I am a bit new on the whole SR4 thingy, but one of my players pointed out that yesterday to me. Isn't Ares Alpha Rifle a little broken?

It´s says it has a "Specially Designed Firing Chamber" that gives two levels of recoil compensation. But is that cumulative with other forms of recoil compensation? Because it it is, it is able to fire Long Bursts at no recoil (-2 of the mystic magical firing chamber, -3 from Gas Vent compensators, total -5). Is that correct? because no other weapon on the whole game has a "generic recoil bonus" (I lie. High Velocity Weapons have it).

Just wondering. Sounds a little to goo to be true

I have never allowed additional recoil compensators on the Ares Alpha to stack. If you put a Gas Vent in it, you have destroyed the "special chamber" effect and replaced it with the GV system.

same as Malachi, i always rule out gas venting as being compatible, figuring that in a sense it already has
on board gas venting.

SR devs have a habit of making one or two weapons in a group so obviously superior to everything else that you'd be fool to use any other weapon.

yes, because we all know the ak-97 is the best of the bunch

I have generally allowed Gas Vent to be added to the Alpha. I agree that a GM could certainly read the wording and say "no." But given that it is described as being something different from a barrel based gas vent, it seems reasonable to me. Yes, it results in a much better weapon than the rest. So? (I am not particularly in to guns. Having an easy choice for what to take is much better for me.)

Yours,
Joel

You forgot the shock pad, underbarrel weight for a total of -7rc. you might be able to sneak a heavy barrel in there too.

My point is, the ares alpha does appear to be clearly superior, but you can achieve the same effect with just about every other gun out there. Gyro-Mounted HMGs with Gas Vent 3 anyone?

It also costs more than the others-so I do not see a problem. Add a gas vent 3, stock, fore grip, and heavy barrel to any assault rifle and you are at -5 rc modifier it is just 2 more dice in the end.

Underbarrel is already taken up by the grenade launcher included with the weapon.

The Ares Alpha, much like the Ingram White Knight, is a collossal failure of game design. Both are insurmountably better than their competitors, which strains not only game balance but plausibility. This is only further weakened by how abstract the system is. The abstraction means that all the various little things that would potentially balance out the increased recoil compensation of the Alpha and the White Knight like weight, reliability, or inherent first round accuracy are handwaved away, leaving you with "the right answer" and "everything else".

Arsenal lets you put an underbarrel weight on there anyway

I'm just not certain how anyone could conclude anything other than the "special chamber design" could be interpreted in any other manner than permitting its bonus to stack with gas vents. That said, I can understand why some GMs would houserule it to not stack, but do not agree with it at all.

For those who find the Ares Alpha and Ingram White Knight to be glaring and problematic exceptions to an otherwise balanced the game system, I submit the following.

1. The heavy crossbow is unbalanced. Light and Medium crossbows deal less damage without any concealment bonuses.
2. The Morrissey Elan is the only worthwhile holdout pistol.
3. The HK XM30 is possibly the worst weapon in the game.
4. The PSJJ Elephant Rifle with Ex-Explosive ammo is an Assault Cannon avaliable at character creation that grants sniper and shotgun proficiency.
5. The Yamaha Sakura Fubuki is clearly the best light pistol, and in general, light pistols suck.
6. Muscle Replacement is such a bad option that its only use is for one shot suicide grunts.
7. Unarmed combat is far superior than weapon based melee combat.
8. The Automatics Skill is unbalanced because it permits the use of TMPs, SMGs, and Assault Rifles.

I mean, I wish that they had another assault rifle to choose from that offered similar quality but differing attributes, but they didn't put one in the game. Hell, the heavy weapons category in the core rule book basically looks like "This is the bad one, this is the good one." The Ares Alpha is not inherently balanced, but it is definitely not alone. It is only picked on because it is a particularly well used weapon.

The way to balance the Ares Alpha is not to nerf it, but rather to remind the characters that the weapon is a rare milspec weapon that is far from ubiquitous in the hands of criminals.

