So reloading a Sakura Fubuki takes 4 complex actions? Is that an overlook, or is that right? And if it does take 4 complex actions to reload, why ever take this gun?

Probably because it's pretty rare you'll end up firing all the 40 rounds it's loaded with during a single fight.

Even with burst fire you're getting 13 actions of shooting out of it (with a single shot to spare) and I can't honestly think of many Shadowrun encounters so far where I've seen players take that many pistol shots at something.

I'd put the price as the main reason to not take it over the actual stats. It's something like twice the price of every other light pistol.

i would say that your allowed to reload one barrel as a single complex action.

that is, if you have managed to empty all 4 barrels, you can then take a single complex action to swap out one barrel and go on firing. maybe stop to swap another one during a lull in the fighting or something.

all in all, i dont see anything that specifically states that on have to swap all barrels in one go, only that there are 4 barrels in the gun.

think of the barrels as magazines, and think of the gun as having the "additional clip" modification from arsenal.

hell, i would even allow someone to load different ammo into different barrels, and select between them.

with extended clip you get 4 bursts per tube. making the gun very nice to use.

I didn't mean you needed to reaload all 4 barrels in one go, just that it'd take 4 complex actions to fully reload the weapon.

Still, the fact remains that 4 complex actions < 1 complex action. IMHO, Fichetti Security 600 > Sakura Fubuki. I just wish the Sakura was better, because I prefer its looks and whatnot.

/sniff.
/tear.

then house rule/mod the gun to eject empty tubes havling or more the reload time.

I have the opposite opinion. Fubuki + Gel Rounds + Burst = 8s from a light pistol, plus the extra knock back, all at the cost of only 1 recoil (I believe). It's the modified recoil that really sells the gun for me.

Though this does lead me to a question I've had about Stick and Shock - do bursts add to their damage? I want to say yes, but the core is not clear either way.

Yes as its an ammo IMHO. We've had debate before though IDK if an officle rulling is out yet.

i would love to see the firefight where one would end up burning 40 rounds before one have the time to pop a barrel out and slide another in.



well, 10 extra rounds, potential for mixed loads (if the GM allows), and burst fire...

Sakura is definedly the best light pistol, it does same damage as warhawk with same recoil and double the shots.
After 13 narrow bursts it shouldn't matter if takes 4 turns to reload or even a hunred
Would you guys let someone get additional clip for Sakura, making it 5 or even 6 barreled.

"All new smartlinked sixpack of pain from Sakura at the low price of 8000 "
That would be pretty nice modded fubuki with three pairs of barrels
Now i just have to get that for one of characters.

For those who cares THIS is how I think that the Fubuki gets reloaded.

It seems to me that there is a lot of good reasons.
The fact that it can fire 13 narrow bursts in a row (6P each even with basic ammo, and NO RECOIL) without needing to reload is not a bad reason. After your target is Swiss cheese, reloading time doesn't matter one whit.

I always thought that if fired all four barrels at once, thus giving a +3 dmg mod.....Wouldn't it be kind of weird otherwise?

Because of the potential firepower output the gun has. Depending on how you interpret the gun's burstfire rules, you got 10-13 bursts. If you are firing semi-auto, you got 40 shots. After that, if you still need to shoot, you do not reload but switch weapons. The Sakura Fubuki is a weapon that takes a longer time to reload but can output a lot more firepower within a short time.

I think the Sakura Fubuki is prob. the best single gun for non-combat optimized characters. For someone like a rigger, decker, or mage, you get something that can act as a heavy pistol or a machine pistol without any recoil (using the included folding stock), for an off the shelf price of 2400 nuyen with an external smartlink. I've always played where you can load the barrels separately, so you got your APDS barrel, your EXplosive barrel, your gel barrel, and your flechette barrel, so you can engage enay target you would have a chance against, all with some of the best concealability north of a holdout. If your non combat character actually survives long enough in a straight up firefight where running out of ammo is a problem, then you're in wierd territory anyway.

For a combat optimized character, there's other choices that are better for specific roles, but the sakura fubuki is still awesome generally.

They'll notice your body armor before the bulge of a light pistol in a concealable holster so if you think you may need to reload it just carry a second or third Sakura.

So million dollar question... if you had it modified to fire full auto (a 'small change' mod since its already a BF weapon) then could you use suppressive fire with it? After all, suppressive fire ignores recoil penalties and the don't-tase-me-bro bullets are a polite way to make bystanders do their impression of beached fish. The one thing that makes me wonder is because I'm not sure if a Sakura should/could be modded for full auto fire and if its limitation to narrow bursts only would prevent it from suppressive fire.

Thoughts?

I consider it's burst fire ability to be similar to a double barrel weapons short burst. So, loading different things in it's different barrels is out, IMHO.

That is how I read it as well. Its "special" burst fire capability is because of the 4 barrels.

Sakura Fubuki is given as a specific example of a weapon that can't get firing selection change.


No, it's becouse it'a a metalstorm weapon and as such it fire's so fast that the recoil doesn't have time to affeckt your shot. Tha firing speed is also the reason why it can only fire narrow burst.

