HV ammo poll 2.0 for Heavy Angel, Round 2, Fight! Options

[HullBreach]

Okay, I have taken all of the advice gleaned from the community in this thread:
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...opic=16834&st=0

And applied it to my proposed HV ammo page here:
http://heavyangel.com/?page_id=61

Points taken under advisement (i.e. changelog):
-Reduced the DV by 1
-Added submachineguns as a weapon this is availible for
-Added potential to melt gas vent systems in autofire
-All weapons loaded with this ammo use the light pistol/machine pistol ranges
-Fixed my grammer and spelling mistakes.

Once again, my goal with www.HeavyAngel.com is to make a site that most GM's would feel comfortable including the content from. I know as a GM I was always leery of player made gear from the net, so Im striving to make sure the stuff I post isn't overpowered.

Please critique away!

[HullBreach]

Well 2 votes for "Maybe, if you changed....(specify in post)" at this point and no explanations.......

Not terribly helpful...

[Spike]

I haven't voted, but I personally prefer to keep clutter down... that is the previous thread was still active, why start a new one on the same topic?

That said, I also didn't vote here because I don't really use web based materials at all, which isn't an option in the polls.... ;)

[HullBreach]

[Tomothy]

I don't know a whole lot about guns but my impression (based on GitS) is that if you were unarmoured and got hit by one of these rounds it would do more damage than a normal round. I don't think this isn't reflected in your rules. I like that it loses damage over a distance, but starting it at less damage than a standard round seems off to me.

[Narmio]

I like the idea, but I think your implementation is too crunchy. Keep things simple, nobody at a game table wants additional rules. This stuff is meant to be a poor man's APDS, so just do something like the following:

Damage: +0(-3 AP).

It's Hella Loud: Appropriate perception bonus. GMs are free to devise effects on autofire-happy HV-using players who don't have a Sound Dampener, but don't bother with specifics.

Bad mojo for your piece: Follows the "might blow up" rules for explosive ammo.

Any lowlife can cook it: Availability 6F, and it's all black market. There *isn't* a legal market for this stuff, because anyone even remotely professional would buy proper APDS instead. You see gangers and other barrens scum using this crap on the fuzz. Any shadowrunner worthy of the name will use something else unless it's an absolute emergency and the party's pornomancer can't give him his AP fix.

[Eleazar]

So I only effectively gain 2 dice and add all whole slew of disadvantages. No thanks. My time and money are spent better elsewhere. APDS is 5 nuyen less and a heck of a lot more effective and better. Or I could go with regular explosive rounds which are better as well and 25 nuyen cheaper. I don't really see how these are viable at all for any player. The fact that these will somehow detonate your weapon seems quite ridiculous to me. With all the disadvantages and price of these bullets they should at least be as effective as APDS if not more so. They really come up short.

[HullBreach]

[Ravor]

Um, quick question, if they are so easy to make then why is the price jacked up so high?

Just a thought....

[Steak and Spirit...]

I like the concept. The product, however, needs work.

Anytime you need something powerful enough to potentially risk fragging your weapon over, you will already be up shit's creep it can't be used outside of a range of 5 meters. And really, this stuff can't be: -2 DV, -3AP to a range of 15 Meters?

Essentially, you're telling me, that the net (rounded) result is that at 15 Meters, by using this ammunition, you gain a net advantage of -1DV. Come on. What's the point? This stuff is supposed to save your hoop, in a jam? Sure, if you swap it into the other guy's clip.

If, as you're suggesting, the liklihood of a glitch is going to be as liklihood of a success, this shit better be cool. Like, really cool. Like, really, really fucking sweet. Even cooler than that, maybe.

So give it some balls.

Ignore that negative to DV stuff. This is the future. Introduce some creative license. Can any hyper-velocity hollowpoints use a smaller, deforming slug to do more damage, fired at a higher velocity to aid in penetrating armor? No? Maybe it can, in 2070. Or, perhaps the high velocity allows penetration through armor, and due to the varying compositions of the alloys forming the bullet, it doesn't start expanding a wound cavity until after it penetrates. So, the best of both worlds - Excellent Penetrator, acceptable wound cavity.

Either way, if you're telling me I might want to use this stuff at some point, even though it might ruin my gun, then you're going to need more than flavour text to convince me.

