Yo. I'm a Ork. A big one. Bigger still with my new augmented muscles and a boosted body. And yeah, I guess my old AK looks pretty dinky these days.

So, on Monday I'm shopping at Weapons World, see, and the mook behind the counter takes me to his "special stock". I like the heavy stuff, and I'm looking at LMGs, MMGs, and HMGs. Knows a guy who knows a guy. Nice stuff. Totally off the books.

See, I wanta use one in combat like Rambo or Frank Castle (no Gyromount for me), so what's the heaviest MG I can reasonably use?

Well, ya see, those big fraggers kick like a damn mule when you sustain fire with them from the hip (double uncompensated recoil penalties for heavy weapons) so even with your huge-moungous muscles, those puppies are gonna be barkin' omae. If'n yer wantin' to use one of those heavy machine guns, make sure you've got the compensation to cover it; Them bipods work real well. Oderwise stick to a good 'ol Ingram White Knight, they were kind enough to include a special gas vent system on that baby to keep the barrel down.

It depends on how much recoil penalty you are willing to take.
If you dont care if you hit, as long as keep shooting, pick up a HMG with belt feeding and be happy!

after all, chummer, happiness is a belt-fed weapon...

My armorer says he can slap a GasVent 3, custom grip, and a foregrip on the bad boy. I'd really like to show the team's sniper up with his fancy FA la-de-da Barett M121 how a real Orktown pup rolls.

I believe LMG is the limit for 'carrying around and using'. Anything bigger is just too big to use effectively. And like X said, get some recoil compensation. One of the SR2 books had rules for strength adding recoil compensation, if you can control your GM to use them.

I'd stay away from the HMGs. But you could probably carry both the gun and tripod for it with only a little hassle. (Great for surprise suppressive fire from the shrubberies after the Magician casts some spells on you so you can't be detected.).

LMGs would be like an Assault Rifle for you now for the most part (I've heard about a few big guys in the Canadian Armed Forces that have used a C9 as such. Second-hand knowledge, however.).

MMGs can, and have, been used as "Personal Weapons" by big guys. I point to the Vietnam folks who used the M-60 while standing up, not truely effective, but hey, at least it didn't jam as much as the M-16. And kicked the target down, too. As well as WWII Vets who used the BAR in the same way (And even got a "Cup" designed for their belts for Hip Shooting!).

One picture I remember seeing shows two German Soldiers using an MG34 GPMG (MMG by another name to get past the restrictions Germany was under between the Wars.) standing upright. The guy in the front was using his left shoulder as a "Bipod" while the guy behind him was aiming and pulling the trigger.

I wouldn't suggest this unless you're eyeing those Cyberaudio devices, BTW.

Use the whole quote, "And a discount on bulk purchases."

The Weapons World guy says that the Ruhrmetall SF20 HMG comes with hip pad bracing, and if the MET2000 guys can hip-shoot em', I should be able to, too.

I mean, right? Maybe?

Firstly, Arsenal (SR4) has optional rules for STR based RC, just like Cannon Companion and Fields of Fire before it. Secondly, I could reason a big ork carrying around an MMG or HMG, provided he had the materials lightened using the firearms customization rules. But I think you'd find adding High Velocity to an LMG would be just as effective. Give that White Knight a foregrip, high velocity, and a custom grip. After bracing it you're looking at 8 RC, with STR optional rules you, as a "big" ork probably get another 2 RC, for a total of 10. That's just fun stuff right there.

By the rules, LMGs and HMGs have exactly the same recoil, so as long as your GM doesn't play the "that's just stupid!"-card (which it is), you can go to town with the heaviest gun you can get your grubby hands on.

The Assault Cannon?

Grubby hands?
RAW?

Check and Check!

Arsenal-modified fully automatic firing assault cannon

Ah, a man of my taste, just buy one of each and test wich one you like best? HMGs are way to heavy for me to carry, but when they start to roar, ohh man, you'd feel like Spartans in that super old cult flick '300' when the sky darkened from a hail of arrows, or something as such, can't really remeber. BTW they should totally make a trid remake out of that!

Ohh and fyi, there is no such thing as "too big for AKs"!

To end fluff and try and bring something to the thread, let me quote the description of the Ultimax HMG-2 stating that "some trolls might be strong enought to fire it while standing", so unless you'r packing some major mojo in those cyber muscles I'm afraid you'r out of luck on that one chumm.

As for modyfying the good old White Knight (My third fav weapon after the AK97 and ArmTech MGL-12 obviously...) the RAW clearly states that it cannot be further upgraded, I'm guessing this only refers to the 5(6) recoil compensation, but you could make the argument that it goes for everything possible. Anyhow, there is definately no White Knights with 8 points of RC possible if you follow the RAW.

AK98 for me. So many wonderful possibilities for that underbelly grenade launcher.

Bold emphasis mine. If you go by your alternate reading, it cannot even mount a smartgun, bipod, or tripod on it. All the "upgrades" I was referring to are "modifications" which it does not explicity prohibit, merely improving it's gas vent is. So, with the stock out, a custom grip, and foregrip, firing in Full Auto it has an RC of 8. Heck, you could further add a heavy barrel giving it RC 9 in FA, but it takes up 3 mod slots of 6 total.

Yeah, but those guys have two backup spines.

MMG's can and have been used from the hip. Even the old air cooled M1919.

Not highly accurate, but when you're firing a belt... it's the whole wall of lead in general direction of enemy bit.

If a normal human does that, don't see why a troll or cybered human couldn't manhandle a ma-deuce.


