I've finally laid my hands on a copy of Arsenal and am scratching my head at the vehicle weapon mounts.

In Arsenal an External Visibility, Flexible Flexibility (Gah. Get a thesaurus) weapon mount with a 90 degree horizontal/vertical range of movement and a remote control costs 4,000 . (1,500 + 2000 +500 ). There's no recoil penalty, assuming you aren't mounting it on a small-ish drone (Arsenal p.105), and it stores 250 rounds of ammo. However you still need to shell out more nuyen for a targeting autosoft if you want your Pilot to be able to use the weapon.

Contrast to the smart firing platform from the main book, which is a remote control robotic tripod with 180 degree horizontal/60degree vertical movement and it's own rating 3 pilot/sensor/targeting autosoft for 2,000Y. Admittedly, you're limited to the gun's standard magazine and only get 6 points of recoil comp.

Why wouldn't I just slap gas vents on the weapon to get 9+ points of recoil comp and bolt down a smart firing platform, saving something like 2,600 ? Is having 250 rounds of ammo worth 2,600 ?

I'd been using the belief that the SR4 BB weapon mount (2,500 ) was vehicle-mounted smart platform that traded in the electronics for an ammo bin.

Well, for one, if you've got a good gunner, you won't be using a targeting soft, and the gunner will perform better anyway. For two, suppressive fire is good. Suppressive fire with a high-velocity full auto gun is better. Not running out of ammo for it for a very long time is priceless.

"There are somethings in life that can't buy,
For other things, there's Steel-Jacketed High Velocity Rounds.

Accepted everywhere there's guns."

My question is: when would you EVER want an external weapon mount? That is something Shadowrunners generally cannot have and get away with it.

But yeah, also there's the issue of reloading a gun that's bolted onto your car while driving. Hard to do.

As the Devs(Synner) have repeatably stated the gear is not just for shadowrunners, but every one else ie security forces etc.

WMS

Or Shadowrunners posing as Security Forces.

Why that would never happen

WMS

I can think of a number of reasons...

Founding a Corporation is pretty easy, after all, getting Security License, slightly less so...

But, then you get all the fun toys in the Ares Catalogue.

Aren't there places in the world where you would want an externally-mounted vehicle? Actually, I think there's a source book coming out along that very theme. Hell, there are parts of Seattle where that would be useful.

Wouldn't a smart firing platform in a vehicle suffer from the "firing from a moving vehicle" penalty?

Hence the generally, folks. Obviously you could imagine a situation where Shadowrunners would be able to get away with external mounts. But it's definitely not the norm.

Yes. The question is, however, does a Pilot(program)-controlled vehicle suffer the "firing from a moving vehicle" penalty when using it's weapon-mount attached weapon? That may not be unique to the smart firing platform.

Smart Firing Platforms have to have their software and hardware (Pilot, Sensor, Targeting autosoft at 3, baseline) upgraded seperately of the vehicle, unless you want only 8 dice worth of pool (not counting modifiers except the Smartgun bonus) firing out to a max range of 400 meters (Sensor max range). Vehicle-mount weapons benefit from the sensors, etc of the vehicle. If the Pilot is remotely operating the smart firing platform using it's own rating, it may encounter issues with trying to drive and shoot at the same time.

And when you move out of the realm of small arms and start using main guns (weapons that actually provide some serious firepower, in other words), you can't use a smart firing platform (main guns don't have an underbarrel mount ). HMG's with recoil compensation are all well and good, but gauss guns and autocannons are a whole other can of worms.

Wait till you see a Hotspur with a flexible turreted human-controlled autocannon bolted to the back pouring lead up into the sky at the dragon chasing it across the wastes at a hundred miles an hour. You'll know why those big guns are necessary then

If the blurb on the "Gyro Link" (Ars. p136) is to believed, all weapons suffer a maneuvering penalty. Although that that contradicts the BBB p.162 that says a -3 penalty applies only to handheld weapons and specifically excludes weapons on a pintle or ring mount (which are phrases never used again in the BBB or Arsenal).

So if it the penalty applies, the firing platform wouldn't perform much worse, if any, since it has Pilot+Sensor of 6 for a superior weapon lock against most commercial vehicles. Plus the Pilot has to spend an IP each turn to drive so the platform gets more shooting actions.




It's either irrelevant or more weirdness in the weapon mount rules.

