for my first post, let me ask questions which are likely to have been discussed before! (though i did employ the search...)

1) so smart armor only reduces the AP of incoming attacks, right? it's not rolled as part of the damage resistance test nor does it stack as far as the total armor rating of the vehicle is concerned? otherwise wouldn't something with a normal armor 20/smart armor 10 be basically invunerable to every weapon in the game except the railguns? (as an aside, can the vehicle cannons fire all the normal ammunition types? APDS rounds at -12 make this suck a little less).

2) more of a color thing than a mechanics thing: is it generally considered that the shadowrun HMG is more equivalent to the modern MMG/GPMG class of weapons? it's sort of hard to believe that the lightest available sniper rifles are firing .50 cal equivalents; suggests the barrett is in fact one of those nasty payload rifle prototypes and that assault cannon must be 30mm at least, none of which appeal to my sense of verisimilitude.

3) the damn launch weapons. it seems like the consensus is 1 standard weapon mount per + ammo bins? i would think that they would be better off as light drone rack equivalents (as medium drones are considered to be up to motorcycle size (say 250 kilos), in line with your standard AAM/AGM), but then there's the multimount problems. i prefer to play as close to RAW as possible but this is one thing they really, really need to clear up. On a related subject, why aren't people abusing the Heimdall more? as a closer equivalent to modern missiles it's way better than what we get in the arsenal writeup, and you can stuff ten of them in a multilaunch rack for macross missile massacre recreation. something like:

Ares Gungnir (Heimdall variant)

Handling Speed Pilot Body Armor Sensor
+1 3600 6 1 1 6

Ares Hemidall 1500
Anti-Vehicle Warhead 1 1500
Engine Customization Speed 1 15000
Improved Economy 1 15000
Improved Sensor Array 1 1000

Radar Sensor 6 1200
Pilot 6 15000
Signal 6 3000

53200Y

seems like it would be stupid nasty, and 50K for a missile that can engage any target within 40km isn't so bad on a military budget.

4) when is War suppose to be coming out and making it all better, anyway? can't wait for that book...

For busting through any level of armor, another completely broken mod is that there's no rule saying you can't mod a laser weapon for high-velocity. Soaking 20P at -half AP is enough to punch through anything, and that's just for handheld. But, yeah, smart armor doesn't count as actual armor or stack with it. It's just there to reduce AP - or increase it - whatever.

HMG should be something like a Browining .50cal. DVs are pretty inconsistent. I think that accuracy factors into it some. FA makes up for the difference though.

The Hemidall thing is pretty great. Just make sure to leave room for a satellite link, or at least some sort of specialized optical sensor for a laser target designator. Too expensive for a runner, but yeah, military will be all over that. Runners should do just about anything to avoid confrontations with military forces.

1) A vehicle cannon sure should be able to fire AP ammo, probably better than small arms versions. Even today a 120mm at gun firing APFSDSDU (armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot depleted uranium) can penetrate any tank out there and probably cause critical damage in one hit. The closest I can find in Arsenal is the GM heavy cannon, although that is probably firing something close to HEDP (high explosive dual purpose) since the shell has a large blast radius. A true armor piercing shell would probably not have a blast radius at all. Also, tank guns have very good sighting mechanisms and would probably not suffer scatter at all. I'd on use the scatter rules for HE weapons targeting groups. AV rounds could probably be used to represent AT rounds, although they would have to cost more than the small arms version. I'd probably invent my own heavy weapons rules anyway, the Arsenal and BB ones are not very good.

Smart armor are supposed to be like Reactive Armor. I don't know what discovery program the developers have seen when designing this kind of armor, but the fact is that they have existed since the 70s and works well to counter High Explosive Anti Tank (HEAT) rounds which were common in tank gun and even still are common in most infantry rockets and AT missiles.
As written the entry is very confusing and contradictory. The designers seem to have forgotten than "good" armor penetration value is negative, so when it says Smart Armor reduces incoming attacks AP I'm assuming they mean "adding to" rather than "subtract." Then afterwards it is said you roll one die per Smart Armor rating and add hits to the attacks AP value.. this is supposed to make Smart armor less effective but it's not unless you interpret "add" as "subtract" again. Thus you roll dice for the smart armor too find out how effective the smart armor really is, and then apply the remaining Smart Armor as a positive modifier to the weapon's AP, meaning you get more dice for soaking and hardened armor. Phew.

