Trolls and Guns, Trolls can only use modified guns - Why? Options

[Botch]

Well here goes, Trolls are BIG, so big that every gun they want to use has to be modified before they can pull the trigger. New grips, trigger, trigger guard, safety, etc have to be fitted. In fact just about the only parts of the gun that wouldn't have to be modified are the internal firing mechanism and the barrel. In SR (especially artwork) a troll with a firearm is usually depicted as carrying LMG, MMG or assault cannon. Why then are there no guns designed to used solely by trolls, after all, what is recoil to a being that weighs as much as a large car.

Below is an email I sent to Raygun for some help on RL physics

"Unusual as it is, I am running a troll orientated campaign. Yep, 5 out of 6
characters are troll sized (2 Fomori, 1 minotaur, 1 giant, and 1 Wakyambi).

Between them they have the skills and access to a gunsmith workshop to
create customised troll sized weaponry. If SR standard guns have to be
modified for a troll (massive hands, tiny gun) to be able to fire the fiddly little
things, why isn't there a range of hand-cannons built just for trolls.

My players have raised the fact that the power of a round is primarily limited by
the amount of explosive chemical available, thus more propellant equals
longer rounds. A troll has a much bigger hand compared to the other
(meta)-humans. From researching on the web (big thanks to Raygun) I reckon that the longest pistol/smg round is 25mm (might be wrong). Our house rule is that troll handgrips have approximately twice the dimensions of a standard grip. This would indicate that a troll sized clip could give a maximum round length of around 50-60mm which appears to be into the realm of rifle ammunition.

What, in your opinion, would be effect of building a handgun capable of taking rifle rounds, other than that the gun could only be fired by a troll. From your extensive tables suggest the maximum length would appear to include the .243 Winchester (6.16x52mm), .50 Alaskan Rifle (OAL 63.75mm) and possibly extend to .500 and .510 Whisper (OAL 55mm). Obviously there are recoil, accuracy and range issues associated with firing such a handgun. "

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First piece of help from Raygun

Well, I guess it depends on how you invision trolls. In a lot of shadowrun art, Trolls have a much larger ratio of hand size compared to humans, so I don't think it would be out of the question to assume that the average troll's hand would be three to four times the size of a human's. Taking that into account, it would be possible for a Troll to use a much bigger cartridge in a custom, through-grip automatic pistol. I would think that something like a rimless .50 Alaskan (OAL 63.75mm) of shouldn't be much of a problem, and the pistol could be of very high capacity; 20-30 rounds shouldn't be a big deal.

If you use a simple recoil-to-body mass ratio to figure out how much recoil a human can regularly stand, you can scale that up to Troll size pretty easily. There are tools on my website and on the internet that will allow you to do this.

For example, the .40 S&W is about the standard sidearm cartridge used by police in the US today. We can use handloading data from a site like Alliant Powder to get the information we need to determine recoil force and use the weapons on either my site or a manufacturer's site to determine weapon mass. For example, a human firing a Glock 22 would have a ratio of:

.40 S&W (ammo)
180 grain JHP (bullet weight)
1,025 fps (speed of bullet in feet per second)
10.9 grains 2400 (amount of explosive propellant)

Glock 22 @ 2.14 lbs (weight of handgun when loaded)
= 6.2 fpe (force of recoil)
divided by average human weight @ 154 lbs = 0.0402

A Troll with a .50 Alaskan pistol would look like this:

.50 Alaskan (ammo)
450 grain FMJ (bullet weight)
1,905 fps (speed of bullet in feet per second)
67.5 grains IMR 3031 (amount of explosive propellant)
Big Fuckin Troll Gun @ 8 lbs (reasonable guess)
46.4 fpe / 1,083 lbs = 0.0428

So if I haven't made a huge mistake, according to these simple figures, it would just about the same for an average Troll to handle the recoil from a .50 Alaskan pistol (putting out about 3,625 fpe at the muzzle) as it would be for an average human to handle recoil from a .40 S&W (putting out 420 fpe at the muzzle).

And that's just a handgun. A troll could likely handle a .50 BMG rifle a bit better than a human could handle an M-14. Yikes.

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So some useful RL physics there from Raygun, only problem now is game mechanics. What would you use as damage codes, range, etc. And finally just how would concealment work. Think amount it, a troll has massive armpits as well as pockets as big a lady's handbag.

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USEFUL LINKS

http://recipes.alliantpowder.com/index2.html
http://tss.dumpshock.com/html/tss-13/art13-g.htm
http://matrix.dumpshock.com/raygun/downloa...ads/recoil.html
http://matrix.dumpshock.com/raygun/firearm...s/navframe.html
http://www.glock.com/g22.htm
http://www.onlineconversion.com/weight_common.htm
http://www.wildwestguns.com/Reloading/50_A...suggestions.htm

[BitBasher]

Well, because the market is virtually non-existant. Trolls are statistically one of the poorer races, and a Troll gun would be aimed at what, 2% of the population max? This gun would have to cost substantially more than any normal gun because they will sell very, very, very small numbers. That's just not good market sense.

[Moon-Hawk]

[mfb]

not enough to make up for the cost of production, though.

[BitBasher]

That and that small percentage is stastically one of the poorest small percentages. They are the poeple that can't afford a premium like that. All for negligable benefits over a gun then can get for 250-300 nuyen.

[FXcalibur]

Must be why the Thunderer never left prototype stage.

[littlesean]

"negligible benefits"? I don't think so. The percentage of population that would be targeted seems small, but 1% of world population is not a small number. Even .01% is still a sizable market. And keep in mind that many of the 'buyers' would not be trolls without money. They would be people ARMING trolls without money. If you have never negotiated to aquire hard to get hardware instead of cash for a run, you are limiting yourself.

