If I fire the grenade launcher on my Ares Alpha with a Simple Action, and then fire a long burst with my second Simple Action, that's a lotta firepower in one IP. If I fire the long burst first, and then fire the grenade launcher, does the second action take any recoil penalty?

If I install an Ares Alpha (or HK XM30) on a drone, does it need a Targeting (Automatics) autosoft and a Targeting (Heavy Weapons) autosoft to use both functions of that weapon?

Can drones use smartlinks? The +2 bonus requires a smartgun sensor on the gun, and for metahuman users, a way to display the point-of-aim on the user's field of vision; does one pay the listed costs for Image Link and Smartlink as direct upgrades to the drone? There's a listed cost for buying a Camera with sesory enhancements, but presumably a drone without a Camera already has a built-in visual sensor, just not an image-capturing (picture-taking) function.

Do a smartlink system and an airburst link interact/stack in any way other than the +2 to the to-hit roll yielding more net hits to reduce the scatter roll?

Can a drone such as Doberman or Lynx use a bipod or tripod? Can they be effectively "sitting or kneeling" at will, and does that affect anything else? I imagine them as being inherently more stable than a metahuman, if they rest on 4 brakable wheels rather than 2 feet.

Does a flying drone take any different modifiers for recoil?

Why are MMGs, HMGs and assault cannon usable only on foot, and not mountable on vehicles?

If a metahuman extends a bipod or tripod, fires from sitting/kneeling, then runs and fires from another position, do any penalties apply for having an extended bi/tripod? Does sitting/kneeeling affect one's Reaction roll to evade incoming attacks? (I notice that there is both a "Defender prone" +3 to a melee attacker's dice pool AND a "defender prone" -2 to the defender's dice pool.) In other words, is there anything besides house rules to discourage ALWAYS having an extended tripod and declaring a sitting stance? And is there any advantage to firing from prone? (None in RAW, but oddly enough, many soldiers seem to choose prone stance when firing rifles.)

I'm inclined to house-rule that firing from sitting/kneeling gives +1 recoil compensation, and firing from prone gives +2, even without a bipod/tripod. Or possibly even a direct +1/+2 to the attack roll; good stance helps even when using a weapon with negligible recoil (eg a BB gun). Also a cover bonus when the attacker only has LOS to the prone person's head/shoulders, which usually happens at medium or long range.

How I'd rule:

Wow ... I've been totally picturing tripods wrong. Thanks for the reference, eidolon.

As a personal side-note, it's no secret that the ranged combat rules have some holes in terms of immersion, one of the worst being the complete lack of incentive for supported or prone firing.

No sweat. Here's a few other good images:

.50 M2 HMG being used mounted on the deck of a ship: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_50cal...MG_Fife_pic.jpg

As used by infantry: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m-...cal-dvic552.jpg

M240 MMG mounted on a vehicle: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m-...240-dvic549.jpg

same being fielded by infantry: http://images.military.com/EQGpics/EQG_WSAM240g_1.jpg

M249 SAW LMG being used standing (with bipod extended no less ): http://www.army.mil/-images/2007/05/14/497...5-23-154617.jpg

and from a foxhole: http://www.floridaguard.army.mil/assets/m-249.jpg

If the grenade recoil is uncompensated I would guess it would be doubled since grenade launcher = heavy weapon.

Chris

AFAIK, in WWII. the standard infantry MG team had three people:

One guy to carry the 30 cal M1919 machine gun. (31 lbs)
One guy to carry ammo. (as much as possible)
One guy to carry the tripod. (10lbs + more ammo)

one guy with m60 = big improvement

Heh, sweet, apparently I am DJ Farstar now. That sounds significantly more awesome than my actual name. Hmmm.... maybe I should change it.

Chris

I'll second pretty much everything Eidolon said.

The only thing I'd add is that if the person using the weapon with the bipod extended happens to be in particularly tight terrain, (like narrower than standard corridors or in a tightly-packed wearhouse), I might add an additional penalty for them when maneuvering the weapon around.

to address the tripod on a drone, I disallow it. But, as a house rule in my games, ground drones are already considered tripods providing -6 RC. I'd rule air drones have no RC.

In which case, the cheap way for a bouncer to check people for explosives and gear is to mount a Rating 6 olfactory scanner, Rating 6 cyberware scanner, and Rating 3 MAD, on an iBall minidrone, since the drone costs less than the sensors bought separately...
and every vehicle can have all sensors but one, at max rating, for free.

I prefer that optical and low-resolution collision avoidance radar are built-in. The rules for targeting and Signal suggest that radar is involved at some level.

Your interpretation is valid from the phrasing. A FAQ should have clearer phrasing!

if i was going to give drones visual by default, it would be with the understanding that it can't be upgraded without buying the 100 camera sensor, personally.

