SR5: Internal vs External Smartgun Systems, Brick the Gun or Brick the Smartgun Options

[BlackJaw]

So all guns have basic wireless bonuses, unless you buy a Throwback. That means most guns have their own Matrix Icon when online It can be bricked, keeping the gun from firing at all until someone with the Hardware skill has a chance to clean up the electronics. It's a good reason for a runner to keep their gun offline, especially because many of the wireless options of the gun are duplicated when you add in a Smartgun.

An internal Smartgun, like those found in an Ares Predator V or that you retrofit to your weapon with the Accessory option, would add the smartgun and it's wireless bonuses to the gun. If online, it's all one Icon that can be bricked or hacked as whole.

An External Smartgun is a separate device you attach to the gun. It should have its own Matrix Icon. If someone bricks your Smartgun, your gun should still be fine, as it has its own separate electronics and systems.

In theory, you should be able to turn the wireless off on your gun, and hook an external smartgun to the gun with it's wifi on. If someone bricks your smartgun, you loose the accuracy and bonus dice, but the gun is intact.

Mind you, this isn't any protection against hacking instead of matrix damage. If someone gets a few marks on your Smartgun, it's enough to eject the clip, turn the safety on, or fire the gun remotely. It only protects against outright bricking.

EDIT: Smartgun systems, not smartlink systems.

[Roy Fokker]

That's not how I read it. Whether internal or external, the smartlink communicates with the gun and controls the firing pin. Bricking the gun can be something as simple as locking the electronic firing pin into a permanent powered down position, unable to fire. I see no difference RAW or RAI between an internal or external smartlink equiped gun being bricked during a firefight. After the run during downtime, I see the option of differentiating between them in that you can simply remove the external smartlink and not spend the time to fix it specifically (and fix the gun quicker with maybe one success instead if time is short) as opposed to having to fix it completely as per the normal fixing bricked items rules.

[Redjack]

Smartguns can "eject clips" (pg 162), 'changing a smartgun’s firing mode" (pg 163), "changing a smartlinked shotgun’s choke" (pg 163).
"Incorporating a small camera and laser range finder, the smartlink keeps track of ammunition, heat buildup, and material stress. If you have a smartlink, you can mentally switch between gun modes, eject a clip, and fire the gun without pulling the trigger." (pg 433)

All of this tells me that a smartgun is highly integrated into the weapon system.

[cndblank]

I just house ruled that smartguns have a basic mode (hit the center of mass +2 dice) and an Advance Mode (Sharpshooting +2 Accuracy).
You can switch between them with a free action.

If the smartgun is connected to the matrix then you get both bonuses.

That gets around the total retcon of the last 20 years of Shadowrun to where a smartgun link nothing for a beginner.


I will say keep the smartgun DNI linked and wireless off.

If you want a gun camera to keep the rest of the team informed or to support a tacnet, use one that is not directly connected to your smartgun.
If you can make it pass it self off as a smartgun, even better.
Won't the decker get a surprise when he hacks it.

I could see someone taking a smartgun they planned to leave wireless enabled and removing all direct connection to the gun except for the targeting info.

So no Smartguns can "eject clips" (pg 162), No 'changing a smartgun’s firing mode" (pg 163), No "changing a smartlinked shotgun’s choke" (pg 163).
No "Incorporating a small camera and laser range finder, the smartlink keeps track of ammunition, heat buildup, and material stress. No mentally switch between gun modes, No ejecting a clip. And no firing the gun without pulling the trigger." (pg 433),

So no way for a decker to brick the actual weapon.
Worse they can do is take out the smartgun sight.

[Voran]

I'm inclined to treat an external smartlink without all the fluff, basically a smartlink if applied externally (and wireless off) increases your accuracy limit on the weapon and maybe keeps track of your bullets, an external one (in my opinion) can't easily turn your gun into an automated thing simply because the basic smartlink can fit on so many different types of guns. I buy an external and slap it on my Predator and it requires different things to 'automate' than it would if I did so with my Colt Government Gun. Basically its a glorified Laser Sight, under different principles.

On the other hand, if I make it internal, that means making it unique for a specific gun and building it into the mechanism's different workings. Then you can do all the things like safe-mode, fire mode, triggerless fire, etc. If external, I take it to mean that literally, its an external component that doesn't have any features worming their way into the gun's internal workings.

