I haven't fully read/grokked the ranged combat rules, recoil comp, etc.

What is possible with an Ares Alpha on a Smart Firing Platform. Between the two of them, it provides 8 points of RC. So, what are my options?

Calypso

Ares Alpha 1,700
w/Gas Vent III 400
w/Shock Pads 50
w/Airburst Link 500
w/Smart Firing Platform 2,000
NuYen Total: 3,650
Recoil Compensation Total: 12

This means that you can fire, without penalty:

One Long Burst, one Short Burst (only one long burst per action phase) pp. 143-144 for more details

Full Burst (10 shots, that's all fully auto can do against one foe) p. 144 for more details

And, of course, you can do Suppresive Fire just as well as an unmodded AK-47.

Personally, what we (the group) plan to use ours for is to set up a sporting rifle or a sniper rifle on a nearby rooftop from where we're doing our run. It'll be our own little remote sniper platform to use to cover our retreat or whatever.

Book never says that the shock pads cannot be used with a tripod - I imagine you could just set it up so that they're abutting something hard, which the gun, when it recoils, taps lightly.

But Shock Pads aren't needed. Unless you're running HEAVY weapons, like Full bore machine guns, and such, then you only ever need 9 points of recoil compensation - 18 if you're using heavy weaponry.

The Ares has a built in grenade launcher though, so the airburst link is still awsome.

And I'd use narrow full auto instead of wide with the gun. 15P damage!

Give it some targetting autosoft, then.

and a better pilot rating =P

and for the record, you only double uncompensated recoil on heavy weapons. thus, you still wouldn't need more than 10 points of RC.

Autosofts come in ratings up to 6, no? I didn't see that limit of 4 anywhere? You can even buy rating 6 during chargen, and at a cost of only 3000 .

However the Pilot to run it is only available at rating 4 at chargen (edit: and i believe indirectly caps the Autosoft rating), and since that would be 10,000 i think that is what you ment?

Yeah, I don't understand the limit. Whatever, it's the least of my problems right now.

Im getting 2 myself with AK97, gasvent 3 and smartlink.. dont need much more than that, Full auto or wide bursts.. all you need.. and a dobberman with the same weapon.. plenty of usefulness there..

All you will ever need is 9 recoil comp since the first bullet in every init pass does not count for recoil..

You could always rigger adapt the whole setup

Well, the reason for the narrow burst was because you can control it yourself using your own skill. In that case the 15P damage is quite good. And even 6 dice for the auto drone is pretty darn good compared to some low reactions seen on NPC's.

As you may or may not have realized already, you can't actually mount an Ares Alpha on a Smart firing platform, since the grenade launcer (IIRC) uses the underbarrel mount, which you need to fit it to the firing platform.
Better to just go with a belt-fed LMG, the standard one would ignore all recoil too.

Whee, first post

the grenade launcher is built in, is it not? as such, it actually does not take up the underbarrel mount (or, i suppose more accurately, the underbarrel mount is on the grenade launcher portion).

Each "mount" can only hold one accesory. The underbarrel mount for an Ares alpha is taken up, that's the abstracted balance aspect coming into play. the best you could hope to attack is a sling.

Given that most modern weapons with "integral" launchers can have them removed with the proper tool. Given that such design concepts were included for a reason tells me that it still holds true for Ares as they grew out of the weapons contractors of the DoD. It also tells me that there should be other add-ons for the alpha available to swap out with, such as a shot-gun, a flame thrower, maybe a pain inducer.

Oh yeah, I did forget about that. Oh well, I was gonna go with the Stoner-Ares M202 anyway, with a belt of 100 EX-Explosive rounds

Calypso

Welcome Aurelius, and that's a very good question/point. The grenade launcher is listed as being an "underbarrel". So personally i'd either require them to use an Armour Extended Test of some sort to remove the gl first (probably minimal one threshhold though), or if the player was cunning enough to ask i might let him mount the Ares upside down.

As an aside, what is the Body & Armour rating for the Smart firing platform? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Until now - no Body, no Armor -> 8 Boxes, no damage resistance... like Micro Drones.

PS: Considering usage, the best way to mount an AACG on a SFP would indeed be upside down.

Thanks. Always good to know I've still got things to learn.

The only problem Jiad is that the description doesn't describe the GL as an integral accessory. It describes it as an "underbarrel", unlike say the "integral" descriptor the White Knight has for it's gas vent.

P.S. Yes, that means you can put a sound suppressor on your White Knight.

it doesn't have to. the quote clearly defines "integral acessories" as "those that come with the weapon".

the grenade launcher comes with the weapon, therefore it is integral, and therefore it does not take up the underbarrel mount.

Not that I don't love nitpicking on the letter of the rules, but the picture clearly shows it as integral too.

The Cannon Companion pg 22:

how about a different edition?

The point is that the Alpha has always been this way, though all previous editions. Why would it change now? Personally, I just think that a little bit of text was left out about how the GL uses the underbarrel mount. Seems logical to me, and that's the way it will remain working in my games.

The text wasn't even really left out, just part of it that would make it clearer. But i guess i could see someone ruling it the other way too. *shrug*

all right, we'll try this from another angle:

there's been five years since SR3 plotlines ended. those would be the ones with the weapons as you knew them. now, realistically speaking... weapons technology is going to improve, given five years. making an underbarrel mount on an integrated grenade launcher doesn't exactly sound that unimaginably difficult to me, at least, so i don't see why it seems so impossible to you.

in SR3, your Alpha couldn't play music, or store an agent, or any number of other things. should we just ignore that, too?

Where does it say than an Ares Alpha can store an Agent or play music? As far as i can tell the Smartgun system on a weapon is a piece of dedicated electronics, not a true [general use] computer.

P.S. Do you actually think Fanpro sprung for new weapons artwork? Don't those pictures look at least a bit familiar?

entering luddite mode: yeah, yeah sure get a firing platform then someone hacks it and then you get you butt shot off by your own gun. You gonna let a little ol decker take your own gun and shoot you with it. Go low tech man that way when someone takes your weapon and shoots you with it its a big mean motha, not a little decker and much less humiliating.

But you better be damn sure you dont sleepwalk..

A wireless Smart Platform is far more useful than a wired one...

Besides, how many hackers are really going to look on the rooftop 300m away for a hidden device.

..why run an Agent when it has a Pilot?