Full Version: where do all those bullets go?
If I shoot a gun and miss, where do the bullets go? do I have a chance of hitting my buddy who is meleeing the fragger I'm shooting at? WHat anout the fragger's buddy running up behind him to help him in melee?
What about the two kids coming out of the Stuffer Shak 400m down the road?
| QUOTE |
| where do all those bullets go? |
Not-so-innocent bystanders.
there are no rules in SR3 or SR4 for hitting anything besides your intended target.
Nope. But if you have a gun fight in a residential area, and your GM is any good, expect to hear about it on the evening news.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| there are no rules in SR3 or SR4 for hitting anything besides your intended target. |
I suspect that's what glitches and critical glitches are for.
Similarly there are no rules for bullet travel times. A character can take 4 IPs in a round, a round lasts 3 seconds, and a sniper rifle can fire at a target a kilometer away. The way the initiative system works, you can fire a gun as a simple action and choose a new target (or not) between each attack.
So you can see 7 bullets strike a target 1 kilometer away before pulling the trigger that 8th time in a 3 second period - which means that each bullet travels at over 8,400 km. Which is over mach 10.
-Frank
So you can see 7 bullets strike a target 1 kilometer away before pulling the trigger that 8th time in a 3 second period - which means that each bullet travels at over 8,400 km. Which is over mach 10.
-Frank
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman) |
| Similarly there are no rules for bullet travel times. A character can take 4 IPs in a round, a round lasts 3 seconds, and a sniper rifle can fire at a target a kilometer away. The way the initiative system works, you can fire a gun as a simple action and choose a new target (or not) between each attack. So you can see 7 bullets strike a target 1 kilometer away before pulling the trigger that 8th time in a 3 second period - which means that each bullet travels at over 8,400 km. Which is over mach 10. -Frank |
Well, if you know a bit about the relative velocities of rounds out of the barrel you can meatball math it and guesstimate travel times. If you want to figure out the exact times get a ballisitc computer... or a life...
So if we are using a Chey-Tac Intervention the round leaves the barrell at about 881m/s it will take say... 1.13 seconds for it to impact at a klick... all meatball, in truth it would probably take 1.13-1.3 seconds depending upon several factors, like air pressure, temperature, prevailing winds, humidity, angle of incidence, velocity decrease due to friction... phase of the moon...
Long range shooting is a science and an art. I know a squaddie who did the course for the L115 and they found the shooting to be quite challenging beyond 1000m.
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| Long range shooting is a science and an art. I know a squaddie who did the course for the L115 and they found the shooting to be quite challenging beyond 1000m. |
Oh heck yes. Shadowrun assumes that bullets arrive at their target instantly because for most combats (carried out with pistols in crowded dark alleys), that's pretty close to true. For really long range combats, that starts becoming a very inaccurate assumption - but it's just a game and getting a "real" travel time is just extremely difficult and relatively pointless.
And of course, if you happen to be using a Firelance or a Redline, then an assumption of instantaneous attack propogation times look pretty good for any attack out to the limits of Line of Sight.
-Frank
| QUOTE (Aaron) | ||
I suspect that's what glitches and critical glitches are for. |
Definitely. I altered an old SR3 missions adventure (the one where you're offered a job to blow up the automated medical supply plant outside of Seattle) for SR4 and ran it at a local convention here this past September. The Street Sam and Gunslinger Adept (sample characters) were infiltrating from the East end of the building (by the silos, not by the rigger's hut) with the Adept in front. The character moved stealthily though to a covered position, taking some fire from the people inside. The plan, then, was to have her throw smoke to hide the movements of the rest of the team. But, the Sammie's player decided he wanted to play with the light machine gun that the character has. So, he framed himself in the doorway into the building and unloaded a narrow long burst into the building ...... critically glitch. I ruled friendly fire and the Adept got hit. Good times. Harsh, perhaps, be I knew those two players so I knew it would be cool.
In my games, a bullet always hits something. It doesn't have to be a person. It doesn't have to be anything critical or horrible. It's not like I'm playing an anti-gun rally. But they always hit something. As long as the runners are marginally aware of what's behind what they're trying to shoot at, everything's usually ok. The bullet skips off the pavement and lodges in someone's car door. The bullet passes through a few plastic faux-wood desks and hits a door jamb. That sort of thing.
