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> Shadowrun weapon calibers, What caliber is an Ares Predator anyway?
Black Isis
post Aug 31 2004, 09:29 PM
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I'm working on my Shadowrun/SilCORE rules conversion and I wanted to convert some of the Shadowrun weapons into SilCORE stats using the weapons for Heavy Gear and Gear Krieg as guidelines. The former is probably what I'll be looking at the most.

Heavy Gear does not really have a lot of specifically statted weapons, but uses a more general approach for the most part. A 6mm pistol does this amount of damage, a 9mm pistol does this amount, and so on. So, I'm looking for a way to figure out where Shadowrun light and heavy pistols fall in there. I'm sure this must have been discussed before, but I didn't really turn up anything in my search.

Now, I know the barrel width doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the damage the gun produces; but, in a more general sense....where do the Shadowrun weapons fall? Especially in reference to the SilCORE rules, but I don't know if anyone else has read those. :)

For reference, the Heavy Gear setting has 6mm, 9mm, 11mm, and 13mm pistols, and 5mm and 7mm assault rifles (along with SMGs and others, but if I can get a good reference on pistols and assault rifles I can probably figure out the rest).
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Austere Emancipa...
post Aug 31 2004, 09:37 PM
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Well, like you said, the diameter of the projectile doesn't necessarily mean a god damn thing. Heavy Gear is set a really fucking long time in the future, isn't it? Those weapons might be capable of stuff that no RL, or even SR weapon can even dream of.

That said, there's Raygun, and I generally agree with what he's got to say about Shadowrun cartridges and weapons.

Seriously, though, anyone not very familiar with exactly the kind of damage those 6/9/11/13mm pistols and 5/7mm ARs do in the rules system you're discussing here cannot possibly give you any reasonable advice on this. I'm not the least bit familiar with it, so I'll do my best not to say anything dumb.

Be wary: even IRL, you'll find ~11mm pistols and ~7mm rifles the terminal effectiveness of which vary massively -- introduce dozens, hundreds and thousands of years of technological advancement, and the outer dimensions of cartridges become totally meaningless. All you've really got to go on is how effective the mentioned calibers are in this SilCORE system, and how effective the different weapons are in SR.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Aug 31 2004, 09:41 PM
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otomik
post Aug 31 2004, 09:45 PM
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i don't quite understand, what damage could a pistol or rifle do against powered armor? SR weapons aren't megapowerful anime monstrosities (by most players judgements) except of course the OCP Cobra Assault Cannon.

and the Ares Predator is however powerful you think the Robocop Pistol is.
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snowRaven
post Aug 31 2004, 09:55 PM
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I forgot the source now, but in some 'in-character' official text (novel, fiction in other book, tell it to them straight-section...) the Ares Predator is stated to be of caliber 10 x 39mm.

Also, in the Elven Fire adventure, it is stated that the Ranger Arms SM-3 uses .656 caliber bullets.

That's the closest you'll get to canon weapon calibers, I think.

There are also caliber mentions in the novels Striper Assassin (Kang 11mm - a cyberpunk 2020 gun I think(?)) and in Wolf and Raven (various weapons, none of them appearing in other canon-material)
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Modesitt
post Aug 31 2004, 10:04 PM
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If I had to divide pistols up into 13mm/11mm/9mm/6mm...

Let's start at the top. The Ruger Superhawk does 10M. Almost all other heavy pistols do 9M. Thus, it should be the biggest gun on the block - a 13mm pistol.

All other heavy pistols should probably be considered 11mm, including the Ares Predator. Exceptions are the Elchiro Hatamoto, the 5-7C, and the Ares Viper Slivergun.

Light pistols and machine pistols should be 9mm.

Holdout pistols should be 6mm.

For ARs - I'd say go with the 7mm for them. All of the AR's in SR do 8M damage except one, the Ares HVAR. So I'll say the HVAR is 5mm.
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Austere Emancipa...
post Aug 31 2004, 10:20 PM
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QUOTE (Modesitt)
Holdout pistols should be 6mm.