I'm curious about the justification for these three claims. The HK XM30 isn't stellar, but it is versatile and (based on a cursory look) better than the Steyr AUG-CSL, which fills a similar niche. Muscle Replacement is ultimately less effective than muscle toner + muscle augmentation, but it's much cheaper. And unarmed combat is good, but it seems to me that almost anything that can be done unarmed can be done with a ceramic knife or rattan stick.

The price tag plays a part, but the majority of the reason is how much essence you lose. That severe essence loss means it doesn't play nice with other heavy essence 'ware that is considered essential to gun bunnies. As the poster said, one shot grunt. I really cannot justify putting it in a PC, even if it is cheap.

Well, Nerfed it is, at least in my games.

Indeed it is. And has been since SR2.

But it doesn't. It has a special chamber design, which has nothing to do with barrel mounted options/accessories.

Well, Iuri won't like being nerfed (again) and quite possibly he will ask to at least trade his assault rifle...

I just run that any and all sorts of recoil reduction is a gas vent 2. I don't care what the description says, 1 or 10 points of RC, it gets 2. Even gas vent 3 only gets 2 RC.

I'm a dick and I let people Gas Vent up their Ares Alpha to high heaven, because I figure, "Eh, what the hell. Somebody's gotta make the best rifle."

And, quite frankly, most of them don't use the Alpha. They stick with pistols or semi-auto rifles, oddly. When I play, I'm the most Alpha heavy guy around.

(It also occurs to me we also use rules for custom gun work that let you build Alpha equivalents from the ground up.)

That is his problem and not yours. We didn't runned tonight because of you so SHUSH.

hehe.

My favorites the Ak-97

But I run with a gyromount on that character and use a suppresor. It's more about the look and I was playing a cheap styled character anyway. And really, the grenade launcher is a little crazy.

Maybe the Ares Alpha has a system like what the AK108 has and decided to call it a special chamber system, the BARS system is a form of internal recoil compensation system that has a secondary tube(The special chamber maybe) that has a counter weight in there that is pushed forward when the weapon fires a round. Then they put a muzzle brake which most here will say is a gas vent onto it to make a very controllable assault rifle under fully automatic fire. So I would more then allow the addition of a muzzle device like a Gas Vent onto a Ares Alpha, the cost of the rifle will keep it out of the reach of most players for a while anyways.

Shout out to the FN 5-7c and it's "efficient design".

Just because you found the best balanced weapon numerically doesn't mean the system is flawed or broken, it means you read the book and did the math. Enjoy it, use it, share it. Still don't like it? Write your own rules.

I figure that there's a reason that Ares is known for its weapons. The superior quality of the Ares Alpha isn't gamebreaking. Besides, what real shadowrunner would be caught using an Ares Alpha, instead of a more difficult to trace custom weapon? There's probably some security backdoors in the gun, of which Knight Errant can take advantage.

I think its the most common weapon that is the hardest to trace since everyone has one...

Thus the AK-97? I mean really, in the SR universe, Ares Alpha is a high tech gun that is only used by paramilitary/military forces that can afford its expense. And private gun nuts like Shadowrunners, of course.

RIGHTO!

The bold text above means that your hacker has not done his job and he should get his ass kicked around the block and then told to get to work.

Well, here's why.


It may be better than the Setyr AUG sort of, but I don't think so. You can put a detachable GL on the Setyr. Really, it's just like they assigned random numbers to capacity and crap like that. It's just lousy design. Oh, the Setyr takes 8 min to adjust rather than 5.

Here's why the gun sucks just on its own:

1. It is expensive as hell. It costs 6Gs for the full gun, 2.5Gs for the crappy assault rifle only.
2. It has almost no recoil comp.
3. It is an absolute bastard to modify. I mean seriously, I don't even know how to go about applying the weapons mod system to it.

Now for the kicker on how everything that it had going for it isn't actually an advantage. The weapon is not versatile for the following reasons:

1. It takes 5 min to change the gun from one type to another. That means that you cannot do this under fire, i.e. the only time when you could suddenly need your gun to be a different gun, you can't actually make the change.
2. You need three different skills to operate it. Three freaking skills for one gun. I can understand a sammy having all of those skills, but come on, you pretty much have to be a sammy to use it.
3. 15F Availability. It's a freaking liability. You can't start with it. It's hard to get. No one uses them. Holy crap, why don't you just tag victims with your SIN.



