What is everyones thoughts on this thing? Should it halve the armor of the target before applying the AP like its big brother?

jesus god, no. it's already semi-automatic.

iirc, the general 'concern' is that if you don't, it's basically like the sniper rifle, except more expensive, (possibly not quite as good? too lazy to open book), but a whole heck of a lot cooler sounding =P

the question, of course, is whether all that money is worth the coolness

Personally, I would/will use the halving-armor-before-AP rules as it allows to justify the high price and availability of the rifle and its ammo.
Of course, come will say they are justified simply by the gun being fragging awesome...

it's a point less DP and a point more AP than a standard assault cannon. so not as good. and... eh, now that i look, changing from SS to SA only costs 300 bucks (which is pretty ridiculous, considering the huge cost of going from BF to FA).

so, yeah. it's underpowered and costs too much. it's the anti-Slivergun!

Yeah but using the same rule as its heavy variant would make it more bucks-worthy and a potential good AV/borg weapon without being overpowered...

Now that SR directly models AP values, it's a much better patch to up the PA value rather than halve armor.

Assuming it now does 9(-7) (compared to the assault cannons 10(-6), you could try something like 8(-12). This makes it do the same basic 'damage' as the assault cannon, but it has more utility against vehicles because it penetrates armor much better.

For example, vs a citymaster (body 16, armor 20) the assault cannon needs 5 hits to penetrate the city masters armor. The 1337 erazer gun would only need one hit to damage the city master.

...the FN-AAL Gyrojet has the same issue, neat sounding gun, but a Warhawk is just as good if not better for a number of reasons, the foremost of which being it's cost (even with the Large Cylinder option) and skill requirement.

Neither weapon can be silenced (well, the Warhawk could be...at 10x the cost of the weapon) so the only two advantages the GyroJet has are it has a 10 round clip, can fire semi auto, and can be used underwater (I have yet to deal with that in a campaign). The Warhawk requires only pistols skill, the GyroJet, Exotic Ranged Weapons. This puts the GJ in the "why bother" category. In 3rd ed it was awesome (even though it required Special Weapons skill) because it had the best damage code of any pistol sized weapon. (12M) and with Plus rounds became an AV weapon. In 4th Plus rounds are no better than standard explosive ammo yet are 4x the cost and an availability on par with APDS

for its cost, availability, and skill requirement, were I to stat out the GJ it would have a base DV of 8, with a -2 AP and plus rounds would be +1DV with a -2/-4 AP. After all these are supposed to be miniature explosive rocket rounds.

What wait the big brother of this gun 1/2s the armor first then takes off the AP. I kmnow I hate reading PDFs but how did I miss that in my copy. My Troll needs heavy weapons skill now dang it.

The Barrett is semiauto, suppressed, and with APDS loaded (at about 1/5 the cost per round of the thunderstruck, not even counting the cost of power clips) it comes in with -5 more points of AP. It's also cheaper, easier to get, and uses Longarms (more commonly found than Heavy Weapons). I really do not see a balance problem coming from the Gauss Rifle penetrating armor better than it already does (that is to say, not all that well).

Yeah on page 123 (124 for the stat line), the Aztechnology gauss cannon halves armor before applying the AP mod. Which is why I asked what people thought about letting the smaller do the same. It didn't seem that bad to me, but I wanted to see what other people thought as well.

Going from BF to FA cost the same 300 it's only adding BF or FA to SS or SA gun that costs huge amounts of money.

Shouldn't be a problem in my campaign - I mostly treat those heavy weapons as "if you hit it, it's dead" deals. Incidentally, our campaign's gunbunny will be working on acquiring one of those gauss rifles soon.

It should get the 1/2 mod. Those who find that too much might use the -4 as minimum AP value. So ballistic 16 would be reduced to 8, ballistic 5 to 1. If it does not get the 1/2, it should have a better AP value.

I haven't checked the rules, but can't you have guided minirockets with the gyrojet?

Nope, only "explosive" rockets or tracer rockets. Still, with a base DV of 6/-1, and an underwater +1DV, it has a place. Underwater combat is super-rare, but a weapon that can be submerged without second thought has its merits. The game-breaker here is the needed Exotic Weapon skill. It´s not worth a skill of its own.

As I understand it that's realistic.
BF is just FA that has extra complexity that makes it stop automatically after 3 rounds. BF is the most technically/mechanically difficult fire mode.

My GM just had these hit the market a few game days ago; Big embarasment as a WHOLE shipment got hijacked in the middle of the day. But yet he houseruled it to half armor before applying AP; otherwise there would be no point to buy one when an Assault cannon can do the same at a much reduced cost and less aquire time.

