Something interesting was brought up at our last game session that I have to agree with. It's nit picking the rules and game universe but makes sense when put to the real world test.

WIRED RELFEXES - A lot of chromed up street monkies and wanna be Cyberzombs have them and while it is obvious their use in melee combat is well worth it's weight in nuyen in my opinion wired reflexes become useless when firearms are involved in the attack.

While wired reflexes will help you reload your weapon faster, help you draw it faster and help you aim quicker than your average mundane meatbod Joe, the weapon in your hand ultimately controls your speed.

Firearms are designed to fire at certain speeds. It's the mechanics of the weapon. It takes a certain amount of time for the trigger to be pulled, the firing pin to slam into the round, ignite the powder, send the bullet on its way, eject the spent case, chamber a new round and repeat the process.

No amount of Wired Reflexes will make the weapon shoot faster. So I find it a bit unfair the amount of whip ass Wired up characters/NPCs can do with firearms and wired reflexes turned on.

A semi-auto pistol can only cycle so fast. If you keep pulling on the trigger faster than the weapon can cycle you are going to jam it up something good. That SMG can only spit out bullets so fast.. you can't make it shoot faster.

So, to me, a firearm should negate your Wired Reflexes bonus when doing ranged combat. Does anyone else see it this way?

I wonder what else in a game with dragons, wizards, elves, artificial intelligences, and other assorted Horrors doesn't model well from the real world.

heh

With a maximum of 4 IPs per 3 second turn, that's 1 double tap every 0.75 seconds. Machine guns fire lots faster than that, so it's well within the realm of physics.

If you look at typical cyclic rates for firearms, the 4IP people have it just about right. It's those unaugmented who waste most of their time being inefficient.

The problem is that a modern semi-auto pistol has a RoF that well exceeds the fire rate in the game. Each combat round is 3 seconds, with 4 IP doing semi-auto shots you're fireing a bullet every .375 seconds which is 160 rounds per min, most modern weapons can sustain 300-800. Even blowback operated ones like the Beretta 93R can fire 1100 rnd/min. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beretta_93R

I don't think even doing full auto weapons would max out their actual cyclic rate. With 10rd full auto from a lmg, you're doing 40 rds in 3 seconds, or 800 rnd/min which is faster than an M60, but slower than an MG3 from what I could find on wikipedia. So even a full auto weapon isn't outside the realm of possibility for its RoF.

I will say, however, that if someone is in a non-combat situation, not aiming, not dodging, simply wasting ammunition as fast as possible, then they should probably be allowed to fire more than 2 shots per second.

The real world example that I think breaks down in SR4 is full auto-fire. I don't understand why one runner with a single IP, holding down the trigger should fire less bullets than the 4IP chromed out cybermonkey.

No matter how many IPs you have, the time doesn't change. Its the same 3 seconds, right?

I was actually thinking about this earlier, funny to get home and see a thread

The way I would (and probably will) handle it is if you are firing a full auto burst, and planning to do so for more than 1 rounds (e.g suppressive fire with an machine gun) have the 40 rounds, but max out the recoil at 10.

They aint going to be aiming, but for area suppressive fire it puts then back in the field. The rules may need a little tweaking (I didn't get out the rule books).

But I would also count it as 10 rounds per IP for people reacting to the suppressive fire to even things out a little.

I look forward to seeing the reacting to this idea, and where it gets taken.

Yay, another OMGBBQ firearms aren't realistic in Shadowrun thread. Wheeee.

I usually run IP's as 4,1,3,2

I've also toyed around with 4,3,1,2

I've found the first is fairly well balanced and teh second is ok.

The grenade issue can be solved simply by defining a specific number of IPs later that the grenade goes off. (In my game, we run combat different, as a series of ticks, each representing about a second of time. Grenades usually have a fuse of 2 to 5 ticks, 5 at default. I once threw the players for a loop by throwing a grenade with an extra long fuse.)

Rate of fire for sustained automatic fire? I don't have an answer, we don't think about it much. We assume that a full burst is just that, a burst, and we just don't have much actual sustained fire.

My point with supressive earlier was that full suppressive across a full turn is going to empty anyones clip. your razor guy has to do it over potentially 4 ips so all you do is say that suppressive fire for a full round is 40 rounds, but that people can only be affected by 10 of them.

if a razor guy wants to suppress an area, it doesn't matter how fast he is, he has to fill the same area over the same period of time, so suppressing the area takes all of his IPs. As combat is supposed theoretically to be spread across the same period of time.

If you then deal with suppressive fire at the end of the round, so that if he stops suppressing half way through, you can cut down the no rounds suppression he can still react to external stimuli but it wont effect the suppression.

