This is a spillover from the "Are we missing an errata" thread and my attempt to do something useful.

For reference, that thread contained lots of sniping between people who wanted weights listed for Shadowrun gear and those that said such people should just hand wave it and use common sense. Having never carried a clip of bullets, let alone a Panther Assault Cannon, I'm in the "I want some guidance camp". Those who don't like that can keep the "crap GM" comments to themselves.

I'm putting a listing of Shadowrun gear in this post, roughly divided into categories that make sense to me in my ignorance. I'm asking for suggestions for weight et al from the more knowledgeable here, which I will then edit and re-edit into this first post as conclusions are reached. I believe that I'm superbly positioned to collate people's opinions in an unbiased way as I know so little about what I'm talking about myself.

I'm open to suggestions to re-organise these categories, add additional ones or list exceptions.

Because weight is not the be all and end all of encumberance, I'll ask for two additional values we'll tentatively call "slot" and "awkwardness". I think there is likely to be something of this kind needed, though I'm not sure what will be the simplest system, hence these two provisional categories. Example, a katana may only weigh 8kg (???) but could be much more awkward to carry than an armoured vest that weighed the same. It could also use up a "rifle" slot as there is only so much you can sling across your back. Let's scale awkwardness on the traditional SR scale, so you might say SMG, weighs 5kg, awkwardness 2, "large gun" slot.

Don't focus too much on the awkward / slot values at the moment. We'll work out how to handle them and what categories emerge as we go or just ditch the concept. Just make sure you give me the weights.

My provisional categories are as follows:

Firearms
Light Pistol: .75kg
Heavy Pistol: 1kg
Machine Pistol (same as heavy? - please comment): 1.25kg
Sub-machine gun: 2kg
Rifle, Assault & Sports: 3kg
Rifle, Sniper: 6kg
Light machine gun: 7kg
Shotgun: 3.5kg
Assault Cannon: 15kg
Grenade Launcher, under-barrel: +1.5kg
Grenade Launcher, stand alone: 5kg

LAWs
Mitsubishi Yakusoku MRL: 9kg
Aztechnology Striker: 4kg

Melee Weapons
Combat Axe: 1.5kg
One-handed Sword (e.g. Katana, Ares Monosword): 1.25kg
Polearm: 2kg

Ammo
LP/MP/SMG/AR/LMG: 0.1kg per 10 cartridges
HP/Sport Rifle/MMG: 0.2kg per 10 cartridges
Sniper: 0.3kg per 10 cartridgesp
Shotgun: 0.5kg per 10 cartridges
Assault Cannon: 1kg per 10 cartridges

Armour & Clothing
Armour Jacket: 2kg
Armour Vest: 1kg
Lined Coat: 5kg
Full Body Armour: 14kg (Please comment).

Flamebait Drones
Lone Star iBall: 1kg
Aztechnology Crawler 50kg
Lockheed Optic-X: 30kg
GM-Nissan Doberman: 70kg

Oddities
Maglock Passkey: 0.5kg
Commlink: 0.5kg - similar to mobile phone
Medkit: 3kg +1kg if extra "medkit supplies"

Here's a few off the top of my head -- if it wasn't just hitting "busy time" here at work I could fill out the list quite a bit more in a couple minutes. For most of this stuff, a quick Google search (or scan of the Modern Firearms Listing, or even just Raygun's Shadowrun Firearms page) would get you an answer in about five minutes.

Light Pistol: .75 kg
Heavy Pistol: 1 kg
Machine Pistol: 1.25 kg
Submachinegun: 1.75 kg
Shotgun: 4 kg
Maglock Passkey: negligible (.25 kg, I guess, if you really need a number -- it's a credit-card key, more or less)
Commlink: Ditto (maybe up to .5 kg, weigh your cell phone)
Medkit: 3 kg (1 kg for extra "medkit supplies")

Thanks. I've incorporated your suggestions into the initial list.

Suggestions from others about these or filling in the rest of the items most welcomed.

As a thought for Drones -- maybe look into Googling some of the larger-scale remote controlled cars, airplanes, helicopters, etc? Then modify for "Shadowrun-tech" materials. Or, of course, Drone weights might be in other sourcebooks -- I've never been big on rigging, so I don't recall.

Armor clothing -- check out some real-life armor clothing, and maybe cut the weight in half (it wouldn't be so common, if it were as uncomfortable as it is using today's tech). Someone posted a link to a "stylish bulletproof" (or similar) thread, over in the main SR sub-forum, and that might be a place to start.

I'd say it isn't safe to lump sniper rifles with assault and sport rifles -- the former tend to be far more heavily built, with very heavy free-floating barrels, bulky customizable stocks, etc.

