I find it interesting that the weapon itself has light recoil for a burst when the metal storm design typically has incredible amounts of recoil to handle. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I think it implies quite heavily that 3 barrels are fired in a burst. Because that's how many bullets are in a short burst. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It's already (as I said) much stronger than any other light pistol (certainly in the core book); now you'd like to give it 10 bursts of 4 (DV=7), with Recoil of 1 instead of 4? It's possible this could work with the cost and mod-incompatibility, but it's far from 'obvious'. The gun, after all, *does* fire in SA mode. There are several BF weapons with clips that don't divide evenly by 3, and basically all FA guns don't divide evenly by 10.

But we're talking about a specialty weapon here. Although to be fair, I envisioned it only doing the damage of a 3 round burst with 4 rounds. I would expect a niche, high cost item, to be as practical as possible while still being totally impractical for its cost.

It's possible, but I'm saying that we should always assume normal rules (in this case, normal BF/ammo use rules) are in effect, instead of complicating things. When special rules are in effect, they should be explicit in the book (e.g., the pistols that fire Complex Action short bursts, etc.).

Shots at me aside, the game has hard written rules for bursts. They don't really conform to any kind of reality. They are designed to mesh with the simplistic combat mechanics of Shadowrun.
The recoil penalty for this would be absurd.

That, and it we're going for realism, the first two or three bursts should be restricted to Taser ranges due to insufficient barrel length. I mean, if we're talking "logically".

Of course, what you're emphasizing also displays your insufficient knowledge of firearms. It's not your fault. I'm sure you're not an expert. The bolded part you showed implied the ability to fire faster because of the fact that the in line stack eliminates the feeding mechanism.

http://www.mouseguns.com/pf9/pf9ani.gif
http://www.m1911.org/images/searanim2.gif

Firing, the projectile accelerates, the barrel is unlocked, and the casing and slide are pushed backwards, the casing is ejected, the slide is pushed back forward by the spring, a new round is fed into the chamber, and the slide and barrel lock again.

The YSF eliminates the need for everything except for "Firing" because it uses caseless ammunition and an inline stack of ammunition which is already "chambered".

http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/art...tal_730x210.gif

Now, Metal Storm found that the rounds couldn't be fired as fast as they originally intended because multiple rounds accelerating down the barrel at the same time left the danger of overpressure. So the weapon's ROF was reduced to make sure each round had cleared the barrel before the next one was fired. Still much faster than the ROF of a recoil or blowback operated weapon.

It is possible to construct your replies without these personal attacks.

Ho yes. The system does have a keen rate of fire, but it takes so long to reload you may as well load a cannon with scattershot.



Logically, this gun wouldn't even be available. Part of me wonders if the recoil from hitting all barrels at once would break your wrist or not.

Luckily, it has a folding stock. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) Switch wrist with shoulder then. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

It's a neat alternative, but I'm just not sure it's entirely feasible.

Yeah. I'll believe it when I see it, hehe.

Right. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) They had some concerns using the systems on lightweight drones since they lost some weight off the feed system and ammo dumps, but it didn't have the frame to withstand the recoil.

Though I suppose they've had some limited success fixing it recently.

Actually, my 1911A1 says my knowledge of firearms is just fine, thanks. I don't need a military background for firearm exposure either, I'll take being raised with them and learning to fire, disassemble, clean, and reassemble by age 8 to be adequate.

It makes logical sense for the bullets to be fired 1 from each barrel as opposed to 3 from 1 barrel for much the reason you mentioned, over-pressurization.

Lowering range to taser ranges for the first two or three bursts is logical in the real world, but from a game design standpoint is an unncessary muddling.

Also, please take the to determine the difference between logical from a game design standpoint and a real world standpoint. Thanks.

The MetalStorm type systems have another big advantage that's not often mentioned.

They make designing battle vehicles the like much much easier engineering-wise.

No more worrying about where all the weapon's feed mechanisms and ammo bins and other moving parts go. There are none. It's literally just a barrel with wires coming off it.

You ever see those amateur drawings folks make of fantastic battle robots and war tanks and such? The ones where more anal-retentive folks will point out how this or that won't work because the artist didn't bother to allow for the internal weapon machinery? Where the artist clearly has no idea how firearms actually work, but just stuck a bunch of barrels and gun ports all over the thing?

Well, those designs can work now.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)



-karma

Copyright was what I was after anyway. I was originally more interested in who would capitalize on the Metal Storm name as a brand, because the tech as implemented would be different enough anyway that patent isn't gonna matter and would be long dead.

But basically what I was after is who in the 6th world is trying to be at the leading edge of weapons developement. I've had some good answers so far, but more insight would help as well if anyone has it

Haha! That's a good point, they would.

Those drawings never have the two support vehicles though, one filled with reloads and the other a mobile reactor to power it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

More shots at me aside...