The cost to change the concealability of Arsenal weapon mounts is a constant, regardless of type. Let me repeat that a different way: the cost to conceal an SMG that points straight forward is the same same to conceal an autocannon on a turret.
So if you agree with the notion that the cost to provide a -2/-6 to Concealability is independent of weapon size, it's irrelevant. If not then it's another "WTF?" moment.




That's a false comparison since the BBB vehicle weapon mount was limited to LMGs while the smart firing platform goes up to HMGs and Assault Cannons. The Smart Firing Platform is equivalent to a "reinforced" Arsenal weapon mount.

Arsenal does make the poin that very few vehicles can actually sport a main gun since it a) requires a Body 14 and b) should be able to deal with the recoil of something worthy of the name "main gun."



Arsenal says that a full blown tank may be limited to a single heavy turret while small, maneuverable aircraft may be not even get a standard turret. The Tata's got the required 14+ body required to mount a main gun capable Heavy Turret but it's also a racing vehicle so it isn't as massive as any other Body 16 vehicle would be. I'd think a tank-grade turret would either weigh the Tata down or the recoil would risk flipping it over.

Something like a 120mm cannon would be excessive for a Hotspur, sure... but a big, heavy caliber automatic (light autocannon) or something like a recoilless rifle would work out fine. Think about a "technical" for a second... take pickup truck, bolt a heavy weapon on a mount on the back, stick some guy back there to man it. That's more what I was getting at.

A weapon system like the 30mm ASP (a cannon that was intended to fit anything that a M2HB could be mounted onto) would let you get a serious amount of firepower off the back of a fairly light vehicle.

As for a "false comparison," I'm not sure what you mean. Pretty obviously, the Arsenal rules for mounting weapons on vehicles are meant to expand on the BBB's, whereas the Smart Firing Platform hasn't really seen much of an update.

Been there, done that.

Another thing: when jumped into the vehicle, the rigger can fire the vehicle's weapon mounts using sensor + gunnery. But the rigger can't jump into the smart firing platform while rigging the vehicle, so the platform is going off its own pool, which is probably smaller.

Actually, they can. The RAW states the smart firing platform can be remote operated, so there's no reason you can't subscribe the smart platform to the vehicle via optical cable and let the pilot (or rigger) use the platform just like the "remote operated" Arsenal mounts.

No, you can't. If you are jumped into the vehicle, then you aren't in the smart firing mount (which is its own drone). If you're in the smart firing mount, you're not in the vehicle. You can't jump into two drones at once.

The weapons you are describing are not, by SR4 definition, "main guns." They are weight and recoil-comparable to HMGs. SR would probably model them as miniguns, assault cannons, or maybe a rockets for the recoilless rifle.

The very definition of "main gun" is that it's so big you can't just bolt it to pintle mount on a pickup. They must be in a fixed mount, or on a heavy turret, attached to a vehicle with Body 14, and the GM is recommended to seriously think about whether that specific Body 14 vehicle can really handle the stress of a main gun. A heavy laser would probably be okay for a Hotspur, assuming you wanted to deal with the ton of capacitors you need to lug around to fire it. Any kinetic weapon that needs the stability of a heavy turret will tear a pickup apart.

A pintle mount is a pin-type mount that an weapon can be bolted to and pivoted/rotated by hand. This is exactly what a tripod is, except a tripod is self supporting rather than attached to a vehicle. Weld a tripod to a vehicle and you have a pintle mount. And If you can mount it on a tripod, you can mount it on a smart firing platform.




The "false comparison" was you saying you were comparing "main gun vs. smaller smart platform-friendly weapon" when you were really comparing "smart platform-friendly weapon vs. smart platform-friendly weapon."

"remote control" can mean a couple of things in SR.
1. Rigger "jumps into" drone/vehicle/smart firing platform
2. intelligent being uses joystick/AR/VR to aim the gun/drive the drone/vehicle
3. intelligent being uses AR/VR/voice command to tell the platform's Pilot to "shoot that red thing to the south."

With the exception of #3, you can ignore the drone aspect of the firing platform because the onboard AI is just twiddling it's virtual thumbs while the user does the work. If you wire the platform up in Remote (#2) mode to the base vehicle, it should be just as accessible to the rigger and vehicle's Pilot as any other "remote controlled" weapon mount in Arsenal.


If you don't like that, wrap your head around this:
What's the difference between an Arsenal remote controlled turret equipped with a pilot-enabled weapon and a BBB smart firing platform with a normal weapon? Is the rigger prevented from firing the pilot-enabled weapon while jumped in to the base vehicle?