2) Yes the heavy weapons rules are generally not realistic. Heavy MG is supposed to be like the M2HB (.50 cal), and is also designed for using on tripods and weapon mounts. Thus the damage it has is too little - I would raise it to 9 base damage, same as the Barret. Medium machineguns should have 7 or 8 base damage, while Light MGs could keep damage at 6.

It's kind of confusing though since the writers of Arsenal has used the name of a light machinegun (RPK) as a heavy one, and used the picture of a PK machineguns (GPMG, like a Medium machiengun). Not only is it lazy it is confusing. A proper russian heavy machnegun would be the DSHK HMG, firing 12.7mm rounds (like .50 cal), or they could have invented a 2070s version of it. Also, in the main book it is assumed humans cannot use HMG standing up, while in Arsenal one of them is equipped with Hip-pad brace system...

Now as for the lightest available Sniper Rifle, it's probably firing something like .308 ammuntion. The high damage one might be like the Artic Warfare Magnum - not as much punch as the .50 cal but fairly close. And with less recoil and weight.



High velocity is full-auto only, and it doesen't increase penetration. Full auto affects the damage value, but not until after the modified DV is compared to the modified armor.

Note: because smart armor acts directly against the AP of the attack it is in fact just like regular armor. Which is weird. It doesn't add its rating to the armor value, but alters the AP, which alters the modified armor value anyway:

AR + SM + (negative AP) = Modified Armor

AR + (negative AP + SM) = Modified Armor

It's equivalent expression. It doesn't matter if you're adding SM to armor or to AP, the net result is the same.

If the devs had just wrote "armor" instead of "AP" then the entire paragraph actually makes fucking sense (except the part about "smart armor being less effective").

thanks for input, guys; it seems like the sanest way to play smart armor is just that it stacks on top of the normal armor and degrades according to the successes on a rating roll; this seems to lead to reasonable and pleasing behavior of the armor vs. weapons, e.g.:

MBT with body 20/armor 20/smart 10 vs. light railgun: effective armor of 17 (w/ 3 expected hits on degradation roll) vs. (i think) 14DV AP 6: almost certain penetration but might not do too much damage after soak.

same tank v.s. heavy cannon: armor 27 vs DV 17 AP 8, needs three hits to pen but does 20DV in that case, more likely to trash the tank/get a 7+ damage and critical hit.

which is ironically enough how i read smart armor before i noticed the AP thing. does that sound reasonable?

also: as a thought to make launch weapons less, um, lame: one thing RAW doesn't account for is the difference in range between air and ground launches, which makes a pretty big difference for basically the same missile. so i'm wondering if a reasonable range multiplier for the air-launch is say 2x, if we assume that the ranges for the missiles are for ground-to -air or ground-to-ground ballistic launches? from the data on the SLAMRAAM and tests on ground-fired AIM-9X missiles i can get that seems reasonable. it gets the AIM-27 up to modern engagement ranges for a short range air to air missile, and makes the outlaw comparable to a hellfire missile, which is about right. otherwise you might as well load up on heimdalls and ballistas for your vehicle killing needs, since the range is so much better for them.



maybe a tightbeam comm to the launching craft? my idea is that you're running off the fighter's targeting till you get within 10km; then it goes to its internal terminal guidance radar and shuts down the wireless entirely. if you had satlink though you could hook up to an AWACS or naval radar and the fighter never has to light its own radar up, though... not a bad idea. that reminds me, i forgot to put in a vehicle autosoft to pilot the damn thing. i'm figuring that 13 dice are pretty good for the drone ramming a target and blowing up. figure i'd have to call the thing a small drone after all the mods though. that multilaunch thing is a little abusive

and, yes, runners should avoid conflicts with the military... part of the reason i'm putting this together is to know what will be up against my players if they screw up their next run. extracting or liquidating a MiG representative out from under the nose of the tsimishan military before he can seal the deal on a package of MiG-67s with exciting new weapons add-ons should be a good time for all. unless it isn't, in which case i expect to be hucking many missiles at their escape t-bird from said MiG-67s. they are a clever bunch so i don't expect it will come to that though.

