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> Trolls and large weapons, are there rules for this?
ryanstone
post May 31 2006, 05:09 PM
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I have a question for all of you: Is there anywhere in the SR4 rule book that discusses trolls or other large characters, and their user of heavy weapons?
For instance, there is a heavy machine gun in the equipment section whos description mentions that the gun is usually vehicle mounted but trolls may be able to use the weapon as a personal weapon.
Are there rules that govern how big of a weapon is too big for anyone other than a troll to use? Maybe a certain body rating that has to be exceeded in order to use a heavy machine gun or Panther cannon as a personal weapon?

Kind of along these same lines, I have another question: Does high strength provide any recoil compensation? Or is the Str 1 character able to compensate for LMG recoil just as easily as the Str10 Troll?

Thanks in advance,
Ryan
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Teulisch
post May 31 2006, 05:19 PM
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I know we had recoil compensation for strength in previous editions. dunno where such rules are now (arsenal maybe?).

heavy weapons are heavy. while equipment weight is now a 'common sense' rule, the average human cannot carry that much weight by himself. the average troll, otoh, is stronger than the strongest human. mayber even stronger than the strongest ork/dwarf. BEFORE he gets augmentation.

in addition to the gun itself, theres the weight of its ammo, plus whatever recoil compensation you need, such as a gyroharness.

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kigmatzomat
post May 31 2006, 08:34 PM
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One problem is recoil and the fact that trolls are made of meat. The energy of heavy weapons tends to scale up pretty fast and while trolls may have the mass to absorb the recoil but without special rigs (gyroharness) they are going to get bruised or broken from the gun's recoil.

A troll should be able to use heavier weapons than a human but probably only a size class different, so an LMG might qualify as an assault rifle. You start popping off large-caliber rounds and the troll's gonna suggest you mount the weapon to a jeep.
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Austere Emancipa...
post May 31 2006, 09:21 PM
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If you're going to inject RL logic into this situation, keep in mind that the recoil of an LMG is, in most cases, going to be less punishing than that of an AR.
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Shrike30
post Jun 1 2006, 12:09 AM
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One of the main limiters of using heavier weapons in a convenient fashion is the weight and ungainliness of the weapon. .50 caliber rifles are a decent example of this... while the recoil on the semiautomatic Barrett's has been described as being like the recoil of a 12-gauge Magnum, the fact that they're 5 feet long and weigh 35 pounds means you aren't going to see many people USING them like a shotgun.

Enter trolls...

Shorten the barrel a little bit, add the kind of furniture more appropriate for a shoulder fired rifle, and keep as much of the recoil compensation in place as you can... voila, .50 caliber battle rifle.

I think one of the reasons we're not seeing this is game balance, honestly. It'd make sense in the world to have guns designed for larger metahumans and cyborgs... they just don't do it.
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Raygun
post Jun 1 2006, 12:56 AM
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QUOTE (kigmatzomat)
A troll should be able to use heavier weapons than a human but probably only a size class different, so an LMG might qualify as an assault rifle. You start popping off large-caliber rounds and the troll's gonna suggest you mount the weapon to a jeep.

I've worked this out in terms of mass vs. recoil in several previous threads here on Dumpshock. Do a seach for "trolls and guns" by user "Raygun", category "Shadowrun", date "any date". You'll find 'em.

Basically, a .50 BMG rifle platform that a Troll could conceivably walk around with works out to the equivalent of a human with a 5.56x45mm rifle (what most armies issue infantry these days).
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TBRMInsanity
post Jun 1 2006, 02:03 PM
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I always used the rule that if the weight of the weapon was greater then strength * 2kg then the person can't effectively weild the weapon. This means firing the weapon without any support. You will still have to counter the effects of recoil as per normal.
Class Weight Strength Req
Hold-out pistol >1kg 1
Light pistol 1kg 1
Heavy pistol 1kg 1
SMG 3kg 2
Assult rifle 4kg 2
Sport rifle 5kg 3
Sniper rifle 6kg 3
Shotgun 3kg 2
LMG 6kg 3
MMG 10kg 5
HMG 25kg 13
Autocannon 40kg 20
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kigmatzomat
post Jun 1 2006, 02:13 PM
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you failed to quote the section where I said:

QUOTE
The energy of heavy weapons tends to scale up pretty fast and while trolls may have the mass to absorb the recoil but without special rigs (gyroharness) they are going to get bruised or broken from the gun's recoil.