Basically with an external smartgun rig, you end up with an advanced lightgun like experience similar to such arcade shooters. With the proper display you see a fire dot like a laser pointer, but without the HERE I AM! aspect of a laser pointer.

[Umidori]

An internal Smartgun, like those found in an Ares Predator V or that you retrofit to your weapon with the Accessory option...

What are you refering to by this phrase? I can't find anything about modifying or retrofiting weapons in the corebook...

~Umi

[forgarn]

Pg. 431 lists all the accessories you can add to your weapons and where you can add them.

[Umidori]

Well yeah, I know what the Firearm Accessories are.

What I'm confused about is BlackJaw's particular phrasing of "retrofit your weapon" and "Accessory option" in connection with an "internal Smartgun".

~Umi

[forgarn]

I believe they are referring to the fact that the internal smartgun system is listed in the accessories and in the description of the smartgun system on pg 433, it states:

Retrofitting a firearm with an internal smartgun system doubles the weapon’s price and adds 2 to its Availability.

[BlackJaw]

An internal Smartgun, like those found in an Ares Predator V or that you retrofit to your weapon with the Accessory option...

What are you refering to by this phrase? I can't find anything about modifying or retrofiting weapons in the corebook...

~Umi

Yah, that's not my best turned phrase ever.

What I was trying to say is that there are two listings for a smartgun system in the accessories section: One is an external smartgun system that attached to a mount point on the gun, the other is an internal Smartgun which page 433 describes as "Retrofitting a firearm with an internal smartgun system". The actual rules for modifying the weapon aren't actually in the section, and the rules increase the price and avalibliity, making it seem more like buying one with a built in smartgun instead of adding one yourself, but that wasn't the point of my posting. I was trying to talk about how the matrix rules say each device on the matrix has it's own icon, and the implications of an internal smartgun vs and external smartgun in terms of bricked weapons.

My understanding is that an Ares Predator V comes with an internal smartgun system, so it's smartgun system and gun both use the same device icon on the matrix because they are the same device. A Colt Government 2066 does not have a Smartgun by default, but according to page 424 all firearms have some wireless functions, and therefore have matrix device icon. The Smartgun description on page 433 has it's own wireless options and has two methods of being added to a gun. If you wanted add a Smartgun system to that colt government 2066 you have two options: You can either "retrofit" an internal system (increasing it's price and availability) via the option on page 433, or you can attach an external smartgun, (top mounted because heavy pistols don't have an under-barrel mount.) To me, an internal system would be like the Ares Preadator V: a single device icon, but the external system would be two icons: one for the gun and one for the separate smartgun system. That means they each have their own matrix damage track, and thus each can be bricked separately. Now, and again, this my interpretation, if your gun gets bricked, you're SOL until you can get someone with hardware to fix the wiring. However, if it was just an external smartgun system, you could remove the system and your gun itself should be fine. I admit that an attached bricked smartgun is likely to prevent the base weapon from working at all, but I figured removing a bricked smartgun is simpler than fixing the electronics in the gun itself.
IE: Because the gun and the smartgun each have their own device icon and each has it's own wireless bonus, it should be possible to run the gun with the wireless off, but the attached external smartgun with it's wireless on, and more or less use the smartgun as a kind of buffer. If it get's bricked, the gun's matrix track is still fine, so if the smartlink is detached, it should continue to work, although lacking in smartgun assisted accuracy.

Of course not everyone agreed with me. No specific rules are given for removing a smartgun, but it was pointed out that it's actually a fairly complex task to integrate an external smartgun onto a gun. (Armorer + Logic 4, 1 hour) so it's probably not as easy to remove as I thought. By comparison, fixing the bricked status is a Hardware+Logic test, and each hit either reduces a matrix damage or reduce the normal 1 hour time frame by half, to a minimum of 1 combat round.

And there is a second interpretation here: Adding an external smartgun system to a gun might integrate those functions into the gun, leaving it a single icon in the matrix instead of two icons, more or less how I interpreted the internal smartgun to work.

Overall, my idea was not as cool as I thought it was.

[SpellBinder]

...

And there is a second interpretation here: Adding an external smartgun system to a gun might integrate those functions into the gun, leaving it a single icon in the matrix instead of two icons, more or less how I interpreted the internal smartgun to work.

...

Honestly that's how I thought it worked, even in the SR4 edition.