It actually doesn't make any more sense for the weapon to fire from different barrels as it would require all four barrels to be zeroed on the same place, for variable degrees of muzzle velocity, and different trajectories. We're talking about a weapon that would need a firing computer just to operate.

Honestly, the whole weapon makes no sense, and that's why Metal Storm more or less abandoned the idea of a multi-barreled handgun. It's ammunition inefficient, slow to reload, difficult to properly sight, and requires an additional power source. Of course, almost all weapons in Shadowrun seem like they would need batteries, so that part might be irrelevant.


And is it really "logical" from a game standpoint or simply convenient? I mean, if I fire three round bursts out of a Colt M23 until the magazine runs dry, I'll only have one round left for the final shot. Does that make having a 40 round magazine "illogical"?

You are correct in that a four-barrel MetalStorm weapon COULD fire four rounds with each pull of the trigger.

It could also fire three rounds each out of a different barrel and just not fire off the fourth barrel. Then again, it could also fire two rounds, five rounds, thirteen rounds, heck, all forty rounds with a single trigger pull.

However, having it fire three rounds in a burst instead of four means not having to have special one-off rules for just this weapon, special rules which really wouldn't actually result in THAT much of a mechanical difference.

Short answer: You could do it. But why?



-karma

Except there is no "creative artistic content" in MetalStorm. The opinions of gun enthusiasts aside, that is.

There's the mechanical design, which is covered by Patents.

There's the MetalStorm name and logo, which are covered by Trademarks.

Copyrights are for books, music, art, movies, etc. Not for mechanical designs.


As for who's on the cutting edge of arms development, the answer is: They all are.

But the one company that EVERYONE of the period will tend to THINK of when it comes to Big Big Guns, is Ares.




-karma

Uhm... For US, utility patents it was 17 years from time of issue prior to '95, then it became 20 years from time of filing. Design patents only have a 14 year term. There is an extension allowed for a few years to a patent (under the Hatch-Waxman Act) due to delays from FDA approval process.

I have no knowledge from any of my experience or classes about a chance for renew to 40 years.

ack, Trademarks is indeed what I meant.

As to my thoughts of what's going on...smaller company that doesn't have the economic backing and market presence that Ares does and so is trying to break into the market with "cutting edge" tech (whether its viable or not).

I had been leaning towards Cross because of their longstanding rivalry with Ares, but I they have been showing up a lot recently and I'm not sure if my players would start to get too wary.

Why do they have to be zeroed in to the place? That would be overly delicate and time consuming. The barrels are all within 2 inches I have to imagine, probably less. You have a vertical variance in the grouping then with no horizontal variance and it effectively still within the game rules equates to a "burst".

Food for thought - since it already fires electronically, shouldn't it retroactively get a RC of 1 due to Arsenal?

An interesting thought, but give how potent the YSF is as a light pistol I'd be wary to extend the recoil compensation to SA mode. Besides, that's what the folding stock is for.

As far as the burst-fire bullet count, I'm with karma on this. The combat rules specifically state:


And for the YSF:


All emphasis mine. Nowhere does the YSF's entry state it fires additional rounds, only that its firing mechanism is at the very least superficially identical to a Metal Storm weapon - which, as karma pointed out, can fire any number of rounds per burst depending on its programming - and that the second burst fired in every action phase has lower recoil. As the burst-fire rules state that a single burst is three bullets and the only weapon-specific special rule is a reduced recoil penalty, I see no reason why the YSF would fire four rounds per burst - especially when the only mechanical difference to having a four-round burst is 10 bursts per full reload as opposed to 13 bursts and one semi-auto shot.

Which is why I'm baffled at its lack of a built-in smartgun system.

The design as it is could have tiny internal adjustments to the orientation of the barrels all fed to it by the smartgun system's microwave range finder. Each barrel slightly splays apart inside the main body of the gun like fingers on a hand, so as to make all the bullets land on target at whatever range. That's some relatively workable sci-fi awesome technomagic.

And, if the GM decides to make it 7p 4-round bursts or whatever, that's awesome. Give it to the cops. Runners can already do basically that much damage because they're prepped for heavy conflict. Officer Errant throwing that back at them with a sidearm is problematic though.


As to the recoil, players can shoot off 8 free-standing shots from a Barrett in 3 seconds if they have the twitch for it. For a -2 penalty they can do it one handed...

And for just about every piece of source code which does more than "hello world". Which would be relevant in the 6th World, if anybody would give a damn about copyrights (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)



Uhmmm...thanks for repeating what I wrote, I guess...

The point was, copyright doesn't apply here. There's no creative content (or software, for that matter) in the subject at hand. Only mechanical design and the trademark attached to it.

And software being covered under copyright is kinda a recent idea, only appearing in the 1970s. Previously you'd have to file patents on software if you wanted to protect it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)



-karma