SR4 and Firearms, Gun nut required plx. Options

[psychophipps]

00 buckshot. Okay, I have no idea what that means, as I said, I know absolutely nothing about shotguns or their ammunition, so you may need to enlighten here to be honest. Thing is though, if each pellet has the damage and penetration of a light pistol, then a 10 bore with 10 pellets would be doing absolutely insane damage, no? I mean, can you note give me a rough damage, as you'd see it? I have 10P +2AP for a 10 bore, too high? Too low? Because I really have no idea.

There really isn't a good way to do shotguns realistically w/o getting into insane amounts of detail. I'm thinking (without even a tiny bit of playtest, mind you) that you could treat each success as another damage test vs a base damage of 4P or something. The wider spread of the shot could be treated as reducing their effective Reaction as one less, I guess.

Example: Your PC has had an unfortunate run-in at a local watering hole with a few 'Weeners (and we all hates them 'Weeners). He's doing pretty good for himself in this fist-fight but it turns out that the barkeep is a tad confused as to what's what and gives our (anti) hero the good news with the sawed-off she keeps behind the counter. Scoring three overall successes due to a combination of bad luck, surprise, and the -1 Reaction, our hero takes three wounds resisted at a 4P. Each is compared to armor and toughness rolls individually.

[Crusher Bob]

Sigh.

I'm too old and tired to keep hashing this stuff out, but it looks like I'm the only original gun nut left.

I'll direct you here to what I wrote when I had much more energy.

Other quick notes:

Firearms are not magic deathwands. Plenty of people have survived multiple center of mass hits with full power rifle rounds. Small arms should not have great base damage, people can take a surprising amount of shooting before they need to go have a lie down. Making all your weapons do something silly like 12(-6) means that even shot to a non imporant area like the arm will still blow you into bloody chunks. Nothing short of explosive cannon rounds (23+ mm) should do that to people. (Is it possible to survive hits from lighter cannon rounds like 20mm Oerlikon? Best to err in the favour of the PCs survival, I'd say).

7.62 x 51mm (7.62 NATO) is a different animal from 7.62x39 mm (7.62 Soviet) but is pretty close to 7.62x54mm (7.62R).

14.5mm is a very heavy machine gun round mostly used by light Soviet/Russian armored vehicles.

[masterofm]

Trying to stat shotgun rounds is just about the dumbest thing ever if you really think about it. If you want RL examples it would be hard to factor all of the little variables that might matter into what shotguns can actually do. So do you have a damage code that drops down per so many meters? How much more effective is armor at a distance? What will the spread look like? Which shell should I load now? To many factors to try to stat RL shotgun damage and put it into the Shadowrun universe. Keep the rules simple, sigh deeply, and leave it at that.

Honestly one thing I would have loved to see in shotgun round is rocksalt rounds, or white phosphorous rounds. If you put a round into an unarmored or lightly armored foe it would cause a heavy penalty to all of their actions for rocksalt rounds and some kind of damage over time for the white phosphorous rounds.

[reepneep]

I haven't seen this idea posted for statting shotguns posted on Dumpshock yet: a shotgun spits multiple small projectiles so why not just use burst fire rules with varying numbers of rounds based on the choke setting?

Say, maybe six rounds for narrow spread, four for moderate and two for wide. Use stats for a light pistol and with the extra DV from the 'burst' not applying to the armor penetration test the gun seems to be in the right ballpark as far as firepower and penetration are concerned. It also mirrors reality significantly better.

Actual burst fire with this rule makes my brain explode, however, so I'm not really sure what to think of it. Just use the simplest solution and keep adding to the burst modifier? Seems like half-assing it to me.

Anyway, as far as which bores to use, just stick with the twelve. Twenty is significantly weaker and really only exists for people who don't like twelve's recoil. .410 can be modeled just fine by sticking flechette ammo into a heavy pistol.

I'll direct you here to what I wrote when I had much more energy.