ARs and Sport Rifles average between 3kg and 3.5kg, though they can certainly weigh less than 2.5kg or, in the case of sport rifles, well over 4kg.
Sniper Rifles, often range anywhere from 4.5kg to 9kg and beyond, depending on intended use, action and caliber. Assuming SR Sniper Rifles are commonly .300 Win Mags or .338 Lapua Mags (they still do significantly more damage than Sporting Rifles, right?), the average should be somewhere around, errm, 5kg-6kg.
LMGs also have quite a bit of variance, from 4kg-4.5kg weapons that are little more than assault rifles with heavy barrels and bipods, up to over 7kg for the more serious ones. Assuming SR LMGs are of the quick-change-barrel, high-sustainable-RoF, belt-fed type, 7kg is a decent average.
Assault Cannons will do fine at 15kg.
Grenade Launchers, well, depend hugely on whether they are single-shot, underbarrel attached models or multi-shot weapons fired from the shoulder. The first type averages somewhere around or a bit under 1.5kg, the latter from 3kg to 6kg.
LAWs also vary hugely in weight. The current trend is for the heavier types, like the AT4, at 6kg - 9kg. Crappier ones like the archetypical but aged M72 often weigh 3kg-4kg.

Combat Axes, like most hafted weapons, average somewhere between 1kg and 1.5kg, up to 2kg for the two-handed ones. Swords, depending on style, average 0.75kg-2.5kg, ranging from smallswords at the lowest end (weighing as little as 0.5kg), through rapiers, cut-and-thrust one-handers, longswords and greatswords to the biggest Zweihanders. Katanas, BTW, weigh about the same as European medieval one-handers and longswords, averaging 1kg-1.5kg. Polearms might weigh anywhere from 1.5kg to 3kg -- though the 12+ foot pikes may weigh quite a bit more.

I'd adjust Critias's estimate for SMG weight up to at least 2kg, preferably 2.5kg. The archetypical RL SMG, the MP5, weighs about 3kg with the collapsible stock. On the other hand, I'd adjust his Shotgun weight down a bit, though it's true that lots of combat shotguns weigh between 3.5kg and 4kg.

Magazine weights vary so much depending on the specific ammunition that it'd be pointless to give a straight figure for all magazines of a certain size. A Heavy Pistol magazine of 15 might weight more than twice that of a Light Pistol mag of the same size, nevermind sniper rifle, shotgun or assault cannon ammo. Generally speaking, though, LP/MP/SMG/AR/LMG mags might weigh ~0.1kg-0.15kg per 10 cartridges. Caseless ammo, at least for rifles, will weigh some 25% less (assuming cases are made of polymers anyway). HP/Sport Rifle/MMG ammo might be twice that, 3x for Sniper Rifles, 5x for Shotguns and 10x for Assault Cannons and HMGs.

Body Armor might range anywhere from 1kg to 3kg for torso coverage of flexible armor -- multiply that as necessary to get limb coverage. With rigid plates, that might shoot up to as much as 10kg or more for the vest alone (but I doubt SR4 has any type of armor with a rating high enough to justify that weight).

Okay, I've incorporated most of your suggestions into the list verbatim. Where you've made comments on Critias' figures, I've modified still them, but adjusted your figure slightly towards his. As always, I'm open to ongoing feedback.

I've split out sniper rifles into their own category and though I don't want to get into the habit of naming specific weapons, based on the wide range you suggested for LAWs, I've gone back to the fluff descriptions in SR4, one model being described as extremely light and the other being described as "double barrel". So I've listed both of them at extreme ends of your range.

I think melee weapons are a potential minefield (just to mix metaphors) as for example a troll is likely to carry a bigger version of an axe than a human. Still I've gone for an average figure and GM sense will have to come into play.

Armour I've extrapolated from your estimate for a basic vest and I've assumed that the full body armour with helmet is based on the rigid plates you described.

I must say that I'm glad I started this thread as even if for no-one else, it will be useful for me. I clearly have no idea how much this stuff weighs. I'd actually have grossly over-estimated much of it.

I'll also keep an eye on how many clips of Assault Cannon rounds a PC can carry, too.

I'm not a big fan of bothering with exact weight and ecumbrance rules.

But if you positively, absolutely, have to have those weight...

Why not just start with the SR3 weights? Most of this stuff existed already in the previous edition anyway. What didn't can be approximated from equivalent items.

Going through the whole list would be tedious. Got a poker tournament starting soon!

Let's just say the Assault Cannon was listed at 20 kg. Heavy weapons were the only one worth looking up but since the troll handled those we quickly stopped looking those too.

Most guns were bewteen 1 and 2 kg which made keeping track of the weight rather pointless since anyone but a weakling would get out of room before he'd get out of strenght.