But I will tell you this. That troll handgun described scares the piss out of me! Must get one! :love:

[Cochise]

[mfb]

the world population has not gone down. it just hasn't gone up as much as it otherwise would have. that doesn't, however, change the fact that the number of trolls--or even troll-employers--who would be willing to throw down cash for a troll-only weapon isn't yet high enough to warrant the cost of developing it.

[Siege]

That touches on the basic problem - of the people physically capable of using such a weapon, say trolls, how many of them have the skills or inclination to pick up aforementioned weapon?

I'm sure the design exists and given the rise of complex, automated micro-facs, it wouldn't be impossible for a troll to put his hands on such a weapon. But it would almost certainly be a custom order - the demand would not justify a large factory run and the troll certainly couldn't pick one up in Sprawl Mart.

-Siege

[mfb]

i suppose it'd be interesting to make a troll-modified rifle or shotgun, and allow trolls to use the Pistols skill with it.

[Siege]

Heh - just commission a super-sized troll revolver.

It would be amusing to see a handgun with a minimum Str to use effectively. :grinbig:

-Siege

[Kagetenshi]

Step one: buy canon sporting rifle.

Step two: remove stock, magnification, saw barrel down significantly.

Step three: attach pistol grip.

~J

[Siege]

Not really - it's still a human-sized pistol grip and a human-sized trigger.

-Siege

[Kagetenshi]

Add "troll-sized" to the last step, then. I didn't specify, but it was the intended implication.

~J

[Arethusa]

Are you going to saw off the gas system too?

[Kagetenshi]

Sporting rifles have much in terms of a gas system?

~J the mostly firearm-illiterate

[Ol' Scratch]

2% of the customer base is rather large.

I don't know why people continually seem to think it's a small number. Less than 3% of the United States current population is on the Atkin's diet (meaning 97% aren't), yet the food industry is going nuts trying to satisfy their demands.

Plus, considering that trolls are already used to paying a hefty 25% increase in cost for retro-fit accessories (which, according to the logic I've seen in this thread, shouldn't exist either since the "demand wouldn't make it worthwhile"), they can charge a pretty hefty price above what they would normally charge and still make it look cheaper.

[Apathy]

When you talk about a troll-only gun, I'm thinking of something like a .50-Cal machine gun with stock and hand-grips added for firing from the shoulder or off the hip. (Not even the biggest human can do that now without risking injury.) Is this what you had in mind? If we wanted to go even more extreme, maybe try it with a recoiless rifle?

If so, then why not just buy an HMG and have a gunsmith modify it? I would think it might be more cost effective in quantities less than a thousand to do that than it would be to set up the factory needed for mass-production...

[BitBasher]

[Kagetenshi]

It is if you're a Troll :D

~J

[Xirces]

Surely just removing the trigger and using a smartlink would suffice... for a troll mod.

Incidently I have a beef about Dwarf mods more than Troll - why do Dwarfs need to mod guns?

[Ol' Scratch]

[Pelaka]

Since when did the military care about cost? I'm sure there is at least one military in the world that decided the cost of troll-sizing guns was worth the cost for the benefit of increased firepower they could apply. Likewise, in all the history of desert wars there hasn't been at least one troll? Since these are "showcase" units whatever corp/nation was backing the unit would have happily payed to get their team equiped with the right equipment. Of course once the designs exist, a good decker could steal them and get an automated factory to make a few dozen for his friends.

Assuming all these fail, and their truely are no custom troll mods for weapons, all our troll needs to do is visit one of many large gun clubs... one with a rep for having members who are gunsmiths. Now we have the resulting increably difficult negotiations:

Troll: "Mes want big boom stick! Not weak Ares crap."
GunSmith1: "Shesh your big! You could probably use a freaking huge pistol."
GunSmith2: "Yeah, at least .50 caliber. Accuracy would suck though. Damn your big."
Troll: "Mes want big boom stick!"
GunSmith1: "Damn, I'd love to see just what sort of damange a big boom stick could do."
GunSmith2: "Hmm, we could probably fit a gas recoil system in the hand grip."
GunSmith1: "No way, theres not enough room in a grip for that."
GunSmith2: "Look at the mother... look at the size of those hands."
GunSmith1: "Hmm."
GunSmith2: "Come back in a week. We'll have a couple prototypes for you to test."
Troll: "Mes want big boom stick!"
GunSmith1: "Yes, yes! Big boom stick. Come back, umm... come back next moon. Big boom stick next moon!"
GunSmith2: "Lets call Jake, he'll kill us if we don't get him in on this."

Pel

[Apathy]

Okay, let's break it down:
Population of Seattle -> approx 500,000
Percentage of population buying/owning guns: 5% (hey, it's a more paranoid time than now) -> 25,000 (obviously a big market, worth marketing to).

Now, for the troll sub-group:
Population of Seattle -> 500,000
2% of pop. are trolls -> 10,000
Percentage of trolls buying/owning guns: 15% (you've got a lot more to be paranoid about if you're a troll) -> 1,500
Percentage of trolls that want the 'biggest bang-bang possible' (as opposed to simple home-defense): 10% -> 150
Percentage of them that have the money to afford this considerably more expensive gun: 25% -> 38

So, is it worth adding a new gun if there are only 38 people in the city with the ability to handle it, the desire to have it, and enough money to buy it?

Devil's Advocate: The percentages listed are purely speculation, and changing any assumptions about those percentages could very well alter the conclusion. Also, expanding the population to cover all of UCAS bumps the numbers up high enough that it might be a viable market if the gun dealer were allowed to ship the guns to the customer (which would require much looser gun restrictions than we currently have, but might be believable.)