about the vindicator minigun, i'm confused... Options

[thunderchild]

In my games (dont know if this is canon or not, been using it so long) if you tripod mount something it no longer counts as a heavy weapon for recoil rules. Well if you use tracers and fire the full 15 thats -5 to the tn, use a tripod (-6), foregrip(-1), custom grips (-1) and a smartlink (-2) HEY YOUR AT EVEN TN TO HIT!.

[Buzzed]

[Buzzed]

It all boils down to the Max Gyro. Remember. You dont have to hit alot with it, as long as you hit. So the uncompinsated recoil is really not that much of an issue.

1 success is all you need to turn a target into a swiss cheese pulp pudding. The chances of resisting a 22D damage with 1 success is almost impossible. If they do get 2 successes, it would require ALOT of armor and body to do so. Even then they would be at severe damage.

Remember the other drawback though. The knockdown on this gun really hurts the user, so keep some stim patches handy when you use it. :rotfl:

[TinkerGnome]

Seems the common arrangement would be max gyro (RC 7), Custom Grip (RC 1), Hip pad (RC 1), Foregrip (RC 1, for a troll), Strength 12+ (RC 2). That leaves you with 3 points of recoil, doubling to a +6 modifier. Your tracer rounds drop it to +1. You can't get a tracer benefit with smartlink, so ignore it, the -5 is way better and get vision mag 3 cyberware to compensate.

Now, you're firing a weapon at +1 TN to hit, for 17D and a dodge TN of 9. What else could you want?

[Moon-Hawk]

Mephisto, Cray, and Cain are all correct. Use supressive fire. Miniguns, quite simply, cannot be aimed short of vehicle mounts, gyro stabilization, tracer rounds, high strength, and a whole lot else. In real life, miniguns are not aimed, they are pointed. You don't aim at your enemy, you just point it in his general direction and wave it around a little. This is the tactic that the supressive fire rules represent quite well.
The rules aren't bad, some people just use the wrong one in the wrong situation. The only trick is knowing when to switch over.
Seriously, look at the supressive fire rules, with 15 bullets, you can do pretty effective damage over a VERY wide arc, and in the right situations, geek/wound a LOT of people, WAY more than with aiming (+2/second target)
hmmm, come to think of it, it's been a long time since my players were at the wrong end of one of those things....

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Ed_209a]

small caliber Miniguns are really nice as a micro CWIS for tanks. If they can get the ROF down to around 1000 RPM, it can double as an anti-infantry mount.

[Buzzed]

[mfb]

austere, that's true if you're trying to cover a 15-meter area. a better use might be to cover a 3-meter area, 5 rounds per meter. this way, there's almost no way in hell a character will be able to dodge completely (though it's annoying that he'll only get tagged by one round).

[sidekick]

I got a question about supressive fire. Couldn't I just declare that with said Minigun that I am going to do supressive fire in a 2 meter arc (the meter of the guy I want to shoot, and the meter area next to him) and then hit him (unless he rolls 7 successes on a dodge test), and with a smartlink just roll skill against TN 4 for staging ?

If that is the case, then FA fire is amazing.

[mfb]

smartlink bonuses don't apply to suppessive fire. the only mods that do, officially, are cover and wounds (note that vis mag is not a modifier per se; it adjusts the base TN, and therefore does apply). unofficially, Rob says that modifiers for defaulting ought to also apply.

[kenny26]

ok, now i see quite alot of options that it'd overlooked before...
well, the suppresive fire and many recoil compensators would make the minigun a useful weapon.

and what Austere says about putting a limit to the recoil is also true. i never thought of it that way. how can it be so much more difficult to hit a target than firing blind?
well, this is all useful and i'll take your suggestions into consideration. :)

[Austere Emancipa...]

Motorfirebox, exactly. You'll only every hit with one round. That's why I used the 1 round per sq ft analogy. ~11 sq ft in a square meter, or ~43 in an area 2 x 2 meters square, so there'd still be about 28 square feet of bullet-free area in the average Suppressive Fire area. But, IRL, you could easily have put 4.5 bullets in each sq ft of that area in 3 seconds with any old minigun (though the distribution would certainly not be that even).

[mfb]

true. that's why i prefer my house autofire rules, though i'll be damned if i can remember exactly how they work. maybe it was: subtract the full recoil mod from the highest die rolled, then add the value of your recoil comp and the original TN?, then, you stage by the number of high rolls you made; if you hit with the maximum number of rounds, all dice that equal or exceed the TN + recoil - recoil comp are used to stage. lemme see:

range Medium, 14-round burst, 8 points RC, 6 skill, smartlink-2. TN is 5 (range) -2 (SL) = 3. let's say i roll 1, 5, 2, 9, 3, 3. that would leave me with (high roll 9 -14 recoil +8 RC +3 TN) = 6 rounds hit. yeah, that makes sense. this way, recoil doesn't interfere with your chance to get the first round on target, and you're rewarded for rolling higher.

as a bonus, i raise the dodge TN based on the total number of rounds in the burst, not just the ones that hit--after all, it's not like the bullets that miss just disappear. this helps mitigate the hit you take on your successes (since you don't often come up with two or more of your highest result).

