Spawning from the 'what do you want out of gun skills?' thread and because it's been a while since I've posted a long rambling firearm wankery thread, here's my latest:

Long range shooting

Hitting a target at much longer distances is considerably more difficult than stock SR4 shows. In addtion, the rules give little reward for stuff like lying prone and having your weapon braced on a bipod when it comes to shooting at stuff far away.

Here's my first try at replacing the ranged shooting rules in SR4:

Rules replaced:
Base weapon ranges
Benefit of aiming actions

The difficulty of shooting a target depends on how far away the target it and what sort of weapon you are using. But no matter what sort of weapon you are using, hitting a target far away will require some effort.

Weapons have their range tables reaplced with 3 values:
close range, practical range, and extreme range

Targets within close range have no dice pool penalty
Targets within practical range have a -2 dice pool penalty
Targets within extreme range have a -4 dice pool penalty

Sample range table (ranges in meters):


In addition to these weapon based range penalties, there are threshold values you have to beat, based on how far away your target is:
From 0-15 meters, threshold is 0
for 16-149 meters, threshold is 1
for every 100 meters after that, increase threshold by 1



Ways of getting around these increased thresholds:
1:

Redefinition:
A shot taken without an aim action is a very quick shot, akin to 'instinctive shooting'. You are trying to get a shot off as fast as possible.

Aiming
You may take up to 3 aim actions, each aim action reduces the threshold to hit at range by one.

Aim action description:
1st action: use sights
2nd action: stead stance
3rd action: control breathing

If you have some steady surface to brace your weapon on (bipod, rocks, stationery vehicle, etc) then this means that you don't have to spend an aim action to get the benefit of the 2nd aim action. So if your weapon was braced and you used a single aim action, your shoot threshold would be reduced by 2; You could spend another aim action to get a total threshold reduction of 3 (max aiming bonus)

2:
Stance
Kneeling, sitting, or other stances that increase your stability provide a threshold decrease of 1
Being prone, sitting at a shoot bench, or similar stances that greatly increase your stability decrease your threshold by 2.

So, someone shooting a target at 500 meters with an assault rifle (max practical AR range) would be at -2 dice and have a base threshold of 5.

If they were prone, and took three aim actions, they would reduce the shooting threshold all the way back down to 0, and only be shooting with the -2 penalty for being the in practical range band.

Any comments so far?

Also, have to think up some rules for magnifying scopes...

For a scope I'd say reduce the threshold by 1 for targets > 150m away, since having a larger target to aim for helps for long shots, but isn't really useful at close ranges.

not sure about how good this is balanced, but it sounds good at the first glance.

Scopes have been a problem from 3ed on... afaik using a scope meant, that you just reduced the distance, so that - with a good scope or good cybereyes you ALWAYS had "short distance" as your shootingdistance, what kind of sucked.....

dunno how they handled it in 4ed.

I'd consider making "moving target" more important than range. I know that at 300 meters using my assault rifle (SIG Stgw 90) properly sighted and prone, using a bipod, I do not miss a standard stationary target unless I shoot at the wrong target to begin with, or there are special conditions. And I am not really that much of a marksman.

But once the target is moving it's an entirely different story.

True, but using the rules above, you would need exactly one sucess while sighted + prone + bipod at 300m. Assuming Agi 4 + skill 2 (basic training and practice + half-decent agility) you could buy the sucess, even with the -2 DP mod for weapon range.

As for a moving target, they get their reaction pool (possibly + dodge or gymnastics) in addition to any thresholds the shooter has to overcome.

Meaning for a 50% chance of hitting a moving target (who isn't taking full defense), you'd need a dice pool approximately equal to the defender's reaction +3 dice per threshold, + range mods. So shooting at a target with reaction 3 from 500m with a carbine from the hip, you'd need a dice pool of 22 for a 50/50 shot. Considering you'd need to be an adept or blow edge to have even a half-decent chance for that sort of shot, it sounds about right.

