Exploding ammo and suppressors. Options

[Janice]

Does exploding ammo affect the modifier to perception checks to hear a firearm being used I know it may seem to be obvious to some, but I have to ask for two reasons: 1. because I'm curious as to whether or not exploding ammo is louder than the noise of a suppressed weapon (which can still be quite loud), and 2. because as far as I can tell, Shadowrun doesn't differentiate between the noise of the firearm's discharge, the noise of the round breaking the sound barrier, and the noise of impact, which makes the subject kinda fuzzy in my head.

[Ol' Scratch]

As far as I know, 4th Edition doesn't address such things at all. Pretty much left to what the GM wants to do with it.

[Muspellsheimr]

Explosive ammunition has a fire-cracker like detonation on impact. Thus, while you would be able to easily hear them striking, that does not necessarily mean you can hear them being fired.

That being said, there is no RAW modifiers to Perception Tests in regards to this ammunition. A silencer would provide the normal modifiers for hearing the gunfire, but would not affect the actual bullets. Because of this, a silencer could assist with concealing your location, but not your presence with such ammunition.

[Ravor]

According to the fluff in Fields of Fire Ex and Ex-Ex make noise, but according to RAW it doesn't make a difference.

Personally given the abstract nature of Fourth Edition I just say to hell with RAW and rule that silencers don't do a damned thing if you load Ex or Ex-Ex.

[Tarantula]

Subsonic ammo in arsenal gives an extra -1 DP to being noticed, bumped to -2 if used in conjunction with a silencer.

I would say EX gives a +1 and EXEX is a +2. Silencer/sound suppressor helping. Of course, thats to locate where the bullets hit, not for where they were shot from.

[psychophipps]

Also, don't forget that sub-20mm or so ammunition will probably just have enough explosive in it to cause the projectile to fragment inside the target. It'll make some noise but the human body being a sack of fat and water will muffle the sound to well within "not worth bothering with" tolerances for an in-game effect and the sounds of the bullet striking non-penetrated surfaces will probably be loud enough to make it all but undiscernable from standard ammunition.

[kzt]

Also, don't forget that sub-20mm or so ammunition will probably just have enough explosive in it to cause the projectile to fragment inside the target.

This is why it has lots of extra AP ability in SR, right? You'll never get good results applying common sense to the SR rules.

[Mäx]

This is why it has lots of extra AP ability in SR, right? You'll never get good results applying common sense to the SR rules.

I wouldn't exactly call -1AP, a lots of.

[noonesshowmonkey]

Frangibility + AP = hruhhh?

I think that was his point. Given that flechette rounds double Impact (improve armor's ability to deal with them), somehow rounds that fragment like muthas also penetrate really well? Sounds like future-science or just idiocy. In any case his point of logic+SR = bad idea (some of the time) still stands.

[psychophipps]

I wouldn't exactly call -1AP, a lots of.

Well, EX ammo gives a +1 DV, which is a +16.67% to +25% boost in terminal performance for the most common SR weapons. Adding the -1 AP on top is just like icing on the cake, yo?

I always figured that EX ammo was something like the relatively new powdered tungsten + other goodies ammo out there. It stays hard as steel as it goes through armor until it penetrates flesh and the heat or moisture or something similar makes the projectile all but explode inside the target. The demonstration on Future Weapons was quite convincing as to the new projectile type's effectiveness. Maybe a product-improved version of this technology?

Of course, we'll just ignore the damage you would do to a weapon if you hopped it's terminal performance by 25% just by putting in hot-ass loads. I don't know about y'all, but I'm not too fond of the idea of picking chunks of my pistol out of my hand, arm, body, and face.

[Kairo]

According to the fluff in Fields of Fire Ex and Ex-Ex make noise, but according to RAW it doesn't make a difference.

Personally given the abstract nature of Fourth Edition I just say to hell with RAW and rule that silencers don't do a damned thing if you load Ex or Ex-Ex.

That's how my gaming group handles it as well.

[Ravor]

According to the fluff they actually use a mirco charge.

[Oenone]

Personally I'd rule you still get the silencer bonus, because the EX / Ex-Ex rounds don't expode until they hit.

So basically the target gets shot and /then/ explodes. Which means everyone is at a bonus to tell that someone has been shot, but not to find out where they shooter is firing from.

[Falconer]

Stop and think how much noise a very small amount of BLACKPOWDER in a cardboard tube makes (a very small scrib firecracker of the type normally fired off in strips which sound like a machine gun).

Now you're firing a bullet which is going to have a roughly equivalent amount of HIGH EXPLOSIVE, in order to generate sufficient pressure to act as a bursting charge. Not on a mere cardboard tube, but on a metal bullet. The point is you generate enough overpressure to burst the shell... if you're generating that much pressure energy you're also going to get a loud sonic crack.

