I've been running 4th Ed for about a month and a half now and one of my players used his Sliver Gun for the 1st time last game session. I went back and read the stats again for it and it is brutal. 8p(f). Then it can fire burst on top of that. Give yourself a cyberarm gyro and you can handle enough for a burst. Use a simple action to aim and you have yourself a 10P weapon with a narrow burst. That's vicious. I'll trade giving my enemies an extra 2 armor for a guaranteed extra 2 boxes of damage. Why is the damage so high on this thing. Most Heavy pistols start at 5 and a flechette would give it a damage code of 7, not 8 regularly. Gone are the 3rd Ed days where flechette equalled crap.

there are shotguns that do the same, and other HP's can get that kind of power too using exploding ammo and the like. In the past, what's won over players the most to the silver gun in my games was the built in silencer.

There are, or will be other Handguns in the heavy pistol range that have burst fire, like the Ruger Thunderbolt (that the Star use), and the Salvette Guardian which I love . Throw some EX ammo in to one of those, and you can have a field day. Some punch in your pocket. But they still can't touch an assault rifle on a long burst, so keep that in mind.

Salvete is the slivergun.

it can only fire flechette...

you can take any weapon and give it flechetter ammo

so take your ingram smartgun and add flechetter rules, viola, exactly what you're talking about.

no, the Viper only fires flechette. The Guardian (salvette) fires standard ammo (or whatever ammo variant you choose).

In prior editions, the advantages were:

The Slivergun had a silencer built-in with Conceal 6
It could fire a burst as a simple action. The savalette could only fire one as a complex action.

The biggest problem isn't the slivergun itself, but the rules for flechette ammo. It is supposed to be deadly against unprotected targets but not very effective against armor. Its statistics give the lie to that, though. It has +2 damage value and adds +2 to armor value, so it is more damaging against normal targets, and as good as normal ammo against armored targets. But there's more - it is resisted by impact armor, instead of ballistic armor. Impact armor tends to be less than ballistic armor, so it is actually better than regular ammo against things like armored clothing. It's not gamebreaking (EX Explosive ammo is still better), but it would be nice if the rules and the flavor text actually matched.

Eh.

A Yamaha Sakura Fubuki loaded with Stick 'n' Shock rounds is better.

Don't forget the convert-to-stun rule, which makes the +2 AP a little more significant.

But not much.

There are ways to load up on impact armor. Grab a helmet or riot shield, for example.

The thing the keeps the AVS out of the hands of my current character is the cost. It's 300 for one clip. Each burst, while bitchin', costs you 30 . I mean, damn, dude.

The Slivergun adds 3 damage resistance dice over a Predator IV firing standard Ammo. But a Predator IV can be loaded with Ex-Ex ammo for the price of loading your Slivergun with the only ammunition it can use.

A Predator firing Ex-Ex does 7P at -3 AP, and a Slivergun firing its proprietary ammo does 8P at +2 AP. That means that the Predator does 2/3 of a DV more damage and penetrates armor that is 5 points larger (mostly important for going against hardened targets like Spirits and Drones where failing to penetrate means that you do no damage). Now the Slivergun can burst fire if you want it to, but of course it has no recoil compensation.

Once you factor that in, the Slivergun can essentially subtract 1 DV that counts against penetrating armor (a loss of 3 attack dice) and except that you'll miss more often, in exchange for doing +2 DV that doesn't count against their armor (burst fire bonus). And don't forget that the ammo is expensive and this makes you go through it faster.

All told, the Slivergun is slightly better against people and significantly more expensive. The Predator is better against spirits and drones and costs less. What's the problem?

-Frank

I think anyone enticed by the vipergun will probably be using it in burst-fire, otherwise they would just load a warhawk with flechete.

The things that make it wacky cool are its insane ammo capacity (obviously a marketing ploy by the ammo manufacturers) and how it manages to be slightly more powerful than any other automatic pistol, and then has burst fire to top it off. It's a nice gun, but it does have it flaws....

I also noticed that in previous editions flechette damage increase was negated by wearing armor, but in this edition it says nothing to that effect. I agree with everyone that EX EX is still brutal, but flechette got a major boost in lethality. Even if it gets converted to stun, an unconscious target is a tempting target to a vindictive enemy.

Balance:

You cannot put gas vents on a pistol. So, you're stuck with a hefty recoil penalty with that Ares Viper if you use it in burst mode.

...unless, you use a gyrostabilizer of some sort....Then your golden.

Couple of things:

DV bonuses from burst fire don't count towards the DV vs Armor comparison, but the +2 armor modifier does.

The +2 armor mod also adds 2 to the targets resistance test.