You might need to change automatic fire to make it more appealing at range as well. Otherwise people in a suppressed area who can count on maybe 1 sucess on their reaction test can just stroll casually through the area. Maybe halve the thresholds (or apply a constant modifier, like -3) if all you want to do is fill an area with lead in order to make standing up a risky proposition? Of course I could be horribly wrong - it's late and I'm tired.

Well, a reaction test is exactly that. I test of reaction, not a "casual stroll" through a beaten zone from an automatic weapon. To be honest, getting through most beaten zones from infantry machineguns isn't too damn dangerous when compared to what might happen if you don't and get flanked (or worse). Yeah, you might get shot but you probably won't statistically. That said, are you willing to roll them bones? A beaten zone is more of a psychological barrier than a physical one.

As for the other part, autofire sucks at almost all ranges, sorry. Yeah, it's great if you can hit someone but the point of a sustained-fire automatic weapon is to create a zone of danger that attempts to convince the enemy that being there is a bad idea. To illustrate this, the most common order to a machinegunner IRL is to suppress an area, not pop a bunch of people in the nugget with picturesque heads shots. You get some direct fire casualties? Groovy. But that's not the real reason why the machinegun is in the squad.
As for autofire from things like ARs? There's a reason why the US military went to a 3-round burst a while back with the M16. They just swapped to the autofire M4 as the general-issue weapon for the infantry in the US Army (a friend of mine actually had her M16 taken away and it was replaced with an M4 in the marksmanship section of Basic Training less than six weeks ago) but they still teach the soldiers that autofire is largely a waste of time and ammunition.

There is a reason why all of the combat footage from Iraq and Afghanistan has an audio track of machineguns using short-burst autofire and the ARs firing in semiauto, after all...

Full auto from my experience talking to millatay types and such is normally only useful if you need to suppress an area and you have not got a machinegunner, at close range for example ship board fighting witch I know a lot more about due to my fathers former job in the royal navy or if you a "really" good shoot and maybe against a group of moving hostiles.

Bingo. The primary use of fully automatic fire is area suppression, though burst firing and automatic fire is quite handy when things get up close and personal in a MOUT situation. Also, there have been theories that say a soldier may gain a sense of invulnerability when he feels he's protected by laying down a lead curtain in front of him, but that's a bunch of bulldrek. 9 times out of 10, one well-aimed shot does the job better than a hastily fired burst, especially when you're talking about a bunch of rookies. You don't want a lot of unaccounted for lead flying around. Like they say, it's not the bullet with your name on it you have to worry about, it's the hundred others marked "For Occupant".

Tbh auto fire is almost as useless in SR. I normally play a marks man not a fullauto loon but I could just be the fact that its how my mind works in the respect.

There are two different version of the M4 iirc. The SOCOM version is safe, semi, auto. The general issue one is safe, semi, burst. BT units don't typically get new weapons, so they could get either version, likely rebuilds. IIRC, in BT way back when (M16A1) we fired less than one mag on auto.

SOCOM essentially uses the M4 as an LMG and shoots a lot of ammo, so they go through them at a pretty good rate.

So, using the take aim actions articulated in the first post, how would you handle if I'm operating a mounted 50 cal machine gun without using the sights, but instead I'm looking at the tracers to walk fire back and forth?

Walking the tracers is aiming, bro.

I'm just curious, if someone is in 0-15 meters, rolls 0 hits, but the guy he was shooting at also rolls 0 hits, that = 1 net hit, because the threshold for success is 0?

This one was the full-auto version. I heard that they were considering an autoburst version for general issue but it's looking like they decided not to bother after all for ease of maintenance and parts supply.

Not quite true on the last bit. Yes, the high-speed/low-drag types have been known to use a 100-round drum on M4s but it's pretty rare that it's used as a replacement for a LMG. The bolt to carrier ratio isn't high enough for true reliability on autofire (when did your M16A1 take a shit much more often than not? During autofire, perhaps?) and the extreme heat generated will burn out that stubby barrel pretty quick if they keep it up too long. Semi-auto shots is what they still tend to use with the occasional burst of autofire to keep the enemy down during maneuvering.
SOCOM is where the current infantry maneuver doctrine came from, after all. See how in pictures the squad is all stacked up SWAT-style? See the videos of the infantry performing basic SWAT/CT style room clearing? The use of SWAT/CT battering rams, breaching charges, and go-bars? The new "urban sniper" doctrine in use by the Army and Marines?