I just thought I should say that I really enjoyed reading those and intend to play around with them. The vehicle armor section in particular was quite interesting and gave me a few ideas of my own which I will post if anything comes of them. Very nice work.

[MYST1C]

I'd say a 7.62 is a MMG and a 12.7 is a HMG.

The point is, IRL machine guns are not classified by caliber but by use. Here in Germany the 7.62x51 MG3 is used in two roles - carried around by infantry using a bipod for stabilization (classification: LMG) or used semi-stationary as point defense (on a tripod) or mounted in/on a vehicle (using a pintle-mount or stabilised mount), classified as an HMG.
To this day I do not know how a "Medium" MG is defined...

[psychophipps]

To this day I do not know how a "Medium" MG is defined...

The US military classifies a machinegun by it's intended use:
A LMG shares ammunition with the current main infantry rifle and is crewed by a single soldier (like the SAW, RPD and RPK).
A MMG or GPMG is still portable by a single soldier but it is typically crewed by two soldiers. It tends to fire a heavier round that is not compatible with the current infantry rifle (like the M60 and M240).
A HMG is not considered man-portable and is typically used in static defense and as a mounted weapon. It fires a round that is much heavier and would probably severely injure an infantryman who had a basic rifle that fired these rounds (like the M2 and Kord 12.7).

[kzt]

Stop the bullet? Just a thought...

Nope, won't even slow it much.

Despite what EVERY game shows, wearing body armor that doesn't actually stop the bad guys bullets doesn't actually help much, if at all. There was a Marine Corps study that showed that guys who were wearing flack vests died at a higher rate when struck by AK-47s (which goes right through the vest) than those who were not. The PI suggested that the main effect of the flack vest was to cause the bullet to destabilize and flip end-for-end inside the targets body, which doesn't normally happen with 7.62x39.

Somewhere between 12.5 and 40mm cannon you reach a point where personal body armor (even if you could walk in it) won't help even if it does stop the round. The momentum transfer is so huge that it will shatter your bones and tear off limbs.

[Malicant]

Now you assume that the development of body armor does not progress until 2070. Even today I would not consider a flak vest body armor, not against actual weapons that is, but that's just me.

[kzt]

Now you assume that the development of body armor does not progress until 2070. Even today I would not consider a flak vest body armor, not against actual weapons that is, but that's just me.

Everything has a purpose. You have the choice of being 10 feet from an M67 frag grenade wearing either flack vest and helmet, or t-shirt and jeans. Which would you chose?

[HeavyMetalYeti]

But, there is no such thing as a guaranteed 1-hit-kill weapon. It is always possible for the person shot to survive and it is even possible for a person to keep fighting. That's why, in a self-defense situation, you always keep shooting until the the target falls and stops moving, no matter what sort of weapon you are using.

That may be true, but if hit with a M2 .50 cal. ANYWHERE, I'm pretty sure that you will stop fighting. It is near instant death with any body shot, it amputates any limb it hits, and the head is red misted.

[Ed_209a]

That may be true, but if hit with a M2 .50 cal. ANYWHERE, I'm pretty sure that you will stop fighting. It is near instant death with any body shot, it amputates any limb it hits, and the head is red misted.

Many people will stop fighting if hit with a .22 LR anywhere. Maybe even most.

Regarding body armor, up until recently, body armor was only intended to protect from fragmentation from grenades, mortars, etc. The tech just wasn't light enough yet, and most casualties were from shrapnel anyway. (anyone know if GW1-era body armor was intended to stop rifle bullets?)

I think body armor tech will overtake weapons tech eventually, as in the next 20 years or so. Ballistic materials keep getting better, while projectile weapons are still limited by the human in the equation. Even if you use a railgun instead of gunpowder, propelling an X gram bullet to Y velocity will generate Z units of force as recoil.

I expect we will see a return to battle rifles as armor gets better, but someday when a vest as comfortable as police body armor can stop a 7.62AP round, what then? Deploy Barret sniper rifles as infantry weapons? If you are still dealing with 160lb infantrymen, you have a problem.