Keep in mind +1DV is big, roughly equivalent to -3 AP. So Ex-Ex and APDS are roughly on the same page here with a roughly +1DV/-1AP being roughly equivalent to -4AP. So if that silence and hard hitting is that important to you, you really should be loading APDS instead. It makes sense... APDS is 16F avail, ex-ex is only 12F... since the raw damage is roughly similar, that gives the APDS a slight edge in stealth at the cost of availability.

[Coldan]

Well, there are some modifiers, which match.

To hear the gun fire or locate the position of the gunfirer, you have got a threshold of 2 and -4 modifier. Ok, hard to hear, but:
To notice the effect you have got only a threshold of 1 (it is loud...) and also normally +2 dices (This sound stands just out of the background sounds.).

So, notice the use of the weapon or notice the location of the attacker aren't the same thing.

[the_real_elwood]

I've got to say that I think any amount of explosive contained in a bullet wouldn't make enough noise to matter, especially not after it's actually penetrated the target. And I don't think explosive ammo being usable with silencers/suppressors is unbalanced, but YMMV. If I were the GM, I'd let it slide, but if the players were abusing it to the point of being unbalanced, then go ahead and houserule it.

[BullZeye]

I know my players don't like my ruling about silencers anyway: without subsonic ammo, the silencer is next to useless. Then again, one could easily combine ammo types like ex-ex-subsonic ammo. Makes spotting the one shooting really difficult but the one getting shot would be easy to spot. For full stealth, I'd go for AP-subsonic, which doesn't exist in the game, but would make sense, at least to me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) After all the only difference between a subsonic and a normal round is just the speed and like in case of .45 ACP, one can load it to subsonic speeds without significant reduction of energy. But caliber isn't an issue in SR so it's bit difficult to rule such.

[Falconer]

Bullzeye: I think you're probably overcompensating there.

Having actual range time using suppressors. It does significantly muffle the sound, at short range yeah it's still a little loud. But give the sound 50m to carry and it's far harder to hear the weapon, especially if it's rendered into single shot mode so it's not making action noise (think of the electronic firing mod here w/ it's extra quiet feature).

The big thing w/ supersonic ammo is the ballistic crack... you hear the bullet pass, but w/o the report of the gun which follows it's much harder to locate the shooter based on the sound. Think of it like this, the ballistic crack of the bullet alerts your senses which are then much more alert for the thunder of the report and what direction it came from exactly. You hear the ballistic crack from the bullets closest point of approach to you, which may not even be in the same direction as the shooter. (EG: I have a sniper rifle 200m away, you're 20m in front of and away from the target 10m away from the line of fire.... you hear the bullet pass to your right and notice the target go down... but w/o the report you're going to have a hard time locating the hidden shooter unless he keeps firing.).

Now if the thing firing was say an armored vehicle firing an HE AC round... I guarantee you'll hear the round downrage long before the report of it firing at range (they explode on impact quite noticably). I see Ex-Ex as simply todays' HE rounds downsized to be able to use in small arms. (today you can't really make them much effectively smaller than a .50cal).

[psychophipps]

Bullzeye: I think you're probably overcompensating there.

Having actual range time using suppressors. It does significantly muffle the sound, at short range yeah it's still a little loud. But give the sound 50m to carry and it's far harder to hear the weapon, especially if it's rendered into single shot mode so it's not making action noise (think of the electronic firing mod here w/ it's extra quiet feature).

The big thing w/ supersonic ammo is the ballistic crack...you hear the bullet pass, but w/o the report of the gun which follows it's much harder to locate the shooter based on the sound. Think of it like this, the ballistic crack of the bullet alerts your senses which are then much more alert for the thunder of the report and what direction it came from exactly. You hear the ballistic crack from the bullets closest point of approach to you, which may not even be in the same direction as the shooter. (EG: I have a sniper rifle 200m away, you're 20m in front of and away from the target 10m away from the line of fire....you hear the bullet pass to your right and notice the target go down...but w/o the report you're going to have a hard time locating the hidden shooter unless he keeps firing).

I agree here on all points.

First off, .45 ACP is always sub-sonic in 230gr loadings. Just stick with this ol' stand-by bullet weight and you'll do fine.

Secondly, the USMC has had excellent performance with their new DARPA rifles and Surefire suppressors. There have been plenty of reports of insurgents caught in a sniper's sights not being able to determine the position of the sniper despite their having fired multiple rounds with lethal effect. A few insurgents have even ended up running at the Marines in the confusion as to the direction that the shots are coming from. Thanks for the better follow-ups, fellas! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Janice]

This is why it has lots of extra AP ability in SR, right? You'll never get good results applying common sense to the SR rules.

I'm not a big fan of the concept of explosive ammo in anything short of a cannon shell, so I'm loathe to defend it. However, considering that you can fit computers more powerful than the ones most of us are posting on in someone's shirt in 2070, it wouldn't be too inconceivable for explosive ammo to be a tungsten projectile with a small computer controlling an explosive device to compensate for the poor fragmentation of conventional AP.

