Ok, searching on two-weapons brings up too many hits so i thought i'd pose my question.

The rules on using two weapons (in this case guns) state that you split your die role between the two weapons. This yields two attack roles. I have a player, who wants to use two pistols, that happen to be SA pistols. Would this result in just two shots or four shots? And, assuming its 2 shots like i expect you folks will tell me, why would someone ever want to use two pistols at once other than to show off?

Hope this makes sense? Its early in the morning.

Thanks,
K

Yes. He would split his dice pool between the two, making it so he can do far more damage if he hits with both shots, the advantage is that this is still a simple action (IIRC). So he could turn around and do it again in the same pass, for a total of 4 shots

EDIT: To clarify abit...

First init. pass:

He splits his dice pool, allowing him to shoot both pistols as different attacks but under the same action. The damage rolls are rolled apart from one another.

then for his second simple action in the pass, he can turn around and do the same thing again.

for a total of 4 attacks. meaning 4 sets of damage being done if he hits

..and no +2 die from smartgun system, recoil modifiers growing..( 2xSA pistols..Personalized grip + underbarrel weight mods
are good..)..

He could also just fire twice once with each weapon, circumventing the dual-wielding rules altogehter. In this case he gets the full pool for both shots, can use the smartlink each time and has no recoil whatsoever, since it is the first shot for both weapons.

If the weapon is capable you can also do this with short and long bursts.

That tactic is particulary useful with SS weapons, suger the Ruger Super Warhawk. The Ambidexterity quality essentially lets you wield two of them, simulating a 6P/-2 SA Heavy Pistol with an ammo capacity of 12, at the cost of not having a free hand available. And that makes reloading a bit of a pain, but ideally you won't be in too many fights that last more than six passes.

Still prefer two Ingram Smartguns with 5 RC each. The long bursts should make some fine red mist.

never understood why a smarlink is negated if you dual wield since it seams like a system that requires the less amount of brainpower from the user himself to aim properly so it shouldn´t be so much more harder to make two crosses align with the target then one

Probably the same reason why they errataed the Improved Skill Adept Power to an Increase in the Skill from a DP Modifier. They don't want someone to shoot just as well with two weapons as with one.

Unfortunately this makes dual ranged combat a poor choice as opposed to two-weapons style melee.

Which has some basis in real life actually...

The reason a smartgun does not work with dual wielding is the same reason you can't stick laser sights on two handguns and dual-wield them with any real results in real life, you eyes can only focus on one thing at once; smartguns are--at their base--a glorified laser-sight; you still have to look at where you are pointing them, and you can only look at one thing at a time.

It really makes sense.

still doesn´t make sense, you are already reducing your chance to hit by 50% by splitting the dice pool so doing it to make sure dual wielding isn´t to über makes no real sense, for lasersights that I can grasp, but with smartgun it seam like they shot them self in the foot by making something that screams "makes dual wielding a piece of cake" and then bluntly say you can´t benefit from it with no rime or reason.



not really, a smartgun gives you a crossair that moves as you move the gun, for a lasersight to be effective you still need to aim along the gun, a smartgun system you can just hold the gun as you like and use the cross to aim in giving much more brainpower over to coordinate two crosses

Where using a pair of guns comes into its own is, well... pretty much the only place where you'd expect it to: when you're inside of a few meters and there's nothing making it harder for you to hit. Dumping 4 short bursts into a target, if you can actually *hit* with them, racks up a huge amount of damage for your target to try and shrug off. Obviously, recoil compensation helps a lot with this. Even if you don't manage to hit or do any respectable damage, your character has just slapped a bigass -4 on the target's dice pool for avoiding whatever the next guy in the initiative order is about to try.

I've got one character who's actually got Pistols (Akimbo)... the Specialization only kicks in when he fires two simultaneously. That +2 modifier gets applied after the pools are halved, and lets him squeak by with 5 dice per shot when he goes to town, not an insurmountable drop from his usual 7 dice (including laser sight). If you're close enough to the target to get the Point Blank bonus (say, you just jumped up onto the table he's sitting at), the +2 from that gets applied after you halve the pools, too. Putting someone into a situation where you've got a few bonus dice and you're running two guns simultaneously is when you can make life really, really hard for them.