[psychophipps]

Despite what EVERY game shows, wearing body armor that doesn't actually stop the bad guys bullets doesn't actually help much, if at all. There was a Marine Corps study that showed that guys who were wearing flack vests died at a higher rate when struck by AK-47s (which goes right through the vest) than those who were not. The PI suggested that the main effect of the flack vest was to cause the bullet to destabilize and flip end-for-end inside the targets body, which doesn't normally happen with 7.62x39.

Ahh...yes. The old "Flak jackets don't stop bullets so they suck!" argument. This would be the case if the reality of warfare is that most wounds come from direct fire. This is not the case, however, so flak jackets saved more soldiers than those self-same soldiers realize.
The real facts point to 75-80% of wounds and lethalities in modern (WWI on) warfare being from explosions and fragments caused by those explosions. You don't believe me? Look up the causes of the vast majority wounds in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.

[kzt]

No, the point of the study was to look at the effects of people wearing armor that was overmatched by the threat, as there was a school of thought that suggested that it reduced the severity of wounds. The answer is that it achieves nothing useful at best.

The interesting issue from a game design point of view is that this means that the traditional approach of any armor offering SOME protection from an attack is wrong. Armor either offers a great deal of protection (if the armor isn't overmatched by the attack) or it offers NO protection.

[psychophipps]

The interesting issue from a game design point of view is that this means that the traditional approach of any armor offering SOME protection from an attack is wrong. Armor either offers a great deal of protection (if the armor isn't overmatched by the attack) or it offers NO protection.

Quite correct.

Of course, just because armor won't stop a bullet doesn't mean that it won't protect you from a whole list of other nastiness that could have taken you out instead. Example, ballistic vests have saved more people in car crashes than from bullets by several orders of magnitude. Another example, many Vietnam vets were taken into field hospitals with AK wounds and a flak vest full of enough fragments to kill them several times over that didn't hurt them at all.

[Ed_209a]

The interesting issue from a game design point of view is that this means that the traditional approach of any armor offering SOME protection from an attack is wrong. Armor either offers a great deal of protection (if the armor isn't overmatched by the attack) or it offers NO protection.

That makes sense, up to a point. I think it largely reflects the vast difference in energy between pistol/SMG bullets and fragments, and rifle bullets.

1) A bullet does essentially the same damage to you whether it leaves your body at 10fps or 1000fps.

2) A bullet needs a certain amount of energy to bore a hole through you.

3) If your armor cannot stop a bullet, or reduce the bullet's energy below the amount in #2, it isn't helping you.

HOWEVER, psychophipps point is dead on. We really are fragile bags of blood, compared to our technology.

[Baatorian]

Hello.

Sorry for the massively long delay in the reply. I'm juggling a shit ton of things right now, work and life aside, it includes three seperate RPGs (argh) which I'm DMing. Anyway!

The earlier post by psychophipps about making shotgun damage a combination of mutliple light pistol hits is a good one, but far too much rolling, which SR4 (compared to SR3) suffers from already. Which is unfortunate really, because it makes sense, but thanks for that.

Crusher Bob. Thanks for your replies and the link, very helpful and I like your material a great deal and have decided to randomly dismiss the arguments from me players right now (mostly due to balance anyway). However I STILL lack shotgun damage codes.

If anyone here has a clue about shotguns at all, I would still love a write up of what they thought was realstic for them. Bit of a shame DS seems these days, old school you'd get a ton of crap you didn't even understand before you even hit "post" =)

Anyway, I rewrote the tables, modelled after Crusher Bobs write up (which I like, because it provides minimal balance -> almost had two fatalties in two sessions, keyword *almost* 9P ftw). Have a look and comment if you feel like it, I'l be listening/preparing to comment. I did read what everyone said, so nothing is worthless, as it were.

Note : My shotgun damages and slug ranges are still based completely on absolutely zero exprience, any kind of information would be appreicated/ I noticed a lot of people comment yada yada yada and not provide a single statistic, kinda makes me think they don't know the guns or game.