The only benefit of the Silver gun is the silenced burst-fire mode. Flechette ammunition is essentially equal to Gel Rounds. They are both +2 DV and +2 AP, except that Flechette are 3 times as expensive.

Consider this:
Against an armor jacket ( 8 Ballistic / 6 Impact) the Silvergun will be 8P(f) vs 8 Impact of the Armor Jacket ( 6 + +2AP of flechette) which means the damage will be stun (the DV does not EXCEED the Modified Armor Value).

OR

An Ares predator IV with gel rounds has is 7SDV, +1 AP. Against an Armor jacket the results are nearly the same as with the Silvergun ( with a -1/-1 overall to the DV/Armor value respectively). Using Flechette ammunition in the predator IV would have the same results as with the gel rounds.

AND

The question to think about is weather or not your characters want to "kill" everything they see. Obviously, not every NPC is going to be wearing an armor jacket. So by using flechette and potentially doing physical damage, you run the risk of killing your opponent. Now you can be linked to a murder or series of murders. On the Role-playing end (not Roll Playing) you should consider the mental, spiritual and social complications of murder (in self defense or not).

Personally, I choose gel rounds, unless it's wet work of course.


RD

Shadowrunners are mean people, that shoot people in the face for money. When firing a gun, you should be prepared to kill someone, even with gel rounds and stick'nshock it can easily happen, you never know how much stun they have in the first place....

Beyond the silenced burst, it does have a slightly higher DV even before the flechete is involved, so it is a wee bit better than a predator with gel rounds (disregarding ap).

They are a decent little gun for someone that isn't going to do alot of combat. They pull a nice little bit of damage for someone like a decker, rigger, or mage. For the cybermonkies, and the phys ads there are better ways to go.

Flechette ammo is broken, any wepon loaded with will do strictly more damage than when loaded with standard ammo (+2 DV is equivalent ot roughly 6 points of armour as I'm has been said above), the +2 AP makes it chance to pentrate armour and inflict physical damage the same as standard ammo against the same armour value (NOTE though that impact armour usually is 2 lower than ballistic making flechette armour penetration better against most opponents). I don't see how this works with the description of "[Flechette rounds] are devastating against unprotected targets, but not very effective against rigid armour." (SR4 p313).

The question wether ExEx is better or worse than flechette is a separate issue (and the answer is very easy to find, same DV bonus and -4AP difference? anyone got doubts?) of course ExEx is much harder to find (12F vs 2R availability) and illegal.

Plus for those of you worring about doing stun damage more often than lethal damage, I invite you to condier the average troll (7 bod, 3 will) physical and stun track: pysical is 12 vs 10 for stun. In fact no race has a longer stun track than a physical track and all combat oriented characters are likely to have a physical track that's a fair bit shorter.
And when someone is passed out they might as well be dead apart from a few signifcant bonuses:
1) They are in fact not dead, it's all easier on the morality of the players
2) They are in fact not dead, the players have to worry about one less murder investigation
3) If s/he's a cop, the police will be annoyed but nowhere near as annoyed as if you had killed him/her
4) If you happen to have some questions they can actually answer

And if you really want em dead a putting one last bullet their head takes no time at all.

So in conclusion, wheter or not a sliver gun is too powerful, compared to heavy pistols and smgs loaded with specialty (better) ammo can be debated, what's quite easy to say is that under the current rules there is no reason to use standard ammo if you can use flechette no matter what the opponent's armour is (remember they need 4 more points of impact compared to ballistic to offset the damage bonus and most armour has 2 less)

Now if flechette wasn't so damned expensive....

The other thing that flechette becomes a problem with is firing through cover. You get someone behind any sort of cover, be it a flimsy chair, some bushes, a window, or (pray it's not the case) something actually solid, that +2 AP gets applied to the armor value of the cover *and* any armor your target may be wearing.

Besides, spending 300 nuyen every time you run through a magazine is pretty ridiculous.

On the price side it's not much worse than ExEx and definitely easier to come by.
Plus you can own it legally unlike ExEx

The big advantage ExEx has is against vehicles and drones. You're better off throwing your AVS at a steel lynx than shooting it (remember that burst fire doesn't help with defeating armor).

I do agree that Flechette ammo, as presented in 4e isn't quite what it should be.

An easy fix would be to say that Flechette is rolled against Ballistic armor just like everything other "bullet" attack. Then Flechette really would bounce off heavily armored targets, as they are supposed to. I really don't see why they ever went against Impact armor, as Impact armor is (generally) designed to deflect force applies over a larger area, whereas Ballistic deflects force over a small area.

Consider: Impact armor is roll against melee (fists, clubs, big sword blades), falling, and elemental damage (half). All large-area attacks. Ballistic is used against bullets, small-area attacks. But Impact armor is rolled against Flechettes, even *smaller* area attacks?! It never made sense to me.