Hunh? p. 342, the iball is a minidrone costing $1500; p. 325, a minidrone has a sensor capacity of three, eg the three expensive ones that I listed.

p. 25, vehicles have a sensor capacity of 12. They may have a lower sensor RATING, but that's for their Observe dice pool, not how many sensors one can install into them.

If you wanna rule that every vehicle gets your choice of free sensors up to capacity, or that a Doberman starts with no senses at all, then hey, it's your game, have fun!

I think your reaction at that range is critically flawed. Firstly you get a nomination for a darwin award for allowing someone armed w/ a rifle to get that close in an environment with nowhere to hide! You go prone to exploit low cover in CQB to eploit cover (mounds, hills, ditches, otherwise known as getting out of sight)... Shadowrun has the right reaction... start moving yourself to make yourself a hard target til you can get into actual hard cover (+3 defense dice). (running straight toward or away from the shooter only makes you an easier low aspect target) (charging target mod). Someone w/ a longarm at that range should have difficulty engaging you if you get really close to them... if you can close that distance w/o getting hit (the fact that he didn't hit you the first time raises serious questions of the other guys competency). (watch the guys shooting at 30-50' in a pistol competition sometime if you think going prone w/o cover at that range is going to help you!)


Now onto your regularly scheduled post....
Changing the attackers dice pool does two things. It makes the attack absolutely more/less damaging and accurate by affecting the non-net number of hits. Changing the defenders dice pool generally doesn't do anything to make the max damage of the attack any stronger, it primarily affects %hit and the net amount of damage if it does hit.

For most purposes in game... I see absolutely no problems w/ the RAW. Good game design should only penalize one dice pool or the other to keep things simple. The only time it gives both a bonus and a penalty reflects a clear discprency between melee and ranged, and ranged is basically nothing more than an extra range based modifier which makes sense. They even have the ranges set at reasonable points where prone is an advantage, no advantage and a clear disadvantage. As explained, I see no reason to have the character able to do more damage/more precisely just because he went prone (potentially w/ a weapon which is harder to use prone than standing like a pistol!).

Recoil compensation on a bipod makes emminent sense given it's primary usage on weapons being used as infantry LMG's. The only other place bipods are commonly fielded are in sniper/benchrest at long range where you need a highly stable rifle and aren't radically repositioning it every 3s. This is one of my gripes w/ many combat systems. Long/Extreme ranged combat encounters are broken IMO. I'm shocked there aren't snipers everywhere in the bloody game it makes it so ludicrously easy! (especially for the powers that be) The rules are fine for short range room to room, or urban CQB which is the vast majority of the settings action.


Rant mode On:
Really only a -3 for EXTREME RANGE... gee. the fact at that range that the target is going to have a hell of a time even PERCIEVING a POORLY HIDDEN rifleman! The flatfooted benefits alone... then an optical scope completely negates that?! Smartlink might show you bullet path, but it still doesn't account for the fact that the bullet is in flight for a FULL COMBAT ROUND (2-3s flight time) you have to be a pretty good and lucky shooter to lead that. I can see giving tech benefits to offset a large dicepool penalty w/ tech.

If I wanted more realistic long range rules. I'd immediately up the range penalties to say -2, -4, -6 at the least (probably more like -2, -5, -9). Change optics to reduce range penalties by one range bracket. And give a bipod bonus to take aim for single shot rifles (intead of +1 per take aim, give it a +2 per take aim up to the normal max). If you have to physically turn the gun more than 5degrees while taking aim... a bipod doesn't help you. Somehow make an activated smartlink in LOS shine out in augmented reality negating long-range perception mods to see an overly equipment dependant wannabe sniper. Also I'd rework the range charts (I've hit 3/9 rounds into a chest sized silhouette w/ a M1911 frame .45ACP at 100m.. from kneeling).

EG: point-blank(0), short(1), medium(3), long(6), extreme(10) (I'd give small weapons like pistols, SMG, carbine... a longer point-blank range reflecting that they're small and maneuverable and very usefull in close quarters battle (CQB), and give long arms like a rifle a shorter point-blank but a longer short bracket).

Veering from the original question... how about a Too Close range with a -1 penalty to the attacker's dice pool? For a long-barrelled sniper rifle, maybe out to 4m; for a pistol, only if you're firing at someone who's literally chest-to-chest (eg fighting Wing Chun style); broken or not?

I still want a difference, expressible in dice pools, between firing from a braced position, aiming using sights (good at long range, relying on cover and reduced aspect not on dodging), vs close-quarters firing from the hip, pointing not aiming, possibly while sidestepping the adept charging you with a katana (getting as much Reaction defense dice as you would if you also were using a katana). More crunch than some prefer; optional high-detail rules for the tactics geeks.

As for default vehicle/drone sensors: cf. p. 162 on Signature - clearly this is sensors optimized for detecting other vehicles - that doesn't make sense if the default is "blind and deaf" or "you get your free choice from the list".