All SOCOM stuff...

If the shooter scores 0 net hits then the target doesn't even need to roll to dodge as the shooter missed completely. It was pretty damn close (I describe it as nicks and dings, myself), but not solid enough to bother rolling for defense or soaking. In all honesty, it's often much better to have the target roll first to see if the shooter makes the threshold of both range and the dodge, IME.

I never liked the "official" 0 = 1 with certain weapons rules as pushed forward by the DevGrp. You either succeed with one net hit or you fail. Ties go to the defender, and all that rot. Otherwise you just see a focus towards the "special" weapons where you can hit even when you miss and that's lame.

Threshold 0 = you succeed unless you crit glitch which is why I'm questioning its use as the threshold for 0-15meters.

So you can succeed by not succeeding?

Hmm...

Have to agree that this is non-optimal.

The standard M4 has burst, the M4A1 has full auto. SOCOM seems to only buys M4A1s, the big army purchases are for"either M4 carbine or M4A1 carbine configurations" per the press releases.

You don't need a drum to use it like an LMG. Regular units don't tend to do Australian peels and other crap where you are shooting multiple mags at cyclic. Rangers and the rest of SOCOM does do that stuff all the time. They do burn out barrels and break bolts. They have changed to thicker barrels and several iterations of bolt improvements. But the gun does wear out when you use it like this. That's why there is (or was when I last looked) a fairly well funded project for an electronic shot counter they want integrated into their rifles. http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2007smallarms/5_8...Davis_230pm.pdf

I like the added realism. I've thought about something like this - and you seem to have effectively done it. I'd use these rules in my game... were I running one.

Just to split hairs, that is called "adjusting".

Tarantula:
The point of threshold 0 is that at point blank that first hit increases damage as well as hits. While as the range increases.. the shots do less damage.

Crusher:
Lets put this out. I've placed in the teens nationally w/ a rifle. I KNOW and have had practice with an awful lot about long range shooting. I've done test weapons firing w/ the army marksmanship unit. I know all about lots of things like sight radius and such. All that said. You're badly overcomplicating things, and some of your ideas don't really pan out well. Ballistics tend to look more flaring bell of a cornet than a neat pyramid.

I take issue w/ folks like Dr Funk in the other thread (I stopped posting because I didn't want to drag that one off topic after suggesting a simple house rule and defending it once)... mostly because -1 die pool per range bracket is completely laughable... He's right that I do effectively drop 3 dice at long, and 6 dice at extreme. My note here, is that engaging targets at those ranges is the exception to the rule in shadowrun... and people w/ long range fitted weapons should have an advantage over the gunbunny w/ his tricked out close combat SMG at the fringe of extreme range. For 90% of the time... the test would be at threshold 0 or 1 as things are at short range.

The biggest problem I see with your rules is one... the threshold w/ range is very much dependant on what kind of weapon you're using not purely a function of range to target. You combine multiple effects which needlessly complicates things (variable negative dicepool and variable threshholds and completely new charts, and even worse the threshhold and weapon charts are completely different). And as range increases... shots become exponentially harder (the farther the range the less an issue of precision of the rifle, and more the questions of atmospheric effects on trajectory come into play.) Shortbarreled weapons have another problem because they have smaller muzzle velocities... which means it can take them twice as long for the bullet to get from point A to B. (meaning it's even harder for them to hit moving targets as you need more lead). The M-4 carbine is notorious because past 50m the bullet falls under a critical velocity at which it fragments... the M-16 w/ it's longer barrel can get it out to 200m before this happens (I sometimes refer to the M-4 as a magnum SMG).

Quite frankly... there's a few ways to make the ranged combat rules better. Most importantly any change should be simple. But IMO systems should have two things... one they should decrease damage w/ range. Just because you scored 2 net hits at point blank, and 2 net hits at extreme doesn't mean the damage is the same. The other is that, the farther range increases the harder it becomes to aim accurately... (EG: 0, -1, -3, -6 dice pool... or similar, or +1 short, 0 med, -3 long, -6 extreme).