I mean, an average man can carry 15 AK-97 without penalty, but what is he gonna do with them? It's usually your suspension of disbelief that get stretched, not the limit of what the PC can carry, with as little as STR 3 ("How the hell are you carrying all that?!").

The only PC I've ever seen to have to seriously crunch the number of what he could carry had STR 1.

Bullets were more annoying with apprently weird value (like 0.5kg for 10 bullet!)but we'd just wing it and I told the PC to carry 2-6 clips and be done with it. I can count on one hand the number of time a PC had to reload more than once anyway.

---

A listing of volume would be more useful than a listing of weight to figure what a PC can carry.

You should add the weight of the magazines themselves too. Magazines are probably plastic or polymers.

Pistol mags: 0.1 kg
Automatics mags: 0.2 kg

That look about right?

Thanks for this! I was going to start one but since you beat me to it I can instead start working on a Hackmaster Master Index and leave this to the quite capable hands of my fellow DSers.

AR without grenade launcher were given at 2 kg. So 15 AR makes 30 kg which is the average CC for a man given by SR.

And indeed I commented elsewhere that even a strong man should get penalties from lugging around unevenly distributed weight even if it's well within his CC.

But then that's down to common sense anyway as there has never been a "cumbersomeness" stat for any SR gear.

SR3 pretty much listed all the pistols, SMG and AR at either 0.5 KG, 1 Kg and 2kg. It's faster to calculate if you are going to go to the trouble of keeping track of weight and really, what does 0,1 kg matter? If you are within 0,1 KG of being encumbered, you already are carrying too much crap anyway.

As I said, try using SR3 weight. Or even SR2. No need to go buy a SR3 corebook, just pick up one of the old gear book.

They had recapitualtive list for all the gear at the end. I'd scan one for you if I was sure it didn't break the rules of the board (admin?). Otherwise you can probably pick up one for 5$ in the used bin or else download one from bittorrent. No shame in downloading out-of print books, I say.

Seriously, even if you are very detail oriented, you won't get that much use out of a weight list so you should put a minimum of effort into it ; google / torrent away!

i would personally argue that in a situation where you are literally naked and have no gear, your carrying capacity quite suddenly becomes extremely irrelevant personally =P

but at any rate, as far as using previous editions of SR weights... i believe it was mentioned at least a couple of times that the previous edition weights were hotly disputed. basically, when SR had weights, people just complained about how innacurate they were =P

so, as far as using previous editions as a guideline, it seems that wouldn't be a very popular idea. besides, i think SR3 at least said you generally didn't need to keep too close an eye on encumbrance unless you started feeling it was a little fishy anyways... much like SR4, only they actually had weight listings for you to check if you really felt like it.

Yeah, but we didn't stay naked and without gear forever, hence the need to figure out carrying capacities. It also comes with the "where does it all go" question, but that's not something an encumbrance system can do well without getting more complex than SR needs. Just some good size descriptions for things is plenty.

Jaid brings up a good point: Even into SR2, the weights were scoffed at, particularly at 1 kg (2.2 lb) handheld cellphones and 15 kg (36 lb) telecoms (Vid phones).

By leaving out the weights, they avoid pitfalls of other SciFi games (OMG! My computer can have 256 kbytes of memory! I shall rule teh world!) and allows SR to instantly keep up with technology, to a degree. This also true of using Megapulses in earlier editions and removing it in 4th edition.

The problem with playing with real weights is that SR doesn't do a very good job of handling what real people can really handle. People can and do operate for long periods of time carrying heavy loads. In addition, the bizarre idea that loads are carried by Strength and armor by Body is still puzzling.

Typical equipment load for US combat troops is higher than SR allows for an "average" person. A typical fighting load (before the most recent armor updates, which added IIRC 6-12 pounds) was about 63 pounds, with machine gunners carrying 81 pounds. This is what you actually are carrying when you are actually engaged in actively shooting and getting shot at. That's a bit less than 30 kg with 37kg for MG gunners.

The actual load that they carried when they marched cross country was an average of 101 pounds, with a bunch carrying 120 pound loads. This is 54 kg. The typical load carried when vehicles were not available was 132 pounds, with several MOS carrying loads approaching 150 pounds, or 68 Kg. (As an ex-fire support guy I feel for the FSNCO with his 143 pound load)

These are not supermen with huge muscles; they are just tough and disciplined guys. The report also has a long list of weights of military equipment if I haven't discouraged you.

http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/modernw...tLoadReport.pdf

Well, now we're out of conversation material

If folks are curious, the reply I got from Rob Boyle via info@shadowrun was that worrying about weights is pointless, a nonissue, and a problem with the gamer, not the game. Here's the entire email:

Bolded parts are me, the rest is him. Apparently all SR GMs are in agreement as to what things weigh, because a difference between GM rulings happens so rarely it's not worth worrying about. You're also apparently supposed to boot your rules lawyers out of your game or drop an iron fist GM call on them because they're the only ones that care about weights.

