Well, like I said, it *is* the strongest light pistol in the core book. It's 50% stronger (Narrow Bursts), and has 25% more 'clip' than even the incredible Fichetti 600; and, each burst is only 1 recoil, not 2. That adds up to a significant edge over other light pistols. Arsenal blew away that edge. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

A long duration, ironclad patent law would meanthat many of the things you can snatch from the competition will be worthless : if there's already enough partial patents going (a likely occurence - as soon as you get a part of the project squared, it's patented to protect your R&D investment), whatever you might develop from your theft will still be covered by those patents, meaning the offended party can and will sue you out of using what you stole.

And with the fast pace of technological change, most 20-years old patent will already be worthless - except to toss as roadlocks into the competition's teeth. Which would mean a litigation feast that's going to make every corp's business a nightmarish cat's cradle of claims, counter claims and trials as everyone dusts off moldy patents that might be applicable to the competition's product and sues them for licensing fees or stopping a line of products...

In the [lt]dark future of mankind[/lt] dystopian future where corporations engage each other in a constant intelligence war, copyrights do not seem to be as much of a concern as today. I mean what's the point of extracting a scientist if all his stuff is copyrighted and you have to respect the jackload of NDAs he's bound to?


@Sithney: The only thing Metal Storm has proven is how you can make people believe that you are selling the best thing since sliced bread if you just get Discovery Channel to push it enough. Thank god military procurement takes other things into account than "every boy's dream, as seen on Future Weapons".
And with no bolt, extractor or anything, how du you plan to implement an ammo skip system? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Tag each preloaded barrel (or muzzle tube, according to SR4A) with a non-RFID chip that says what kind of ammo it fires. If you want three tubes of S&S and one of Ex-EX, then you load three tubes of S&S and one of Ex-EX. The gun's computer reads the chips in each barrel/tube when they're loaded, goes "Oh hey, barrels 1-3 are this kind of bullet and barrel 4 is this kind", and groups them together into seperate "firing modes" that only fire from the barrels loaded with the ammunition you want to use.

It'd function more along the lines of the Additional Clip weapon modification, in that each group of identical ammunition is treated as one clip. In fact, thinking about it, the notation used for dual-clip weapons (that is, [Ammo In Clip] (Reload type) x[Number of Clips]) is identical to that used for the YSF. Maybe a houserule that says the YSF functions like it has two Additional Clip modifications straight out of the box is in order?

Doesn't Metal Storm normally fire each barrel simultaneously?

Programmable. Depending on how high rate of fire / recoil you want. I could think you could even mix ammo types in a barrel. Hell... if you get this rifle-thingy with 6.8 barrels.. just mix ammo through and through and write a algorythm choosing the nearest type of ammo next to the one needed *g*. It's like a surprise-gun.. never know what it will shoot next.

so, since we have tabletop forges able to build stuff.

Why has noone made a HMG or Rifle with an integrated forge.
It's creates each bullet as you fire it, based on computer guided instructions.

Because it would be the size, price, speed, and availability of tabletop forge?

And you'd still have to load it, it just would be magazines of nano-material instead of bullets.

One thing I liked from another game was a teleport-based magic ammo feed. An army's bullets got fed straight from the ammo warehouse. Special ammo was done at the gun altering the incoming bullets as they arrived.

But that only works in a system where teleporting is allowed.



-karma

I mean, Deus Ex had nano-clips, but that was mostly a convenience thing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) The reasons I already gave are plenty.

Wouldn't your rate of fire rather suck as well, since it has to create every bullet on firing?

That takes time, aye?

Would be much better for a shipmounted rail gun or such. Making a round that would have the perfect flight characteristics plus nothing says the HMG ect cant produce a basic stockpile of X ammo.

I had forgotten how slow the desktop forge was.

although I can see shadowrun 2110 having that kind of gun

All right, then you'd have a 100-round box and...a 'please wait, loading' hourglass on the ammo display while it recreates said ammunition. It'd be quicker to slap another box in the feed and keep going to town.

Magic teleporting ammo system? Cool, that'd work as the ammo is already created. Nanoforge? Not so much.

Not everything is patented because to apply for a patent you have make the specs public. The corps should patent anything that can be retro-engineered from the final product and keep the rest secret.

It fires each barrel as it is programmed to, no more no less. If the YSF did that, then it should fire 4 round bursts since it has 4 barrels and all..
Also, did you not see the video I posted? It's certainly not a pistol, but it is a working mass driver that fires 5 bullets each from 36 tubes only microseconds apart. Like I said, the tech is extremely purposed, like for shooting down incoming missiles, but it is working tech.

Indeed. Nanoforges specifically say that they work slowly. You can't Rush A Job, even. Perhaps in 2090 or later, this will be a good idea. Until then, it's a bad one. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Btw, who's going to ensure your patents, if you're an exterritorial corp? The state? Your own privat court? The Corp Court?

The corp court, as for any conflict between 2 corps.

No shit, they just invented the shotgun. Only that theirs is 3141592 times more complicated than just taking a smooth bore and a canister round (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)


As a colleague of mine would say "it compiles, let's ship it!". If a weapon fires (in a video kindly provided by the manufacturer) that's a "proof of concept", not "working tech".


@Traul: That's why I said "copyright";)
Eligible works are automatically copyrighted, published and registered or not.

That's only true of creative works via Copyright.*

Patents and Trademarks are not automatic.





-karma

* - even then registration is recommended, as without registration it's often much harder to prove you were the creator.

Case in point, the russian and chinese governments getting into spats cause of the chinese attemps to copy russian Military technology. Has soured theri relations somewhat, and I assume that a corp can only take its case to the corporate court. Which is a dead end.

The fact is in SR as in the real world, reverse engineering, make a few changes, and viola new patent.

"Yes, my competitors product and mine have many similarities, but mine minces as well as slices and dices."

I would say it's fairly obvious, although not stated, that the Sakura Fubuki fires a 4 round burst.

I don't really see why that's "fairly obvious".

That's not how that technology works (in the real world). It doesn't have to fire one round out of each barrel. The rounds are lined up end to end and electronically fired so they could be fired in pretty much any sequence you wanted.

The only thing "fairly obvious" is that whomever came up with the idea for it and/or commissioned the picture, doesn't know much about firearms. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Shots at designers aside, let's take some basic logic and assign it here, shall we?

Said weapon has a total of 40 rounds, 10 per barrel. It fires short, narrow bursts. If it was firing those from 1 barrel, you would have a left over round in each barrel. Why not give it 9 round barrels at that point?



The emphasis there is mine. It makes note that because the barrels are in-line, that it allows for the short burst. This implies quite heavily that all four barrels are fired during the burst.