Here's the thing: SilCORE 6mm pistols might be similar to the RL 5.8x28mm and similar PDW calibers. These often produce more muzzle energy than RL 9x19mm Luger (the most common 9mm pistol caliber) pistols, have far superior effective ranges, and penetrate armor much better, although their terminal effectiveness is somewhat lacking.

On the other hand, there are some pistols calibers IRL with projectile diameters in the same range which absolutely suck in every single way, unless you consider being small in size a priority.

Now unless we know exactly what the 6mm and 9mm pistols are actually capable of in the SilCORE system, we should refrain from commenting further. The same thing goes with what SilCORE caliber should SR ARs be -- the best way to make that decision would be to compare how pistols and ARs do in SilCORE, and how much damage they do in SR.

Obviously if Modesitt actually is very familiar with SilCORE, you can disregard most of the above.
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Modesitt
post Aug 31 2004, 10:38 PM
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I've absolutely no knowledge of the Silcore system. I'd never even heard of it before now.

My assumption is that caliber is probably treated as the end-all be-all of damage. A number of game systems do this, so I don't believe it to be too big an assumption.
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Austere Emancipa...
post Aug 31 2004, 10:54 PM
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In the 9-11-13mm pistol range and probably with the AR calibers, I don't doubt that in the least.

But in the case of 6mm pistols, it's a distinct possibility it works different. It breaks the 2mm-at-a-time series of pistol calibers. With pistols calibers ranging from 9mm to 13mm, and with rifles calibers ranging from 5mm to 7mm, you could make a connection between greater projectile diameter and greater human tissue disruption -- but your figures will go all wonky if you try to do the same with pistol calibers ranging from 5mm to 9mm.

And with the assault rifles, the real problem is maintaining balance. Making all but Ares HVARs "7mm assault rifles" might cause assault rifles in general to become much more powerful compared to pistols than they currently are in SR. These sorts of tiny details can be a real pain in the ass when doing rules crossovers, believe me. You gotta pay attention to them, or there will be serious consequences.
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Black Isis
post Aug 31 2004, 11:48 PM
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Okay, I'm sorry I was a little vague here....let me try to clear some things up.

Heavy Gear is a fairly low-tech far-future setting. Their firearms are roughly the same as ours, just lighter and more durable mostly; most tech in the setting is not super-advanced, at least on Terra Nova, it is just built to last a long time and take a lot of punishment (their mecha are powered by gasoline engines, for crying out loud). So, a Heavy Gear 9mm pistol is roughly equivalent to a 9mm from 2004. The 6mm is about the same as a .22, an 11mm is more like a .45, and a 13mm is your .50 Desert Eagle. Each one does a progressively larger amount of damage. The same with the other types of weapons. I don't mind going between these -- say an Ares Predator is between an 11mm and a 13mm....that's fine.

Basically, I guess, I'm looking for guidelines on how powerful these weapons are supposed to be. Is an Ares Predator supposed to put down a troll on PCP? Is a Streetline Special something anyone would use when it wasn't a complete last resort? Since all the light pistols have interchangeable ammo, are all heavy pistols 10mm like the Predator supposedly is?

And SilCORE is the system used by all the new versions of Dream Pod 9's games; Heavy Gear and Gear Krieg among them.
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Siege
post Sep 1 2004, 12:50 AM
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SilCore is following, roughly, the same theory as Fuzion and the d20.

Which is amusing in some respects considering the number of companies dropping out of the d20 flood.

SilCore

Although they aren't making it OGL content.

-Siege
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Edward
post Sep 1 2004, 02:48 AM
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It isn’t hard to believe that in the future the calibre of a weapon will be almost the only determining factor in damage.

Yes today it is not but the best of 6mm is not as good as the best of 9mm and the worst in each category also follow the same pattern.

If technological innovation in gunpowder weapons design stops and all patents are expired or ignored every gun will be made using the best tequniques (except the cheep ones witch wont be far behind) all that will be left to differentiate weapons will be calibre, clip size and styling.