So, let me see if I have this right.

1) They want us to use common sense on this, when common sense itself states most GMs won't have a fucking clue where to start and will have to waste hours or, in some cases, even days looking up information and researching the topic just to have any information on which to set a benchmark.

2) Apparently, researching it on the internet for several hours is supposed to make up for five minutes of looking at a table. So, instead of one group of people who are being paid for their work doing it, you have 25 groups who are just trying to play this game for fun doing it.

3) Streamlining, specifically to make the rules clearer, was the issue. As part of this, things that should be "common sense" were left out. So, since apparently every GM on Earth is familiar enough with assault rifles to be able to ballpark how much they weigh, why were rules on recoil included? After all, if they know enough to know how much the guns weigh, won't they also know enough to know how much of an effect recoil has?

4) If there's an issue between the GM and a player as a result of a rule, it's automatically the player's fault. Doesn't matter if the rule is incomplete, unclear, etc.

5) Magically, all SR4 GMs will agree. Despite the fact we can't even get people on here to agree how the YSF works, let alone even come close to a compromise on weights.

6) The lack of weights was, as I accused them of earlier, from sheer laziness, and yet supposedly the entire encumbrance system inside the rules is complete instead of being utterly half-assed.

7) All rules lawyers are automatically trouble makers and should be dealt with as such. No matter if they're right or not.

Is anyone else satisfied with that reply?

@knasser: Nice job on the thread, I'll try and find some weights for you.

Here's some good info on current flying Drones.

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/dragon.htm
BQM-147A Exdrone
Dragon Drone
90 lbs with payload; 65 lbs without payload
This would probably be a body 2 sized drone

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/outrider.htm
Outrider Tactical UAV
Max. Gross Take-off Weight: 385 lbs
This would be a body 4 sized drone

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/pointer.htm
"It has a 9 feet wingspan and a 6 feet fuselage length. Its total takeoff weight, with payload, is 8.5 pounds."
That would probably be a body 0 or 1 sized drone.

Hell, I'd be happy if something like this topic (that is, an approximate range of weights for various common items) was provided in Arsenal. You're talking about a quarter of a page's worth of table, probably with a big ol' "OPTIONAL" over it.

Hell, I happen to know that there's players out there who don't even know the vague pounds:kilos conversion ratio (2.2:1), much less who have any idea what trying to carry 50 kilos of equipment is like.

I don't want "the weight of every minor gadget in the game," I want a vague guideline.

Shrike, at this point, I want every last object in the game. From the weight of a soyburger to that of a panther cannon. Mainly because of Rob's reply.

Enough emails (polite ones preferably) to FanPro with a request for an integrated equipment chart with a weight column might do the trick.

It will likely seem reasonable to most people here, because for whatever reason most people who play SR don't like weights.

So, right. A few people are still righteously indignant about it. Want to contribute to this thread, with some suggested weight listings? Maybe once a more complete list is compiled, someone can send it to Rob and ask that it be tossed into the back of Arsenal or something.

Righteous indignation aside, it just sounds like a Community Projects thread needs to be started with links like Lagomorph provided. If a free, computer friendly version of 3rd edition weights exists, that would be an especially helpful link.

The target weight for the XM8 is 2.6 kg. Assuming we use that as a base for the XM30, we can probably extract a weight of 3 kg for the assault rifle, 2.4 for the carbine, and use the standard weights provided earlier in the topic with a bit of a weight reduction for the others.

The AK-47, on the other hand, is 4.3 kg. However, the AK-74 weighs 3.3 kg. I'd guess the AK-97 to probably be around 4 kg. This is due to how many current AK-47s are still in use.

Note the M16A2, a relatively light weapon, weighs in at 4 kg (loaded, which is the only weight I can find for it). Since it no longer exists by the time of SR4, I just provided it for reference.

The MP5A2 weighs in at 2.5 kg. I won't even guess for the SR4 version.

Really, I think the issue on the first page is people are making the weapons too light in weight. We need a weight range that is average. Otherwise, we get monstrous comparisons. Oh, and I have links for every weight I posted.

Finally, I want someone to look in the SR4 book and find me where it says encumbrance is optional. I can't find any indication of that, but the letter from Rob makes it sound like it is.

Well Lilith since you asked, see P54. LAst two sentances of the first complete paragraph on the page. The sentance beginning, "IF something in these { . . . ]"

Have you ever thought about looking at other Roleplaying books that do list weight and using those. D20 Modern for example has a couple of books (one official and one not) that I would think does actually list weight.