Simply changing the threshhold... is effectively the same as doing two things at once... but with one simple easy to remember mechanic. It handles the improved rangefinder very well and makes it a worthwhile mod to consider instead of a laughable one... problem is it doesn't handle optics well... there you need special text on scopes saying to reduce the damage by one point for every range past short to reflect lesser damage w/ range (since scopes change the threshhold requried to hit).

Now, to try to come up with some rules for scopes. Assuming we want shooting at point targets to be good out to 1200 meters (threshold of 12), then we'd need scopes to max out at a 6 point threshold decrease. This means that you can shoot out to 1600 meters at threshold 4.

One of the additional problems here is that scopes in 2070 would probably be much closer to modern tank fire control systems, not just a piece of glass. They'll do stuff like estimate the range (probably by passive image focusing tricks) laser rangefinders are too likely to get you detected, provide movement prediction, estimate the wind, take into account stuff like the barometric pressure, humidity, etc. They'll make long range shooting much simpler compared to today. Of course, the next question is, how much of this sort of stuff is a smartgun rig assumed to do? Is that why making your gun smart gives you such mad bonuses to hit the target?

And if you really want to hit a target that far away, you are much better off using a precision crafter gun drone, as the donre won't have to worry about stuff like muscle twitch, blood flow, heartbeat, or any of that other meaty sillyness.

Of course, you then have the problem of the characters skill not mattering at all. It's all, "Gun drone, kill that guy over there." In fact, with the tech level of SR, you can constantly be followed around by flying gundrones which are controlled by your murder thoughts.

But sweeping all that under the rug, so that the focus of the game is on the characters and their skills, rather than on the gun drones that follow them around:

Magnification scopes are rated by the amount of threshold decrease they provide. A scope can be fixed magnification or variable magnification. Scopes with variable magnification cost more.

Scopes that over magnify should probably provide a dice pool penalty.

So shooting with a fixed magnification (6) scope at 1000 meters (assuming you are already prone, etc) would be a dice penalty of 1 from over magnification. Trying to use the mag 6 scope for a 100 meter shot would give you a -5 dice pool penalty.

Penalty calculations would be as follows:
Take ranged based threshold, subtract 5 (min 0).
Subtract scope magnification value from this number, apply any negative amount at a die pool penalty.

Sample scopes
(costs might be a bit off, but I'm assuming these scopes qualify more as fire control systems rather than just 'scopes', they'll do range finding and weather prediction too.):

Fixed threshold 1 (around 250 Y)
Fixed threshold 2 (around 400 Y)
Threshold 1 or 3 (around 600 Y)
Threshold 2 or 4 (around 800 Y)
Threshold 2 or 6 (around 1000 Y)

A fully variable threshold 1-6 scope is probably within the realm of SR tech levels; cost maybe around 2500Y ?

The problem is that the SR4 system is quite grainy. A enlisted army rifleman (AGL 3, automatics 1 + AR specialization) is rolling only 6 dice. But most guys have a reasonable chance to hit a 500 meter target with the M16 while prone and using just the iron sights. The same recruit can make a reasonable showing on 300 mters targets while standing up.

Now we run into the problem that the maximum human die pool is around 12-16 dice. The cyber or adept gun bunny is looking at around 20 dice. Theres not that many dice of wiggle room to provide die pool penalties or threshold increases in without making the recruit completely useless at any sort of shooting.

That's why I used the rather tedious step of combining threshold based on range to target with die pool penalties based on the sort of weapon you are using.

Even with this system, things are still pretty over the top, a 20 die gun bunny has a reasonable chance of hitting a target at 500 meters with a snapshot when using an assault rifle. (threshold 5, -2 dice pool penalty).

Sigh, just realized that this isn't going to work.

Should probably change penalty calculation as just a straight subtraction from the range threshold, so that lower rating scopes are useful at lower ranges. Anyone want to comment? Does a 2x scope (assume mag 1) start being useful at around 15 meters? and does something like a 24x+ (assume mag 6) scope make your life more difficult than it needs to be at 300 meters?