1. It cost 1 freaking essence per point of rating. Anyone who actually needs both strength and agility needs lots of it and multiple IP. The only way to build that would be to take Muscle Replacement with Synaptic boosters, but it would more than negate the cost saving properties.
2. No one who has the essence to spare needs it. I mean, you could put one point in a hacker, but why? Anyone who gets this is getting it for combat, and that means that they either are doing as a backup plan in case everything goes to hell and they are about to die if they don't do something, or they were disposable grunts.
3. You only save 10K nuyen per full point of strength and agility in exchange for 0.6 essence. That freaking sucks.



Umm, yeah. Now granted, as a tertiary function of a character, or as a secondary function in a BP intensive primary, they are a BP cheap option for what they provide. Otherwise, like the Muscle Replacement, it is reserved basically for grunts. Here's a list of stuff that makes unarmed combat better:

1 Easy concealment. Also you don't have to quick draw your hands, and your hands (hopefully) can't be taken away.
2. In most jurisdictions, your hand's aren't illegal.
3. Killing Hands
4. Distance Strike
5. Martial Arts
6. Elemental Strike
7. Bone Lacing/ Density Augmentation

Now, yeah, it is mostly for adepts, but adepts are RETARDEDLY PERFECT at it.

In case you need some builds for proof:

13P (This one is only partly built)


14P


15P


Now granted, those builds are pretty particular, but they still punch harder than an assault cannon, which is stupid as hell. They are just some builds that I had done to find out what exactly the martial arts rules mean, and these characters are not built exclusively to punch people in half.

Now, If you wanted to do it with a mundane, it doesn't even really require a built. You can make your punches deal (1/2Str)+6P with martial arts and bone lacing. You can hit 10P with a 7str Ork which is nothing exceptional.

I think I am justified.

Honsetly, if you compare the Ares Alpha to any modern firearm equivalent, like the FN F2000, the price should be close to $6,000 or 12,000¥, and that's direct from the manufacturer. Really, the gun costs about as much as the GL attachment should.

If something is far and away the best there is, then the price tag should reflect that.

Yes, the thread is about whether we like it or didn't like it and wrote our own rules for it.

Why don't you think it is broken when there is a clearly superior weapon available? Just about the only downside to it I can see is if you think showing up with grenade launchers is escalating the situation too much.

Actually, I quite like the XM-30. Here's why: Unlike the Steyr aug, it has no rules incompatabilities with mods. Like it or not, there is no wording like is for Ceramic/Plastel components that makes you pay out the nose for weapon mods. Heavy barrel? Silencer? Electronic firing? for all configurations? Awesome.

Second, Drone autosofts are taken for a -specific weapon-. The XM-30 is still one weapon. In LMG or Sniper mode it can actually hit up to that Sensor Signal 4-5 you can put on a drone, with improved sensor arrays.

It comes with an internal smartgun. Normally that doubles the weapons base price. The underbarrel grenadelauncher has an airburst link(500ny value). I assume thats what it means by 'grenade link'. You get the underbarrel weapon no matter the configuration. When you look at what it comes with, and think about what it costs in terms of nuyen and modification slots to do that to another weapon, the 2500 price tag starts to look a little better.

Yes, buying all the attachments is kind of silly, not to mention expensive. Yes, you can't disassemble it on the fly in the middle of combat, but in downtime its a trivially easy task. Honestly, I wish their availability were lower than 15 so I could actaully try them out in a game. Lets compare it to an AK-98, though.

If you get an armorer with a shop and some time, these things can be nasty. Half-off for do-it-yourself to make the shotgun fully automatic? Please. Or let it sit there with a clip of Shock Lock rounds just in case there's a Barrier, mana or otherwise, in your way. 300 for semi-auto on the grenade launcher is a no-brainer.


