I'm not understanding, is there a reason you would choose this over ex ammo? Other then 2 pnts of Aval both are a usable at creation and Ex is definetly the better choice. It seems this ammo is only useful against unarmored foes, maybe if it had a bonus against these unarmored foes? Considered its use in dangerous environments but frangible does better job there. Am I missing something here?

No real point in putting a silencer on your gun if your using EX. It explodes on impact letting everyone in a very large area know there is shooting going on.
Hollowpoints are a much better choice for stealty missions.

Learned this the hardway one run when the Sam fired off a short burst to take out a guard and alerted the whole complex.

"But I had a silencer on my SMG!!!"

Actually, the silencer still keeps your position from being spotted easily.

I've never interpreted a small amount of explosive inside a slug detonating inside of 50-300 kilos of meat as being loud enough to negate the benefit of suppressing a large amount of gunpowder detonating in open air just beyond the muzzle of the gun that fired it.

I always thought that was the flash supressor's job. I guess it does help with the "I don't know where they are." but doesn't help the "Some one is here."

Our GM pointed out that its like setting off a bunch of firecrackers. And not all of the rounds made it past the body armor.
It's not as loud as it could be without the silencer, but I don't think I'd call it "steathy".

Actully thinking of the new software in Arsenel that has to suck. I imagine that the audio sensors now all have gunshot ID that can pick up not only the silenced rounds, but relay to the HTRT what type of gun you are using.

"We have a report of someone in building H56 firing a silenced Ares Alpha firing EX rounds. Tactical computer reports this matches audial balistics report as being the same gun as used in extraction 2 weeks ago to 87%. Reconfiguring team and weapon loads to counter expected Shadow team. Riggers deploying drones to search for vehicles in vicinity that match last known getaway car."

Seem to remember someone considering that ex and ex ex were just a blended metal round and not really an explosive? Hollow points in 3rd had DV bonus against unarmored targets, at least making it a decent anti critter or sniping round.

Hollowpoint is cheaper. That's about it.

I'm also with Shrike: since nothing in the rules says it's easier to hear someone firing explosive rounds, I've never interpreted them as being that loud. Or rather, I should say I never interpreted them as being particularly much louder than lead slapping into meat and body armor to begin with.

Note to self: Have the hacker intercept that comm traffic and watch the players' faces...

Actually a Sound Suppressor doesn't make the shot any quieter, it just disguises the sound. So that people in the area don't hear a Gun Shots BANG instead they a THWUMP.

Er. No, a sound suppressor does a very fine job of making a gun quieter. On average about 35dB quieter, actually.

that's me. and i'll note again for the record that i think 'blended metal' rounds are, irl, bullshit (and that the whole idea is non-canon). but they fit the stats of SR's EX and EX-EX rounds better than actual exploding bullets do, so i'm picking the lesser of two stupids.

I'm not a gun nut so I'm not going to comment on what would or wouldn't work in real life, but EX and Ex-EX use mirco-explosives in the Sixth World as per either Street Samurai Catalog or Fields of Fire but I'm feeling to lazy to double check which one they actually appeared in.

So yeah, even though it isn't in the "rules" in my campaigns the EX series of ammo aren't to be used in steath missions.

I just like the assumption that whoever you hit (or don't hit) will stay quiet once the gunfire starts. Honestly, you better be the King of the One Pass Kill in my games if you think a silencer is going to keep the whole show running quiet like, because that guy on the other end of the barrel will likely be screaming bloody murder if you don't take him out rather expeditiously. I find this especially funny when a player uses a taser because they expect it to be quiet but don't have the dice to drop their opponent in one shot. Remember kiddies, suppressors are more about sowing confusion and making it difficult to return fire than they are about getting in squeaky clean and undetected.

If you can't kill a target in one pass, shooting from ambush/surprise, then maybe your team needs a different guy to be carrying around the gun and doing the shooting.

Well you also have to figure that a instant flatline is going to make a biomonitor freak out. So the guard doesn't scream bloody murder, but the security system is still alerted. All it really does is make the response time slower, not get rid of it completely.

Oh, I know that it's easy to kill someone in a single pass with a surprise attack, but oddly enough characters do survive them from time to time and I rarely have my security guards work alone. Combine that with biomonitors, encounters in which both groups start the initial pass surprised, the Dead Man's Trigger rules, Group Edge for grunts and the ease in which someone could cry out in pain as they die and there's plenty of reason by why even the strictest interpretation of the RAW can make shooting people a bad idea in general if you actually want to remain quiet. I've never bothered to go as far as the Dead Man's Trigger Rules, mind you, but it's largely because I've never really felt the need; so many things can go wrong that inventing house rules to further penalize specialty ammo hits me as rather superfluous. As for hollowpoint rounds, normal EX rounds are actually the same price and have the same DV bonus as Explosive rounds (it's Ex-Ex they're cheaper than), but keep in mind that they don't essentially saddle you with the gremlins negative quality for the purposes of firing your gun either.