Anyway, thanks for any help.


Expanding Rounds +1P +2AP
Armour Piercing Rounds -1P -4AP

Silencer -1P


Pistol - 9mm - 4P
Pistol - 10mm - 5P -1AP
Pistol - .357 - 6P -2AP

SMG - 9mm - 4P
SMG - 10mm - 5P -1AP

Carbine - 5.56mm - 5P -5AP
Carbine - 7.62mm - 6P -6AP

AR - 5.56mm - 5P -5AP
BR - 7.62mm - 6P -6AP

Sport Rifle - 7.62mm - 6P -6AP
Sport Rifle - 12.7mm - 8P -12AP

Sniper Rifle - 5.56mm - 5P -5AP
Sniper Rifle - 7.62mm - 6P -6AP
Sniper Rifle - 12.7mm - 8P -12AP

LMG - 5.56mm - 5P -5AP
LMG - 7.62mm - 6P -6AP
MMG - 12.7mm - 8P -12AP
HMG - 14.5mm - 10P -16AP

Shotgun - 10 bore - 8P +0AP
Shotgun - 12 bore - 9P +4AP
Shotgun - 16 bore - 10P +8AP
Shotgun - 20 bore - 11P +12AP
Shotgun - 28 bore - 12P +16AP
Shotgun - Slug - 6P -4AP
Short : Standard -5M
Medium : -2P, +3AP -10M
Long : -4P, +6AP -15M
Extreme : -6P, +9AP -25M

LAW - 35P -315AP (note)

Fragmentation Grenades - 12P +6AP -1/meter
Offensive Grenades - 10P +0AP -2/meter
Concussion Grenades - 10S +0AP -2/meter

40mm Dual Purpose
Vehicle Direct Hit - 9P -36AP
Personel - 10P +6AP -1/meter

25mm Dual Purpose
Vehicle Direct Hit - 8P -27AP
Personel - 10P +6AP -1/meter








- Baatorian

[Crusher Bob]

Your shotgun damage is backwards. The 'gauge' is a measure of how many lead (erm, it's a bit late here, it's lead isn't it?) balls that will fit down the bore that are needed to make 1 pound. So the smaller the gauge, the the larger the bore.

For comparison:
10 gauge 19.7 mm
12 gauge 18.5 mm
20 gauge 15.63 mm
28 gauge 13.97 mm

.410 ~10.40 mm (note, not gauge, but .41 inch in caliber)

Basically all shotguns made today are in 12 gauge, 20 gauge, or .410.

12 gauge is what everyone uses, 20 gauge is for young'uns and ladies, and .410 is for shooting snakes, 'possum, and similar vermin.

In general, if someone has a 10 gauge gun these days, they probably got if from the pappy or grandpappy (unless they are Fortune, who had
to trade out his old shootin' iron from one that uses that new fangled smokeless powder (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ). (A slight exaggeration, you can probably still buy some newly made 10 gauge guns, but the 12 gauge 3 1/2" specs have finally done it in.)

Also not that there is a very big difference between birdshot and buckshot, The Box 'o Truth has plenty of simple demonstrations, with pictures.

Also, if you have no idea of what shotgun spreads are like, a reasonably good rule of thumb is one inch of spread per yard. So if you fire at someone across the street with your shotgun (maybe 8 yards) you can expect your spread to be around 8-9 inches across. It's actually a bit wider than that, but the math for 1 inche per yard is much easier to remember.

[Ed_209a]

...
Silencer -1P
...

Suppressors haven't directly slowed down bullets since WW2. They are frequently used with subsonic ammo, though. Subsonic ammo uses less powder to reduce velocity to around 1000 feet per second. The speed of sound at sea level is roughly 1100fps.

Pistol/SMG rounds are only a little faster than sound. Thus, they don't lose much power as subsonic ammo. -1P is a decent approximation.