The smart armor degradation works like this (I THINK)

Smart Armor 10:

Add 10 to base armor (eff.)
Roll 10 dice.
Add [hits] to base armor (eff.)
Lower smart armor rating by [hits]

So if you get 3 hits, next time you get +7 armor on top of base and then roll 7 dice, adding and subtracting hits again.

high velocity is about how many rounds are fired in a burst. And so do not apply when figuring out of armor is penetrated. Only the net hits of the attack roll counts as modifiers when checking for armor penetration.

still, i do not see a problem with modifying lasers for such. It will be mostly about energy delivery and cooling.

its funny, give a weapon a name thats similar to a modern day weapon, and they assume its the same weapon with a new coat of paint.

well, that's sort of the problem, though, isn't it? if you say "barrett sniper rifle," clearly with the intent of evoking the modern weapon which is most famously chambered for an HMG cartridge, and said rifle does WAY WAY more damage than the "HMG" type weapons, it raises eyebrows. so either the SR barrett is a 25mm quasi-assault cannon (causing every other sniper rifle to have to fire either HMG rounds and/or 20mm cannon rounds to be as damaging as the light autocannon they are equivalent to) or HMG damage is too low, or HMG doesn't mean what it has always historically meant. for purposes of keeping everything as RAW as i can stand i'm going with this last interpretation, though i'm definitely sympathetic to bumping up MMGs to 7P/AP-3 and HMGs to barrett equivalency, and making the damn light autocannon an actual assault cannon instead of apparently a M134 with exceptionally long barrels. why they don't have the victory auto-assault cannons from rigger 3 makes no sense. not like assault helicopters could use RAW chain guns or anything.

Or the fact that the Barret is specifically designed to allow tight groupings with a cold bore might amount to gaining a box of damage (equivalent to +1 hit, minor aimed shot, whatever). HMGs fire from an open bolt, so even the first shot is gonna be a bit off from the aiming point. Also, the rounds used in the Barret 50 are not plain ole 50 BMG; they are the equivalent of match grade ammo that just happens to use the same casing. You could shoot them in HMG that fires 50BMG, but you'd go broke (even faster) doing so.

And read the description where it pretty much states it's the same weapon with a new coat of paint.

Also, damage 9P is used for the Elephant Gun... which is a very high caliber weapon comparable to the .50 cal

It's fairly easy to see where the designers got the inspiration for 2070s guns. Most of them are just RL weapons with a higher number (AK97 instead of AK 47/74) with very little difference. Actually, most of them are just 2050s weapons from previous books with a higher number (Uzi IV instead of Uzi III).

Although there are some experimental guns and sci-fi additions (smartguns, ubiquitous caseless ammo, gas-vent systems), most of the guns are supposed to be like the guns we have today with a more sci-fi look.

It's also pretty clear the designers are not exactly experts in firearms and thus rules are based off Hollywood action rather than realism. And again usually balanced somewhat to make the game more playable. (last bit ain't a bad thing).

When it comes to HMGs though I'd throw balance out the window and let it have it's deserved awesome damage and not just civilian hunting rifle damage. I have no problem with the fact that you could take down heavily armored troll samurai with it, or even cyborgs. And the way the hardened armor works it will have difficulty damaging MBTs etc. with armor 20.


Eh in any way you can by RAW make a Barret sniper rifle with firing selection (large mod, FA), extended clip (18 rounds), and personalized grip. For accessories you could get a gyromount (6 RC), shock pad and an Imaging Scope (with low.-light and thermal if you want). For ammo I'd use Either EX-EX or AV rounds.