This goes back to trolls being made of meat. A ton of meat will absorb the recoil but the point the rifle stock hits the meat is going to be pounded into bloody hamburger once you've burned through a belt of ammo. Trolls' dermal armor helps a bit but I suspect anything short of a rhino will get bruised from the recoil of a .50BMG in autofire.

Give the troll a decent harness that distributes the force over a wide area and you've got something other than a bruised, bloodied, and tenderized troll.

I think the big thing is that if you let a troll treat a weapon as "light" that the uncompensated recoil is not doubled. Which kind of makes sense as the weight of a troll's arm on the forward grip will provide a lot more recoil-resisting inertia than even Arnold Schwarzenneger's. IIRC, shotguns count as "heavy" weapons and I'd have no trouble with trolls considering them "light."
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Edward
post Jun 1 2006, 02:56 PM
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In SR4 a troll coulduse any gun in one hand that was not required to be vehicle mounted.

We injected some sensibility and caped that at assault rifle but a troll could wield an HMG with no special attachments (although he probably wanted some).

Also in SR3 strength contributed recoil compensation. So your troll might not miss but with double uncompensated recoil on heavy weapons you still wanted the accessories.

It came out a troll could fire 2 3 round bursts with an HMG with gas vent 4 as accurately as a human could fire 2 3 round bursts with an Aries Alfa with gas vent 4.

Of cause the HMG was far more difficult to hide and resulted in a a more immediate and lethal security response.

Edward
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Squinky
post Jun 1 2006, 03:37 PM
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If you are using rules that give trolls a benefit to firing guns due to their size, shouldn't you use rules that allow them to hide larger weapons due to their size?
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NightHaunter
post Jun 1 2006, 03:52 PM
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QUOTE (Edward @ Jun 1 2006, 03:56 PM)
*Snip*
Also in SR3 strength contributed recoil compensation. So your troll might not miss but with double uncompensated recoil on heavy weapons you still wanted the accessories.
*Snip*

I think i'll just 'port the table over for now and see how that works for a while.
Report back in a few weeks.

Edit: The SR3 from CC one, not the broken SR2 one from FOF.

This post has been edited by NightHaunter: Jun 1 2006, 04:21 PM
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Butterblume
post Jun 1 2006, 04:12 PM
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QUOTE (Squinky)
If you are using rules that give trolls a benefit to firing guns due to their size, shouldn't you use rules that allow them to hide larger weapons due to their size?

Or rules that trolls are easier to hit?

After all, if trolls get additional boni because they are big, there should be additional mali because they are, well, big...

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Shrike30
post Jun 1 2006, 05:41 PM
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QUOTE (kigmatzomat)
This goes back to trolls being made of meat. A ton of meat will absorb the recoil but the point the rifle stock hits the meat is going to be pounded into bloody hamburger once you've burned through a belt of ammo. Trolls' dermal armor helps a bit but I suspect anything short of a rhino will get bruised from the recoil of a .50BMG in autofire.

Give the troll a decent harness that distributes the force over a wide area and you've got something other than a bruised, bloodied, and tenderized troll.

Again, the recoil impulse on something like an M82 is described as being similar to that of a 12-gauge magnum shotgun. People fire those all the time. We don't have any real problem in Shadowrun giving human characters fully-automatic shotguns (asides from the fact that they have a hard time hitting anything)... why would there be a serious problem giving a noticeably heavier (and similarly-recoiling) weapon to someone who weighs 3x as much?

I am made of meat. So is my little brother's girlfriend. The fact that I am double her weight (I'm 215 pounds) is one of the reasons that I'm able to run through several boxes of 12-gauge ammunition in a 12-gauge pump shotgun without really noticing, and she's not willing to get knocked around by more than 3-4 shots.

I recall helping my father (a man who grew up shooting, who's shorter than I am but built heavier) sight in a bolt-action .338 Win Mag a few years ago. After 50 rounds at the range, we went home and he took off his shirt to see why his shoulder hurt so much. He had a hematoma forming on his shoulder from the recoil. A few weeks later, he took it out again to test the new recoil pad he'd installed on the (bare wood) butt of the rifle to try and cut down on the abuse he was taking from it, and had absolutely no problems with it.

.50 caliber weapons like the M2HB are intended to be fired from tripods or vehicular mounts. They don't have a lot in the way of ergonomics or recoil handling... they're built to be able to provide a fairly sustained rate of fire and not overheat as much. Given proper furniture, muzzle braking, buffering, and weapon layout, putting together a .50 caliber, select-fire battle rifle for trolls would be quite doable, and I imagine they'd be able to handle them in much the same way that normal humans handle .30 caliber rifles of the same type.
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Geekkake
post Jun 1 2006, 06:02 PM
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QUOTE (Shrike30 @ Jun 1 2006, 12:41 PM)
QUOTE (kigmatzomat @ Jun 1 2006, 06:13 AM)
This goes back to trolls being made of meat.  A ton of meat will absorb the recoil but the point the rifle stock hits the meat is going to be pounded into bloody hamburger once you've burned through a belt of ammo.  Trolls' dermal armor helps a bit but I suspect anything short of a rhino will get bruised from the recoil of a .50BMG in autofire. 