AR/Rifle/LMG rounds are much faster, in the Mach 2.5-3 range. When these rounds are used as subsonic ammo, they give up a huge amount of energy. A 5.56mm subsonic round would have performance somewhere between the .25ACP, and the .380ACP. Not exactly impressive. 7.62mm subsonic would be similar to 9mm pistol performance. So, you are looking at holdout-light pistol performance out of your Ares Alpha...

For this reason, I believe subsonic ammo is mainly used for pistol-class weapons, and not often for rifle-class weapons. You just lose too much effectiveness.

However, a suppressed rifle with full power ammo is still very useful.

The special case for this (rare enough that it can reasonably be ignored) are rounds like the American SSK Whisper and the Russian SP-5/SP-6. These use extremely heavy bullets at subsonic velocities. Even then, you are looking at heavy pistol performance.

[psychophipps]

Pistol/SMG rounds are only a little faster than sound. Thus, they don't lose much power as subsonic ammo. -1P is a decent approximation.

Unless you're using the heavier 147gr sub-sonic ammo for a 9mm or are shooting a slower round like a .45ACP and .45GAP (both of which are sub-sonic). These rounds are proving to be more than adequate in both expansion and penetration when compared to standard 9mm rounds from modern ammunition suppliers.

[Ed_209a]

...or are shooting a slower round like a .45ACP and .45GAP (both of which are sub-sonic).

Yet another reason to keep the old warhorse in the race. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Baatorian]

Easy bit first.

Ed_209a : The silencer adjustment is based off of Crusher Bob's work, not mine. However there's an additional point here. Silencers are great tools, infact, good enough to never not use one. So this adjustment does one of two things (realism aside) in that, firstly it makes people consider when they use silencers, rather than always using them and secondly, gives a nice little advantage to certain weapons with built in silencers/supressors.

Crusher Bob.

Thanks for the reply again. I think, I have got the guns the right way around, as you describe (although yeah, I did expand the gauges largely). Let me try to explain my thinking as to how I did the damage codes however.

The 10 and 12 bore at the most powerful shotguns on the list I wrote (but they do the least damage wtf!?). From reading Wikipedia and perhaps from some posts here, I came to these conclussions.

The lower the gauge, the more damage it does, because it represents a smaller amount of "largers" balls, where as say a 28 bore has many "tiny" balls. Thus against unarmoured opponents, the smaller balls would literally rip them to shreds, as each ball would penetrate their flesh and the large bore (with less balls), wouldn't cause as much damage overal, even though the holes are slightly larger.

However, as soon as armour is thrown in to the mix, the larger bores actually beginning to do more damage (8P+0AP -> 9P+4AP works as 1 bought success +1 dice). Because the larger bores are much better at penetrating armours.

So

10 bore = 8P straight damage
20 bore = 11P +12 AP (which works out to 7P with bought successes for people in armour)

I may however skip the 10 bore, start straight on the 12 bore and adjust damages accordingly to work, because at current the 12 bore would work out slightly less effective than a 20 bore against an armoured targetted. Maybe I'll add an additional +2 AP per step up.

That was my theory anyway.



- Baatorian

[Ed_209a]

Ed_209a : The silencer adjustment is based off of Crusher Bob's work, not mine. However there's an additional point here. Silencers are great tools, in fact, good enough to never not use one.

I hope I didn't sound overly critical of your work, Baatorian. I certainly didn't mean "do it like this or you are stupid!" I meant it as an optional rule for groups who want a little more technical accuracy. -1DV certainly doesn't break the game.

I agree fully about the utility of suppressors. I would have several except for the expense of owning them legally. Incidentally, suppressors have a bad rap in the US, because "only murderers and terrorists use them". Finland has a much better "suppressor culture". There, they look at it as a way to hunt or target shoot with out bothering your neighbors as much. Polite, eh? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The lower the gauge, the more damage it does, because it represents a smaller amount of "largers" balls, where as say a 28 bore has many "tiny" balls.