Why can't you jump into 2 drones at once? It is possible to exist in multiple nodes in the matrix. Just if you are jumped into multiple nodes, you are vulnerable on multiple nodes. Just as long as the necessary drive actions are being taken care of.

And as stated there's always remote-control actions to handle it without being jumped in.

Sure, you can do that.


A smart firing platform can't move on its own. Technically, you can't mount one on a vehicle.

Why would you say that? I guarantee I could bolt, weld, or epoxy a smart firing platform onto any vehicle big enough for a person to use. They might not be able to use the vehicle comfortably when I'm done, but it'll be mounted there.


There are even rules for it in Arsenal; IIRC, they call it "special machinery" option, like an integrated toolkit on the Vulcan repair drone.

Except, theres already weapon mods for vehicles, its called weapon mounts. As it stands, special machinery requires GM approval for anything. I can't think of any sane GM who would allow you to bolt/weld/etc your smart firing platforms on, instead of just pointing you to the weapon mounts instead.

*Blinks*

...

I'm sorry, you lost me... "Sane GM"?

The two words make sense apart, but when together...

Ah-hah! Now we're back to my original problem.

There's an undefined "weapon mount" in the BBB. There's a well defined "smart firing platform" in the BBB of approximately the same cost. Then there's some well defined weapon mounts in Arsenal that don't make any sense in relation to the smart firing platform, which could have been, but was not, ret-conned by Arsenal, or even recosted.

Which of the Arsenal weapon mounts is the BBB "weapon mount" and why are the Arsenal mounts so craptastic compared to a smart firing platform?

My assumption would be that the weapon mounts in arsenal replace the one in SR4, but no where does it say that. As far as a smart firing platform, perhaps it performs better because it doesn't have to have any software to compensate for movement, as its assumed that it will be a stationary object when firing. Since it is explicitly non-mobile, I'd say it doesn't work at all when/if it is being moved.

Except that the Arsenal says that all weapon mounts suffer from movement penalty, unless they have the Gyrolink upgrade.

You mis-read what I said. The smart firing platform is defined as non-mobile. Thusly, if its moving, you can't use it.

Why would that happen? Nothing says that the smart platform's AI is any stupider than a regular drone. And, per Arsenal, you could fit the Pilot with a movement system (flying tripod?) and it doesn't require a software update. See the "Pilot Equipped Weapon" which has no movement rate but can be equipped with one.

Would you say that a pilot equipped weapon would be unable to fire while on its own while being carried? So why would the Smart platform, which has an otherwise identical AI?

it is worth noting that you can, afaict, install a smart firing platform on a vehicle. more specifically, you can install weapons into a weapon mount. weapons can have accessories. weapon mounts do not take up any accessory slots, and do not have any special rules limiting accessories. therefore, you can accessorize a gun with a smart firing platform, and then install it into a weapon mount.

Very nice catch. From now on, all my riggers will be using guns with smart firing platforms mounted on his vehicles. Send out global commands to the smart firing platforms, and now you can have each gun open up at the same time! HUZZAH! Power to the riggers!

GMC Bulldog 35,000
16 body

5 Weapon Mounts
3 slots
+normal 1500
+internal 1000
+fixed 0
+remote 500
15,000

5 ares mp-lmg
7,500
+5 internal smartlink mods
7,500
+5 high velocity mods
15,000
+5 smart firing platforms
10,000
++5 rating 4 pilots
10,000
++5 rating 4 targetting softs
8,000

and

1250 rounds of exex
12,500

Being able to have 25 short burst attacks at 10P -2AP per combat turn at chargen? Priceless

There are some things in life can't buy.

For everything else, there's the Rigger from Hell.

Rigger From Hell, accepted on any road that'll accomdate a Van.

Or use an Everglades and operate on land or water!

Which is what my rigger is using in our "explore the Australian outback while the NPC mage hunts up weird crap for magic" and actually spawned this thread. I'd built the Everglades with a weapon mount using the BBB but then Arsenal showed up Saturday for the game and we all bumped heads over what the rules meant.

And so far it seems to be "Arsenal is completely different and out of whack from the BBB smart platform but there's no good way to rectify the problem.

The point was to illustrate the absurdity of allowing the SFP to fire it while its mounted. What makes more sense, is that the SFP's tripod would be moving around, while the weapon was mounted and held steady in the weapon mount.