Let me put it a different way. You can't have aptitude armorer and aptitude longarms.

so? that's one die. aptitude really doesn't mean much.

Except raise the limit you can have it augmented by.

ah, my bad. there's a two die difference. aptitude really doesn't make all that much of a difference.

Neither does smartlink, or take aim (which, btw, if you're up to a 10 for the skill, makes it a 3 die difference (1 aptitude, 1 for the extra bonus, and 1 more for an extra take aim availible).)

I mean, why bother with any of those.

i'm not really sure where you're going with this. you said you can't be a fantastic weaponsmith and an amazing shot--i disagree. even within the rules, you can be both. you can't have aptitude in both, but so what? grab aptitude in shooting, since you can get up to a 3-die difference there, and settle for being a whopping 2 dice short of the best weaponsmith who ever lived. you're not going to fail significantly more often than the best weaponsmith ever, so who cares? it's certainly not going to make much of a difference when it comes to accuratizing and assempling a rifle.

Well, going by that arguement, you don't need to know anything about guns, just have a semi-decent logic, and you can put it together just fine by defaulting. (Just as long as you're not likely to glitch.)

yes. according to my knowledge of the rules, that is true.

So, then since all thats needed is being a good shot, whats it matter if the gun shoots well via nanites, skill, blind luck, or anything else?

i don't actually recall saying that it does matter. but since you ask, Spike makes a good point--the state of nanotechnology in SR makes nanites undependable, and therefore unsuited for use in the field. if you've got a weapon that can withstand significant abuse and remain fairly accurate, it's going to be favored by most operators over a weapon that is extremely accurate, but which requires extreme care and constant maintenance to remain in working condition.

Please defend your point that nanites are undependable. The fact that they are used in almost every surgery there is, as well as construction, manufacturing, even execs having nanoforges on their DESK, tells me that they're pretty dependable.

well, there's dependable, and then there's dependable in the field. today, an executive (or a construction worker, or a doctor) is probably going to depend on a sleek, slim cellphone for communication. the equivalent piece of equipment for a military unit in the field is a gigantic green brick that weighs something like thirty pounds. if you drop a cellphone, there's a reasonable chance you'd have to repair or replace it. if you had a SINCGARS, you could beat an elephant to death with it and then call home to report a field acquisition of one (1) deceased pachyderm, Dumbo type.

Nah, the equiv of a cell phone is an Mobile Subscriber Equipment terminal. Not a SINCGARS.

eh, whichever. MSE was a bit too high-speed for the units i was in. to your average commander, all that matters is that they both provide voice and data commo. and it's not like you're going to be stuffing an MSE terminal into your pocket!

And, just how is a nanite maintained weapon more apt to malfunction than one that isn't? Seeing as hard nanites could be made of similar materials as the rifle (or even better futuretech materials), the likelyhood of the nanites failing before the rifle would is low.

Even so, put the military grade sniper rifle through the same abuses, and I guarantee the nanite augmented weapon performs better.

Here's the thing though, when the nanite fails, how does Joe Soldier cope with THAT? They're microscopic and require specialized equipment if they can be repaired at all. You're getting to the point where you're just swapping in and out parts again, and in this case we're bringing ridiculously tiny and expensive parts into it, and I sincerely doubt these tiny and expensive parts could possibly provide enough benefits to justify their cost.

He doesn't, the nanites aren't required for the function of the rifle, they just merely are there to augment the abilities of it. I.E. if Joe Schmoe assembles it, and does a bad job, they can self correct to make the rifle still accurate. If mr. weaponsmith does it, and does a good job, then the nanites don't really do a whole lot, since its already properly aligned.

Nanite failure just means treat it as unaugmented.

What points of reference it uses? Please, explain how the nanites can screw up. Yes, a significant amount of them could be destroyed, causing them to be unable to perform their function. Other than that, they can't get reprogrammed to mess up the gun, nor do I have any idea what "reference points" you're talking about.

Nanites aren't a point of failure, anymore than the color of the rifle is a point of failure. Sure, you might like your rifle black but if it hits the mud, its gonna turn brown. Does it being brown reduce your ability to shoot with it? I rather doubt it.

Take two identical guns, one with nanite augmentation to correct misalignments and one without such. Now, put them through the same stresses. Which one will shoot better? Most likely the nanite one. At the worst, the nanite one will still fail just as much as the unaugmented one, so whats there to lose?

the purpose of the hypothetical nanite system we're discussing is to fine-tune the assembly of a firearm such that the firearm is as accurate as possible. in order to perform this function, the nanite system must have points of reference within the parts of the firearm itself, so that the nanite system knows whether or not the assembled parts are correctly aligned or not.

that's just a hypothetical example for this hypothetical nanite system. there's other stuff that could go wrong, depending on the finer details of how the technology works--finer details which we have no idea about. basically, it all depends on how dependable the SR tech writers want to make nanites. in my opinion, judging by the uses to which nanites are put in SR technology, nanotechnology is not developed enough in SR to be useful in standard sniper rifles or other firearms.

i don't view nanites as magical fairy dust that you can sprinkle on something to make it better. i don't see that SR's technology supports that view of nanotechnology. if you do, great. run with that.

