I was re-reading the rules the other night and got confused. I don't have my book in front of me at the moment, but it was unclear whether the increased Damage Code applies against armored targets (who clearly get 2ximpact armor in place of ballistic).
If wearing armor negates the increase in Damage level, in addition to offering a higher than normal armor bonus, then flechettes are pretty damn worthless, even for spread-firing shotguns.

Wearing armor or even just having dermal armor negates the damage increase, as per p116. Spread-firing shotguns are still worth it because they can give you a -9 TN bonus at most ranges, but they're worth it in spite of the flechetteness, not because of it.

~J

Spread-firing shotguns is also a factor of skill versus soak dice. If your skill (or combat pool expenditure) is great, every -1 TN can represent a pretty hefty increase in damage (despite the loss of Power or the increasing of Armor). Likewise, if your target's soak dice (or combat pool expenditure) is great, every -1 Power can represent a pretty serious decrease in damage, almost regardless of the successes flung into the attack roll.

I once saw shotgun blasts from cheap Streetsweepers wiping out two and three Tir Peace Force schmucks per shot in an ambush, due to the attackers having combat pool to bolster attack dice (and low TNs meaning they were really pouring on the to-hit successes) and the defenders having only average Body (and no combat pool to add to the soak).

I've also seen shotgun blasts bounce harmlessly off my dedicated street sammie, because he had enough Body and armor to make the whole thing just silly (the Ork gangers would have had better luck and done more damage bashing him with them like clubs than firing their shotguns at him).

So, like everything else, it's situational. And also like everything else, at either extreme (shooting at really heavily armored stuff with a low skill, or shooting at the Jell-o line at an old folk's home with expert shooters), the system kind of breaks down.

there really is almost nothing as satisfying, in SR3, than dumping all your dice into a shotgun on its widest choke. it's even better if your target has lots of armor, because, well, your spread's already knocked the power of the attack down to nothing. at worst, your target's going to be rolling against an equal TN to yours; likely, he'll be rolling against something higher. your target will need, minimum, six successes to stage the damage down to nothing. unless you really suck or he's really, really good, you can just relax behind +6 cover and plink him down.

is why you use burst capable shortguns *g*
or just use Slugs, those things will punch w hole through most enemies at power of 10 and above . .

Not to mention that with a negligible target mod (easily compensated by choke/smartlink-2 etc.) you can opt to call the shot and just straight bypass the armor, or if you house-rule it as I do, shoot him in his head, which not only bypasses armor, but stages the damage a level.

Shotguns scare me intensely in SR3.

eugh. Double Post.

Anyway, I'll take it to mention another flechette related issue. Anyone who's read "Neuromancer" should be familiar with molly's "fletcher" pistol. How would that work rules-wise? Flechette only pistol but with a DMSO + (Nasty poison here) coating?

The FAQ has a ludicrously stupid ruling based on a special case in the rules (chemical weapons) which is nowhere else applied generally.

~J

else nobody would use those chem-tech weapons . . especially the dart thingies would just bounce off of every red shirt . . with Weapons like Savalette Guardian, Viper Slivergun and SPAS-22 i'd find that rule pretty horrible . .

...I thought the Guardian used normal ammo & not flechette. At least it did in 3rd ed.

There's no rule that I can recall stating that the Savalette Guardian cannot be adapted for firing flechette rounds, just like any other gun that doesn't have specifically listed ammunition rules and/or restrictions.

Exactly that . . upping the Savalette to doing more than enough ouchies . . but i prefer to load it up with Gel Ammo, same as the Franchi SPAS . . 10S Stun Damage before Successes means almost automatical being thrown down if hit by it . . same with the Franchi *g*
there's rules for weapons that can only shoot one kind of ammo and there's special rules for shotguns and their ammo, but else you can load any kind of ammo into any kind of gun . . who say's a light pistol can't use HEAPDS? who says the Sniper-Rifle can not fire Gel-Ammo?

...maybe it's just me, but I kinda liked the Guardian with APDS...

I never bothered with Flechette especially in the older editions because of it's ineffectiveness against armour.

meh, i bought the slivergun to be effective against critters . . then the GM decides that flechette is way too uber against unarmored critters and suddenly they all go and mutate into having some kind of armor that helps protect them against it . . so i upgraded to (semi)automatic Shotguns with ExEx without silencer in any kind of way to make him stop throwing them at us everywhere . . against meta humans i usually use dart-pistol/rifle with Gamma Scopo(yes, expansive, but even trolls struggle against the TN of 10 to resist)
APDS is just waayy to expansive and too hard to get, as i usually play the combat monsters . .

...I had a couple characters in 3rd ed armed with the Ares Super Squirt loaded with DMSO/Gamma-S. pretty darn effective combo.

In 4th ed. the Super Squirt it isn't worth it as it now requires Exotic Weapons instead of Pistols skill to use. Also in 4e, Gamma-S is more expensive and has a higher availability so you can't get it at chargen.

Canon Flechette rounds (not including, for example, shot shells, which just use the flechette rules—also not including the Ares Viper Slivergun, which is generally attractive when it is for reasons unrelated to the ammo and its properties) in a generally canon universe are, IMO, useful in two situations.

The first situation is a fight against a Critter. While some are heavily armored, most Critters are glass cannons, and a number of significant Critters both normal and para lack armor—some examples: large dog, leopard, wolf, tiger, barghest, cerberus hound, devil rat, embracer, fenrir wolf, gabriel hound, ghoul, goblin, greater unicorn, hell hound, nosferatu, most shapeshifters (all while in human form), vampire, wendigo, wyvern. While several of the critters on that list are intelligent and thus may be wearing armor, and some may have had armor placed on them by a handler, that's still a not-insignificant list depending on circumstances.

The second is in hold-outs. With Cannon Companion's full spectrum of ammunition types, the obvious choices are Glazer or Hollow Point. If you or your GM prefer not to wade into the bullshit, though, your obvious choices then become Flechette and EX-EX.

With a maximum pre-ammo Power of 5, almost anyone with armor is going to be rolling against TN 2 anyway—even armored clothing has enough Ballistic Armor to do this. EX-EX gets this up to 7, which becomes 4 against armored clothing, which isn't good but isn't abysmal either.

Edit: some examination has suggested that determining the preferred path based on expected damage is more complex than I have time for right now. I'll try to come back to this later.

Anyway, this is where the disadvantages don't really matter, and the advantages are most likely to come into play.

~J

...yeah, in, most of the campaigns I was in we had very little in the way of paracritter contact. Instead it was usually spirits/elementals & for them you needed a mage. The only time we actually did run across some beasties was when I was running Leela (#74), however she packed an FN AAL Gyrojet (12M damage I believe). The kid liked things that went boom.