Quite frankly, the recoil comp rules are bad in this aspect. If anything NORMAL weapons should have doubled recoil penalty, and heavy weapons should have basic 1point recoil penalty (due to their weight... why they're heavy... duh to stop the recoil from bouncing them off aim!).

Recoil and Strength, p.163, Arsenal, to be specific. Rules for characters using Heavy Weapons (MMG/HMG) freehand w/o gyromount are on the page before that.

Now try that with a water-cooled M1917.

The text for the Ingram White Knight is clearly talking about the gas-vent, not the entire gun, not being upgradable (but heck, a gas-vent: 5 is 2 points more than you will find anywhere else).

You can't make it a high velocity weapon, though, as that mod is only available for submachine guns and assault rifles.

Even though you're a big and bulky ork, don't shy away form a gyro stabilization unit. Those 6 extra points of RC go a long way. Build 5 more points into the weapon and you can fire Full burst without penalty while running . If you can cram in 9 points the same goes for a custom built minigun, if you can convince your GM to give you such a gun.

Miniguns are best used for suppression anyway, because recoil doesn't ever enter the equation.

And now I'm off to building an Assault Cannon that's firing automatic at minigun speeds...

The Minigun setup can only be applied to light medium and heavy machine guns.

What?
I had to reread that, but you're correct. HVARs and Miniguns are close, but for some unfathomable "make-the-rules-more-complicated-than-necessary" reason not identical.

So I'd have to contend with turning it into a High-Velocity weapon (which is possible with every full auto weapon, which you can turn an AC into)...

Actually it is not so unfathomable. The two weapon types achieve their higher rate of fire through two different mechanisms. A high velocity weapon fires rounds through one barrel at a higher frequency whereas the minigun uses rotating barrels to achieve the same. What I don't get is why the Minigun mod only works smaller weapons.

But then you won't get any RC from mods because FA form SS or SA is 4 slots and the HV mod is 2.

SR rules don't pay attention to the bulk of the weapons, except for concealment. So if you play RAW, you can run inside a building with a HMG or a sniper rifle in your hands without any problems.
But some GM might want to add a little more realism and make it a bit more complicated.
So I guess your choice will also depend on how your GM deal with this.

Not to mention that when someone fires that HMG inside a building you better wear tripple hearing protection or join a deaf club!

I haven't seen any RPG that tries to make rules of stuff like in what enviroment you can bring certain equipment with regards to its size etc. I mean you can't drive a 50 000kg truck inside a school hallway but there is no rule to point this fact out. I think it pretty much goes without saying that stuff like this is supposed to be goverend by common sense and not some written rules.

Well, yes, they work on different principles, but they do the same thing (make weapons shoot faster). There's just no reason to mechanically differentiate stuff simply and only because of fluff differences. Mechanically different mechanics should only be used for stuff that's actually mechanically different, not just for the sake of it. Everything else is just bad design, because you force the player to remember double the rules for no practical gain (really, is there any actual advantage to having fast firing assault rifles shoot 12 bullets and fast firing LMGs shoot 15 bullets instead that comes even close to outweighing the disadvantage of having to remember twice the rules? SR4 is usually really good at avoiding that kind of stuff)


That is correct, but meaningless, because recoil doesn't matter in suppressive fire. You can shoot your HMG gangsta style without gasvent and gyro and you aren't any less acurate than if you'd use a tripod.
Which makes absolutely no sense, but them's the rules.

May I quote the next time one of my players try something like this?

Go with the HMG. Best in terms of everything. Although if you plan on not firing it with a gyromount, I would recommend going back to the AK-98. It's an all round decent weapon. I know a guy who can get you a great deal on some ammo for it.


Thanks for the heads up on what your team is carrying!

It's not entirely true that SR4 ignores weapon bulk except for concealment.

There are encumberance rules, but it's up to the GM to determine the weight of the gear being carried, as no weights are listed in the rulebooks. The Developers realized after years of being told their weights were always unrealistic, the solution was to shift that research to GMs who care. One of the quickest ways to make a GM start caring is to go running around with your HMGs akimbo.

And while you can "run around" with a HMG in your hands without any problems, the rules for Carrying Heavy Weapons from p.162 of Arsenal lists Body of 8+ and Strength of 8+ as the minimums for freehand firing. And even if you're big enough and strong enough, you still risk stun damage and knockdown.

Except that rule is completdly retarded, as a pistol grenadelauncer is also an heavy weapon.

The M-79 ("Bloop Gun" from Vietnam) supposedly kicked like two mules. I'm pretty sure Grenade Launchers still do.

Then limit Arsenal's rule to just the heavy weapons that suffer double uncompensated recoil:


Or don't use it at all. My only point was that there were other rules besides the concealment rules that cared about big weapons.

Or if your GM insists on using this optional rule and does not see reason even if you show him RL unaugmented norms firing at least LMGs from the standing position, cram together the 3k¥ for the gyromount, problem solved. There are no restrictions to running around or fighting hand to hand in SR4 as opposed to SR3.

Showing this video to GM, should help nicely with that argument.

And to throw more fuel onto the fire, LMGs do not require reinforced weapon mounts per Arsenal's vehicle mod rules, normal mounts do just fine.

The best part about THAT is that you can make Body 3 drones that can be carried around like a backpack. Now, take that drone, stick a weapon mount on it, get an LMG going on your back as well as the one you've got in your hands...

You could also use an articulated weapon arm or, if you can get it and don't want to pay essence, MilSpec armor with such an arm.

Who said that bod 3 drones are backpack sized? My arsenal says the following:
I wouldn't want to have a great dane or a Harley on my back.