Tarantula, it makes no sense because you're telling someone who's been firsthand involved in molecular electronics research while in school. That some silly little nanite massing next to nothing can shove a large barrel assembly around. It can deal w/ the massive pressures and forces generated by firing the gun repeatedly as well.

Nanites in shadowrun are used pretty much exclusively at the microscopic levels. I don't expect them to get a large macroscopic effects. Or if they do it'll take them a really long time compared to combat rounds. (building something up a grain of sand at a time can take a while).

As I said earlier, given the chapter on nanotech in augmentation. I can see uses for them. To borrow a page from the M-16's bill of goods... a self-cleaning rifle. Using hard nanites to clean junk and oil the gun's action makes sense to me. Using them to adjust and move things at the macro scale doesn't. They wouldn't be able to survive the barrel, because the gilding metal which mates would scrub them out of the barrel every time it fires. I don't see them fine-tuning the rifle for you, potentially as a sensor net (akin to the nanotech bioscanner) AIDING someone actually doing the fine tuning, but not doing the fine tuning themselves.

mfb, its hypothetical, I believe from the chapter in aug on nanites that they would be capable of doing such, you disagree.

Falconer: A nanite doesn't do a whole lot on its own. All nanites are microscopic, thats part of their definition. Nanites work because there are tons of them. They all do a very tiny job, that adds up to something overall. For example, they can build buildings as quickly as a construction team can. Thats not exactly a really long time.

Hmm, i'm thinking, heres another way they could be useful. Nanites are used in construction because they can create items without seams. Perhaps, instead of aligning the rifle, it instead joins all the seams together, creating one solid piece of metal instead of a bunch of detachable parts. When you're all done, you tell it to undo it, and then you can break it down again.

This prevents it from being able to be bumped out of alignment, as bumping it doesn't change the alignment at all.

That's actually a really interesting idea. I don't know anything about nanites, either real, theoretical or in the game (I prefer to call them miniature nanobots, after all) but if the ones in the game can be programed to build an exact replica of something, a sniper could sight his rifle, put it in the nanomizer (where the miniature nanobots work their magic), and carry his sniper rifle around in a ziplock baggie. It'd be a neat way to get through Customs.

the thing is, that's a bit too interesting. that kind of technology would reshape the world overnight. governments would topple, the megacorps would be broken forever, the world economy would mutate into something completely unrecognizable. nothing would ever be the same again.

The older we get, mfb, the more we realize nothing ever was the same.

If a sufficiently revolutionary technology is sufficiently expensive, the revolution will wait. I haven't read Aug, so I don't really know what miniature nanobots are capable of in SR, but there's always going to be someone ahead of the curve.

the thing is, that technology is inherently free. all you have to do is teach your replicator to build more replicators.

The second replicator is free. The first one might cost 800 million nuyen. There's all sorts of reasons why someone who spends 800 million making something might not be motivated to make it self-replicating (like, say, profit). Since we're making up the technology for the game, there's no need for it to do anything we don't want it to do. The miniature nanobots can breakdown a rifle and put it back together one time, for say 100k. That'll be the going rate for the untraceable, undetectable sniper rifle. It makes it more of a plot point than gear (especially since once its reassembled, its just a book sniper rifle).

what you'd have to do is decide that replicators require some sort of relatively hard-to-acquire element in their composition--weapons-grade plutonium, or somesuch. this assumes that replicators aren't capable of subatomic manipulation--that they can't be used to turn lead into gold, or more importantly, weapons-grade plutonium (or whatever rare element you decide is required to make it go).

nanoconstruction isn't all that fast, and it requires a fair amount of energy--more than could reasonably be stored in your bag-o-rifle. what you'd do is, take your bag-o-rifle and empty it out on a warm, flat surface, like the bottom of a large oven. the warmth would provide the nanites with the energy require; you come back a day later, and you've got a sniper rifle in your oven. or, more reasonably, you've got a pile of sniper rifle parts in your oven that you can quickly assemble into a working weapon.

nanoconstruction is a scary topic. it'd be nice if SR delved a bit deeper into how it works, if only to limit the applications it can be used for.

nano-disassemblers are pretty darn scary too.