Result: A fully automatic weapon with a base damage of 9 (11 with EX-EX), and with penetration 10 against vehicles or 8 against metahumans. It can penetrate 20 hardened armor with 2 hits, and with RC 8 you can fire a full burst with -2 on the roll... wait no it's not a heavy weapon so it's only -1. Total damage would be 18P+net hits and the target probably has no armor left...

My understanding concerning smart armor is that it reduces AP by its rating for any attack with a base DV of 10 or less, and it reduces AP by hits from it's (rating) DP for explosive and heavy ballistics 11DV or higher. Smart armor rating only decreases when you're rolling deflection and you glitch. So, as it stands, it will neutralize small arms fire by adding to the armor in the form of an AP addition (Assumedly into the positives like with flechette biz) though it doesn't count as hardened armor like regular armor does. Meanwhile, against real AV threats, it actually busts out the panels, using up resources, and getting some anti-AP armor effects.

Seems wonky that it's less effective at stopping the sort of threats it is meant to stop, but I guess that just boils down to small arms fire being absolutely worthless against an armored vehicle.

yeah, but i sort of hate that accuracy = damage handwave. you can snipe almost as effectively from an M2 (hi carlos!) and i figure the additional accuracy is worked into the extended sniper rifle range. it would make more sense to me to have a "match grade" ammo type with a +1 bonus to hit and some insane expense then to make the weapon itself do more damage. i like that extra hits = extra damage, since bullet placement is generally the most important factor, but in terms of the base damage of a round or class of weapons i tend to prefer consistency.

perhaps relevant to the HMG/man-portability discussion:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...ground/m312.htm

the gun's supposed to be ~20kg dry (so another 6kg or so for a 40 rnd box, if my numbers are right ) and the recoil force is claimed to be something on the order of a M240, so with a good gyromount + shock pad + gas vent that's not entirely outside of the realm of human use and almost certainly troll-portable. of course that adds some more viability to the 9P/-4 camp as well. i may convince myself yet to jack those guns up a notch or so.

First off: you are correct, it only explodes on higher than 10 DV attacks.
Second: you are incorrect in stating that it isn't hardened armor. Because normal armor isn't hardened either! Vehicles simply do not take stun. There's a difference.
Third: it doesn't matter if its hardened or not, you're modifying the AP before it's added to the armor and then compared to the DV (determining stun vs. physical) which is exactly the same as adding it to the base armor value before applying AP and then compared to the DV. So even if normal armor was hardened it comes out to the same thing!
Fourth: It is unclear what the hits on the Smart Armor test do after adding those hits to the (effective) armor value of the vehicle. It states that hits "make the smart armor less effective" but then why would you want hits? It would seem you'd want none, but not a critical glitch (permanently reduce its rating by 1). I will however agree that your reading makes more sense, as apparently the devs have no idea WTF they meant when they wrote this section.*


*Very strict RAW reading makes Smart Armor "oh holy fucking shit, this is BAD BAD BAD" because you "reduce the AP of the attack by the smart armor's rating" (-4 AP becomes -14 AP) then add the hits (making the smart armor less effective!?). Its like Smart Armor was written to basically nullify having armor on your vehicle in the first place.

Just a note.. .that fancy superior future HMG (that supposedly does everything better than the M2 and also cleans and polishes your house) is said to be man portable by 2 men. That means 1 Troll should easily lug it around and even fire it. But for normal humans it's too heavy to carry over large distances and probably too heavy to hipshoot with as well. The tripod is there for a reason.

Wait... there was a HMG man portability discussion?

mostly the discussion of HMG != barrett, and why. i still think that a 20kg gun is going to be at least gyro-mount useful for an average human: the m240 MMG of modern times is probably 20kg with a full ammo load, and it's (barely) something that an unaugmented human could fire standing. recoil is not its problem. i think the reason the XM312/LW50HMG is considered a two-man operation is bulk (tripod) and ammo carriage. several belts of .50 BMG is not as man portable as one might like. with a gyromount to mitigate some of the bulk concern, you might not be so bad off, especially since the tripod ceases to be an issue. this sounds an awful lot like the M107 from arsenal, and to my mind it makes the idea of a guy with a .50 on a gryomount not quite so implausible. it's definitely not hauling around a 60kg m2 anymore. plus it makes MMGs no longer a bizarre weapon. 6P AP -2 and a little more range! that was totally worth upgrading from the LMG! now i will fire up another fat rock of crystal! welcome to burning plastic flavor country, bitches!