[Jonah]

The long and the short of it is Vidicator Miniguns are ment to be mounted on vehicles. 'Old Painless' used in Predator (and the basis of the Vindicator) is a General Electric Minigun off the side of a helicopter.
The USA army looked at making one (they said 'cool what a great support weapon') but found that to hold enough ammo to make the weapon tacticaly viable you had to be Mungo the Super Soldier (not to mention the gun and batteries...).
The other main obstical was that the ejecting shells tended to eviserate the user (not a problem with caseless rounds in SR).
Past that I am a HUGE fan of rotating barrels. If it spin'n I'm grin'n.
If you want a squad based mini gun get a smithy to make one that spews out light pistol or pistol rounds. This weapon would be about the size of an chunky assult rifle and wouldn't have the double recoil rule attached. Geek'n good fun.
I made one called the Viper (following on the 'V' name pattern). A decent helix feed should hold about 80 - 120 pistol sized rounds, heavy but fun.

Just remember the vidicator basicly takes a similar caliber round to a sporting rifle (both are 7S). These are BIG rounds kiddies, bigger than assult rifle rounds!! Think 7.62 mimimum.

Also be careful of the six barrels with six modifications. Man who fire minigun with six weighted barrels feeeeeeeels the gyroscopic force.

[Stonecougar]

A'ight, my :nuyen: .02. RL GE Miniguns are 7.62 NATO or 5.56 NATO in caliber, with a cyclic rate of about 6,000 rounds per minute. NO FRAGGING WAY ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE IT MAN PORTABLE. PERIOD, DOT, END. They mounted the fraggers on Huey's in Vietnam, one on each side sponson, and they visibly slowed the chopper down while firing.

My use for Vindicators? My rigger's got a naval variant of the Stallion (Bigger gas tanks!), with a Vindicator in a chin turret. 2000 rounds of AV in the hopper and the thing becomes a fairly effective anti vehicular weapon. Drop a couple Great Dragons under the belly for good measure. They make wonderful AA or aerially mounted weapons. Occasionally, they're okay when mounted in a turret on a vehicle. For my land vehicles, I just use a pair of Ingram Valiants. Cheaper, just as effective, and easier to feed. Granted, there is something just intimidating about that *WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRR...* that makes enemies soil their britches. But mostly, the Vindicator is an odd curio with little practical value. Go for LMGs, MMGs, or HMGs... If you want serious AV capability, get an assault cannon. Buy an Ares Vigorous, put it in a turret, and smartlink the damn thing. Only one shot at a time, but DAMN it's a big one. And if you're a half decent shot, you'll hit your target...

[Lilt]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Stonecougar]

I still think that even at 2000 rpm the recoil would tear the arms off the average troll...

[Austere Emancipa...]

Wrong. Why would you think so? Loads of LMGs fire 1000rpm, like the KK62 I've fired several times. The M249 SAW can also fire 1000rpm. The minigun in question weighs twice that, and fires twice that. Basically, it's the same as if you taped 2 M249s together and fired them at the same time. There are plenty of stories about trolls firing LMGs single handed. In fact, I bet there are plenty of people in the US army who have fired the M249 single handed (though they probably didn't hit shit).

2000rpm with a minigun firing AR/LMG ammo would NOT tear off the arms of any SR character, except maybe an albino otaku 11-year-old girl with all Phys stats at 1. The average man would be quite capable of firing it. The accuracy would suck, and firing it on the move might be extremely hard. But for a troll, it should present absolutely zero problems. Even at 4000rpm. I mean, they weigh 3+ times as much as average humans (and reasonably they should weigh even more than that, see How Much Did You Say He Weighed in the TSS archives).

Now, if this was a minigun firing cannon rounds, or even HMG rounds, then sure, the troll would be in a world of hurt. But it doesn't, so he wouldn't.

[Athenor]

Hm. Don't have my books with me, but just wanna check:

The minigun still lets you break shots down into 3 round bursts, right? I thought it was only the high-velocity weapons (with max full auto of 18) that required a minimum of 6 round bursts...

With the minigun, I can picture getting off the +3 and the +6 shot with proper recoil mods.. perhaps even the +9 if you are really good, or vehicle mounted... Beyond that, though, the remaining shots would be wasted walking, or just flung out to lower your magazone, or cause collateral damage...

Ever since going on a minigun-viewing spree with Bull, I've never thought that there is a practical man-portable minigun, especially if one does not at least mount it on a tripod or gyro stabilizer. This is not a weapon you are going to lug around with you to the ultra-secret stealth areas.

Also: hitting a car wouldn't be terribly hard with it, no? I mean, miniguns are meant to shred vehicles first and foremost, right?

*grumbles about not having his rules on him*

Athenor

[Shockwave_IIc]

[John Campbell]

[Athenor]

Uhm...

IIRC, every example in the book says that the vehicle halving of recoil cancells out the doubling of uncompensated recoil.. So that 9 would be taken from the 15 total...

Athenor

[Lilt]