High velocity weapons are mentioned as weapon mods. There's a sidebar on page 26 that explains how HV weapons work. They're only available for SMGs and assault rifles.

The sidebar on page 30 of Arsenal explains miniguns. But there is no "minigun mod" listed for machine guns - they're only listed in the catalog. But there's only one (an LMG).

Should I assume that the minigun mod costs the same as the high velocity mod (double weapon cost)? Or should I assume that they can't be modified, and only built from the ground up?

Can anyone help me out, here? How can I get an HMG minigun? Suggested costs and availabilities, for either purchase or new construction?

Also...
How can people fire these weapons? Fifteen rounds, that's -14 recoil. Normal recoil mods are: 6 tripod, 1 electronic firing, 3 gas vent. We'll not use the heavy barrel option. So that's ten of the fourteen covered, which is -8 due to it being a heavy weapon. First of all, why aren't these options included as standard? Second, the average soldier in the field still wouldn't stand a chance of hitting his target. What's he roll? Ten dice? A shadowrunner, who's designed to be good with guns like this will be able to fire it, but that's not exactly a viable target market. Why do these exist?

Mount it on a vehicle, of course. Vehicles ignore Recoil.

Or you Use a Strong (Recoil-2 or -3) Troll and a personalised ( -1)foregrip (-1) Hip or Schockpad(-1)
with a Tripod (Recoil -6) use 6 Gasvents (Recoil -3)
But Mostly a Minigun is used on a Vehicle or for Suppressive Fire (or against Predators )

Hough!
Medicineman

You could buy six HMGs, some duct tape and an old bicycle. - Ah, and don't forget hanging lots of gold necklace around your neck.

I don't think you can use the mod as you suggested to create a mini gun since the mechanical activities of high velocity are markedly differnet from a minigun. There are, I think, 2-3 different mechanical styles for how automatic weapons feed. A minigun usues a completely different design, most natably the average automatic uses part of the power of the previous show to power the springs, the mini gun uses an outside power source, the battery pack.

As for the rcoil, as others have said, vehical mount. HMG mean heavy machine gun. This is not something designed to be carired in you arms and fought from there. Remember Rambo with an M-60 (LT MG) was over the top. An example of an HMG is the M-2 .50 calliber machingun mounted on modern tanks. This is the weapon that was turret mounted on WW2 bombers and in the wings of Mustangs. This is already a massive hunk of metal and you're going to make it even bigger and heavier by adding 5 more barrels? This is not something even a troll is going to happily lug into a fight

Hmm. I think I'll use a new bicycle, just to be on the safe side. Hey, this reminds me, didn't there used to be rules for coaxial guns? Probably SR2.


Well I did say I put it on a tripod.

And my complaint about the recoil making it nearly unusable still stands for LMG miniguns.


Makes sense. So...


... let's say I want to mount it on a vehicle. How do I get one?

First... Some Definitions...

LMG - M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (5.56mm)
MMG/GPMG - M-60 Machine Gun (7.62mm)
HMG - M2 .50 Heavy Machine Gun (12.7mm)

The M214 Minigun (Vindicator Minigun in Shadowrun) is the equivalent of the Light Machine Gun (5.56mm) in a Minigun style package

The 7.62 Minigun (MMG Minigun) is what you have mounted on a modern version of "Puff the Magic Dragon" (at least one variant of such)... this is an awesome weapon platform, for an awesome weapon...

the .50 Minigun would be a devastating weapon, though not quite on par with the 20mm and 30mm Autocannons used on Planes...

Obviously, as has been said prior, such weapons are generally mounted on vehiclles only... Jesse Ventura notwithstanding, you would never be able to effectively fire such a weapon off the hip (as seen in the movie "Predator"), and it would only be marginally more manageable from a ground mounted Tripod...

As for purchasing your own version of the Medium or Heavy Minioguns, I would give a cost multiplier of 3.5 to produce such a weapon, assuming you had a supplier of such as this is obviously a military grade weapon.... and hoe that you had a good contact that was capable of providing such weapons... just a reminder though, using one of these weapons incurs a horrendous cost in ammunition...


Keep the faith...

GE Vigilant Light Autocannon 8P
GE Vanquisher Heavy Autocannon 11P

Both use minigun rules. Arsenal pg. 123-124

There you go... Though I would class them as 20mm and 30mm respectively... as their descriptives fit that classification and are exclusively Mounted Weapons for Vehicles...

I think an M-60 is a Lt mg- itis one man protable. for an MMG I always think of the German Spandau (MG-42?) and the Browning 30. cal.

It's not just the weight of the gun but the wieght of the bullet. Ever see a .50 cal MG bullet? The fragger's longer than my hand! In WW1 the British Vickers and German Maxim's were horribly heavy pieces but for the weight of hteir bullets would also have bene. I think MMG's. The less said about the French Chauchat, the better. (we really need raygun for this.)

The tripod implies a setr position. you can't just lug all that on a run and set up in Renraku's hallway. OK you can but the time involved to srt up andstrip down pretty much means you're there until you run out of bullets, abandon the weapon or they run out of Red Saumrai.

Speaking of gas vents, are you even allowed to put gas vents on a multi-barreled weapon like a minigun?

if you vent each barrel you might get away with it.

I don't think any one mentioned Gyro Stabilization ("Firearm Accessories" pp. 322 sr4a) Think about the marines with the (obviously HV) MMG's in the third Aliens movie. " This is the gear that makes heavy weapons man portable. LMG and larger are really built for emplacement defence and vehicle aplications. In the setting I think it makes more sence in a millitary application to load a LMG with APDS and put in on a gyro than to build a bigger heavier gun for a soldier to lug through the bush.