I recall Augmentation covering self replication of Nanite: they can't do it yet.

THe only reason I recall that is that Shadowrun is not, at this time, worried about a 'Grey Goo' doomsday senario, their nanotech isn't up to the job.

Bear in mind the cost factor. Nanotechnology is relatively stable in Shadowrun, but it's also way too expensive to simply issue to a grunt at the SOTA that SR is set in. I'm not military yet, but I'd guess that snipers / marksmen are a relatively low-cost operating unit - food, ammo, and medical, right? Compare that to a fighter-bomber squadron, and you have a bargan. That's what infantry is all about, economy. Soldiers are relatively versatile, they're usually comparably cheap to field compared to any other line unit (tanks, aircraft, helicopters), and while I hate to say it, they're expendable.

Now let's look at the OICW. Remember what happened with that bad boy? By and large a huge improvement over the M203 if they could just nail the weight and battery issues, but they didn't even bother. Remember why? Because it made your grenadier too expensive to actually put on the field.

I guess my point is that Shadowrun nanotech is, by cannon, three things: Reliable, Very Useful, and extremely expensive. That's why you wouldn't see your average sharpshooter team running around with nano-anything. I tend to agree that your average unit - police or military - wouldn't even by chromed. You're eliminating their advantage.

A modern Sniper Rifle costs $19,000.

The training to use it costs a lot more. They are cheap in comparison to a $75 million aircraft and the $4 billion ship it flies off, but only in comparison.

And they have tried to work on the weight and power issues, but it hasn't worked out yet. It's mutated into the XM25 Individual Airburst Weapon System, but still isn't fieldable.

Umm, no. That's a "marksman" rifle.

The Knight's Armament SR25 Mk11 Mod 0 is the SEAL sniper rifle. It's currently commercially listed at $9000. Without a night scope or suppressor. And with a two year delivery estimate.

The Knights Armament XM110 7.62mm Semi-Automatic Sniper System is the new Army sniper rifle. It costs the Army $8500 (when you buy 800), again without a night sight.

They are replacing/supplementing the M24 with M110s.
http://www.army.mil/-news/2007/04/23/2803-...ive-new-weapon/

The SR-25 has a two year lead-time on the commercial market. Because the guys who order in bulk with .mil addresses always go to the head of the line.

I should point out that the XM110 falls into the 'repurposed assault rifle' catagory. Did you see the pictures? That thing is closely related to the existing M16 weapons (as the SR-25 is explicitly a very heavily modified M16, as I recall from articles back in the day...)

On costs: Given that the military has a long standing tradition of overpaying for stuff.... That's still less than the 19k you? quoted earlier.

Add the night sight

Nanotech:
Part of my reason for thinking this goes too far is because... if I can' make hard nannites self-assemble or do things like this, there's very little to stop you from having them self-assemble into nearly anything with programming. Damn I need a knife, hey little guys line up and lock up... wait I need a screwdriver.. hammer... crowbar.... That's getting silly, it doesn't make sense that they have that kind of holding power or rigidity.

Self assembly brings up the whole grey goo problem.


Now...
Spike, stop before you make yourself look even worse...

At best for a bolt action high precision rifle without optics (precision bolt action, trigger group, precision medium or heavy weight barrel, synthetic stock). Starting figures are roughly in the $3500. That's w/ no optics, no fixtures, no anything. That's a basic accurized bolt rifle in a common calibre like 7.62nato (this is the kind which is commonly bought by law enforcement for 'urban sniping'). Or a match grade semi-auto rifle like a M1A (civilian M-14).

The rifle I'm mentioning has a factory guaranteed precision of .25MOA. So this is no piece of junk. http://www.snipercentral.com/rifles.htm
You'll also note the cost to accurize an off the shelf Remington 700P is listed at $1600. FYI: the Remington 750P typically goes for roughly $750 and it's not uncommon to see it get 1MOA from the factory. (so I'd say as a baseline if a player wanted to accurize the Ruger100 in the SR4 book... it'd cost them 3x base rifle cost)

I'd argue that a pricetag on anything starting w/ an X in the military designator is not a good baseline. As that X stands for experimental or developmental. So there's a lot of prototyping costs in there.

No one I can think of bases their SNIPER rifles off of ASSAULT rifles. Assault rifles simply put do NOT have the hitting power to hurt something at extreme range. They may have enough to make neat little holes in paper at 600m for the 5.56 crowd, but they don't have the energy to seriously hurt or kill a target in one shot at those ranges. (also there's some severe windage problems on small light projectiles like that and you don't get sighting shots). Also since you seem to need the lesson, what is today the M-16 was originally chambered for 7.62, it wasn't until later that it was changed to the 5.56 ammo so it could compete for the role as an assault rifle.