Isn't it better to shoot security guards with narcoject? Granted that'll still set off a biomonitor alert but it's probably a little easier to cover up than a flat line.

"Did Bob just fall asleep? I think he just fell asleep, his breathing is really slow..."

*cue explosions and fleeing runners*

Sure, sometimes. But narcoject darts, guns to shoot them, the drug itself...all that stuff costs way more than good ol' FMJ.

Plus it uses a special skill that isn't exactly hot shit for doing things besides shooting people with toxins. And I think the ranges are pretty terrible to.

Another note about suppressors: A good suppressor will take a 140dB assault rifle down to 105dB. That means it goes from "Oh god! My ears!" to "You know, that was pretty loud."

I have read that a suppressed .45 sounds like a textbook falling onto a tile floor.

Suppressors also act like flash hiders, and if you want to be real detailed, should have a point or two of recoil comp, because of the weight and that the gas expands more smoothly.

(While on the topic, unless your local chip-head made it in his kitchen, a silencer/suppressor will last a _lot_ longer than 300 rounds.)

Practical small caliber explosive ammo really only requires great advances in fuse technology. It has have a very low failure rate, and a very low accident rate. You can't do that today with anything much smaller than your finger.

If you can make a fuze like that 1mm thick, and less than 10mm in diameter, you could cram the rest of a pistol bullet with a few grams of explosive. That _might_ be worth the effort. I think rifle bullets would still be too small to carry a useful load, even then.

While on the topic of biomonitors, I don't think drugs, stunballs, tasers are any less likely to make them "freak out" then killing a guard.

Eh you're probably right... even if there was a mundane reason why Jim Bob Security Guard just passed out, you'd still want to swarm people over the scene to help him out. And I'm sure after the first two times a guard passed out and runners lit their world up... they probably got the idea.


Unless there's some sort of unspoken rule. You knock us out instead of kill us and we'll keep our bosses from killing your asses with panther assault cannons.

Well, there isn't.
It's just that trying to kill somebody makes them more enthusiastic about killing you first.

I was with one group that tried to be stealthy and non-leathal unless cornered and then it was rock-m-sock-m blast the walls down, chuck grenades and let the troll play with his HMG. We tended to just hit SK becasue the concept was we all ahd an ax to grind with that particular corp.

After 4 or 5 runs we started to realize that security would try to herd us out rather than stop our escape. Turns out that accounting at SK had determined that the damage we casued when cornered was far in excess of the value of the stuff/people we were stealing.

Of course we thoguht this was a free ride until we found out they ahd a TON of bounty hunters and shadowteams and HTRT out looking for us to "plug the leak of resorces"

See that's what I'm saying. If guards quietly make it convenient for runners to /not/ kill them than they have a possibility of getting out alive.

Of course I'm sure this /might/ only work with rent a cops. I'm sure real corp sec has been indoctrinated enough to know "If you don't try to kill the hell out of runners, we're going to kill the hell out of you and your family and your pet shapeshifter"

Personally I'm of the mindset that in the middle of a firefight, the sec-guards really don't care and might not even realize that you are using gel-rounds, of course, if the team does get captured expect to be laughed at for using wussy ammo by the same ungrateful slots.

It's better just to ice them.

Yeah, see, I've always been with Ravor on this one; I think it is a heat of the moment issue. People tend to react poorly when you point a gun at them, and I rather doubt they're going to wait around to see if it's stick and shock, gel rounds or APDS that come out the business end. Heck, in a short encounter I'd be more likely to change the way grunts react in favor of the PCs if they pull out an assault cannon or start laying down indiscriminate suppressing fire with their LMG than if they were using gel rounds, since such weapons are obviously intimidating before you even start firing. I doubt you can ever convince most guards to play nice after you ran in and endangered their health and livelihood, but you might be able to intimidate them into taking cover and letting the drones take all the risk while they wait for the HRT to show up.

That's perfect. I'll have to steal it. Playing corps as controlled by their balance sheet.

Hollow point ammunition is around now because body armor is not common. I imagine it would still be around in Shadowrun, but with a large number of people on the streets wearing at least basic armor I don't imagine it's a very popular choice of ammunition at all.

Though, it does have the advantage that if you glitch it doesn't blow up in your hand.

We need JSPs for shooting bears.

Unless the bear has horns. Then it's preferable to use AV rounds... fired by a Barrett.

Fire elementals and spells.

EX EX has blown up a couple times, ruining a samurai's twin warhawks and someone else's Predator. In a magic heavy environment sometimes it is advisable to carry ammo that does not blow up.

Cheers

Max

Would be unbalancing to add another +1 DV to unarmored targets when using hollow points. Seems to remember it getting similar bonus in 3rd.