[X] My Assistant

[James McMurray]

The thing about printed weights is that they make life easier. I don't have to go and do research to try and figure out how many kilograms a heavy machine gun made of 2070s material will weigh if the weight is listed on the chart. Likewise with other things that "common sense" is only good for if you have experience with them.

For example, how much does a commlink weigh? You don't need an exact amount if you're just eyeballing, but you need a good guesstimate if you're going to figure out how many can fit in a carryable box.

I guess I never understood people that complained about "bean counting" weights. Sure, it requires a little work, but it's a very little and is really only done once at character creation. Anything after that is just adding or subtracting when you find / lose stuff. But my group has always been in favor of numbers when available and useful. Weight, in our opinion, is one of the ones that's useful enough to use numbers for. YMMV

[ShadowDragon]

I imagin that a commlink weighs as much as a small cell phone if not less - so not enough to worry about.

I think another major problem with weight lists is weight distribution. I'm not a big guy and I can easily carry a 60 lb backpack designed for hiking, but I'd struggle carrying 60 lbs of books in my arms. That's where I think common sense would apply.

As for guns, just let the character carry them if they have the room. Guns are light enough that size is the limiting factor and not weight. If you think about it, virtually all of the gear works like this.

[McGravin]

Not to get too offtopic, but commlinks in SR4 have really annoyed me. We're told that commlinks are an "easy-to-carry package that easily fits inside a pocket, belt-clip, or wrist-clip. Commlinks come in a dizzying area (sic) of shaps, sizes, and colors, from stylized head-sets or faux jewelry to cranial implants and commlinks woven into the fabric of your jacket." So are they telling me that with miniturization in the 2070s, any commlink can be the same tiny size, from the Meta Link to the Fairlight Caliban? Personally, I disagree.

In campaigns I GM, I've ruled that they vary in size depending on their Response and Signal ratings, with the Meta Link being comparable to the smallest modern Palm Pilot and the Caliban about the size of your average paperback. My players seem to agree, or at least, they're not complaining.

[BlueRondo]

Well, they all have to be small enough to be implanted in a person's head, right?

[ShadowDragon]

Or hand..

[BlueRondo]

That's pretty small, and considering that there are no rules limiting response or signal based for implanted commlinks, I don't think size is much of an issue.

I don't know very much about electronics, but I imagine that the reason most PDA's, cell phones, smart phones, etc. are the size they are now is because people need to interact with them. If a commlink is implanted, or if most of the interfacing is done through accessories (image-link, earbuds, AR gloves, subvocal mic), then the actual commlink could be incredibly small.

[Samaels Ghost]

I don't know very much about electronics, but I imagine that the reason most PDA's, cell phones, smart phones, etc. are the size they are now is because people need to interact with them.

And I still have trouble pressing the tiny keys on my cell phone!

[McGravin]

[BlueRondo]

Thank you for that explanation.

[Shrike30]

[Adam Selene]

The NSRCG is practically the biggest 3rd-Ed gear list known to man. Tell me how it doesn't violate copyright and Wordman's list does.

[ShadowDragon]

[Samaels Ghost]

For those with no RL experience, how many magazines would be reasonable to carry? How much heavier/more bulky is a magazine compared to a clip?

[Adam Selene]

The same?

A magazine is a self-contained queue of rounds. (the ones that come in semi-automatics these days)
A clip is just a bunch of bullets on a metal slide, like the ammunition for an M1 Garand.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Clip
Magazine

[Shrike30]

When I use the term "magazine," I'm referring to what SR calls "clips." When I use the term "tubular magazine," I'm referring to what SR calls "magazines."

With handguns, a "typical" civilian carry rig today has the user with mag+1 round in the gun (a round chambered, and a full magazine below it), and then 1-2 spare magazines. This will often be carried in a "balanced" fashion... if the gun is on your right hip, the spare ammuntion is usually on the left. If the gun is in a shoulder holster, the spare ammunition is usually under the other arm. With my personal rig, that's 40 rounds of ammunition. You can easily get close to 60 rounds without having to carry more than 2 spare magazines, depending on the gun you carry.