Give the troll a decent harness that distributes the force over a wide area and you've got something other than a bruised, bloodied, and tenderized troll.

Again, the recoil impulse on something like an M82 is described as being similar to that of a 12-gauge magnum shotgun. People fire those all the time. We don't have any real problem in Shadowrun giving human characters fully-automatic shotguns (asides from the fact that they have a hard time hitting anything)... why would there be a serious problem giving a noticeably heavier (and similarly-recoiling) weapon to someone who weighs 3x as much?

I am made of meat. So is my little brother's girlfriend. The fact that I am double her weight (I'm 215 pounds) is one of the reasons that I'm able to run through several boxes of 12-gauge ammunition in a 12-gauge pump shotgun without really noticing, and she's not willing to get knocked around by more than 3-4 shots.

I recall helping my father (a man who grew up shooting, who's shorter than I am but built heavier) sight in a bolt-action .338 Win Mag a few years ago. After 50 rounds at the range, we went home and he took off his shirt to see why his shoulder hurt so much. He had a hematoma forming on his shoulder from the recoil. A few weeks later, he took it out again to test the new recoil pad he'd installed on the (bare wood) butt of the rifle to try and cut down on the abuse he was taking from it, and had absolutely no problems with it.

.50 caliber weapons like the M2HB are intended to be fired from tripods or vehicular mounts. They don't have a lot in the way of ergonomics or recoil handling... they're built to be able to provide a fairly sustained rate of fire and not overheat as much. Given proper furniture, muzzle braking, buffering, and weapon layout, putting together a .50 caliber, select-fire battle rifle for trolls would be quite doable, and I imagine they'd be able to handle them in much the same way that normal humans handle .30 caliber rifles of the same type.

I think I will design just such a rifle once Arsenal is released. Maybe I'll make a mock-up with the CC rules.
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Shrike30
post Jun 1 2006, 06:08 PM
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Probably the biggest issue with something like this rifle would be the bulk of the ammo box. All other issues aside, .50 is a large round. I think getting much more than 20 rounds into a magazine would just get kinda silly, in terms of carrying spare magazines around.
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Geekkake
post Jun 1 2006, 06:34 PM
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QUOTE (Shrike30)
Probably the biggest issue with something like this rifle would be the bulk of the ammo box. All other issues aside, .50 is a large round. I think getting much more than 20 rounds into a magazine would just get kinda silly, in terms of carrying spare magazines around.

I concur. When I was a little kid, my grandfather gave me a box of .50 BMG duds. Maybe 30 fit into the shoebox. That's why God invented belted ammo.
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Shrike30
post Jun 1 2006, 07:31 PM
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Belted ammunition has it's own issues. It's more difficult to reload a belt feed because you've got to open up a chunk of the weapon and lay the belt into the action in the proper way, then close it and lock it without de-positioning the belt in the process. It hangs up on stuff if you've got it hanging free, makes it easier for dirt and other crap to get into the mechanism (because there's this external conveyor belt running straight into the weapon) and if it gets twisted on a link, the gun will jam on you. While a "belt pouch" could solve some of these problems, it can't handle all of them, and those belts are going to be really heavy, troll or no.

Box mags certainly seem doable, they just aren't going to be really high-capacity devices.
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Geekkake
post Jun 1 2006, 07:41 PM
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QUOTE (Shrike30)
Belted ammunition has it's own issues. It's more difficult to reload a belt feed because you've got to open up a chunk of the weapon and lay the belt into the action in the proper way, then close it and lock it without de-positioning the belt in the process. It hangs up on stuff if you've got it hanging free, makes it easier for dirt and other crap to get into the mechanism (because there's this external conveyor belt running straight into the weapon) and if it gets twisted on a link, the gun will jam on you. While a "belt pouch" could solve some of these problems, it can't handle all of them, and those belts are going to be really heavy, troll or no.

Box mags certainly seem doable, they just aren't going to be really high-capacity devices.