As someone mentioned earlier, having a machine pistol or SMG in each hand allows you to fire two Long Bursts per turn, and allows you to stack recoil compensation onto each gun. Personalized, gas-vented, underbarrel-weighted, full-auto-modified 5-7C's with extended mags run 6 points of RC apiece, and let you put down 8 long bursts in 4 passes with no penalties before you've got to reload. Getting that kind of recoil compensation onto something like an Ingram Smartgun with an extended mag pushes that out to 12 long bursts in 6 passes. And if you really must kill something, you could always start firing them both at the same time

Four simultaneous short bursts have a recoil of -2, -4, -7, -10 which of course are applied after the split. With RC it looks a little better since only the uncompensated recoil is transferred. In melee however you have no recoil and the defender gets -1 for the first and -2 for the second attack. Not to mention the maneuver which allows you to go on full defense while attacking with one weapon.

I don't see why a laser sights should not work with two weapons at the same time. Just as with the smartlink you only have to match the beam/crosshairprojection with your target. Any difficulties for bad posture are the same. To avoid confusion as to which laser is which you could use different colors.

I've tried aiming with two flashlights and that worked fine. Of course I didn't try it with a gun but I'm sure it would be helpful. Unfortunately one can't halve a single dice.

[img]http://www.schlockmercenary.com/comics/schlock20020412.png[/img]

From Schlock Mercenary, an amazing webcomic

I think this sums it up nicely.

Edit: Bah. Image tags are failing me!

Why would you halve a die? The rules only speak of splitting. There is not rule that the pool has to be split evenly. 1 and Pool-1 should be fine as well.

@Schlock Mercenary: This only becomes a problem if you want to shoot more than one target simultaneously.

No, you don't need to aim along the gun with a laser sight (it does help to do so, of course); the laser sight paints the target with a red dot so you can see where you are pointing your weapon (give or take up to an inch of offset).

... and the different between a crosshair and a little red dot is...?

still as long as you aim at one or two target within the save field of vision I see no issue using a smartgun system, combat trained people need to keep track of 3-4 heck sometimes more targets in combat so if anything not using something like smartgun when dual wielding seams stupid.

It does. The RAW however is that you can't use it when dualwielding.

BTW is there a rule prohibiting to install several smartlinks in cybereyes or vision wear? That way you could save the free action to switch weapons when you shoot only twice with two weapons.

@laser sights: Maybe you're thinking about a reflex or red dot sight. This indeed wouldn't make much sense to use while dualwielding. A laser sight is just a small laser aligned with the barrel of the gun.

so far as I understood the smartlink in eyes of glasses can take data from theraticly unlimited amount of smartlinked guns your using, so you won´t find any use having several smartlinks, it´s like installing several copies of the same OP on your computer.

If that is the case, you are right. Then however it makes even less sense that you don't get the bonus if you are dualwielding. Also this opens interesting possibilities to see where your teammates are aiming.

Now I want to crank up my virtual machine and see how many copies of Windows XP I can get running at the same time on my computer . I typically run Ubuntu and have Windows running in a VM... I wonder how many Windows boxes I can run like that before I crash my computer...



Thanks...

well if they allow it, obviously there is some kind if ID/Password system with each smartlink gun that your register to your smarlink implant or eyewear as a measure of security.

Yes, but trying to split your concentration to aim two cross-hairs (or red dots) and fire both of them while maintaining proper form will negate any real help you might get from the system. There is a perfectly good reason that SWAT officers don't mount laser sights on handguns and dual-wield them that way. Everyone I know who "dual"-wields weapons in shooting competitions (which is only in Western shooting that you see it), alternates hands when they shoot.

If it was at all possible to make dual wielding work better than just using a single SMG or carbine, then the FBI, CBP, and SWAT would have been all over it a long time ago.

that has more to do with recoil management and the fact they always want a hand free for other duties, if there was a way to make a gun that was 100% recoiless even if you shot like a maniac and somehow left at least one hand free for use then yes dual wielding would be more frequently used by SWAT, FBI etc in sitation where a handgun is best suited.

In which case, you've got a -2 dice pool penalty from choosing Multiple targets, according to RAW. Don't know if that penalty applies to both shots though..

There's actually a very clever way to partially circumvent the 'no smartlinks while dualwielding' rule. Ironically, it involves making your smartlinks smarter.

If you look at the firearm section, in the weapon accessories section, you'll note that the Smartgun(1) system includes a Camera(2). How many enhancements isn't up spelled out, but its clearly a security device, so that's a rough extimate of four - and the external version cost matches up exactly with a rating 4 camera.
Thermo(3), vision mag(4), low-light(5) and flare comp(6) all fit in that for a fairly affordable price - though only 3/4 fit in availability 12.
Get a cracked rating 3 tacsoft, to load on you and your smartguns, and viola! Bonus dice.
Not too shabby for around a grand of extra dosh.

Oooh, Tacsoft!!

I'm having a blast with this thread.

I'm twiddling with a Sam in Excel as we speak.