The 2x scope is usable at dang near point blank range, honestly. The current USMC ACOG scope is x4 but it can be a bit slower for short range engagements. The newer model ACOG has a red dot x1 sight on top of the x4 sight for this issue.
As for the x24+, there is a reason why the (at least the previous) standard US sniper scope stops at x10. The viewing area of a x24 at 300m would be so small and the magnification so extreme that you could about count the blood vessels in your targets eyes. You also need a decent area around your target so you can see telltales for windage, wind speed, shadows, etc.
Leave the crazy-ass magnification to the spotting scope. That's what it's for.

Of course, this could all be dodged with a good x3-9 or x4-12 scope with the correct adjustment knobs. The old Leatherwood ART1 x3-9 scope used on the M21 rifle was excellent in that it was variable power and had easy references built-in to assist in rangefinding out to 900m.

I'd been assuming the approximate magnifications fro the rating 1-6 scopes:
Rating 1: ~ 2x
Rating 2: ~3-4x
Rating 3: ~6-8x
Rating 4: ~9-12x
Rating 5: ~16x
Rating 6: ~24x+

So a 3x-9x scope would be something like a 2, 4 rated scope
With the scope dialed down to 3x, you'd take a -1 penalty at 100 meters and would be doing anything with it at 15 meters. With the scope at the higer magnification, you'd be able to shoot at threshold 0 at 900 meters when prone, aiming, fully braced. The higher rated scopes are mostly for the really long distance shooting.

Mostly I want to prevent runners from blinging out their weapons with 24x scopes and taking no penalty from having a long range spotting scope tacked on. I'd expect most normal people to use rating 2 or rating 2,4 variable scopes and have no problems most fo the time.

A 900m shot is just plain ol' hard. I don't care about how much super-bling gearz you got, that isn't a zero threshold shot. FULL STOP.

The best snipers in the world still see the 1000 yard (and that's not all that much more than 900m) shot as the separator of the men from the boys and that's not because you can just grab a custom rifle, slap a good scope on it, and go to town at that range. It takes a long, long training cycle and a bunch of experience to consistently shoot killing shots at that range.

I think that the range brackets = increased threshold works well enough for govt work. A scope will add 1/3 or smartgun 2/3 threshold in dice and this means that consistent shots way out there will be with 1) high-skill shooters, 2) less likely to get killing shots without this high skill due to successes going towards just hitting the target, let alone hitting them somewhere important, 3) the threshold bit also kinda-sorta covers the drop in muzzle energy in a reasonable way based upon the basic dice engine, and 4) depending on a combination of training and luck if you want anything close to a "sure shot"(edge rolls).

I would put the scope bonus dice, if you're really enamored with the idea, at the square root of the power with a cap at x20 or so. It's reasonable in power for a rifle scope, keeps people from trying to just grab a bloody science telescope and slapping it on their rifle for a +20 dice, and offers a decent bonus if the GM likes the idea.

The problem here is that a very good human class shooter (AGL 5, longarms 5, appropriate specialization) only has a base die pool of 12. After subtracting -4 DP due being outside the rifles practical range, they are only left with 8 dice. Assuming I keep the threshold increasing @ 1 per 100 meters, then the scopes need to provide a threshold decrease to be useful. Assuming that the 12 dice guy can make 1100 meters shots (-5 threshold from prone + aiming, -6 threshold from a mag 6 scope) that gives him 8 dice to hit. @ 1400 meters, he's looking at 8 dice vs threshold 3; roughly a 25% chance of scoring a net hit at all. Assuming he is the best human who ever lived, he's got 16 dice (AGL 7, Longarms 7, specialization), that gives him a dice pool of 12 at those distances. At 1600 meters (threshold 5) he's got around a 17.8% chance to score enough hits to be the threshold.

Actually, the 'best shooter who ever lived' probably wouldn't even have those odds at 1600m! 1.6km is a pretty silly distance to be firing from and expecting the bullet to go anywhere near where you want it...