However, as consequence-happy as I am as a GM, my players rarely hit innocent (or less-than-innocent) bystanders. A.) Only a fucking idiot would end up in a gunfight in an area where there are no lines of fire that don't jeopardize innocents. That's an easy way to get arrested. B.) Really, it's not fair (usually) to force a runner to gun down a civilian if you haven't made it clear that civilians are around, and there may be one in his line of fire.
Of course, if the runners have indicated, through repeated activities, that they don't care about civilians, by all means, have a bloodbath, and keep collecting that forensic evidence. Make the mayor flip out about the thousands of phone calls he's receiving. Put pressure on the police for a crackdown.
However, as consequence-happy as I am as a GM, my players rarely hit innocent (or less-than-innocent) bystanders. A.) Only a fucking idiot would end up in a gunfight in an area where there are no lines of fire that don't jeopardize innocents. That's an easy way to get arrested. B.) Really, it's not fair (usually) to force a runner to gun down a civilian if you haven't made it clear that civilians are around, and there may be one in his line of fire.
Of course, if the runners have indicated, through repeated activities, that they don't care about civilians, by all means, have a bloodbath, and keep collecting that forensic evidence. Make the mayor flip out about the thousands of phone calls he's receiving. Put pressure on the police for a crackdown.
Once had things go very, very bad on a run. It ended up in a running car-chopper gun battle in a populated portion of Seattle.....and one of the runners had a MGL-12 firing at the chopper. The GM ruled, and it is hard to disagree with him, that misses couldn't help but hit civilians and buildings causing much collateral damage and death.
Apparently that lead to the military getting a call. To buy the rest of the team some time to escape my character went one-on-one with an APC mounted with some sort of heavy machinegun setup. I emptied the Karma Pool just to stay alive, but unconcious.
The chase ended with the capture of the entire team save for one member that escaped and retired.
Apparently that lead to the military getting a call. To buy the rest of the team some time to escape my character went one-on-one with an APC mounted with some sort of heavy machinegun setup. I emptied the Karma Pool just to stay alive, but unconcious.
The chase ended with the capture of the entire team save for one member that escaped and retired.
Some of my favorite victims for stray rounds:
Plate Glass Windows
Full or Patially Full Beverages
Fire Exiguisher Canisters
Bags of Potato Chips (or other explodable snack pack)
Fish Tanks
Trid or Flat Monitors [I keep old tech monitors alive just to catch stray rounds
]
Ballons
Ok basically stuff that produces a mess or fun / cool effect when it takes a bullet [or at least when it takes a bullet in the movies, I'm well aware that the effects produced on TV with explosive squibs don't really resemble a bullet hit]
Plate Glass Windows
Full or Patially Full Beverages
Fire Exiguisher Canisters
Bags of Potato Chips (or other explodable snack pack)
Fish Tanks
Trid or Flat Monitors [I keep old tech monitors alive just to catch stray rounds
]Ballons
Ok basically stuff that produces a mess or fun / cool effect when it takes a bullet [or at least when it takes a bullet in the movies, I'm well aware that the effects produced on TV with explosive squibs don't really resemble a bullet hit]
Mama says, "Whenever a bullet misses its target a demon gets its wings"
your mom is really weird, man.
If you are going to take into account the bullet path on a miss you also have to take into account the bullet path on an overpenetration. Nothing like killing your target and 8 innocent bystanders with a single well placed shot.
yeah, there really is nothing quite so satisfying. i mean, uh, terrible. because it was a mistake.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| If you are going to take into account the bullet path on a miss you also have to take into account the bullet path on an overpenetration. Nothething like killing your target and 8 innocent bystanders with a single well placed shot. |
And the moral of this story is never go into a firefight in a glue factory with AV rounds.
I was thinking more like the DMV with a barret. All of those people just standing in straight lines.... 
as a gm one of my players was invisible walking/running towards someone while the other player was shooting a bow (trolls with bows are real nasty) at the same target. I made the troll roll to miss the other player, but left it urp to random chance since he couldn';t see him.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| If you are going to take into account the bullet path on a miss you also have to take into account the bullet path on an overpenetration. Nothing like killing your target and 8 innocent bystanders with a single well placed shot. |
and this my friends is why i use explosive rounds. nothing like 2 nanoseconds of penetration before you lose all semblance of containment and end up with a big sticky mess.....
My GM's love the "Now what did you blow up with that misplaced shot" stuff as well but only when it is either an innocent bystander, (not often) or else its something thats gonna make a BIG boom, (propane tank or tanker truck) Otherwise they usually just explode against a random wall
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