Twin Lower Cyberarms with Cyberarm Gyromounts, Str 10 with Muscle Augmentation, Agl 9 with P4MO and Muscle Toner. Reflex Recorder giving Automatics 7 and a Specialization in Dual-Wielding.

Modded Praetors with Extended Clips, Heavy Barrel and High Velocity and Gas Vent 3 as an accessory.

I think that's 11 points of RC each which is enough for 2 long bursts from each weapon fully compensated.

A rating 3 TacNet and Tracer rounds is another 5 Dice to each attack.

I think that's four long bursts with 15 Dice per Action Phase. You can go 6 IP's before having to reload.

Actually it has alot more to do with the fact that IRL having two hands on a weapon helps steady it, making the aim more accurate, and that even when using a laser sight, you still do most of the aiming with the gun like normal, the laser is just a bit of a "Yep, my sight isn't messed up." and is especially useful in poor visibility conditions where it would be hard to make out your target through the smoke, but the light on them makes them show up alot better.

It also has to do with the fact that law enforcement generally don't fire weapons all that much. The idea is more to make the other guy realize they're out manned and aren't going to win then pumping them full of lead. And even when they do fire, they are trained to fire a small number of rounds, they aren't there to go all rambo on people. Besides, why go through the trouble of having to deal with two pistols when an automatic of some kind is so much more natural?

Oh, and don't forget the 'public image' aspect of things. If SAWT starts running around duel wielding pistols, PR is going to go down the drain quick as people get this image of them being 'gunslingers' and 'hot off the handle' types as opposed to professionals who use deadly force as a last resort.

I can't imagine tracer rounds helping if for some reason laser sights can't help you, as they run on a fairly similar theory.

Come to think of it I can't imagine tracer rounds helping all that much if you have a laser sight/smartgun already, since they all provide the same benefit of saying "This is where your gun is pointing"

Not an unreasonable POV but I'm working from a strictly RAW perspective.

Tracers are odd. You only get the benefit beyond Short range so they are actually more effective in an SMG than in an AR.

Half smartlink bonus per hand (2D/2=1) would work fine for dual weapons but not with laser sights (1D/2=0,5).

Yeah, I know you are, I just thought it was a kind of interesting thing that laser sight and smartgun don't stack, but for some reason either one stacks just fine with tracers which are essentially short lived laser sights (And yet are more effective than laser sights in most cases).

I mean I guess there is some benefit to knowing where you're bullets are -actually- going as opposed to where they -theoretically should- go, but it doesn't seem as though it should be that significant unless your gun is truly messed up, in which case the laser sight might be a hindrance.

You don't halve either one. The only thing you halve when splitting your DP is (Skill + Attribute) and nothing else. Everything else (Specialty, smartlink if it theoretically worked) gets added on as a bonus to both new DPs so long as they are applicable to both weapons. It is also true that it doesn't say that you 'halve' the DP, just that you split it, so you can split it any way you want, to represent focusing more on one gun than the other.

This is especially important to take into account when considering bonuses/penalties. A wound modifier for instance is twice as bad for you when duel wielding (Because it applies to both DPs) as are any sort of vision impairments.

So lets say you have a skill of 3, and an Agi of 3, and 3 boxes of damage.

This means that you split your (3 + 3 = 6) dice however you want into two DPs, each of which is used for a separate gun. This could be a 3/3 split or a 2/4 split or a 1/5 split.

You then take each DP and apply all bonuses/penalties to each one separately. So if you did a 2/4 split in the above example, each one would then have the -1 wound penalty applied to it, and you would end up rolling 1 die for one gun, and 3 dice for the other gun. This is the major danger of duel wielding. Any unfavorable conditions are twice as bad for you.

I was only suggesting a way one could handle two guns with smartlink. But it wouldn't work with lasersights.

Not -precisely-. Its one bonus dice - the amount of people in the network limit the bonus(#-2. thats why you need 3 people minimum). With just you and your two smartguns, its just one dice. HOWEVER. Give the crack-net to your teammates, or a pair of spotter drones and they'll bring it up to the full 3(if they meet the sensor criteria).

If you're burning restricted gear on a tacnet anyway, get a rating 4, and slap on a Voice Activation/Response mod to your guns. That nets you a microphone, which should let the guns meet the sensor channel requirement for it, with an enhancement or two. Since it only needs a kit, its also a prime candidate for Overmodding if your guns are full up already.

Unless those people happen to be black, male and armed with a wallet. Then they fire 46 rounds.