You might think about the gauge as the cargo capacity of the round. A larger bore can hold more powder and throw more lead, whether one slug, or a handful of pellets. All shotguns can fire buckshot, all shotguns can fire bird shot.

[Crusher Bob]

The size of the shot fired out of a shotgun is independent of its gauge.

The smallest types of shot are called 'birdshot' and the larger types of shot called 'buckshot'. The gauge of the shotgun mostly determines the amount of shot of a particular size that will fit into a single shell.

You'll shoot a small birds (dove, quail) with #8 shot or so (around .09 inches in diameter), you'll shoot at bigger birds (ducks, geese, turkey) with around #4 shot (around .13" in diameter).

for deer, the popular load is mostly #00 buck which is .33 inches in diameter, though some people prefer #4 buck (different from #4 shot) which is .24 inches in diameter.

Here's some rough estimates of the number of pellets in common shotgun loads:

20 gauge:
#8 (~.09 inch diameter, small birds) ~500 pellets
#4 (~.13 inch diameter, bigger birds) ~165 pellets

#3 buck (.25 inch) 20 pellets

12 gauge:
#8 (~.09 inch diameter, small birds) ~640 pellets
#4 (~.13 inch diameter, bigger birds) ~215 pellets

#4 buck (.24 inch diameter) 27 pellets
#00 buck: (.33 inch diameter) 9 pellets

This is assuming lead shot; steel shot has different numbers of pellets.
Steel shot changes things some, since the steel balls are lighter; the loadings are different.

--------------

#8 shot out of a 12 gauge would probably so something like 3P (+6)
#4 shot something like 3P (+4)

In general, a 9mm pistol (4P) is going to be better at killing unarmored targets, since the birdshot will not reliably penetrate deep enough into the body to threaten vital organs, large blood vessels, etc. In addition, even very heavy clothing (like motorcycle leathers) can provide a real penetration challenge for birdshot.

The #4 buck and #00 buck would be about the same damage, around 8P (+3)

For a 20 gauge, reducing the damage by 1P probably is OK, buckshot out of a 20 gauge would be around 7P (+3), the birdshot damage probably staying around the same.

[psychophipps]

One thing to keep in mind is that modern silencers, and thus those found in SR, are no longer crappy. They actually increase accuracy and muzzle velocity as they're basically a longer barrel and the worlds best muzzle crown in one handy, dandy unit. This said, suppressors (the true name of silencers regardless of size and caliber) are seeing a dramatic increase in police and military use for the last five or so years. Heck, the new Marine sniper rifle comes OEM with a top mounted optics rail and a Surefire muzzle brake/suppressor mount and many also come with a Surefire can (suppressor).
If you've ever fired a rifle (or pistol for that matter) in an enclosed space then you know intimately why SWAT and other tactical teams engaging targets in urban terrain see suppressors as being the frickin' shiznit. Add to it the fact that a modern M4 can weighs about a pound, has a shot-life of over 10,000 rounds, only adds four inches to overall length with diminished muzzle flash, reduces muzzle blast in enclosed spaces, enhanced (yes, you're reading it correctly) accuracy, and dramatically increases your units stealth, and you can see why it will actually probably be rare for a SR assault rifle/carbine to not have an integral or attached suppressor if used by anyone even halfway serious.

[ornot]

Interesting stuff.

I wonder what happened to Hullbreach and Raygun? Those are the 'gun nuts' I remember best from when I first joined DS. Glad to see we still have Crusherbob! (Thanks for sticking about Uncle Bob (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

In my gaming experience no one bothers with shotguns anyway, and most people exclusively use heavy pistols for their concealment value, pulling out drone mounted LMGs when hiding is no longer important. I also don't think they much need an increase in their damage rating, since the gun bunny street sam almost always manages one shot one kill due to a silly dice pool - and my now legendary at the table bad luck with dice (I have managed a critical glitch on 12 dice more than once).

Still, more power to you folk working to make realistic rules. One of these days I'll run a much grittier street level campaign, and will probably find them very handy.