Ok chummers this is the way I think the Sakura Fubuki works:

It's a muzzle loader so you don't switch the barrels (which would be very hot due to the heat of the firing) but you insert the bullets into the muzzle and push them all the way trought the barrel; recharging manualy an empty Fubuki would take 40 complex actions, however it's possible using a loader to speed up the operation. Said loader consict in a frame holding stacks of ten bullets ready to be loaded and some mechanism that pushes them into the barrel at the pressure of a botton; in order to load a barrel you must plug the loader on the muzzle and push the botton (just make sure that the barrel is realy empty), the loaders can come in two variants:
single stack - used to reload a single barrel with a complex action
four stacks - used to reload all four barrels in a single complex action

The Sakura Fubuki's burst fire is actualy firing all the barrels simultaneosly (resulting in a +3 bonus to damage), much like the elephant rifle, so the firing mode can be considered semi-automatic and adding burst fire would be a big change (however it would apply to all the barrels; short burst: 3 x 4 = 12 => +11 DV; long burst: 5 x 4 = 20 => +19 DV; ).

not a big problem. point it towards ground, hit the release, let barrel drop, point towards roof, insert new (cold) barrel, lock in place, aim, fire

and unless the text specifically says that it gets a special kind of damage bonus from burst, i would be wary of giving it such a bonus. that it has a near recoilless burst is potentially bad enough...

Uhh, if you use caseless ammo you don't have to worry about the cases in the muzzle. There isn't an actual clip in the weapon, as

That to me implies caseless ammo and electronic firing off the bat. So no bullet casings to eject, as the entire bullet is removed from the barrel when fired.

It's effectively a 4-barreled musket. I actually imagined a tampon-styled 10-round loader for the muzzles.

Its basically the SR equivalent of metal storm.

There they stack the powder charge so that the front most ones deliver more punch, to counteract the shorter barrel, giving the rounds a more or less equal exit velocity...

I would tend to think it would come in sticks of 10 round caseless ammo. Fires 3 rounds in a burst like normal and you can choose if it fires all three from one barrel or from individual barrels. You don't switch out barrels, that would end up being ridiculously expensive compared to just sliding in a stick of 10 rounds. The high ROF isn't necessarily due to having four barrels, having the firearm electronically fire bullets gives it much more speed than a mechanical alternative.

So to the OP, Yes it would take 4 complex actions to fully reload but you are also carrying around a pistol that has 3-4 times as much ammo as a regular pistol. So you can fire off 40 shots then take 4 complex actions to reload (after everyone else is dead) OR fire off ~10 rounds, reload, fire 10 rounds, reload, fire 10 rounds, reload, fire 10 rounds, reload. So there is a clear advantage in having 4x the ammo capacity of an equivalent firearm.

You don't take your weapon off threat like that when reloading.

TBOT, as usual, does it with pictures. Read the section on reloading.

A good way to get the barrels lost, and by RAW the Fubuky is a muzzle loader not a barrel switcher.

And for the firing mode I would like to point out that the Fubuki holds 40 bullets, has 4 barrels and neither 40 nor 4 are divisible for 3, a 4-round burst might be a bit strange but it does help the bookeeping and is matches with the weapon ammo capacity; I would also say that the Fubuki is a quite unique and nifty piece of gun that had an indeed lacking description in the BBB and there are quite a few things that are left to the players to figure out on their own, things that should have been explained in the BBB. However you are indeed right that adding Multi-Burst-Fire^TM to the Fubuki would make it ungodly powerfull (but if it's realy a metalstorm weapon, and metalstorm realy have an impressive rate of fire, it wouldn't be unthinkable that it could unload its whole capacity at once); as a matter of facts the description in the BBB (aside from being lacking on its own) has been written before the modifications chapter of arsenal had been conceived, so it lacks eventual notes about not being able to be modified, leaving the matter in the hands of the GM (if I were the GM I would rule that the way the Fubuki is built doesn't allow modifications).

Maybe not with your usual gun, where the empty container is attached perpendicular to your line of fire (so using gravity to get rid of it is basically a non-issue). But for something where you basically swap the whole barrel out your looking at reaching out and obscuring your view of the potential target anyways.

Also, pointing the weapon skywards while reloading seemed to work out ok for whole armies for maybe some 200 years, so...

And why would they define a specific reload type for it, just to print the explanation as "see muzzle loader"?

I think the same, just that the loader can be made to hold four stacks of bullets to load all the barrels at once, reducing the loading time to a single complex action.

They might have avoided much confusion.

or it could be im hitting "add reply" a bit to fast...

checking metalstorm.com, they talk about using a cartridge load system, or even allowing for the loading of individual rounds.

still, i could have sworn that the first time i heard about the tech, they basically replaced the whole barrel on reload.

hmm, checking wikipedia, metal storm weapons can be reloaded in a number of ways, including the replacement of whole barrels.

ah, found something interesting. the table on page 312, SR4 talks specifically about (ml) being about inserting 1 muzzle tube...