Sadly my current character isnt into heavy weapons. Then again i'd most likely go for vehicle mount for the AOE (^.^)b

Of course it should halve armor like the other gaus cannons - not only for rule consistency:
The Barrett is just as good, otherwise and can use better ammunition.

Then it also should only fire in SS mode.
And it should stop being a first generation, leaps away from really being what it is supposed to be, portable gauss weapon.

I really don't see the problem with the Thunderstruck is. It's new, it's not optimized and of course it's overpriced. I don't think it should pack the same punch as the vehicle or ship (!) mounted versions.
Maybe in SotA 2075 or SR5 they will start being uber-awesome, but if you have a kinetic weapon that halves every armor for lulz costing below 10k you're asking every player to get one. And you will start coating everything in smart armor, because of frustration.
Sometimes balance is more important than consitency, which wasn't even broken, since this is the first generation portable gauss rifle. It sucks. Deal with it.

I still love that weapon. I want to use it, I want to sleep with it , but I don't want it to rock more that it does right now.

While fireing mode is weapon-specific, Damage effects aren't... and thus should not be different in this case.

Flame/Laser/Electro weapons halve armor, no matter whether they are mounted, portable, or early prototypes.

Big Gauss Weapons have a huge magnet supplied by tons of energy. The Thunderstruck has a small magnet supplied by a tiny battery. Also, since it is fireing semi automatic it's magnets don't charge up to their full potential, which could most likely not even be reached with such a tiny powersource. I really don't have a problem with it not being as efficient and powerful as the big ones.

Seriously, it super easy to explain why it makes sense for the Thunderstruck to sucks.


Elemental effects halve armor not because they are ultra fast, but because armor is not designed to stop those. Also, first generation portable lasers were HUGE and really expensive. Like 3 million expensive, or something. Don't have my olde books anymore.

So, if you want to go the halve armor route, be consistent to the bitter end: SS, a huge energy backpack, and the piece costing 50-100k .

Even the Ship Laser that can destroy sattelites can be powered by a backpack battery for three shots.

So 'it draws too much energy' is a moot point - especially since vehicle gauss weapons have not energy consumption requirement.

Just a correction. It does not cost below 10k, it is 13k nyar.

Also it looks like your biggest argument is that it pops vehicles really well. Against people it isn't any more effective than a barret firing either av or apds ammo. Consider the average target is only going to run up to about 10 ballistic armor. Halve it and subtract 4 puts you at 1 armor. A barret with apds is going to put that down to a 2. All that at much less the cost (74% gun, and around 28% ammo) that is completely ignoring the little bit extra cost of battery packs.

The very largest discrepancy would show up only against very heavily armored targets. The highest armor for a vehicle in the books is I think 20. So you would see that drop to 6 with the gauss, and 10 with the baret firing av rounds. Or something crazy like walking tank trolls with huge amounts of armor.

A Barrett firing AV ammo has DV 9 AP -10 against vehicles - a Thunderstruck has DV 9 AP -4.

heh, guess i should have paid more attention to the range tables. i was thinking in terms of SR3's ranges, where an assault cannon had more than double the range of a sniper rifle. now that they're roughly the same... wow, yeah. the Thunderstuck blows donkeys for quarters. the Vigorous seems to be a steal--for 8.8k, you can get the same functionality with more DP and more AP.

Especially as they can load special AV rounds, giving them DV 10 AP -8 against vehicles.

Still, a Barrett is better...

the AV AC rounds are hilarious, yeah.

So we have a consensus that the Thunderstruck sucks, but obviously draw diffrent conclusions. Well, to each his own.

Just to add a little math into this, if you allow the Thunderstruck to halve armor, it will become virtually armor ignoring. Armor jacket has rating 8 armor. Halve is 4, and if you now add the -4 AP you get... nothing. But let's assume the target is some pimped sammy packing 14 armor. Make that 7, or rather 3. Quite the bargain. A weapon that is sure to be banned in most games, only seen in the hands of NPCs, miraculously breaking down if ever aquired by a PC.

Yes, there are more effective and way cheaper weapons. But the Thunderstruck has not arrived to rule them all. It is still quite nice compared to other assault cannons. Just helluva expensive.

As I said, my campaign's gunbunny will get one (and with the halves armor effect). I don't see any problem at all with it, seeing as the character already has an assault cannon, and most enemies are in the "you hit? It's dead" category.

If you're not using rules anyway, why bother with a houserule at all?

I don't roll damage resistance checks for mooks that are hit by an assault cannon with decent net hits and who are not wearing much or any armor. The house rule is for those enemies I do roll for - and where I want the gun to have a significant effect.