[Janice]

I know my players don't like my ruling about silencers anyway: without subsonic ammo, the silencer is next to useless. Then again, one could easily combine ammo types like ex-ex-subsonic ammo. Makes spotting the one shooting really difficult but the one getting shot would be easy to spot. For full stealth, I'd go for AP-subsonic, which doesn't exist in the game, but would make sense, at least to me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) After all the only difference between a subsonic and a normal round is just the speed and like in case of .45 ACP, one can load it to subsonic speeds without significant reduction of energy. But caliber isn't an issue in SR so it's bit difficult to rule such.

If you want a more believeable mechanical representation of silencers, divide them into 4 separate perception checks. The first check would be to hear the sound of the firearm itself discharging, the second perception check would be to see the flash of the weapon, the third would be to hear the noise of the projectile breaking the sound barrier, the final would be to hear the impact of the round. A suppressor would increase the threshold of seeing the flash, and hearing the discharge, while a flash hider would only make it harder to see the flash. Subsonic ammo would increase the threshold to hear the noise of the projectile breaking the sound barrier. As to the impact, you could use differing thresholds based on ammunition type. This would make it so subsonic ammo was necessary for total stealth, but keep the suppressor without subsonic useful.

The only reason I haven't done something like that is because I promised my players that I wouldn't fiddle with the firearm rules much, to my great annoyance.

[BullZeye]

Yeah, I know a suppressor does drop the sound somewhat but if you want to go silently, you need subsonics. The suppressor I got in my own gun does help some, but without subsonics, I won't fire it without earplugs (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) One thing I haven't tried is how much it dampens the sounds when standing at the wrong end of the barrel, but have stood a lot on side of someone else shooting and shot myself with guns that had silencers and then took them off to see the difference.

That .45 ACP is today fairly common caliber but on 2070? As suppressors are forbidden, along with subsonic rounds, I wouldn't walk around with those rounds in my pocket (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And yes, I know I'm being harsh on this subject towards my players, but they understand the difference between "bit more quiet" and "almost silent". The muzzle flash is gone anyway with silencer (well, most at least) so for snipers it's not a big issue anyway. I think the difference between well silenced gun (MP5SD) with subsonics vs. normal gun w/ silencer but normal rounds is audible. What I've read, the biggest sounds on that MP5 is the bolt moving back and forth and the shells dropping to floor. I don't remember the exact number but I think it was around 6dB what is the suppressing effect of even a good suppressor. It all depends on the distance&background static where the other ones are listening anyway (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Red_Cap]

I speak from experience here.

M-4s with the whoop-de-doo, gee-wiz suppressors on them make a weird sort of muted putt-putt-putt sound, while MP5SDs make almost no sound -- as Bullz said, the only noise you hear is a clearly mechanical clickety sound as the bolt cycles. And all of this was normal ball ammo. IRL, if you're using Ex rounds, it would really matter as to the size of the round being fired. A .22LR doesn't have room for any appreciable amount of explosives, while a .50 could hold quite a bit more. So if you're shooting someone with, say, a light pistol (.22LR or 9mm), there really wouldn't be a huge difference in the sound of the impact (wet thuds). Now, if you plug someone with an exploding .45ACP or even a pansy 5.56mm (God, I hate my M-16), then you'd probably get an audible crack. Again, though, you'll notice that Joe's got a bigger entry wound than normal after you hear said crack, but it still won't help you find the shooter's position any easier.

And on the .45 ACP availability in 2070, I don't see that changing. It's probably the single most powerful pistol and SMG round in common use and it's been around since the late 1800's, so I doubt it's going to give up its crown to the pussy 9mm parabellum sixty years from now.

[Janice]

And on the .45 ACP availability in 2070, I don't see that changing. It's probably the single most powerful pistol and SMG round in common use and it's been around since the late 1800's, so I doubt it's going to give up its crown to the pussy 9mm parabellum sixty years from now.

.40 S&W and .357 magnum would like a word with you. It's already given up the crown to 9mm rather nicely, a 9mm +P+ comes very close to having the same power with larger magazine capacities and better accuracy, and rounds like 9x19 7n21 and 9x19 7n31 surpass it handily. It's not at all inconceivable that many of today's pistol calibers will be obsolete outside the civilian market (I have no clue what shooting culture is like in the UCAS either) in 2070, with the common adoption of personal body armor that remains effective even with repeat hits and the advent of full suits of full body armor that aren't significantly impeding. In fact, it's not only conceivable, but likely that rounds would continue with the trend towards light, high velocity ammunition, with such fun things as micro computer controlled explosives to compensate for lack of decent fragmentation properties.

[HappyDaze]

(I have no clue what shooting culture is like in the UCAS either)

After the loss of the CAS, not as much as today's USA.