People with considerable amounts of time on their hands have been able to do much better than ~17%, at least when shooting at a known range and with ideal conditions; here's and sample

Fairly interesting read. Just would like to point out one thing. You are playing a game where people fling fireballs, and dragons fly around. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

And that is also where you start adding dice back into the equation for those modifiers. "Ideal conditions" has to be at least a +1 DP but I would call it +2 because missing really doesn't matter. Add another DP or two for "Been shooting at this range and this target for weeks now" just from knowing the dope of the shot by heart. So we're back up to DP of 11-12. Add a bonus for the scope, maximum aiming time and it's starting to look a lot better, no?

AGL 5, Rifle 5 (Sniper Rifles +2), Outside of effective range: -4, Ideal conditions w/o stress: +1 (I would call it +2 due to conditions in the example), All damn week: +2, Accurized ammo: +1 (only for longer shots than Medium), Aiming for 3 actions: +3 (SR4BB pg. 137), Scope or Bracing bonus: +1 (but I would call it -1 threshold based upon range as it's obviously tuned to the weapon) for a total DP of 16 or 15 and a threshold drop to 4.

Average successes rolled with this DP is 5.33 or 5

Things to keep in mind in-game:
Snipers use specialized gear. You won't find a sniper using an off-the-shelf Wally World 30-06 with a $50 Made in Whateveristan scope and shooting WWB ammo. A decent dedicated sniper rifle starts at around $2000 once it's been tuned and the scope will run you $500+. Add the bipod, and any other goodies and you're looking at a good sniper kit running in the $3000 range fairly easily.

Snipers fire from concealment at unaware targets. That's the point of a sniper training and why they aren't called "marksmen" as you see them in infantry units.

Snipers use an exacting combination of breath control, body positioning, skeletal bracing, and the ability to literally shoot between heartbeats for the good ones (yes, even that little wiggle can easily throw a round at 800m+) and to make it as easy to do as it is in SR cheapens the extremely difficult sniping profession in the eyes of the public. If it was that easy, everyone would be a sniper and there wouldn't be a 70-90% failure rate in the US military's sniper schools.

Good long range scopes cost more than the entire expensive rifle in most cases. An excessively high mag scope means that you get to see the target bounce with your heartbeat and other such annoying issues.

So what about this shooting the second target would have by the rules proposed a threshold of 23 , so even with the -5 from aiming and being prone and the -6 from scope the treshold would still be 12 so 36+4(from exrame range)= 40 dice needed to hit on avarage.
Mac put half of his 6 shot in to that target and i wouldn't really call him the best shooter in the world, so IMO the treshold thing doesn't really work.

Congratulations... you've just found external Smartgun MkI w/ improved rangefinder ;P and scope. On a weapon with an exceptional extreme range. (he's firing a 50cal)

It still took 2 or 3 registering shots before it was zeroed in as well. That would not have been a first round kill. And against a target actively going for cover after the first miss... no way no how.

But in any case, it clearly shows why I think a threshhold based purely on range is wrong. Especially if someone pulls out a tank gun w/ a good extreme range or similar. Far easier just to 'ballpark' it to the weapons range increments and not bother with multiple overlapping charts and mods.

A .408 CheyTac actually

Edit: Here's little info about the round and the gun

I'm not familiar w/ that round at all... I just heard him rattle off the weight on the round... and it was too heavy for .338 so jumped to .50. Sounds like one hell of a specialty long range sniper optomized load though.

It's a wildcat long range load usually used by people with too much money on their hands and the insane need to have something bigger than a .338 Lapua Magnum. More power to them but if my feeling about this loading and actual interest ever touched, it would prove quite dire to the immediate locale as a vacation spot until the halflife of "interested" had been attained in several thousand years. It's a round that fixed a non-existent problem.

One thing to also note is that the SR4 range charts are decent up to .300 WinMag or so but once you get into the heavier loadings like .338 Lapua Magnum and .50 BMG the weapons ranges open up by at least a few hundred yards. Some crazy canuck has recently out-done Carlos Hathcock's record of 2500m or so using a single shot BMG rifle out in Afghanistan, I hear.

2,286m for Hathcock vs 2,430m for Cpl Rob Furlong's shot.

Sure, Furlong's first two shots missed, but he's still a badass shot.