It's also not uncommon to see a backup gun (something like a small revolver or automatic, with 0-2 reloads... SR "hold-out" pistols). In situations where you're hard-pressed to stay concealed (be it a hot day with light clothing, being at work where you might get fired for having a gun, or wearing something like a well-cut suit), what might normally be considered a backup gun might be the only thing you're carrying.

Revolver users will often carry either a couple of speedloaders, or some "speed strips"... a strip of metal that holds the same number of rounds as the revolver in a line, allowing the user to thumb them off the strip and into the cylinder without having to fumble around. Revolvers are an uncommon choice for a main handgun, due to the capacity of similarly-sized automatics (with a .357 wheelgun, you might be carrying 18 rounds between your gun and two speedloaders... a 357 SIG automatic generates similar ballistics but could hold 15 rounds in each magazine)... most who do carry revolvers do so simply because they are better shots with revolvers than automatics, or because it is more difficult to cause a revolver to malfunction.

Taking a handgun into a more combat-oriented environment, you're going to want 4-6 spare magazines, and a "primary" weapon (as handguns, in all honesty, are about the last thing you actually want to get into a fight with). That much ammunition can still be carried in a somewhat convenient fashion, without taking up too much space. Spare magazines might be stored in pouches on a vest, in holders strapped to your thigh, or under the arms/on the hip as I was saying earlier. The gun itself might also be in a thigh holster, strapped to the front of your chest, or otherwise kept somewhere accessible but secure.

With larger automatic weapons (submachineguns, assault rifles, battle rifles) you'll usually see loadouts running from 4-10 spare magazines. Battle rifles (things like the M14, G3, FAL) are reasonably heavy, as is their ammunition (a loaded 20 round FAL magazine weighs 1.5 pounds). My understanding is that a number of armed forces normally deployed 4 spare magazines with their battle rifles... but troops often scrounged up extras (or carried extra ammunition in a case) if they were in an active combat zone, feeling that 100 rounds might not be enough, even though the majority of the shooting was to be done on semiautomatic.

The lighter ARs and SMGs are much easier to carry ammunition for, as the magazines are smaller and lighter weight, despite normally holding about 30 rounds of ammunition. On a lighter, higher-speed group (think something like a SWAT team) 4-6 spare magazines might be the norm. On a group expecting serious combat (soldiers in the field) with decent fire control, 8-10 spare magazines should last them through the day. One of the reasons to issue your troops similar weapons is so that they can share magazines, should everything go to hell and some people start running out of ammunition.

Carrying larger magazines like this can involve a bandolier, holders on the waist or chest, or a pouch. It's uncommon to see rifle magazines stored on the legs. Often times, soldiers will have a lightweight kit that they don't really ever take off holding things like water and their rifle magazines, meaning that even if they're seperated from their pack, they can still be a basic rifleman. Submachineguns are almost never seen in a military environment for frontline combat troops, as carbines (short assault rifles) are nearly as light, provide significantly more firepower, and have a much longer effective range (and it means, again, that the trooper can share ammunition with his squadmates).

Shotguns that feed from a magazine you would treat like a battle rifle, most likely (based on the weight and size of a shotgun magazine). These are uncommon today. In SR, there's a few of them. As a shotgun magazine usually holds only 6-10 rounds of ammunition, you'd probably want more than the basic "4 spares" of a battle rifle.

Shotguns that feed from a tubular magazine (by far the most common) are loaded by inserting individual shells into the tube. I've seen any number of clever means for carrying shotgun ammunition... bandoliers, shell loops on the buttstock, carriers bolted to the side of the reciever opposite the ejection port, shell loops on the sling for the weapon, bandoliers, loops in your vest, loops on your belt, a box of shells dumped loose into your pocket (or kept in the box, so the shells are all facing the same way), hardbodied springloaded boxes attached to the belt so that there's always a round at the bottom (kind of like a toothpick dispenser)... a 25 round box of shotgun shells is about 3 inches thick, and about 4 inches on a side, and weighs about 3-4 pounds, depending on the type of shot or slug used. The loose rounds are about 3 inches long and a little under an inch in diameter.