Of more relevance remember that heavy pistol ammunition is interchangeable thus all heavy pistol have the same calibre. Any differences in damage are based soly on the design of the gun not the ammunition. Also the Taurus multi-6 (canon companion p16) can load light or heavy pistol ammunition with no mention of changing the barrel (and if you had to what would be the point) this would indicate that they have the same calibre.

Maybe SR developers just really stuffed up when designing weapons and it is completely imposable to correct without throwing all the guns out and starting again.

If you want to do the crossover then rank weapon damages in each system side by side and copy damage codes across.

Edward
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Black Isis
post Sep 1 2004, 03:28 AM
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Bleh. I have a feeling I'm just going to have to say which guns fall into what categories and address a few special cases. That's not too bad, but I was hoping to simplify it even more than that. Oh well.
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Austere Emancipa...
post Sep 1 2004, 10:22 AM
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QUOTE (Edward)
If technological innovation in gunpowder weapons design stops and all patents are expired or ignored every gun will be made using the best tequniques (except the cheep ones witch wont be far behind) all that will be left to differentiate weapons will be calibre, clip size and styling.

The difference between a 9x19mm Luger and a .357 Magnum aren't technological IRL. There's nothing inherently better about a .357 Magnum over a 9x19mm -- it's bigger and rimmed, designed for use in revolvers. To an extent it's true that with better technology we can make more powerful cartridges, but that doesn't mean we want to -- not everyone is using an M1911 in .45 ACP just because they can't afford a gun in .45 Winchester Magnum.

The only situation where I could foresee caliber being the only determining factor of firearm effectiveness against personnell is if there was technology capable of completely eliminating all recoil, and projectiles of any size could be launched at speeds too great for any portable armor to even slow down. That doesn't seem likely to happen in the near future.

QUOTE (Edward)
Of more relevance remember that heavy pistol ammunition is interchangeable thus all heavy pistol have the same calibre. Any differences in damage are based soly on the design of the gun not the ammunition.

That's one of the things you might as well change when changing the rules sytem. There's no need for the "all guns of the same category fire the same ammunition" simplification if you've got a short, simple list of calibers that you're going to use.

QUOTE (Black Isis)
Basically, I guess, I'm looking for guidelines on how powerful these weapons are supposed to be. Is an Ares Predator supposed to put down a troll on PCP? Is a Streetline Special something anyone would use when it wasn't a complete last resort? Since all the light pistols have interchangeable ammo, are all heavy pistols 10mm like the Predator supposedly is?

Again, just because some people think the Predator might correlate to the RL pistols in 10mm Automatic doesn't necessarily mean it would be anywhere close to "between 9mm and 11mm" in SilCORE. IRL, many 10mm calibers for pistols are just as or more effective at killing people than the .45 ACP. The 10mm Automatic certainly often is more powerful than the .45 ACP.

So you really got to think hard: do you really give a fuck about HC realism? If you don't, forget about what these guns are supposed to be like in terms actual terminal effectiveness, and simply compare the actual in-game effect in SR and in SilCORE. What would 9M correspond to in SilCORE?

Now, you'll likely have to change game balance quite a bit, because I expect there is not such a huge leap between the damage rating of 9mm and 11mm pistols in SilCORE as there is with Light and Heavy Pistols in SR. And, IMHO, that's for the better. If you want to keep the canon SR "feel" and balance of the guns as closely as possible in SilCORE, Modesitt's suggestions for the handguns are probably great.

With the rifles, then, I really think you should compare to the balance of those against handguns in both the game systems, rule-wise, and forget about RL. RL is very, very complicated, and it doesn't seem like you want complicated.

QUOTE (Black Isis)
Is an Ares Predator supposed to put down a troll on PCP? Is a Streetline Special something anyone would use when it wasn't a complete last resort?

The questions you should really ask are if 9M is enough damage to put down a Body 12 character with Pain Resistance-3, and if you would use the Streetline Special in any other role in SR.

IRL, any automatic pistol would not be my choice for stopping a charge by a troll on drugs. IRL, even a Derringer could be very effective.
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