Telescoping stocks..., + or - on conceal? Options

[mfb]

nah, range category is more accurate (heh!). i mean, sawing off the stock on a rifle isn't going to significantly affect your accuracy at 10m, will impair your accuracy at 75m, and will completely destroy your accuracy at 300m and up. it just makes more sense.

[Nyxll]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Aku]

[Moon-Hawk]

[Nyxll]

[mfb]

no, locking your arm won't work at all. your shoulder is still free to rotate through its full range, which means you're not going to hit anything at long range.

losing the stock is going to decrease your accuracy more and more the further away your target is, because tiny movements are going to throw a larger and larger variance into the spot your bullet hits. you could come up with a complex series of TN modifiers to reflect that, putting the TN for extreme range at +9 or so. or, you could just use the range tables, which effectively do the same thing.

and it's not like the range tables are 100% accurate anyway. what do you think happens to a rifle bullet at 500m, in SR? does it just stop in mid-air and drop to the ground? no, it keeps moving. in real life, there's a chance you could hit something at 600m with a rifle round (a pretty good chance, actually, but fixing the range tables is not the subject of this discussion). in SR, that chance is so low that it's not worth putting on the range table--you just automatically miss any target beyond 500m, if you're firing an AR.

[Crusher Bob]

Then, how do you implement the TN penalties?

The difficulty increase in hitting the target is based on the distance of the target from you, not on the physical ability of your weapon to fire a bullet that far (in this case, anyway). Addiing say +2TN to all stockless shots would make the stockless weaopn useless, even at 10 meters.

So how to draw the line at where to apply the TN penalty? Medium range? But then, a stockless AR would shoot just as well out to 100? (what is medium range for ARs?) meters as an AR with a stock on it. What we want to represent is an effect on accuracy that is largely irrelevant over short ranges (50 meters or less) but a huge factor at longer ranges. Reducing the range categories means that the stockless AT shoots as well at 60? meters (medium range for SMGs is?) as the stocked AR does at 100 (medium range for ARs?). The range reduction implementation of the rule allows you to shoot fine at shorter ranges (which you can do without a stock), and produces a reasonably smooth curve, compared to a 'simple' TN penalty. While a 'complex' TN penalty would be more realistic, it would be much more difficult to implement in a useable manner.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Moon-Hawk]

So, something that decreases your accuracy is going to have a larger effect at long range than at short range. Big, forehead-slappin' duh. It doesn't take a PhD in trigenometry to puzzle that one out.
My question is, why does everything else that affects your accuracy give you a TN penalty, while this changes your range table. The only other thing (big IIRC) that changes your range table is muzzle shortening, because that actually changes the velocity of the bullet.
I agree that accuracy penalties would be more realistically represented by changing range, but then shouldn't you do this for everything that affects accuracy? Instead of firing at a TN 15 in the dark, on a train, in a box, at a fox, you should be firing at normal target numbers but short range is now 2", and extreme range goes all the way out to 3 feet?
Why should this accuracy penalty be handled differently than every other accuracy penalty.

[Nyxll]

you can reduce the movement in your shoulders by angling your arms to one side, similar to a bow.

I agree with you that the range tables are a simplification, but as a GM I never say that a target is 501 meters out. Do you? I look at the range table, and get an idea of distance then make a judgement from there.

[Aku]

[mfb]

eh, that's... yeah, sure, that works, i guess. but it's incongruous with the rest of the rules. you're basically allowing stockless ARs to be fired at targets beyond Extreme range--but why only stockless ARs? why not SMGs, why not pistols? these weapons are, realistically, no less likely to miss at ranges beyond Extreme than a stockless AR, but you're giving stockless ARs special treatment.

[The Stainless St...]

[mfb]

but it's nonsensical. if you cut the stock off an AR, you've basically got an SMG. SMGs don't face a TN penalty, so why should a chopped-down AR?

[Aku]

eh, it's only special because a normal AR can be fired at those ranges, you're just upping the dificulty for a stockless AR to do it, and thats what you're saying is happening.

Like i said before, my understanding of the ranges, is not only accuracy, but also the ability for the bullt to acctually do damage at the range. someone asked earlier what we thought happened to a bullt when it hits that magical extreme range.

I think it keeps flying (albeit it for a short distance, rapidly losing volecity and curing to the ground) but has, for the most part, lost the majority of it's penetrating and damage power. I'm sure, if someone wanted too, they could make a damage adjuster, similar to the flechette rules, to show that beyond the "extreme" range, you could still do damage.

My point is, stocked or stockless, you're STILL firing an assualt rifle., and it doesnt lose power simply because you choped the stock off. So, adding a stock to an SMG or pistol won't make it shoot further

EDIT: MFB, are you saying that by cutting off the stock of an AR you will only get the total distance as an SMG? That seems funny, to me, considering that from what i've read, and SMG is using pistol firing mechanisms, and the AR is using the Rifle mechanisms, and is, thus, by default, ALOT more powerful

[mfb]

[Aku]

Thats in this icky Real life ™ that we have to deal with. I've never seen the book saying anything about what the extend of the range amounts too. However, because all AR's have an assualt rifle Range, i have to assume that there is no mechanical difference in how well they preform at a given distance. All AR's are going to have the same deviation at short, at a medium, at a long, or at an extreme range, flat out, regardless of what "real life" tells us (this gun can only fire effectively to 500 yards, while this once can go to 1500) As far as SR is concerned, they are both AR's, and can thus, at extreme range, with stocks, fire to 550 meters.

Now, what you're telling me, is that, if you saw that stock off, than, theres NO WAY that that AR could fire past 150 meters (the max for an SMG at extreme) And i'm saying, i'm not one to artificially chop the range at what something can be done at, when the gun is powered to do it to a certain extent, simply because you didn't unfold your stock, i still can't understand WHY that gun would only be able to shoot a bullet to 150 meters. Couldnt the AR without the stock still be useful in a paint and spray capacity out to it's max range?

[The Stainless St...]

[mmu1]

[mfb]

hey, look, you're the one trying to insert realism into SR. if you don't want realism, then simply don't change the rules at all--ARs fire the same with or without stocks. but if you are trying to insert some realism, then you're going about it slightly wonky. your suggestion about using extended SMG ranges works, but like i said, it's incongruous--ARs suddenly become the only weapon that have a range past Extreme. what i meant was, if you're going to allow ARs to have ranges beyond Extreme, why not just do that for all weapons?

SMGs were not 'originally' designed to be fired with a stock--nor were they 'originally' designed to be fired without one. there are stocked and stockless SMGs and carbines, and they are all different. if you want to be more realistic, i'd use Raygun's Carbine ranges for stocked SMGs and SR's SMG ranges for stockless SMGs.

[mmu1]

[Aku]

While i've been using AR's in my example, i've been meaning everything larger than an SMG that is already, stocked as a rule. So that means, off the top of my head, sport rifles, sniper's (why, i anyone would, i dont know but...) and ARs

[mfb]

i'm not being anal, i'm just saying. to me, SMGs already face harsh enough penalties--if you think of the range categories as penalties. an SMG and an AR have roughly similar damage codes, yet an AR's max range is something like 300% longer than an SMG's. that means that an SMG is facing a TN of 9 in situations where an AR faces a TN of 5; that, in turn, means that an AR gets a -4 TN at medium range for having a stock.

[Nyxll]