One of the useful things about shotguns is the fact that you can usually load in a round of your choice without having to completely unload the weapon. If you wanted to fire a door-breaching round or a slug out of a gun loaded with shot rounds, you could do so either by feeding the desired round into the tube and pumping the gun/racking the bolt to chamber it, or by pressing the "interrupt" (if the gun has one... it keeps the tube from feeding into the chamber), pumping/racking the chamber open to eject the currently loaded round, dropping the desired round into the chamber, and closing it again.

Shotguns are very limited in range... 40 yards is generally regarded as being the absolute maximum they can be used at when loaded with shot. Their military uses are almost exclusively urban battle or FISHing (a Brit term, "Fighting In Someone's House"). It's rare to see a soldier armed exclusively with a shotgun... often times, they'll have a rifle as well, either carried with them or in their vehicle. The shotgun is used for breaching doors and fighting at spitting distances, with the rifle used if they're out in the street. Sometimes, the shotgun will be quite severely cut down and kept loaded solely with breaching rounds or slugs, holding only a few rounds of ammunition as it really isn't meant to do anything except destroy door locks and hinges at point blank.

In law-enforcement applications (SWAT and patrol cars) the shotgun is viewed as a primary weapon. It's uses are mostly the same, although patrol officers tend to use the shotgun at longer ranges than the military might. This isn't because the weapon is somehow more effective for them, it's just that it's the biggest thing they've got. There's a transition in America towards assault rifles/carbines for police use, either replacing the shotgun or augmenting it. Some units may carry additional "beanbag guns" in their patrol cars... shotguns loaded exclusively with less-lethal ammunition, usually kept in the trunk and with some funky color scheme to make it obvious it is NOT to be loaded with hardball ammunition. SWAT units will sometimes use breaching shotguns in addition to another primary weapon, similar to the military.

... heh, that went a little OT. Can you tell I'm bored at work?

[Adam Selene]

Bored at work? With a Raygun-like knowledge like that I'd have to ask WHO you worked for.

CACI International?

[Shrike30]

Heh. I'm trained as an EMT and looking for work in Seattle. Asides from that, I've mostly done office stuff.

[PBTHHHHT]

right, that's what it says for your official cover. gotcha. ;-)

[Shrike30]

:P

[McGravin]

I know I said this was coming a couple days ago, but here's version 0.3. It's got a new column for included weapon modifications. I didn't have room for a key, so I put in a new column in the Firearm Accessories category itself to act as a key.

Unless I decide to put in a title page (maybe), this is probably the last version until some new books come out with new gear.

[ShadowDragon]

I found a few more mistakes. Spurs don't have reach, as per the errata. You're missing the weapon values for bone lacing (which is also changed in errata from first print). Plastic is (STR/2 + 1)P and aluminum is (STR/2 + 2)P. Under magical supplies, change "Conjuring Materials" to "Spirit Binding Materials" and change the cost to Force x 500 :nuyen: as per the errata.

Another thing you might consider adding is alternating shaded rows like the book. It makes it much easier to read. For a title page, you could include a brief index; maybe squeeze the key in there too.

[Wordman]

For the record:

1. It was FASA who asked me to stop distributing the list. I have no idea what the stance of FanPro/Wiz Kids is.
2. I'm told that copies of it are floating around on p2p networks.
3. Whatever version is out there contains information from works that are no longer actually sold, so its unclear if even if they cared about it before, that they still would.
4. Whether they care or not, I've past the point of being interested in their opinion.

[Bull]

[Fortune]

Is anyone planning on updating this with Gear from Augmentation and Arsenal (when it eventually comes out)?