I would assume a complex action to deploy a tripod, or pick it up. Yes, I know that's generous, but we'll call it technology advancements. And you really can't do anything else while carrying it (especially combat). Even a troll.

A gyromount has the same recoil as the tripod, but can be used in a "running" gunfight. They're not very useful in the bush, though. I wouldn't want to wear one out there, anyway.

As for gas-vent systems, there is nothing in the current rules saying that they are barrel-mount only. The specific text that relates is "allowing gases to vent through more points that just the barrel opening." Oh, wait - that was Arsenal. The BBB says it's a barrel mount. And also that the venting is vectored to counter barrel-rise. Which would probably not work so well on the spinning barrels. Well crap. Though I'd think a case could be made for non-barrel-mount gas vents.

The only reason that I'd think gass vents have to be on the barrel is because that's where the Gasses are, IN the barrel. The only other mods that *might* involve the gasses would be something like the "special chamber design" of the Ares Alpha (sr4a pp. 318)

and I don't mean to be argumentitive at all but the Gyro does; "The system neutralizes up to 6 points of recoil and movement
modifiers." so it should be pretty handy and easy to use anywhere.

vents are barrel mounts, like the cuts on a RL thompson, but in theopry you could mount them on all barrels of a minigun. Though you could argue that something designed for a small personal long arm might not fit on the honking huge barrel of an HMG.

A gyro mount helps with recoil but not the huge weight of an HMG.

Do you mean the 2nd movie, Aliens, perhaps? I'm not sure they are MMGs, I just remember reading they were based on the German MG-42, and the Pulse Rifles were based on the Thompson. Strange that an AR would be based on an SMG frame, I know.

BUSTED!

Absolutely yes I do mean the second Aliens movie. Thank you. I'm trying to purge my memory of the final movie and it's messing up the count in my mind.

Obviously I've done little research on the movie. All I know is that the maching guns they used on the gyromount harness looked almost two meters long and heavy. I especially apprieciated the sceen early in the flik whey they were doing their practice "gyromount Tai chi" I've been sold on gyro's ever since. I even had a SR3 troll who used one because they looked cool in Aliens.

well I'm off to make another Merc character

I'm supposing that you don't even intend to acknowledge Resurrection considering your reaction to 3. Don't worry, you're not alone in those feelings. Still, I think Ship Troopers 2 was worse.

But all that aside, I think that it is fairly efficient to mount the LMG miniguns on drones considering that they both ignore recoil modifiers since they are vehicles and only take up a standard weapon mount. That's good in my book considering the "low" dice pool inherent to drones.

On a side note, is it possible to mount an under barrel grenade launcher on a minigun?

I wholeheartedly approve of the optional rule to use the drone/vehicle's body as recoil compensation.

I would say yes, since you just have to bolt the thing on underneath. Why should it have to be the barrel itself?

But I do like the idea of a bayonet on each barrel. ZZZZZZ!!

Zorrag the troll merc had a problem.
He couldn't fire his new minigun,
even for him it was too much!

So he mounted it on his Renraku manservant;
which may not be able to run,
but now it doesn't need to!

I've been working my way through the rulebook slowly but surely, and can't find anywhere where it says vehicles ignore recoil. Is it in a supplement?

Arsenal, p.105

VEHICLE WEAPONS AND RECOIL
Theoretically, vehicle weapons mounted in a weapon mount
do not suffer negative recoil modifiers, but this can lead
to strange results when a very large gun is mounted on a very small
vehicle... In instances like this, it is perfectly all right for the GM
to apply negative modifiers equal to those a person shooting
the weapon would suffer from recoil, counting in the vehicle’s mass
(as a rule of thumb: its Body rating) as recoil compensation.

This refers to a fully controlled weapon mount, not just a pintle mount.

yeah but even with a hard point don't you really want to know when you fire an assault canon from a citron?

Pshaw. You'd think people wouldn't be silly to do things like mount a 75mm anti-tank cannon to a Vespa scooter bike.




-np

I don't think that shockpad and tripod stack.

That's a recoilless rifle...why am I just imagining a troll cooking his whole team with the backblast of a recoilless AC?

*cough*

So, hypothetically, what if somebody wanted an assault cannon in a gyro-stabilized Thundercloud Contrail racing bike? The stock rules don't seem to address recoil in Single-Shot mode, and even though the descriptions of the weapons all talk about massive recoil, it doesn't really effect players, does it? Even the semi-auto version should only be at the standard -1 recoil on a second shot, right?

~Mike

It sounds like you're asking whether firing guns should have a detrimental effect on the actions of the characters. Like forcing a Pilot Groundcraft roll on the driver of the Vespa in question.

I've done my time on both sides of the DM Screen, so whenever a rule looks too good to be true I start trying to find the holes in it. Breaking the game with overpowered weapons is only fun for about five minutes.

The implementation of heavy weps in SS/SA mode means they have negligible recoil. Since that is counter-intuitive, I wanted to get some opinions on it. A Panther XXL assault cannon can be modded into a SA weapon for +400Y; If I mount it on my cycle, I'll get -6 to recoil, and the second shot will only have 1 point of recoil to absorb. If I upgrade it to Burst-fire, my first 3-round burst will be at -2 (Absorbed) and my second shot will be at -3 (Absorbed). Assuming I have the skill to land both hits, that should be two DV12 AP-5 hits, a decent damage output in a chase. I'm firing 6 Assault Cannon Shells, from a speeding motorcycle, with a recoil penalty of...0.

Seems low.

Now, that could be assuming that part of that complicated and expensive weapon mount is a set of heavy recoil absorbing hydraulics, but it's still a phenomenal amount of firepower being thrown from a bike for there *not* to be some sort of penalty. I like the Pilot Groundcraft roll idea - especially since my Rigger is specced well enough for that to work out.

~Mike