Yeah, that gun would need some serious riggings to try and hold still while you fire it. I mean, I don't doubt that one person could hold or carry the thing, but effective use demands more than that. Though, for a Troll, that would be cake. An articualted arm could maybe pull it off.

so i think, having done some more research, i can spec out a list of calibers for the existing shadowrun damage distribution that isn't out of line with the idea of HMG's still being .50 cals at 7P/-3. it's a bit of a stretch, but if you're willing to accept that the hunting rifle calibers are optimized for damage over penetration i think it works out alright:

holdout/light pistol/SMG:.40 S&W
heavy pistol: 10mm Auto/.44 Mag
assault rifle/LMG: 5.55 NATO/6.5 Grendel
MMG: 7.62 NATO
HMG: .50 BMG
Sport Rifle (7P/AP -1): 30-06 or equivalent
Sniper Rifle (7P/AP -3) .408 Cheyenne Tactical
Sport Rifle (8P/AP -1) .338 Magnum
Sniper Rifle(8P/AP -3) 14.5mm Soviet
Light Autocannon (8P/AP-4) 20mm autocannon (M61 Vulcan equivalent
Sport Rifle(9P/AP -1) .458 Magnum
Sniper Rifle (9P/AP -4) "Light" 25mm (Payload Rifle) or 23mm proprietary caliber
Assault Cannon (10P/AP-5) 25mm (M25 Bushmaster equivalent)

like i said, a bit of a stretch. it does suggest that a lot of the "designated marksman" and potentially police sniper type rifles are going to be something more like modified wildhutters or remington 750s (gee, just like real life) since the actual sniper rifles are still going to be pretty beastly to lug around and probably overkill in an urban siutation. then again with armor and trolls maybe giant guns are just the norm. this does imply that assault cannon ought to be able to fire grenades or the equivalent. which would give it a nice tactical niche distinct from the barrett insofar as the barrett is actually a better sniper rifle.

raygun 2.0?

well, i'm pretty sure the lasers are using coherent beams of light, but i'm willing to debate lasing mechanisms. not as up on those though. any physicists in the house?

i should have seen that go over your head.

back during SR2-3 (or maybe SR1 to) a guy using the nickname raygun here on the forum reworked the damage system so that one could assign real life calibers to weapons. Not sure where he wandered of to when SR4 was released.

First a note.. SMGs has damage 5P, not 4P as light pistols, holdouts and machine pistol. They lack the penetration of (typical) Heavy Pistols though.

So having a basic hunting rifle or a shotgun with slugs do the same damage as a .50 cal HMG is a "bit" of a stretch? IMO it's the main problem here. I think for some reason the game designers wanted to have man portable weapon damage capped at 10P. Yeah sure AV rockets supercedes this, but very few runners are going to waste one on a single target - so they are more area of effect or Anti Vehicle weapons anyway.

Now since the Assault Cannon only has a damage of 10P, they didn't want machineguns with fully automatic fire (potentially +9 damage!) to be very close to it. Sniper rifles is usually only SA, so they didn't mind adding on damage here. Then Arsenal came out and busted the normal damage guidelines of course...

14.5mm Soviet is more of a small autocannon than a machinegun, and is only used in APCs. It's mainly for penetrating light vehicle armor. A rifle made of it would be an AT rifle or anti-material rifle like the Barret... which already exist in game.

But sure, maybe all the guns have evolved to the point where we don't recognize them. Maybe .50 cal equivalents is the norm for Sniper rifles and hunting rifles. But doubt it is the case and I also think it's easier to have guns more in line with RL weapons, with a few sci-fi guns added to the mix like lasers, rail guns etc - as long as they are SOTA and generally unavailable.

