Twinked weapons, What have people done with Arsenal? Options

[Bashfull]

The shotgun thread made me wonder what people have done with Arsenal? Is there a set-up of choice from the game's number crunchers?

Maybe we should set up categories:

Best bang for your buck
Biggest Boom (subcategories for each weapon type: pistols, automatics, longarms)
Big damage that you can sneak into the boardroom.
Other

[Seraph Kast]

You can make things with some amazing recoil reduction. Six slots lets you fit in personalized grip/eletronic firing, a gas vent 3 system, a foregrip, and leaves two extra slots. That with a shock pad as an accessory is 6 recoil reduction. For people who would want to be stationary, you could remove the foregrip and have a bipod or tripod accessory.

Heavy Pistols with Burst Fire capability sound nasty. Or even turning the Viper Slivergun into a fully automatic death machine.

Plus you could make some seriously nasty assassination/stealthy weapons. Integrated Silencer on a pistol, plus subsonic ammo is a -8 on perception rolls to hear or see it. Bigger guns it takes more slots b/c you'd have to use a Sound and a Thermal suppressor, but you could end up with something like a -6 to hear/spot a fully automatic rifle. Plus there's the fun of guns that can crawl around on the floor and self destruct or shoot people without you holding them. All sorts of fun things to do with Arsenal mods! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[CanRay]

I'm holding off on my description until we meet "Matilda" in my current story.

[Spike]

This makes me think that the only good way to address weapon customization in a game... particularly with guns... is to start from that when designing the core rules/gear.

OF course, an increase in the granularity of the rules, or reducing the granularity of the mods themselves strikes me as equally necessary in most cases.


What do I mean?

take something like having a mod such as 'floating barrel'... we can make this an 'accuracy' mod. Of course, all the high end shooty rifles are generally built with this in mind (sniper rifles)... being able to add it to a sniper rifle is sort of silly. What this should allow you to do is bring a 'cheapo' hunting rifle up to sniper rifle accuracy... or at least start approaching them (more mods would be applied...) in accuracy and cost.

As is: mods are taken in a vacuum and can mostly be applied anywhere, making the 'sick' weapons even sicker... when in reality its like trying to customize your quartermillion dollar lamborghini with 'racing tires' and stiffer shocks. Stupid Gearhead, your car already has better versions of that installed from the factory. that's why its a quartermillion dollar car.

[Zak]

Well, there are people who tune Lamborghini...

So yea, you can make that 250k car "better" by adding new tyres. They might be a bit more expensive than the ones you put on that tuned VW Golf though.

[Kyoto Kid]

...some mods are ridiculous though like the Flying Gun (already discussed) and silencing for revolvers (8 x the base cost of a Super Warhawk?).

Heck, the Belgian industrialist Nagant developed and marketed a silenced revolver back in 1895. Nagant along with the Russian firms of Tula and Izhevsk, were able to produce these weapons in fairly reasonable quantities for Russian military and police officers. Considering Russia's economy, these certainly could not have been anywhere near as costly (in relative terms) as a Warhawk with the silenced modification is in Arsenal.

The Russian Federation also developed and produces the highly concealable OTs-38 which is standard issue for special forces agents. Besides it's compact size (almost a hold out), the OTS also has no flash and actually loads the rounds as a clip (basically as disposable speed loader).

OTs 38 Silent Revolver

I think I may stat this little guy out.

[MaxHunter]

It is a balance issue. Believe me, I have a runner with a couple silenced Warhawks; he paid the money without blinking... -well, now that ork is doubling as a bouncer and dabbling in some knee breaking business just to repay his debts-

Do not forget versatility and practicality; one runner in the same group has a modded HK-227S that breaks down, assembles very quickly and incorporates some extra recoil reduction and a low light flashlight. Easy to take anywhere, discreet and precise.

And, a quick question: heavy pistols can take underbarrel weights... can't they? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Cheers

Max

[CanRay]

Don't see why Pistols can't take underbarrel weights. I've heard of Revolvers having them.

[Kyoto Kid]

It is a balance issue. Believe me, I have a runner with a couple silenced Warhawks; he paid the money without blinking... -well, now that ork is doubling as a bouncer and dabbling in some knee breaking business just to repay his debts-

...but eight times the weapon's cost is a bit extreme. 2,250 can buy a lot more gun than a 6 shot revolver with a -2 to hearing perception (& hey, I love the Warhawk). Even the Large Cylinder option seems a bit pricey for getting only 2 extra rounds when compared to the cost of an extended clip. In RL There were revolvers made that had more than 6 round capacity including the aforementioned Nagant 1895 (7 rounds) and the Civil war era LeMat which had a 9 shot cylinder and a second barrel underneath that fired shot (shades of the Japanese AR with the integrated Shotgun in Arsenal).

And, a quick question: heavy pistols can take underbarrel weights... can't they? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

...as long as there already isn't something occupying that mount.

[CircuitBoyBlue]

The toy my character wants is an assault rifle with a reduced barrel, a heavy barrel, electronic firing, a Gas Vent III, a smartlink, a foregrip, an ammo drum, and lvl. 2 Custom Look. It's ridiculous, and will require a facility because it's over-modding, and will cost a ton, and the foregrip is redundant because my character already has a gryo-mount in his cyberarm. But once I get it, I'm going to have a replica tommy gun that shoots AR APDS rounds with very little recoil. And yes, I'll be firing from the hip. Smartlinks are for looking cool.

[Seraph Kast]

Well, if we're going with over-the-top weapons...some sort of HMG, plus every recoil mod you can get to stack, plus the weight reduction mod...sounds like a good start if you want to reenact the scene from Predator by hip-firing a massive gun.