My personal reasoning for the default rule is that it's pretty damn confusing to try and keep track of two separate targeting reticules. Be they HUD displays or little red dots in the distance. Even if you get them color coded, it's going to take a lot of practice to get used to remembering which is which, and adjusting an individual weapon when you're not sure which one needs adjusting just makes it all the more difficult. Whatever benefit it provides it dismissed by the time and effort it takes to concentrate on your coordination to get both firearms lined up properly. Even worse, by the time you adjust one, the other might be out of alignment since you were too focused on getting the other one just right.

This is as opposed to guestimating where both weapons are pointed under normal circumstances. You could do the same with the two dots/reticules, but then you're not really relying on them anyway, so why should they give a bonus?

Tracer rounds, on the other hand, are more than just dots/crosshairs. They create an entire line of light from the firearm to the target which is a heck of a lot easier to differentiate since they're basically extensions of your arms. That's just going to naturally be easier to process for most people.

If I were going to house rule it, though, I'd probably use Doc Byte's method. Laser sights aren't going to do shit for you in my opinion; they may help if you have plenty of time to aim and focus, but in the heat of a typical firefight in Shadowrun you don't have the time or energy to invest in that. Smartlinks will be a little easier, especially if you have them color coded and have practiced extensively at keeping track of both of them. And even then a +1 bonus to each one is much more fair and adherent to the nature of the rules for splitting the dice to begin with. I'd also probably require an additional positive quality for that, too, to account for the practice you've put in for it.

If you're trying to logic up game mechanics, it doesn't work that well. That arguement kind of falls through the floor if you're talking about a Skillwired gun user - there's no reason it wouldn't be able to pick apart two crosshairs.

Why would it be any better than a skilled person? Skillwires basically just "teach" you the skill temporarily. They're not some kind of super robot thing that function on their own, and even then they're only kinda close to natural skill if you get the Skillwire Booster or whatever it's called.

I also wasn't trying to "logic up game mechanics." I was rationalizing why the rule is okay to me. If I were "logicing it up," I'd be using that rationalization to explain a house rule contrary to the game mechanics, sort of like I did in my last paragraph. And even then, I was just agreeing with Doc Byte's suggestion.

To test the theory out, I just hunted down two of my laser pointers. I was sitting comfortably in a chair and "quick drawed" one of them and aimed at a specific point on the wall about ten feet away. Didn't take long at all to get it there; less than a second, I'd wager. Next, I stood up, jostled around a bit, and sat in another chair just to reset everything. I did the same thing this time, only drawing a pointer from both sides of my hips. It took me far longer to get both of them aimed at the same point. A good 4-5 seconds (which, incidently, is almost two Combat Turns). And that was at a range of about 10 feet. 50 or more and it'd be crazy.

So yeah, I'm sticking with my rationalizing and the standard rule. I'm sure I could speed it up a little if I practiced enough and if I continued to have a nice, peaceful environment to aim them. In the heat of a fight and at any range greater than that, though, and it'd be totally worthless compared to just guestimated shots.

But your forgetting that, among other things, you are (I'm guessing) not ambidextrous, and thus have a -2 penalty with your off hand, which most duel weapon wielders wouldn't have. You also have to consider that you tried this once (Or maybe a handful of times). I'd imagine that with the level of practice required to reach a skill of 4+ which most SR weapon users have, you'd have hours upon days upon weeks upon months of training.

Your rational is kinda like saying "I tossed a few balls in the air and couldn't juggle, thus juggling must be impossible." There is also a varying level of ability to split focus in people. Once again someone who is inclined to use duel weapons is likely someone who is good at splitting their focus.

Check out this game for an example. Some people will have immense difficulty with it by the second or third task. Personally I'm very good at splitting my focus and can play it for ages. I'd imagine that if I had two laser pointers (I wish) I'd be more apt after a few attempts of 'duel drawing' the pointers than others would.

Oh, and also, you don't have much of a base line. Try doing it a few times with your eyes closed. Try and aim just one (to simulate a regular gun) and see about how long it takes you to get on target, and how far off you are, then compare that to how long it takes/how accurate you are with a single pointer and your eyes open (Thus simulating a single weapon with a laser pointer). Then you do the same thing with both at the same time.

Once you have all four numbers (Hopefully with about five trials each, rotating which one you do constantly so as not to have a buildup of skill affect whichever test you do last the most) we can preform some mathamancy and figure out if the lasers help you at all when duel wielding.

Edit: I suppose to -really- test the theory we need someone to go down to a gun range with two guns with laser sights on them and compare their accuracy with and without the sights. But barring that, laser pointers will have to do.

Tacsoft on a smartgun is dicey. (though they list stats for a smartgun under sample peripheral nodes in unwired).