I have considered the "ignores personal armor" part. That is only true for soft armor. But how noticeable are runners that can casually carry that baby? That is already a light vehicular weapon in practice, NP if it can hurt pedestrians. Those who want efficiency will use tricked out HMGs anyway.

You will have your "significant" (read: gamebreaking) effect, allright. EVERY of your players will pack that weapon after they realize what it does to their enemies. Or to random architecture.

99% of all houserules made with the premise "hey, that makes more sense", "that is more consistent" and "I am smarter and know more about weapons than the devs" suck balls big time. Really. Big. Time. Giving the Thunderstruck the "halve armor" rule without decreasing firing mode to SS and increasing it's cost is one of those 99%. You're call.

The numbers and the so called "consistency" are pretty clear on this one.

I can safely say that not everyone of my players will pack that weapon. As I said, the player in question already uses an AC in game. No one else wanted to fire an AC.

I can also safely say that I know more about what's fun and balanced in my game than the devs do. And a gauss rifle will fit in nicely.

I can safely say that your comparison of assault cannon to pimped gauss rifle does not work. You yourself seem to be oblivious of it's actual effect.
Do the math. With something like a Banshee tank. After you are done, tell me again that you're players are either saints or don't care for simple efficiency. People lie, numbers don't. Not with regular physics at least.

Technically, the Banshee isn't a tank, its a light armored vehicle. As such, weapons such as AC's should have some noticable effect upon it.

And against man sized targets... squish!

By itself, those do not make it 'game breaking, everyone must have' weapons. As has been pointed out, you can get a similar effect from a HMG...

Yet, oddly, I have seen very few viable shadowrunners lugging an HMG around as their primary weapon...

I did the math. As I said - most of the enemies are in the "hit? Dead" category anyway, AC or GR won't make much of a difference.

The GR will make a difference in cases where the AC would not be enough, and those cases, as few as they are, are where I want it to make that difference.

I don't see anyone else but the gunbunny getting such a weapon, since those few cases are where the gunbunny shines.

How can you not like a weapon named after an AC/DC song??

Now you're just beeing stubborn.

Shoot a Banshee with an AC. Shoot then another Banshee in the same time twice with an Thunderstruck, halving it's armor before applying AP.

Now you should notice, that the Thunderstrucl has a lot larger "one hit dead" spectrum than the AC, making it superior. A fricking lot.
So yeah, unless your players have wet tofu for brains, they will try to get their fingers on that weapon, or they will ask the gunbunny to got f*ck himself and use something less gamebreaking. No other weapon in the game has a performance that scales up the more armor a target wears.

Of course there are groups that enjoy having one player being vastly superior to themselfs. Suum quique.

Malicant how is the thundersruck "nice" compared to other assault cannon you can get vigorous assault cannon with SA mode way cheaper then 13 000 , you can actually get one with BF or even FA mode and still keep it under the 13 000

since the Thunderstruck can be made FA, yes it will cost more but it will do more also. The AC has issues to me, ie It does more than a Barret.

Remember the Laser Weapons can be modded to FA also, interesting but expensive.

WMS

You really do not know my players, nor my campaign. Suffice to say we don't exactly consider combat that important, nor does every player strive to equal the heavy weapon specialist in, well, heavy weapons. So, the mage and the physad got their strengths as well, enough not to be threatened if the gunbunny gets a bit better in the "shoot stuff with heavy weapons" area.

It's not as if heavy weapons are particularly useful in that many runs in my campaign.

It's a friggin' gauss rifle. Awesome.

Why are people unable to seperate "awesome" from "does lots damage"?

If you don't consider combat important, and anything remotly in the same vicinity as a heavy weapons dies anyway, be it an immortal god from outer space or a street rat, why bother with that houserule? That is what boggle my mind complety.

And if you give the gunbunny a weapon, that is beyond comparison to anything else in the entire SR universe, what do the other players get? Does the face get makeup, that halves the resistance pools of people he talks to? Does the hacker get a program, that halves the ratings of his opponents programs? Ect, ect.
Why only stroke the gunbunny, if combat is not important? Or do you do that, because otherwise the gunbunny would be bored and would realize his redundancy?

Seriously, you don't make much sense.

So: the next time I have a player that is crying for an 'awesome' weapon I'll make up a 'Gauss Thunderbutt' pistol that has the exact statline of the Pepper Punch.


He'll love it. Because it's 'Awesome'.

He'll rather pepper-punch you for beeing silly.

Er... Cause the Warhawk doesn't work in space?

Page number or you're making it up....

actually, that weapon mod says something to the effect of 'guns that have weird ammo (and then it specifically mentions the pain inducer, iirc) cannot have this mod'