Hrmm...can you add silencers and so forth to that gauss rifle?

[Valrus]

Heavy Pistol of choice(super Warhawk)+Bayonet Mount+Melee Hardening+Extended Barrel+Weapon Focus enchantment = Gun Blades!

[Sponge]

And, a quick question: heavy pistols can take underbarrel weights... can't they? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I'm not familiar with the weapon modding rules in Arsenal, but in the BBB Pistols can't have Underbarrel mods, only Barrel and Top-mounted mods. I don't know if the same restrictions apply in Arsenal.

DS

[Stahlseele]

I'm holding off on my description until we meet "Matilda" in my current story.

isn't matilda the name of a tank from the webcomic turn signs on a landraider?

[CanRay]

isn't matilda the name of a tank from the webcomic turn signs on a landraider?

Not a clue.

Matilda is a very different woman in my story.

[Cain]

Here's a fun one. An AVS modified for full-auto, with all the recoil comp you can cram onto it. It's the only pistol with an ammo capacity large enough to sustain full bursts. And it doesn't count as a Machine Pistol, either; otherwise, you'd have a gun that required one skill to use one second, then another skill to use the next. It also keeps the integral silencer. Finally, full-auto evens out many of the problems of flechette ammo (the AP penalty) without worsening it. Also, the AVS's stats are already modified, so it doesn't suffer the +5AP of a normal flechette round.

[Raven Bloodeyes]

You can check out some fun stuff I did here:
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...=20387&st=0

The link to knasser's site isn't working for some reason though... if you want me to e-mail you the updated pdf, hit me up with a PM.

[Fortune]

The link to knasser's site isn't working for some reason though...

Sadly, knasser has taken down his site.

[Seraph Kast]

Finally, full-auto evens out many of the problems of flechette ammo (the AP penalty) without worsening it. Also, the AVS's stats are already modified, so it doesn't suffer the +5AP of a normal flechette round.

Is that how most people run it? I'd kinda wondered, since the Dev's seem to have implied that both Shogun and Frag grenades should use the newer rules for flechette ammo, since otherwise Flechette was better than anything else except pre-errata Ex-Ex rounds.

[Fortune]

Synner has already stated (as I am sure Cain knows, as he was involved in that conversation) that the table in the back of Arsenal where it is supposed to list the properly updated DV for the AVS (among other weapons) is in error, and that Errata is forthcoming to fix it.

[toturi]

Is that how most people run it? I'd kinda wondered, since the Dev's seem to have implied that both Shogun and Frag grenades should use the newer rules for flechette ammo, since otherwise Flechette was better than anything else except pre-errata Ex-Ex rounds.

Many people have said that they'd run it that way.
Where is this "implication" you mentioned? The flechette ammo rules have been errata-ed. But the weapons that use flechette ammo have not yet, if they ever will be. It has been reported that the hardcopy 5th printing of SR4 which came out before Arsenal has those weapons errataed but hardcopy Arsenal still lists them per pre-errata stats. Also remember if it was the devs intent(which should have been clear to themselves before Arsenal came out) that flechette weapons should be errataed, then the new flechette weapons in Arsenal would not have used the old AP value at all.

Synner has already stated (as I am sure Cain knows, as he was involved in that conversation) that the table in the back of Arsenal where it is supposed to list the properly updated DV for the AVS (among other weapons) is in error, and that Errata is forthcoming to fix it.

Quote?

[krakjen]

The Russian Federation also developed and produces the highly concealable OTs-38 which is standard issue for special forces agents. Besides it's compact size (almost a hold out), the OTS also has no flash and actually loads the rounds as a clip (basically as disposable speed loader).

OTs 38 Silent Revolver

Yeah that revolver is awesome.
Just a precision though, the clips are not particular to this weapon, it's just a replacement for speedloader.
They are called moon-clips.
They are very interesting, cheaper and smaller than speedloaders.

[Daier Mune]

i just picked up a Warhawk w/ Improved Cylinder, Smart Link and Ammo Select. got it loaded with 2 gel rounds, 2 Hollowpoint and 4 APDS rounds right now.

Another good one is that wildhunter rifle, with a drum clip, and Full Auto mod.

[Muspellsheimr]

It has been reported that the hardcopy 5th printing of SR4 which came out before Arsenal has those weapons errataed

Raecor Sting : 6P(f) : +5
Ares Viper Slivergun : 8P(f) : +5
Remington Roomsweeper : 7P(f) : +5
Mossberg AM-CMDT : 9P(f) : +5
Remington 990 : 9P(f) : +5

Flechette Rounds : +2 : +5

Grenade; Fragmentation : 12P(f) : +5

Rocket; Fragmentation : 16P(f) : +5

The fifth printing actually was released after the initial (PDF) release of Arsenal. The errors could not be corrected after that point due to it already being a good way through the print run.

On topic, my favorite two guns in the game are now Rugar Thunderbolt modded for SA & Gas-Vent 3 - 5 points of recoil comp, SA/BF modes, for 3 slots, leaving plenty of room for further modifications, and Barrette modded for Easy Breakdown & Ceramic/Plasteel Components (Full) - costs a shitlode, but well worth it.

[Seraph Kast]

On topic, my favorite two guns in the game are now Rugar Thunderbolt modded for SA & Gas-Vent 3 - 5 points of recoil comp, SA/BF modes, for 3 slots, leaving plenty of room for further modifications, and Barrette modded for Easy Breakdown & Ceramic/Plasteel Components (Full) - costs a shitlode, but well worth it.

Can't put gas vents on pistols. Also, making a SS weapon BF takes 4 slots, as its a "major modification".