The smartgun includes two items... basic guncam (no special vision mods), and a rangefinder. Adding more requires using up gun modification capacity to upgrade it's sensors. (Improved Rangefinder, and improved camera mods from arsenal immediately come to mind).

I'd say no to arbitrarily upgrading the camera w/o using modification capacity as it makes those arsenal modifications pointless.

Also, if you look at the example for tacnets in unwired, it specifically lists "smartlink' as a single sensor channel. So you're skirting the rules, and potentially on thin ice.

There is also something to be said for the fact that you would be getting three sets of all but perfectly identical data, because the viewpoint for all of those sensors is within a foot or two of each other for both guns and yourself.

That's why I did it with just one pointer, too. I'm equally "unskilled" with both, yet it was significantly easier (and that's the key phrase) aiming one rather than two. And while not ambidextrous like they portray in the game, I'm nearly as competent with my left hand as I am my right. At least as far as things like writing or using tools go. One of the perks of having had the right side of my body paralyzed for a few months.

Actually shooting a gun or juggling balls is a whole other story, and that's related to the actual skill at using them. This was purely aiming which takes no special skill as far as I'm aware, either in real life or in Shadowrun. At least not at a target ten feet away.

I'd imagine that a large part of being able to shoot a gun properly is being able to aim. I mean there is only so much "Squeeze the trigger, don't pull it." you can manage to incorporate into your skill. I figure 95+% of it is being able to aim the weapon, steady the weapon, and know how to compensate for things like leading a target and so on.

I'm not debating that it took you longer to aim the lasers with two hands than one, that should be obvious, and is represented in the rules (Splitting the dice pool), but the problem is you don't have a baseline of how long it takes you to 'aim' two 'guns' without lasers compared to 'aiming' two 'guns' with lasers. That's why I suggested trying it a few times with your eyes closed. Instead of having your eyes closed, you could take your aim, then hold it and turn on the lasers and see how close you were, but it is hard to not move the lasers as you are turning them on. If you look directly at the place you are 'shooting' though, and then close your eyes, it should have the same effect of aiming without the lasers, but leaving the lasers on to see how accurate you are.

To reiterate: the problem with your experiment is that it shows aiming two weapons is slower than aiming one weapon, not that aiming two weapons with laser sights is no easier than aiming two weapons without laser sights.

I could repeat the experiment by throwing first one and then two tennis balls at a similar target in similar situations. Somehow I doubt it would take me 4-5 times longer to do so and yet still get them both in about the same spot with around the same level of accuracy as a single ball.

I think you might be surprised at the results actually. The problem is that when you don't have the laser sight, you won't be spending any time at all aiming, you'll just point and hope you'll be about right. Same with the balls, it won't take you any longer to throw them because you won't be spending any longer aiming with two than one, but you will likely be less accurate.

I don't know, it really is something that is kinda hard to do without real guns (Or maybe paint guns).

And as I said, alot of this relies on your personal ability to split your focus. Some people will naturally be far better at it than others, and of course training can change the results drastically.

No more than I'd be just randomly shooting and hoping for the best. The point is in neither situation do you have an aid for aiming other than your best guess. I wouldn't just pick up two balls and hurl them blindly in a general direction anymore than I'd do the same with two guns, which is what you seem to be implying here. I'd take a moment, get my bearings, and let loose with a genuine desire to hit my target as best I could. Just like I would with one ball or one gun.

It would take me a moment longer to do it with two but, again, I really doubt it would take nearly as long as it would if I were trying to get two tiny little laser dots lined up on there, too. I think the point I'm trying to make that you're not quite grasping is that the added difficulty has more to do with keeping the dots straight and manipulating each weapon appropriately more than it does of actually using the two weapons. It's a whole added level of difficulty on top of just aiming normally with whatever method you prefer, and far more difficult by itself than aiming a single laser dot.

I think another problem is that you're trying to add in an Aimed Shot (or whatever the term is; my mind is futzy at the moment) modifier to the situation.

Well, I suppose we just have to reach a difference of opinion here. Personally I don't believe I would have any particular trouble lining up two laser sights (especially if there were different colors) because I am exceedingly good a multi-tasking. I can for instance juggle and walk a slack line at the same time. I can read a book and watch a movie at the same time. I can even write with both hands at the same time, though that is admittedly difficult. Like I said, do that multitask game I linked a few posts back, see how good you do. I'd imagine that your score in that would be directly related to your ability to use two laser sights at once.

Oh, and I am a master of patting my head and rubbing my stomach at the same time

To be fair, the rule applies whether you have Ambidexterity or not. That's completely separate ruleset from using two weapons at once.