Keep it chill, guys.

Remember, there's nothing "wrong" with not having personal experience with something in the game. I'd warrant that for every person that has personal experience with firearms, there's a person that has personal experience with network security, remote control vehicles, etc. There's always something you don't know about, and that's not something to be ashamed of (or attempt to make someone ashamed of), regardless of the fact that "internet awesomeness" culture says otherwise.

I know it's easy to get worked up when you're talking about subjects that you feel strongly about, but remember that it's a game, and we play it for enjoyment.

On the cyberlimb issue, I could sort of agree it's more stable. I say sort of because one limb on its own, wont really be more stable by any notable degree. It's still attached to flesh, even if it were attached to a cybertorso, that torso is also attached to flesh.

Ok so what if you go full borg? Now you've got as little meat left as robocop. Well.. then maybe. The fact that it's all DNI controlled will have an effect, but now all that movement from breathing and such might be gone, depends really on how exactly a cybertorso is designed. If it has the range of motion a normal rib cage has then it will likely move when you breath as well.

But really thats a sort of sub issue to the present discussion. Keep in mind that a 'combat turn' is only as the book says, roughly 3 seconds in time. In that your guaranteed at least one initative pass, which is one action ever 1.5 seconds. If your using enhanced reflexes that goes up to one action every 0.375 seconds (Assuming your boosted to 4 init passes).

When your using your own eyes you've got very little else to concentrate on. And in 1.5 seconds time I could arguably see a trained marksman able to line up a shot rather easily to the main body even of some one at some distance away. Throw in all these fun reaction enhancements etc, maybe explain away the experience as time sort of slowing down and then it's not too much of a streatch to evne expect them to do that several times within the space of 3 seconds.

But that again is totally different from suddenly swinging your gun around the corner and popping off shots at targets your not directly seeing. Using a guncam, sure your seeing a target, but it's still in an indirect form no matter how many aids it's giving you. Personally I just dont see it being -quite- as good as your own eyes. Especially no matter how you look at it there -is- going to be a slight reduction to your range of vision at that point.

Thats i'm sure the real reason why recoil comp only counts as a 'pool' thats used up across the entire combat round as opposed to across the initative passes. Your pulling the trigger so fast your gunbarrel is continualy being pulled up from recoil. Sure your compensating for some of that yourself but your not able to compensate for -all- of it with your own body. Now imagine popping off 4 shots around a corner within the space of 0.75 seconds while looking through the camera of the same gun your firing out of. This is going to make your actual view, jerky as all hell and burst fire will only make it even worse.

So... the question becomes "In 65 years, are we going to be able to get the lens sizes down and the frame rates up on digital cameras?" I'm going to have to put my money on yes.

So you are saying smartlink shouldnt count until you are the best of the best?

Looking at the magesight "targetting through optics" modifier of -3, I find a quick and easy way of dealing with the firing around corners question. -3 dice for targetting through a remote device and suffering the "tunnel vision" that grants, in return for total cover (except maybe the hand). No smartlink bonus, either. Recoil I'd leave alone (could brace the gun on the wall to offset awkward position), but no stock/shock pad bonus.

It's clean, it's simple, and it's workable. New house rule!

As for the "firing from cover" penalty of -1: the way I read it, that modifier only applies to someone who hides behind cover until their action, then pops up, hoses down the place with lead, and pops back behind cover. Such a person would claim whatever cover they had found EXCEPT when shooting, at which point an opponent who had delayed his/her action could try to shoot at them when they're unprotected.

considering that it equals the (sigh) hilariously small modifier for long range, i suppose it's fair.

re: cover, i think it applies regardless of whether or not you're 'popping out' or just firing while most of your body is concealed. if you get the cover modifier to be hit, you get the cover penalty to your shots.

djinni, every pistol expert i've read about disagrees with you. the whole basis of the Weaver stance is that Weaver realized that one pretty quick, well-aimed shot is better than six really fast shots with no aiming at all.

consciously moving your weapon in the manner you're talking about has nothing to do with anything. trying to equate it to unconsciously moving your weapon is just silly. you're seriously making no sense at all. yes, you can move your weapon after you fire it but before the bullet leaves the barrel--you just can't do it on purpose. doing it on purpose isn't part of what's being discussed.

my whole argument is based on shooting further targets. i've already said that against targets 5-10m away, firing around a corner with a guncam is easily within the realm of possibility.

i still don't think that firing around a corner should be as easy as firing at a target in front of you, simply because of the way you have to contort your body (twisting your wrist in a different direction from your forearm, when shooting, counts as a contortion).

I'd say that the movement that can occur doesn't occur "between" you deciding to fire and the round exiting the barrel. It occurs during the firing process. That's why firearms training stresses things like stable position, breathing, trigger squeeze...hey...why does this sound familiar?

I'm pretty sure that was brought up on page 1

...
So the thorax's got the spine, heart, pulmonary vessels, and liver, not to mention the aorta and all the major arteries separating from it, in one neat package, but you'd say the two main arteries in the groin, which carry much less blood than the arteries in the thorax, present so much better a target that you ought to go for them even though they make it more difficult to hit the target?

Unless wielding a handgun and faced with an opponent wearing body armor without groin protection, most people aware of what killing people with firearms is about would disagree with you.

[Aim for the groin]
Melee = Yes, viable tactic
Shooting = idiotic tactic...

You are aiming at some guy's dong which is behind loose pants and moves more than the guy's chest area... Hmm... shooting something the size of an apple (area) vs something the size of a barrel... yeah. Now if you are sitting right next to the guy on the train and pop one off into his groin, more power to you.