In my BBB the table states:

Reloading Method
Muzzle Loader (ml)

Action Rquired
Complex Action

Result
Load 1 muzzle tube


I did think it meant that it did take a complex action to reload a barrel from the muzzle, but I have to admit I have no idea of what a muzzle tube exactly is (the only other muzzle loader in the BBB is a rocket launcher, maybe the term "tube" is refered to that..... ?)

i can find only 3 ml loaded weapons in the arsenal tables, two rocket/missile launchers and the fubuki...

the striker from SR4 sounds like a variation on the LAW, and the great dragon from arsenal is illustrated like those man portable launchers where you toss the whole tube after firing and reuse the targeting electronics...

all in all, im at a loss...

In the end one thing is clear, we are confused.
Seriously, the description in the BBB leaves some unanswered questions.

It looks like you load in each barrel. How ever how many per complex action is an other question. However i would let a smartgunned version take half the time if loading from empty by telling the smartlink program to eject each barrel when its empty. with each tube per complexaction it would take 2 IPs to load the gun. With nimble fingers only 1complex and one free. "nimble fingers really sucks it makes not difference when reloading a smartgunned clipped weapon, as you still only get on free action per IP. However this dose make the much more useable.

I realy wish some dev coming up with some enlightening comment about this fragging piece of tech.

I really wish that they would not do so. I would rather they keep to the ambiguity that is the Fubuki. It allows the GM room(at least by canon or RAW) to interpret the weapon and how its functions.

Doesn't the Fubuki operate similar to the Metalstorm system? I mean probably the reason for the burst fire is because it is multiple barrels firing together?

Check my last post in the mods you love thread.

I saw I for got that rule. Oh well.

Extra Clips/Barrels are still valuable if the GM sets the number of round in a burst to the number of barrels. I do it that way and I know there are several other GMs on DS who do it that way as well. So you could go from 10 4-round burst in the default, to 8 6-round burst with (2) Additional Clip and Extended Clip (add Personalized Grip and a top-mounted Smartgun for extra ouckies!)

especially insane if it keeps its special burst recoil = SA recoil rule...

iirc, that thing is then burst firing at HV rates, yet produce next to no recoil!

I was actually drafting up a "Best of the Best" firearms list of every weapons category yesturday, and I absolutely fell in love with this little gem from Arsenal: the Ares Crusader. Roughly pistol sized (Machine pistol; core book puts them larger than heavy pistols, Arsenal puts them between light an heavy), it has a 40 round clip with BF/FA capabilities and built in 2 points of recoil. You can do things with that.

But as I was looking over stats (cost, ammo size, special rules, standard accessories, firing modes...), I actually admitted that the Fubuki made the list (in a 4 way tie I believe. I might have to go back, decide a winner, and put the others as special mentions like I did with the other classifications).

Technically it's not the same rate of fire. Yes, it's throwing the same amount of lead at the target in the same time period, but I'd amount it to throwing a fistful of quarters at someone vs. flinging them one at a time.

It accomplishes the same goal, it's just done differently.

Just to clear something up here, metalstorm weapons (which it's fair to assume the Fabuki is based on it's description and even the most passing understanding of metalstorm tech) achieve their ridiculous rates of fire because there is no reloading. They just send an electric charge to each set of contacts in the barrel in turn, firing off that round. A single barrelled metalstorm weapon can still achieve rates of fire far in excess of a general electric minigun.

This means the Fabuki is not firing a round from all four barrels, it is firing three rounds from one barrel using the ridiculous fire rate of bullet box weapons.
So why four barrels? Because bullet boxs can't autoload rounds, so your ammunition capacity is limited by the length of the barrel. You stack four barrels to give the weapon a decent ammo capacity. The fourth 3 round burst fires the last round from barrel A, then two from barrel B. It just keeps rolling over in sequence like that.

Actually, I imagined the Fubuki to be shooting out of all 4 barrels just like real metal storm weapons. Just hand-portable.
EDIT: And even better, this one actually has 4 barrels like the Fubuki.

thing is that if it does single barrel burst fire, one can allow multiple types of ammo.

kinda like if the weapon has "additional clip" x 3 (arsenal).

the ammo capacity and special burst fire recoil alone do not really justify a price that x10 most other guns of its "class".

now if one could load two barrels of stick n shock and two of exex or apds, things would be more interesting.

especially if its smartgun equipped as the change from one ammo to the other would be a free action.

sadly, i wish they had expanded on the system in arsenal, rather then just leave it with that one easter egg in SR4...

What you actually mean is that you want to be able to load 4 different types of ammo. Not that you can, you want to be able to.

and that is different from people saying it does a 4 bullet burst because it has 4 barrels of ammo?

thing is that its such a different weapon out of the box, that what little text there is about it in SR4 do not go into proper detail about what it can or cant do, with the end result that people are making up stuff left and right (including me).

And it also fires 3 bullets from same barrel, before recoil hits you, just like Fubuki

Considering that fubuki can only fire narrowburst also reenforces my belief that it fires 3 shots from the same barrel just like that real metalstorm pistol.
I wouldn't really call a four shots from four stackedbarrels a narrowburst, that would IMO be wideburst.