One of the problems is that, for some reason, shotguns shot rounds are treated as flechette even though they are different. Shot rounds should definitely use impact armor, but it would have been much smarter to differentiate between the two. Most of us have a good idea of what buckshot can do, but does anyone know what flechette rounds can do IRL? Is there a real-life equivalent to flechette rounds?

Flechette rounds have been played with somewhat (most notably in the Steyr ACR, which never really entered production), but have yet to really see any kind of use in anything short of tank guns or artillery.

The way i read the whole "using impact against flechettes" thing is based on the description of flechettes. Their small striking surface is intended to make it so they go through ballistic weaves more easily, as they focus their kinetic energy on a smaller area. However, "rigid" armor plates (like those found in armored vests, jackets, full body armor, and the like), intended to stop high-energy rifle impacts, do a pretty good job of deforming and stopping the flechettes, as they don't carry enough kinetic energy to punch through the ceramic or metal plate in the armor. This plate is also what gives the armor most of it's impact value (a metal plate between you and a knife is a lot more effective than a bunch of layers of cloth), so while it's not a perfect corrolary, the Impact rating of a piece of armor is a decent representation of how much of your body is protected by a rigid plate (and how thick that plate might be). Hence, the use of "Impact" armor against flechettes.

Buckshot, on the other hand, should have Ballistic used against it, IMO... the energy behind an individual pellet of buckshot is pretty small compared even to a handgun slug, and while a blast will make a big ugly mark on armor (and transfer a decent amount of momentum over), even modern Class II body armor (the absolute lightest armor really even sold over the counter *today*) is capable of stopping buckshot. I'm perfectly happy to have Shadowrun characters loading actual flechette shells into their shotguns and roll against Impact, but if they're loading actual spherical buckshot, I can't imagine any real body armor 65 years in the future being unable to stop it.

Like you'd know. You were just a squad gunner manning a M-249.

One thing that seems off to me, is shotguns that require flechette. I feel that ammo costs are backwards for them. So with my crazy logic I think flechette should be the regular ammo price for shotguns, because that is the normal ammo for shotguns....

do they actually require flechette? in SR3, at least, shot rounds for shotguns were normal rounds which used the flechette rules--ie, you paid normal round prices. at least i think that's how it worked. it's how i always did it.

That's how we did it, but it's not how it worked. Some people went so far as to allow any weapon that had a damage code with (f) in it to have flechette at regular ammo prices.

I usually rule that *buckshot* costs the same as regular ammo.

If i'm going to roll in the whole "buckshot is (f) but vs ballistic, flechette is (f) but vs impact" thing, i'd make buckshot cost the same as regular, and flechette cost what flechette costs.

For guns that fire flechette (namely the AVS), they pay full flechette costs for their ammo.

That makes sense. After all, you can always load actual flechette rounds into a shotgun to avoid the spread effect. Then you'd be paying full price.

Actually, the way the rules currently work all you've got to do is dial the choke down to "full," and it handles just like it would had you "loaded flechette."

Hmm... i seem to recall that you can't call a shot with buckshot. Or was that full-auto? Or did i just dream that?

What specialazation would this fall under? Semi auto's, right?

Thats what I assumed, but it does feel like you are getting away with something, dosen't it?

The only shotgun I know of that requires flechette is the Mossberg CMDT, which is so immensely ass-backwards that I opted to just houserule that line right out of existence. Shotgun shells are probably the most mutable type of round in common small arms use.

Only uses flechette, pfeh.

i don't see anything about that in the entry in CC. you sure you're not thinking of the Remington 990, which gets a +2 power boost when using shot rounds?

Pg. 309 in the sr4 main book....

oh. SR4. all is made new again.

I was talking to a friend of mine today at work who also plays SR and we were talking about Flechettes and Shotguns, I figured since he is a hunter he might be able to tell me somthing about the later.

Well after our talks he said somthing that kind of made sense for the game and we worked on it for a bit and would be interesting to see what you all think.

In our house rules we only apply DV from the staging for penetration purposes and apply DV from ammo and burst fires later.

So this is a the idea we have for you to think about.

Based off of ballaistic, seperate Shotguns from Flechette in effect. Shotguns and Flechette would both have a + 2 DV which is applied after penetration has been established.

But AP for both would stage differently. The Flechette would have a AP + based on the full amount of the Ballastic rating of the Armor and Shotgun would have it based on half the value of the Ballastic rating of the Armor.

Hopefully that will reflect how effective it is vs non armored people vs people in vairous degrees of armor.

Your thoughts are welcome on this, I have as yet to test out this theory.

Deadjester