QUOTE (Falconer @ Oct 3 2008, 10:04 PM)

Hmm... just for arguments sake, IIRC you can only manage 3 points recoil comp from modifications. The special firing chamber counts as one of the mods in arsenal already built into the alpha (so doesn't take up mod space).
The best I've been able to come up with using Mods exclusively is a Gasvent 3, Foregrip, Sling and Personalized Grip for a total of RC6 and four slots. Yes, I made
extra special sure they're all compatible.
The firing chamber is 'magic' RC that stacks with everything and can't be added to a gun that doesn't already have it. This, along with the decent integral grenade launcher, is the reason the Alpha is in the running for the game's best gun. There is no 'special firing chamber' mod in Arsenal (If you can find one, please post as I want to use it

).
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Please forgive me as I only have a SR4 pdf handy, my books for the rest are away. But the chamber doesn't stack w/ personalized grip IIRC. In arsenal it lists which mods count as the same -1 (ares is special and has it's -2 instead of a -1 there, not that odd as the white knight has a special -5 gas vent, so not all that odd for some guns to have a better mod built in than the 'mod' itself). Please check arsenal, but I thought the shock pad was not cumulative w/ a sling or foregrip, so you may be overstacking. If I'm wrong I'm wrong... but I'm still 1 short, and only for the ares w/ it's 'special chamber'. For any other SMG or AR w/o that special feature you're 1 point RC less.
The only thing the Personalized Grip doesn't stack with is Electronic Firing (see Arsenal p148).
You're half right about the Shock Pad. It isn't compatible with a sling, but is with a foregrip.
Thank you for making me look at the White Knight again. I was remembering the 'cannot be further upgraded' line as referring to the weapon as a whole but the wording only references the funky gas vent system. Now I have a reason to buy one (Waagh! Dakka Dakka Dakka!

).
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Heavy Barrel is -1 to the fully auto bursts only.
You have -2 from one source already, -1 + -1 from the two other ones. -3 from gas3. I see a -7 to a full burst, -6 if you fired two seperate bursts in the pass (you can fire a short and a long burst in a single IP for a total of 9 rounds). In either case short, switch, long, or full burst.
If we modify the gun to have hyper-velocity, you need 11 points or RC (and you can fire 2 long bursts per IP IIRC).
Never noticed that stipulation about the Heavy Barrel, so thank you. Still its certainly a relevant mod for a weapon designed for fully compensated
full bursts, right?
HV weapons is where you get into Cyberarm Gyro territory if you want full compensation. Or you could just eat the small penalty. Or you could spend a bunch of Karma to negate said small penalty.
If we're talking about the Alpha, it gets a big fat 0 penalty to both full bursts and a combination short+long burst in the same round. The AK97 gets a -2 or -0/-1 penalty for the same.
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Another thing to consider is if you silence/suppress you cannot get 3 points of RC from gas3. Since most runners are stealth obsessed, this is a huge drawback especially to SMG's.
Best I've been able to figure here is RC4: Auto Adjusting Weight(2), Sling(1 and improved concealment) and Electronic Firing(1 and adds penalty to perception) with the added constraint I wouldn't use a mod that negatively affected concealability. After this, you would need 20BP/32Karma to totally compensate a non-HV SMG. If some nutter wants to blow that much Karma on what basically amounts to a gimmick that really won't increase their ability to do their chosen job, more power to them.
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Gyro-mounts are special... I don't think they're quite germaine to this, as they're normally only used w/ heavy weapons... they're basically a mobile tripod. Wearing one has drawbacks as well as benefits. You suffer a sever stealth penalty for wearing one... and you're not going to be 'carrying it hidden'. You're talking about a skill which completely replaces it here. The guards see someone walking up to the gate who looks pretty normal, he whips out a SMG and hoses em down... vs. the guards see someone coming towards them in an assault rig and a gun in a gyro-mount... they're taking cover now and hitting the panic button.
And when the biomonitors sewn into their uniforms report they just went flatline, what next? Or if someone is simply watching the gate camera feed when you go Solid Snake on the poor guards? Geeking people and subtlety are casual acquaintances at best.
You're forgetting the totally concealable cyberarm gyros here. They only provide RC3 instead of RC6, though. I'm providing an alternative, not a replacement. The gyromount costs 3000

, while getting equivalent RC out of the automatics skill will run you 24 BP or 44 Karma. That's equivalent to 120,000 or 110,000

. Hell, suppression firing Gamma Scorp capsule rounds is cheaper than that.
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But back to my point.... +1 DV is roughly equivalent to -3 armor. So if your skill adds +1DV through narrow burst, you've effectively negated 3 points of armor of soak. So 1 point of skill eliminates 3 points of armor... that's wrong. If used on wide, 1 rank in skill eliminates one point of reaction pool. Throw in that reaction pool already degrades for each individual attack and you see the problem.
Stop and think about what you just said. What I'm hearing from you is that RC in general is wrong as any other dicepool change does the same thing and you can fully compensate just about any gun already.
Its also more complicated than that. There's a reason that APDS is considered to be better than EXEX and it's not the glitch effects. +1DV only adds a +1 to armor penetration while -3AP adds a +3. Add to this the fact that the DV bonus from autofire
doesn't apply when testing for armor penetration. Once you add edge into the defender's test it really starts to slant in the favor of AP as it reduces the number of dice available to reroll.
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Stop and ask yourself this. Is shadowrun gun combat deadly enough already, or not deadly enough? I think the vast majority of people will answer it's already quite deadly and doesn't need to be made more so. By hypercharging recoil comp w/ an additional source of comp from a skill, you've effectively made it an order of magnitude more deadly. Best of luck w/ your game, but I think you're going to make your players a bit miserable when these rules are turned against them. (I'm a firm believer in if the PC's can or will abuse something, so can the NPC's).
The 'bandwagon' argument won't work on me and you shouldn't presume to speak for others. My answer is that it depends on what class of weapon you're talking about. Light pistols and holdouts? They're fine. Assault Cannons (particularly the poor, much abused Assault Cannons), MMGs, HMGs and Rockets? They were unduly hit hard with the Nerf bat. I have not 'hypercharged' anything as you can already totally compensate full bursts with whats already in the books and combat would only be marginally more deadly at most.
I don't GM, by the way. Never had the sustainable creativity for it. In my current game I have an automatic grenade launcher that I only use with smokers because I don't want to provoke the Wrath of God.
This real change this rule makes is that it allows those poor hapless mooks to use low grade autofire without ending up with a negative dicepool. The gangers and the low grade CorpSec who are throwing 6-8 dice using weapons with no RC at all will
never use autofire beyond three rounds because they'll never hit anything. The samurai-caliber people (who you keep using in your arguments) already have access to fully compensated weapons and can sling the bullets about in any manner they choose if they even bother with autofire to begin with.