Edit: Decided to run some comparison numbers.
The AK-98 costs a grand, and has an underbarrel grenade launcher. Giving it a smartlink doubles the price, and putting an airburst link on it gives us a total cost of...2500. Sure, you could save 600 by using an External smartlink.
On the other hand, adding a grenade launcher to any existing gun kind of sucks too. You need the underbarrel weapon mod, which takes a whopping 3 slots, hoses your concealability, and has its own special rules for recoil(The xm-30 doesn't use the arsenal weapon mod, so... slight bonus there). It also costs as much as the basic weapon, and halves the ammo. The cheapest you can do that is for 600, with the Ares Antioch-2 out of the core book. Reading up on the Airburst link, we find it needs a smartgun to operate. Lucky us, the antioch comes with one. Still, thats 1100 and 3 mod slots used up.
Yeah, the alpha does it better. But the XM-30 can be slapped on any drone, in any configuration, and do its job.

I think the AV is a bit low on it (it should be a rare item; AV 14 or so), but otherwise... 2 more dice (sometimes) isn't that big a deal, really.

The biggest problem is, that since it is readily available and a bit better than the other rifles, everyone uses it... which is mostly boring, but not really unbalanced (how can it be, when everyone uses it ).

Bye
Thanee

This, pretty much. Compared to other weapons in their class, ares has some mean stuff. The Ares Crusader SMG, the Ares Light-fire 70, and even the antioch-2 are all decent examples of Ares doing it better or cheaper than everyone else. The Alpha just seems to be the one people notice the most. All the ares weapons are rather good compared to other weapons, when you look. If you think the alpha's bad, try the HVAR. Its got -three- recoil compensation out of the box, that stacks with everything else.

The idea of martial arts modifiers stacking is silly imo.

Are you applying the modifiers outside of the scope of the given martial arts? I wouldn't allow Muai Thai +DVs don't apply against armed opponents, fighting on the ground, in confined spaces, and in many cases not against multiple opponents or attacking from behind.

Incorrect. You read the software header rather than the rules.

Targeting autosofts mimic a ranged weapon skill so it's Targeting (Longarms), Targeting (Heavy Weapons), and Targeting (Automatics) to utilize all the configurations of the HK XM-30. You can't do it with a Targeting (HK XM30) autosoft.

So for the HK XM30, you will need a drone loaded with the appropriate weapon type targeting autosoft for whatever configuration you put in the drone.

If you were correct, then the XM30 would be nice, but it's not. So you're just paying for a single weapon that that can be swapped to different roles on the same drone. However, since you require the autosofts for each type regardless, you're not saving cost. The only way this weapon is more cost effective than getting the individual weapons for each weapon the XM-30 mimics is if you are getting a sniper rifle, or using it to fill LMG, Shotgun, and assault rifle.

XM30 (Assault) - 2500
Ares Alpha (Assault) - 1700

XM30 (Shotgun) - 3500
Mossberg (Shotgun) - 1000

XM30 (LMG) - 3500
White Knight - 2000

XM30 (Sniper) - 3500
Walter (Sniper) - 5000

XM30 (All) - 5500
All Weapons - 9700

XM30 (No Sniper) - 4500
All Weapons (No Sniper) - 4700

You're right, it has one cost saving advantage under one circumstance sort of. Wait a second, no it doesn't



Oh wait, that would mean that the system jumps up in cost from an absurd 6K to 12K, 18K, or a whopping 36K. And don't argue that you would just take some of the systems, because the full set is the only way to get any cost savings.

BTW, any sane GM would realize that when you change the mod from say Shotgun to Sniper, you are using different barrels, and as such would have to buy the mod for each different configuration.

I wish the rules agreed with you. You see, unarmed combat and melee combat was sort of balanced until arsenal, but they aren't anymore.



This is where the problem really exists. Your argument is derived from the specialization rules, and is logical in itself, but not in the greater context of the rules. The quality and the specialization are different things, and the modifiers from the styles are not mentioned to only be applicable in certain circumstances, except within the confines of the set of advantages for a given style. That and it costs 5BP per advantage, and 2BP per specialization. If I only got +1 to disarm from Arnis de Mano when the opponent was holding a knife, I would be kind of pissed, and the quality would be entirely worthless.


Mixing and matching of styles is implied.