If you keep the 2's as glitch, and the extremely limited range, jack up the DV and AP. Make it mean. Really mean. Really, really mean son of a bitch mean.

If you only keep the 2's as a glitch, or instead ditch the 2's, and just stick to the extremely limited range then jack the DV and AP up anyway. Imagine making a disgustingly awesome form of ammunition, then just scale it back a little from there.

Off the top of my head, without really doing a whole lot of math, I'm thinking that EX-EX is already +2/-2, so with those significant downsides, you could realistically get away with +2/-3. Water that down to +1/-4?

If you scale back the disadvantages, perhaps a more moderate +1/-3 is in order, to maintain all of that potential. If you're stuck on having it being a super-penetrator, then go ahead and keep that -5AP in there. But put me on record for saying that at close range, the last thing I want is something that isn't doing AS MUCH DV AS POSSIBLE. Especially if I'm risking only being able to do that DV -once-.

I apologize if any of this was already covered in a related thread. And I reserve the right to wake up in 8 hours, reread my incoherient ramblings, and dissavow any knowledge of the creation of this post. But I'm deliriously tired right now, so I'm going to get some sleep. Hope this helps, or springboards some help. Peace.

[Crakkerjakk]

My .02 American Dollars.

The question here is "would you allow them in your game" not, "are they better than APDS." These have been created specifically for use by crazy ass street gangers, who may have the weaponry to use em, but not the contacts to get military grade ammo. They're more expensive because they have no competition in their market niche.

I think they're balanced. Their ungodly AP is balanced by the possibility of your gun exploding, combined with the short range for them to be effective. My vote goes to the, "approved as is" category.

[HullBreach]

The DV penalty is somthing Im flexible on. I wasn't to solid on that change anyways, so I'll tweak it some more tonight.

As to the price: This is hand-loaded ammo. All of the other ammo's in the game are mass produced in factories, which drives their prices down considerably. This stuff on the other hand requires many precise and tediuos steps to produce by a skilled loader.

The high price represents that labor.

[Meriss]

HullBreach pardon a newb for asking but, would you not get a similar result from match grade powder? from what I've read it's just as good and not so likely to blow up. (I read alot of Tom Clacy BTW) Also what about depleted Uranium rounds, same powder more punch, although mostly corp and mil would have it. But it's good to scare players with.

PC: Look I can run around with a Kevlar Coat, I'm Immortal!
MILsec Guard shoots iggnorant idiot with U-238 round: And I'm God.

[HullBreach]

[Spike]

I'm not entirely certain small arms produce enough punch to get DU to do what it does (that is...liquify into a unholy projectile of penetration...) in AT rounds. I like the idea of sticking DU rounds into my pistol and punching holes in inconvienent bulidings...

Then I think of the reality: DU isn't completely without radioactivity by a long shot, and that gun is a little too close to the ol' reproductive organs...

never mind the questions over effectiveness in RL terms for pistols, say...

[Austere Emancipa...]

DU doesn't "liquify" in any kinetic energy weapons I'm aware of.

But you're right that it would be quite useless in small arms anyway: the benefits from the increased density over tungsten carbide would be outweighed by the lower hardness because of the types of targets it'd be used against (extremely hard but not particularly dense plate inserts of body armor, for example). The self-sharpening property would not really come into play because of the very small size of the projectiles and the far shorter depths of penetration into armor. The pyrophoric property could be useful in an anti-material rifle, but an incendiary target effect at least as powerful is already conferred with ammunition like the Mk 211 Mod 0.

Unless you screw up when hand loading the ammunition, breath in the air around the area you shoot up with your cool new DU bullets, or get shot with your own gun, the radioactivity would not be a health issue for you. Traceability, instant recognition of crime scene, etc. might be problematic, however.

[Meriss]

Thanks for the clarity HullBreach. Tom Clancy tends to use military language just to sound cool some times. I think he might have meant Target match grade powder. Meh, what do I know I'm a Canadian civ. Hey guys Wiki says that DPU "is known from several laboratory studies to be toxic to mammals, especially to the reproductive system and fetus development" :eek: Hmm may have to rethink using it.

[X-Kalibur]

[ShadowDragon]

[Narmio]

[HullBreach]

[nezumi]

Misspelled "legally":

"(and leagally) available"

[HullBreach]

[nezumi]

S'alright. Unless I'm telling other people why they're wrong, I question my own validity.