I have a character that uses automatic weapons a lot. I've never much liked having to put all my eggs in one basket by choosing narrow or wide. What do people think of a kind of middle ground option....?

Burst +1 DV and -1 defensive pool
Long Burst +2 DV and -2 defensive pool
Full burst, +4 DV and -4 defensive pool


Also... I'd kinda like to see the negative to defensive pool changed to a bonus to strike (but that would be odd with recoil wouldnt it).... Why? Bob the ganger sucks with a gun. His agility is 2 and his heavy weapon skill is 2. He wants to shoot a stationary object 30 ft away with his machine gun. After cuttling loose full burst after full burst, not a single bullet ever strikes the unmoving target. With the -9 for recoil, poor Bob has no dice to throw no matter how many thosands of rounds he throws in the target's general direction. Sure the immoble target would have a -9 to dodge if it were ever forced to.. after all... there are bullets flying EVERYWHERE except for exactley where it is.

I miss the old target number system where 6s kept going up so even if you sucked, after hundreads of trys a fluke success was at least possible.

The Reoil system is frankly dumb. I don't even use recoil penalties. I have an entirely arbitrary system comparing weapon recoil to character strength. Characters who lack the strength to control their weaponry get fucked, and characters with sufficient strength get bonuses from firing more bullets.

-Frank

Bob the ganger can do a suppressive fire if the stationary object doesn't have any Edge.

Personally I had the same thought one day about the possibility to shoot more than 2 bullets in 3s for SA weapons. I tend to explain the slow rate of fire by saying that runners are pro and will tend to shoot less but hit more, but it doesn't really work with non-professional characters. And what if someone wants to shoot all his bullets to try to hit a target?

The quick rule I've found is to allow the character to have a +1 modifier for each bullet he shoots after the first one (I'm not sure how to limit the number of bullets he can shoot in an IP) but if he hits he only does the base damage of the weapon. Of course it can't be used with a called shot. Maybe I should also make it easier for the target to dodge the attack.

Another option I'd like is to be able to empty your clip on a target to make more damage, for example when a angry hellhound is rushing towards you just want to empty your Predator without trying to adjust each shot. But I can't find a non-broken way to allow it.

It would be easy enough to say that for each bullet in the burst after the first, you can choose to give the target -1 defense, or add +1 DV.

I've thought about it, but I don't do it in my game just to keep things simple.

Heck, now that I live in the Czech Republic I don't even see guns anymore. My nots are unfortunately in the United States. But here's the gist:

• Weapons have a strength minimum.
• If you're using a weapon beyond your strength minimum, you suffer a -1 dicepool penalty on your attack, and a -2 penalty on all subsequent actions this round (including defense pools) for every point your Strength is exceeded.
• Firing a burst or Suppressive Fire increases the strength minimum by 1. A Long Burst increases it by 2. Full Auto increases it by 3.
• The effects of recoil modifiers are massive reduced. A Bipod reduces the Strength min by 2, a gyromount reduces it by 3. A recoil absorbing shape (stocks, shock pads, whatever) reduces the minimum by 1; a recoil increasing shape (hold-outs, for example) increase it by 1.
• Gas Vents just get abstracted out because they are no longer necessary to allow people to fire bursts of automatic weaponry.
• Drones have an "effective strength" equal to their Body. If they suffer recoil penalties, they fall over.

And that's it. So mooks who use large weapons to perform suppressive fire become sitting ducks. Street Samurai invest in decent Strength scores even when they have no intention of cutting fools up with swords.

It was never a fully worked up system, but then it didn't have to be because I was using it on my own time. Basically I ended up with low strength characters actually using Light Pistols on occassion, while people who wanted to fight with anti-tank weaponry also invested in high strength. Also I got people to stop bouncing up and down demanding to put assault cannons onto fly-spies. Mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned.


-Frank

It's an interesting base. There are things I'd have to tweak for it to work for me, but I like the basic concept. I especially like that it would provide actual drawbacks to large weapons, especially single shot varieties that aren't currently affected by recoil despite the implication that they should be.