Yay, this what made it broken for sure. This is how they guaranteed it so that there could be no confusion as to how badly broken it is.



I mean, it's like the game designers didn't even put though into how this makes unarmed combat better. than weapon combat.

I'm correcting my numbers.

XM30 - 2500
Ares Alpha (Assault) - 1700

XM30 (w/ Shotgun) - 3500
Ares Alpha + Mossberg - 2700

XM30 (w/ LMG) - 3500
Ares Alpha + White Knight - 3700

XM30 (w/ Sniper) - 3500
Ares Alpha + Walter - 6700

XM30 (All) - 5500
All Weapons - 9700

XM30 (No Sniper) - 4500
All Weapons (No Sniper) - 4700

Any cost savings of using the XM30 LMG over the White Knight is negated by the fact that is has 3 less recoil.
Using the XM30 over any other sniper rifle causes your AP to drop from -3 to -2.

The only cost effective use of the XM30 is if you are using the sniper modification.

Recoil isn't an issue with drones. They ignore it. Too bad you can't put a box magazine on the Barret. With FA modification you'd have a sweet vehicle mounted gun.

Of course it is less effective in general, and honestly I would rather pay more for a weapon that works better.

From a metagaming view there might be something to that, but from a RP view if you are carrying an Alpha you are expecting a serious chance of a fight and you are willing to come in obviously armed. You've already made the decision that you are willing to shoot it out with someone, why shouldn't you bring the artillery?

I had a mage who - for years - had only a Colt Manhunter and spells. Didn't use anything else. After a two separate brushes with near death, he picked up a pair of these and loaded them with either Ex-Ex or APDS. I have never chewed through as many guys as with those two machine pistols.

I, for one, welcomed the superiority of Fabrique Nationale design.

Agreed. I added a few house rules that basically enforce the concept that "Armed" generally has a big advantage over "Unarmed".

1. +2 dice to attack and defend if Attacker is armed with a melee weapon and the defender is unarmed.
2. +1 reach modifier to weapons longer than a knife.
3. +2 reach modifier to "longsword" size weapons
4. +3 reach modifier to the large weapons (quarterstaff, spear, halberd, two-hander sword, etc.)
5. Dmg bonuses from Martial Arts and Bone Lacing/Aug max at +1 to unarmed damage.

So that AGI 3, Clubs 3 ganger with a baseball bat is throwing 10 dice at your unarmed martial artist.

I've been practicing Escrima/Arnis since the early 90s, and while we have done a TON of empty-hand/unarmed training, I would still feel vulnerable facing someone who is armed.

Incidentally, my rules make improvised weapons worth using too. (Jason Bourne + Ink Pen = win)

Don't say that, now I have to bring up death by teacup

IMHO this just highlights what i see as the bigger problem in SR4 with weapons...THEY ARE ALL THE FREAKIN SAME!...at least stat-wise.

i mean, you look at the list of any given catagory there is almost no variance in the numbers. they really should have worked harder to differentiate the weapons in each catagory by varying damage, capacity, fire rate, weight, size, accessories, etc...

Hmmm..but this way you can simply choose the weapon of your personal style without any penalties. ^^

But to get back to the topic: yes, the Ares Alpha IS good, but it is also expensive, everybody will remember you (the freak with the ares alpha, NO not the 5 guys over there with the AK) AND it has a really huge tendency to attract fire spirits of every tradition and forces them to engulf you. Maybe some self-destruct-option for not-ares-users?^^

My personal feeling is that, given the level of abstraction that they claim to want, instead they should be ALL the same. Realistically an AR-15, AK-47 and AK-74 both punch holes in you, they have roughly similar armor penetration (with similar bullets) and should be treated the same. Call it whatever you want, its an assault rifle, it costs the same, etc.

Given the current mechanics there isn't any real way to make something "different" without creating both uberguns and crapguns. Which is precisely what they have managed to do.

Dammit, i was gonna say that you could just get it as an accessory but for some bizarre reason its doesn't seem to be availebul as one.
I could have worn it was, but i cant find underbarrel grenadelauncher as an accessory anywhere.