Dumori:
The modification says full-auto weapons only... Then says see page 26 for specifics....

Page 26: "Only submachine-guns and assault rifles can be constructed as high-veolcity weapons."
It says it flat outright... there is no wiggle room in there.

If I was a GM would I allow it... yeah probably because MG's are kinda-gimped... but I also admit that it'd be house-ruling. It's not RAW. (but I'd also be putting double recoil on small arms and taking it off heavy weapons).

No doubt about that Ammo Budget for the Minigun, it tends to be excessive...

The Minigun is very useful for military operations from a Vehicle/Drone platform, and not so good for the typical Grunt (where the HVAR might be more immediately useful)... I can agree with that whole heartedly...

I only mentioned it for the military roles in which it would excel over the typical uses for the HVAR for the Grunt... Recoil Compensation for an HVAR is somewhat of a challenge for the typical individual, while your typical Minigun is very useful in vehicles (which will ignore the recoil generated). Suppressive Fire is the perfect niche for the Minigun, as well as for taking out light vehicles/drones.

Not that I use either for any of my characters...

Keep the Faith

Only if, by "Suppressive Fire" you mean destroying anything in its sights.

Indeed... Miniguns are pretty devastating...

Keep the Faith

BTW don't use the HVAR, mod the Alpha to High Velocity ammunition. More damage and more possible RC. Woops it only can't take barrel mounted and underbarrel accessories, Modifications are fine

Sorry... I was using HVAR more generically, as the High Velocity Modification... My Mistake...

Keep the Faith

Sorry I thought you couldn't mod the barrel and underbarrel slots of the HVAR. the HVAR is indeed a good choice. Unless I am mistaken the HVAR can get RC 9(10) while using the bipod and 50 shots of 6P AP 0, the Alpha gets RC 9 and 42 shots of 6P AP -1

In order for it to be grammatically correct as a conditional, it would require either an extra word and a change to one word (if belt fed) or seven additional words (if the weapon has/uses a belt feed). It is grammatically incorrect no matter how you read it, however it is grammatically acceptable as an enumeration of three things.



Just about all weapons today consist of four or five major components that are fairly modular, and can be swapped out (and back) in very short order.




I will cover this in the addendum.



So in your games it's possible to construct a special magazine for a weapon with a very restrictive ammo feed system (pistols) but not for something with a much less restrictive feed system (ARs and most SMGs). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)



Different issue, but the basics of it are that the LMG isn't balanced with the rest of the firearms in the game by RAW.

Can you turn anything into a minigun? I wasn't aware that it was a conversion. Instead, I read that you can buy one of the miniguns in the book, and that all miniguns are MGs (never AR, etc.).

Any MG can be purchased as a minigun (arsenal pg 30).

Actually any light medium or heavy MG can be constructed as a Minigun, meaning anything but the GE Vindicator (which is an LMG) only exists by GM FIAT. There are no rules in SR4 for constructing weapons, only after market modification.

Well the German aresenal has one that is a MMG or HMG cant remember witch(Its included into charcheet i use, but that doesn work for me currently so can't sheck before tomorrow when i get to work)

Yes, there are a couple more in Arsenal. But my point is that that's it: no gun can be 'converted'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

It's an MMG, I just checked it on DamienKnight's sheet. The point stands though, PCs can't build any others.

BUT, I can provide a Minigun with MMG or HMG statistics... You cannot CONVERT a machine gun into a Minigun though, you are correct... You have to actually manufacture them that way... and since we have an example of a Minigun, Providing stats for others is not all that hard to do...

Keep the Faith

I was going to write a lengthy rant about the ammo bin, but then I rememebered I already did.




-karma

ShadowRun != Modern Tech.

Just because "we can do it today" doesn't mean you can do it in the game (due, usually, to game balance reasons).

I love it when people say or imply that reality is unbalanced or unfair.