Firearms Options

[Cursedsoul]

Quite. And what kind of feel you want for your game. And how impatient/hyped up on caffeine and sugar your players (and GM) are. :)

[Blink]

Whether a semi-automatic can be made automatic is dependant on the action. I could give examples but I don't think the mods would like it. The problem is that kitchen table automatics are usually a little on the unstable side. If the player drops the gun there may be a 1/10 chance that it'll go off.

[TheOneRonin]

Or, in my case, how much of firearms rules as written makes the whole gaming table feel like their brains are bleeding out of their ears.

Actually, I can wrap my head around a lot of abstractions. You HAVE to if you are going to play any RPGs at all. What gets to me the most are abstract rules that make things in the game world completely assbackwards from what they are in real life.

Sure, I can deal with the small things, but other shit just kills me. If it really would be as hard to hit shit with autofire IRL as it is in the game, no one would ever use any kind of fully automatic weapon, EVER. If pistols really do more tissue damage, penetrate armor better, and are just as accurate as assault rifles, then it makes no sense to use anything but pistols a majority of the time. Shit in the real world just isn't like that. And I balk at game rules that follow that trend.

I want my game world to be about choices. Instead of:

"Well, if I take my Predator to the meet, I'll have an easily concealable weapon, but I'm fucked if there are more than a few goons in body armor. If I bring my HK 227, I can probably conceal it under my coat, though anyone who checks me out could easily tell I'm packing. Multiple goons won't be a problem, though, seeing as how I have 32round mags and burst/auto fire. Maybe I should just go all-out and bring my Ares Alpha. It screams 'I take no bullshit', damn near ignores armor, and has a grenade launcher to boot. Of course, if the meet is in-doors, I might be fucked trying to maneuver that bad boy indoors. And since everyone will be able to tell I'm expecting trouble, it might turn into a self-fullfilling prophecy."

...we have:

"I bring my Viper Slivergun to the meet. Concealable, 30 round mag, BF capable, and lethal even vs. armor. Why on earth would I carry anything else?"

...or better yet:

"Okay, so the job is to break into the secure corporate compound, extract the scientist, and escape? I'll bring my Ranger Arm SM-4 sniper rifle loaded with ExEx ammo and fitted with a silencer. What's that you say? How am I going to use a sniper rifle in close quarters? Simple...I have 14 dice and a low-light/thermo/image mag scope. Full dice pool, baby!"

[deek]

[TheOneRonin]

[deek]

Understood, but I think it is worthwhile to know whether the detailed firearms gurus are in the minority or majority, ya know?

I mean, I am techincal by nature and by work, when it comes to electronics and career...so I understand where you are coming from. There are a lot of computer and matrix stuff that don't jive with my personal experience...

[TheOneRonin]

[TheOneRonin]

[Shrike30]

I'm one of the guys who gets into it whenever the "realistic firearms in SR" thing comes up, but I'm actually comfortable with the level of abstraction that goes on.

High skill level versus armored target? We've got called shot rules for that, and simply getting more successes helps get around armor pretty frequently, making it so you don't even have to call a shot.

AK97 carbine does less damage than a heavy pistol? I'll buy that... you chop an assault rifle down so short that it qualifies as an SMG, you're going to have issues with the round performing like it's supposed to because of the reduced speeds, whereas a 10mm round is generally okay at doing it's job when fired from a 4" barrel. For all we know, the AK97 starts keyholing at 10 meters.

Autofire isn't too effective? Short/Long bursts make putting down a single opponent in a single action (rather than having to fire several rounds at them) a lot easier, and recoil compensation is readily available.

The short version is, I don't care enough to worry about it, and when something does bug me a little tweak to it's use (be it a change in damage code, a penalty for using it in some situations, or the like) is easy enough to accomplish.

As for medical dramas? Watching "ER" or "House" with a family (including myself) that is mostly in the medical field is entertaining, to say the least. The heckling never stops. :spin:

[Ed_209a]

I think SR4 firearms can be "rightsized" fairly easily.