I do like the 4132 idea though

I always feel that if a non wired person gets off less rounds using autofire than a wired person it has to do with the fact that it takes longer for the non wired person to apply pressure to the trigger and thus is autofire starts later in the turn and that is why he gets off less rounds per turn.

With single shots and burst fire I would agree, that is why I have only suggested options for suppressive fire

One house rule (semi) that I have always used that helps with thing like suppressive fire.


Just because you HAVE multiple IP, doesnt mean you have to 'use them'.

The 4 IP Sammy that choses to use suppresive fire in my game...

One IP 2 ... if nothing has changed, can 'skip his action' (losing it, but does not count as an action)... leaving things like suppressive fire going...

IF something changed (everyone moved out of area, grenade at his feet, etc), he is free to take the action (and the suppressive fire ends)...


This way 4IP is always > then 1IP ...

I work things the same way in my games. No need to get any more complicated than that.

The problem that i see is that people read wired reflexes like its road runner like. Its not. You dont run any faster. But what it does is speed up the signals between senses and brain. In effect the world slows down and the user can react faster to changes.

Yes, even then the rules are not fully sane. But most of the complaints go away when looking at it that way.

Well, you CAN run faster, but you have to concentrate on it(take sprinting actions).

Chris

Jerry Miculek is a freak of nature that regularly fires, double-action revolvers of all things, much faster (and still accurately) than a max-boost character in SR4.

The rules on RoF are just dandy according to real-world weapon use...
Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

This has been discussed many times on these boards, and will be discussed many times in the future, no doubt...

The main point is that guns, both in real life and in Shadowrun's land of abstraction, can shoot many many times more than it is efficient to do so.

In real combat situation, nobody is gonna shoot 1,100 rpm with their Beretta 93R, just because they can.

Thats the same in Shadowrun: your Ares Predator can probably mechanically shoot a lot more often than twice every 3 seconds, but it is no use to your character, because your character can't react at the same speed.

There was a very good answer on one of these thread before, given by a real life firearms enthusiasm (Raygun or austere, can't remember), which was along those lines: Wired Reflexes don't let you pull the trigger faster. What Wired Reflexes let you do is mentally map your environment, process the information, acquire a target, and point at it faster. And then, pull the trigger.

Cheers,
Fumble.

As I read this thread, I notice that nobody's mentioned the fact that guns and grenades are wireless now. A smartgun-enhanced firearm doesn't need its trigger; it can just shoot. Grenades can be commanded to detonate after they are thrown or launched (which is a Free Action).

Let me see, wireless grenades. Cant see those catching on, a hacker hacks in to my grenades and sets them off whilst I am still carrying them.

Wireless to set a timer on them, wireless SG to set airtimed maybe, but true wireless detonation, Nah.

And why would all of this matter, since the mage will have already dropped the manaball on your group?

/sarcasm
log<++no carrier detected++>

I personally don't see multiple uses of sprinting per turn as abusive. It's never been unbalancing to my game. Yes, it allows characters to move incredibly fast sometimes, but I'm less bothered by that, because I don't strictly associate the combat turn (or ticks, as I play it) with a particular length of time. One combat turn (5 ticks in my game) represents anywhere from 3 to ten seconds, as drama requires.

And, honestly, moving real fast is not so powerful an ability that I feel the need to limit it much.

then there is the question of when movement becomes important.

unless someone wants to chase a target that flees, or for whatever insane reason wants to charge a defended position, berserker style, movement is just not that important.

hell, when i had a group play feng shui some weeks ago, i found the lack of movement tracking liberating.

movement tracking may be one of those wargame leftovers that do not give much to a rpg.

but like the "gag me" comment was aimed towards illustrating, i find the meme of "if its not clearly stated as not allowed it must be allowed" down right annoying. this kind of thinking leads to rules bloat and loophole hunting (d&d being a prime example).

The question is always whether it seems to be in the spirit of the rule to allow something. It not so clear on this one. I simply don't bother house-ruling it because it's not important, and when it is important, it allows athletics skills to shine. Maybe even be as important as firearms skills for a moment.

but then the second someone is jamming the area your grenade cease to work, this may not be that big a problem with a PAN as jamming something that local would be a problem, but when you are talking the possible distance of a grenade it would be too easy.

Most people I know in the military would rather be certain that their grenade was going to go off when they throw it, rather than have the chance that it would be jammed.

The first thing anyone would start doing in that situation would be general Jamming - and that is going to be common any way with the amount of wireless signals going around.

What I can see happening more is you sending a wireless command to the grenade setting the detonation time, then throwing it.

Picture, Razorguy dodges all the way to just before the machine gun nest, pull the pin and throws his grenade which lands perfect ally in the nest, unfortunately when he tries to detonate it he finds out they have a short range jammer in there so nothing happens. Now he is stuck close to the MG nest, having given away his position and now has to find a way to escape.