You know that shooting at center mass as a basic tactic right? Reason: Cause its easier to hit the target. There is also all that stuff they call internal organs, you know: heart, lungs or stomach, that will cause death if hit correctly with anything and not treated... Plus, on the upside, you have a chance at missing your target and hitting the arms, abdomen or head.

djinni, the whole point of mine that you were responding to was that there are subtle unconscious body movements all people have. That do, in fact, affect your aim.

Movements a cyber body would not have.

While I do apologize for my earlier tone, the assertion you made, "if it's not enough to notice, it's not going to throw your aim off.", is just flat out wrong. They do throw your aim off. Enough that at close ranges can spell the difference between a kill shot and merely a wound, and at farther ranges can make you miss entirely.

You are right in that you can't deliberately choose to move a gun between the time you pull the trigger and the bullet clears the barrel. Nobody has a reaction time that is fast enough for that. But I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. We're not talking about deliberately moving to throw aim off - I'm not sure where you're coming from there.

You CAN unconsciously move the gun in that space of time (like by jerking on the trigger instead of squeezing). Happens all the time in folks not taught the proper way to fire weapons.

--

Thinking on it, these subtle body movements might be things a cybered smartlink would already compensate for, which would help to explain the greater bonus from the implanted version vs an external smartlink system. So any bonus you might gain from inherent body stability probably shouldn't stack with an internal smartlink.

My other main contention is that firing around corners requires a position that would probably be uncomfortable for most meat bodies. Positions that, again, a cyber body would not find uncomfortable - if nothing else, a lack of sensory input there, or the ability to shut it off, is a blessing in this case. Hold a meat hand in an awkward position and before long the hand's owner will be feeling all sorts of strain and probably wobble his hand all over the place. A cyberarm owner might be able to hold that same position for hours without a bobble.


-karma

If it wasnt for eidolon, I'm pretty sure there would be much worse being said to him resulting in some bans and threadlock...

I think that Djinni is assuming that the environment of a firefight is going to have a different set of parameters than a gun range, and that training will no longer matter as much as luck.

The rules don't bear that out so much - edge, unless it's obscenely high, and refreshes constantly, will only allow you to get a handful of successes. That might be enough, or might not be. Whereas a high dice pool (aka lots of training and natural skill) will result in a consistently high number of successess.

In real-world situations, I'm fairly sure that the idea is that you train enough that your actions become second nature. So that when you are in the field, and everything goes to hell, you are naturally using correct posture and positioning, and can then adjust to the fact that you're underneath a mud slide and someone is driving a car at you.

I'm pretty sure that's the idea behind most combat training. I know my miniscule experience with martial arts was focused on that - creating movements and reactions that were instinctual, so that they would apply in all situations.

Sorry Djinni you are plain wrong. Caliber size and weapon type don't matter worth a damn. The reason we aim center mass regardless, is because quite simply when you factor in normal body movement, and adrenaline you want to aim and shoot at the most stable target. The most stable target is the abdominal region and torso. Your center of gravity is roughly your belly button. No matter what you do it will move less than the rest of your body. This equates to roughly half way down on most antropomorphic targets. This is center mass.

The reason most firefights result in shit loads of amo being wasted is because very few people have the guts to spend the extra second (literally) to ensure a kill.

As far as aiming at the groin, the only time you would do that is in a quickfire/instinctual firing drill at under 21 ft or 7 yards, firing from the hip (literally) in which case natural body positioning will dictate that naturally I am aiming at the hip level. In real life this presents itself when you have someone charging across a room at you with a knife, if you have trained properly you will hopefully slow then down to the where your extended non firing hand will take the damage before you unload oon them point blank in an exposed unprotected body part.

Ultimately it comes down to one thing, the fundamentals of shooting always apply regardless of the situation or gadgets. If you look at successful encounters almost invariably the individual with better, more intensive, and diverse training is the survivor. Otherwise we should just issue weapons to individuals and send them out to kill. You train how you fight, otherwise you die. If you throw out the fundamentals you die 9 times out of 10.

What the? Well, at least I read what djinni wrote that Faelan was responding to (since deleted). For those that are wondering, he was saying how caliber size mattered where'd you hit. Something about gut shots and such and also how the large caliber shot won't immediately kill a person in the guts. I'm running by memory and such, but that part at the end of his post just confused me.

Video games have done much to ensure that a lot of people think that firing a gun means head shots and tricks. Not that there's anything wrong with video games and such, but != reality.

Huh? eidolon, you mean I cant bounce a bullet off the lamp above someone and have it go straight down into their brain?

In all seriousness, this guy has many people, who know what they are talking about, telling him that center mass is the best place to shoot unless you take the time to aim up with a proper gun and position (Sniper rifle anyone?) yet he continually spouts nonsense that makes us go, WTF?

Video games also usually poorly model how difficult keeping a steady aim really is.

I've seen, what, three-four first person shooters in all of gaming history that have included even some basic elementary sort of sighting model that accounts for operator twitchiness throwing aim off?

I was playing F.E.A.R. last night and actually thinking about this. While it's a blast to play, at a full run firing an assault rifle, while getting hammered by some nasty with a mini-gun, the aiming reticle stayed right where my mouse had it, no drifting at all.

I'd have to say video games these days would make someone who was otherwise untrained a WORSE shot with a real firearm, not a better one.


-karma

It's not like a .22 LR solid or most combat loads for a .38 Special or .380 ACP can't hammer their way right through a ribcage. Plus calling 9x19mm (for handguns) and 5.56x45mm NATO (for rifles) "large caliber" is a bit misleading -- these are among the least energetic calibers in which combat firearms are made.