Hence the Complex Action to load a belted weapon, as opposed to a box mag, which is a Simple. Do you suggest two Complex for belted?
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Shrike30
post Jun 1 2006, 09:19 PM
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Most of my reasoning was "real life fluff", actually, but that'd be a reasonable way to duplicate it. Changing the belts on a machinegun is in no way doable in (essentially) the same amount of time it takes to eject an empty magazine, slap in a new one, and hit a bolt release. I think it's mostly a matter of having the weapons fit into the combat system easily.
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Butterblume
post Jun 1 2006, 09:29 PM
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I am trying to remember ...
I'd say it depends ;).

If your second gunner helps you, or you have set up the new belt for easy reloading, it would be one complex action.
Else it would be two (or even longer, if your second belt is in your backpack :P).
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Raygun
post Jun 2 2006, 12:21 AM
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QUOTE (kigmatzomat @ Jun 1 2006, 02:13 PM)
you failed to quote the section where I said:
This goes back to trolls being made of meat.  A ton of meat will absorb the recoil but the point the rifle stock hits the meat is going to be pounded into bloody hamburger once you've burned through a belt of ammo. Trolls' dermal armor helps a bit but I suspect anything short of a rhino will get bruised from the recoil of a .50BMG in autofire.

And you obviously failed to read the threads I suggested that you search. The Troll, being a much stronger, more massive animal, would be able to support the use of a weapon that is much heavier than one an average human would be able to effectively wield. The mass of the weapon itself absorbs the "excess" recoil and all is well.

Again, a Troll would likely have very little issue handling a 70-90 pound .50 BMG machine gun as a human handles a 7-9 pound M4/M16.

QUOTE
Give the troll a decent harness that distributes the force over a wide area and you've got something other than a bruised, bloodied, and tenderized troll.

He needs only a weapon that is suited to his stature. Otherwise, he needs smaller hands. Scale up. It's not rocket science.

QUOTE
I think the big thing is that if you let a troll treat a weapon as "light" that the uncompensated recoil is not doubled. Which kind of makes sense as the weight of a troll's arm on the forward grip will provide a lot more recoil-resisting inertia than even Arnold Schwarzenneger's. IIRC, shotguns count as "heavy" weapons and I'd have no trouble with trolls considering them "light."

I would agree, so long as the troll has no issues interfacing with the weapon.
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TBRMInsanity
post Jun 2 2006, 08:30 PM
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I hate to throw one of my "from personal experience" in here again, BUT

MMG are designed for defencive postions while LMGs are designed for squadron assults. This is why LMGs are lighter then MMGs. This also means that even a troll could not five a MMG from the sholder. They could fire from the hip but there would still be the problem that the weapon is ment to be fired from a tripod. The weapon would be VERY hard to control. HMGs are right out of question though. Most HMGs use 50cal rounds that will give a average human a concusion if fired from the sholder. They need to be mounted into a turret to be effective (like on the top of a Hummer). The only time you will see a metahuman carting one of those around is if they are taking it somewhere to be mounted.
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mdynna
post Jun 2 2006, 08:43 PM
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-- This has been another "tales from Afghanistan" moment with TBRMInsantiy --
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TBRMInsanity
post Jun 2 2006, 08:46 PM
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Quiet you!

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Austere Emancipa...
post Jun 2 2006, 08:54 PM
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QUOTE (TBRMInsanity)
MMG are designed for defencive postions while LMGs are designed for squadron assults. This is why LMGs are lighter then MMGs. This also means that even a troll could not five a MMG from the sholder. They could fire from the hip but there would still be the problem that the weapon is ment to be fired from a tripod.

What current weapon counts as an "MMG" in this context, then? I know that can't include GPMGs like M60s, M240s or PKMs, because all of those can be fired from the shoulder just fine (if slightly inaccurately, thanks to poor ergonomics and relatively stiff recoil) by a human. I can't really think of any modern non-heavy machine guns that aren't designed so that they can be fired from the standing unsupported position by a human -- at least by relatively strong guys.

QUOTE (TBRMInsanity)
Most HMGs use 50cal rounds that will give a average human a concusion if fired from the sholder.

Firing an actual HMG without any support might be a bit punishing for a human, though that's difficult to test because current HMGs don't exactly allow a human to fire them from the shoulder (no stock and poor grips make it difficult for a human to carry those 30+kg pieces of steel, let alone fire them accurately without support, even ignoring recoil). Firing .50 BMG rifles from the shoulder is, as others have mentioned in this thread, similar to firing a 12G with rather hot loads. This guy (Realplayer video) doesn't seem "concussed" as he fires the M95 .50 BMG bolt action rifle from the shoulder.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Jun 2 2006, 09:04 PM
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