Accept pistol ammo as the base. When we look strictly at the ability to create a wound, SMGs do a little more than pistols, and ARs do a little more than SMGs. That feels right to my head.

The big change is in penetration, or put differently, what it takes to stop that damage. Standard SMG stats feel right if they are using light pistol ammo. AR and up have way too low of a AP mod. I would raise ARs to -4 or -5, then balance LMGs and up from there. Here's why:

Today, standard tactical armor (IIIA for the enthusiasts) will stop cold anything a SMG or heavy pistol can throw at it, leaving you with a painful bruise, and perhaps a broken rib. (please don't muddy the water with freaks like 500S&W mag)

Assault rifle rounds go through IIIA and you with power to spare. Today, you have to double the weight of your armor just to step up from SMG protection to rifle protection. In 2070, armor will be much lighter, but I believe the doubling will still be there.

[CyberKender]

I have to laugh a bit. ED's comments are pretty much the sort of things I used to say about why I liked 1st Edition's Staging. Yeah, it was more complex, and, yeah, armor was too effective, but I liked how it effectively took into account the difference between small, fast bullets vs. big, slow bullets.

[Shrike30]

The trick becomes, then, how do you make class III and IV armors ("combat armor" if you want to call class IIIA "tactical armor") work in this system? I can see an arguement for making them Hardened, but that's about the only way I can see it working.

It does create a niche for APDS ammo in pistol-caliber weapons, though...

[Ed_209a]

This is a good question, and one I don't know the answer to right offhand. The abstract nature of SR armor vs location means makes it difficult. After all, an armored longcoat (lvl II, I'd say) has nearly the same protection as an armored jacket (Lvl IIIa/III), because it covers more.

I really wish SR4 used locations. You could always just find any RPG that uses a D6-based location roll (Battletech and GURPS come to mind) and use that location chart. Locations covered by a given armor would be simple enough from the descriptions. If you want locaton effects done easy, limbs do 1/2 number of final points, head double, torso normal.

I am not sure hardened armor is the answer, because you do usually end up with severe bruising (stun damage), just not to the same level of impairment (number of boxes) as if the bullet was not stopped.

[kzt]

[kzt]

[G.NOME]

The "DS" in "APDS" is kind of suspect.

Of course, they might be talking about "true" flechettes.

EDIT: Well, the SR-1 is pretty good against body armor, supposedly.

[eidolon]

As a slight aside, I would rather situations like

[Begby]

[mfb]

[Shrike30]

[Blink]

[eidolon]

[Cursedsoul]

I say screw firearms and make yourself a Troll with a Meta-man portable dwarf launching catapult. :D Maybe some sorta gigantor crossbow (probably bordering on a Crossbow-Ballista hybrid) with lots of whirly gears and shiny parts to make you the envy of all. :D

Seriously though, I definitely agree with the sentiment that house rules are the way to go if you want "realistic" combat because that way no space is wasted in the book and more people will come to Dumpshock and sample our fine gourmet cuisine of threads such as these in order to guide them in hashing out their own spin on the subject.

Also, I'm tellin' ya this dwarfapult is the way to go. You can even dikote'em (assuming they ever bring it back...and they probably won't...with good reason ;) ) and give'em a pointy object to hold to get yourself a bonafide armorpiercing projectile from hell. :grinbig:

[kzt]

What I mostly find annoying isn't that the rules are not detailed enough, it's that the rules show that the people writing the rules just don't have a clue. It's like writing vehicle rules that have semis accelerating faster then sports cars and pickup trucks carrying more than a semi, while delivery vans are have better off-road characteristics than dune buggies, as well as continually using the word "torque" to mean "speed".

The exact same amount of space in rules and the tables could have been used and we could get a much more sane set of rules that don't add to complexity. And didn't produce two or three superguns and a bunch of clunkers.

[mfb]