The US Army used the M-21 for ages as it's standard issue sniper rifle, which was based on the M-14 brought up to target competition specs. But the M-14 is type classified as a BATTLE rifle, not an ASSAULT rifle. The SVD may look cosmetically similar to an AK-47 but it was developed independantly of it, it fires a completely different cartidge as well 7.62x54R (also used in their MG's).

There is a HUGE difference between a scout-sniper and a designated marksman. The military puts people through two different training tracks for each. The introduction of designated marksman is very recent in fact, as the schools have only been operating for less than 10 years now! Even then, the marines DMR (designated marksman rifle) is basically an accurized M1A (M-14 battle rifle). Or because of need some have been fielding SR-25's (a bigger M-16 chambering 7.62, also a BATTLE RIFLE not an assault rifle). Only a very few have been handed match grade AR-15's and that mostly because of availability and training (you need to retrain your armorers to handle the new weapons in the field).

Scout-snipers are NOT a special operations only unit. Snipers are normally attached as battalion level assets and operate independantly or attached to a unit at the whim of the battalion commander. They are a regular army unit MOS. DMR school is a field day compared to scout-sniper school. DMR's are squad level guys (1 guy per combat infantry squad ideally has the long range rifle). Their job is to be able to precision engage targets BEYOND ASSAULT RIFLE RANGE (emphasis necessary).

Falconer, man, double-time to your nearest unlicensed supplier and acquire some medicinal flammables.

there are a lot of 'sniper rifles' that are repurposed assault rifles. generally, these are chambered in larger calibers, such as 7.62 NATO. some people like to call such large-caliber automatic rifles 'battle rifles', and that is perfectly okay. it also perfectly okay to call them assault rifles.

That is true, as long as you can articulate a fairly convincing rational reason besides "it's required by the plot".

That reminds me of an answer to a question posed to the creator of Babylon 5 at a sci-fi convention, asking about how fast the spacecraft on the show could travel. "All ships move at the speed of the plot." We figure out what the game needs, and then we justify it by the in-game logic. A more enlightened society might call it "bullshitting".

Having one-shot miniature nanobots makes sense because the corporation that sold them to you wants you to buy more. They're out hundreds of billions in R&D money, and they aren't going to turn a profit if everybody buys one set and moves on. So nanites are going to be very expensive, non-replicating and limited in scope, otherwise no one would be able to justify the expense in creating them. Corporations aren't churning these things out for the good of mankind, they're trying to make a profit.

Falconer: mfb covered the main point of my response much more politely than I would have, so I'll just fill in a few bits of spackle around the edges.

Great: your rifle hits a .25 MOA. The Military generally doesn't shoot for less than 1 MOA, and the FBI only requires a rifle reach .5 MOA for it to be classified as a 'Sniper Rifle' for law enforcement use. Obviously, exceeding the standards is not a bad thing, but it will, naturally, jack the price way up.

Second: yes, accurized bolt action rifles cost more than granddad's hunting rifle, but under 2k is nowhere near the 'cost of a new car' prices everyone else has been tossing off.

None of this has to do with the Ranger Arms other than my comment that while it fits perfectly with a certain style of play (Day of the Jackal 'Chrome' plated play) it would never be the default 'sniper rifle' of military or paramilitary forces, not even the super swoopty special ops guys with money to burn on overpriced toys that don't perform measurably well in actual operation... that is to say outside of competition shooting. Given that: if your Shadowrun game fits a particular style (Black, or paramilitary commando team) the Ranger Arms is a poor choice over even a more conventional hunting rifle... with a scope.

Sorry to Necro this, but I just ran across this, a site detailing the Accuracy International AWS Covert. This is a sniper rifle (or so it seems to my inexperienced eyes, after all that does seem to be AI's thing) with integral suppressor that comes with a suitcase to contain all the parts when disassembled. Now, I don't know what the dimensions of this suitcase are, but I'm guessing that it is a bit larger than your standard briefcase. Apparently it is designed for counter terrorism units who need to move their weapons discreetly (don't ask me why a Counter Terrorism unit needs to be discreet when moving weapons). Further the suppressor is supposed to reduce the report to one similar to .22LR match ammunition. Note: this weapon is suggested for uses at around 300m or less as a result of the suppression and trajectory issues of subsonic munitions.

Anyhow, I saw this and immediately thought: "Ranger Arms!" Here's hoping that some of you find this useful.

Yeah, that'd be either a sport or sniper rifle in SR's terms (chambered in .308, it can go either way). Swanky. I wish I had one. If so, I would use my rifle-in-a-suitcase powers for good, not evil.

That makes one of us.