Balance wise, machine guns are slightly weaker in my game because my house rule makes all armor a "light" version of hardened armor. Thus those extra damage from firing lots of bullets is only going to do a bit more stun. So the HMG needs more damage than the hunting rifle in order to be able to defeat the standard street samurai. Even so milspec armor and implants can still be hard to penetrate properly.

Also this does not explain why a Barret sniper rifle (be it 25mm or whatever) can take APDS and even AV ammo that is far better than the Assault Cannon equivalent. Also, autocannon ammo is very expensive and heavy, while Barret ammo is just like regular... wtf?

Thus I'd probably boost the AC to 12 damage.

Also, I'm considering some single shot recoil rules - I hate the fact that shock pads are useless on ACs and that the rules doesen't support the fluff about the tremendous recoil of these guns. Even the Ruger Super Warhawk should have at least 1 recoil per shot, which could be compensated for by high strength or even by using the gun in two hands. I'd only have the recoil carry over to the next shot if taken in the same combat turn. Thus a person shooting only 1 time in a combat turn (say a normal unaugmented man with only one pass and gun) would not suffer penalties from recoil at all.

well, i guessed as much. can't turn down a geek joke though.



well, yeah, i agree. it's a stretch. if you absolutely must play by RAW, this is the sanest interpretation i can come up with, and i like to play by RAW as far as i can get away with. in a world where the shadowrun guys had got it right to begin with, the damages would be much more like

MMG (7.62 NATO) 7P/AP-3
HMG(.50 BMG) 9P/AP-4
Light Autocannon (25mm) 10P/AP-5

and there would be no such thing as AV ammo for small arms as the rule that made it necessary (the automatic stage-down of damage for vehicles) doesn't exist in SR4. also, the assault cannon absolutely should be able to chuck grenade equivalent shells, because that's what gives it an edge over the barrett as far as tactical flexibility. i may make a thread to bitch about these very things shortly. as a side note about 14.5 russian, it was used for some sniper rifles. there are some frigging grotesque sniping weapons out there, such as: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denel_NTW-20 which is very literally an assault cannon (20mm bore) and coincidentally can be modified to chamber 14.5 russian.

i do disagree somewhat on the idea that recoil should affect first shots, however. there's very little possibility that mechanical recoil as such would have time to throw a barrel off alignment in the time it takes a shell to leave. flinch is a different matter but that is more difficult to model. i suppose you could argue that without some recoil compensation you could only fire an assault cannon every other action phase/combat turn, since you pretty much have to line the shot up again. but that just makes it worse i suppose.

Yeah those weapon damages are more in tune with what I use. However Light Autocannon should have access to several types of ammunition just like small arms. Even with removing AV small arms ammo, APDS+HMG will still outperform this light autocannon with "regular" ammo.

Maybe you misunderstood my house rule.. recoil does NOT affect the first bullet, only the subsequent ones in the same combat turn. It's to make firing 2 SS handguns in the same phase a bit tricker (unless you're a troll), and to prevent you from easily firing heavy single shot rifles/cannon with no recoil compensator. In any case the assault cannon should not be used by a human without either a bipod, tripod or gyro mount anyway.

yeah, misunderstood. that makes sense. recoil just going away for any weapon in the next IP is just one of those things you have to put up with. to be really anal recoil penalties should stack across the whole turn; just because you can throw 30 rounds out in three seconds in no way makes it a good idea, i agree. nor is dual-wielding super warhawks usually.

Well for SA and BF/FA weapons it's not so much a problem since there is at least SOME recoil you have to compensate for. Also, it doesen't take that much time to stablize the the gun after a burst has been fired, releasing the trigger for a second or so should do the trick.

Also, 30 rounds in 3 seconds is not much of a problem with most SMGs.. you often don't have to keep it squeezed all the time. It will burn through ammo too fast if you keep it up though, but for emergencies it's ok. The rules are a bit strange, but the way I see it high IP Chars use their superior speed to aim, reaim, and react to recoil better and faster than most people can. Thus they can fire much faster than normals without a significant loss in accuracy.

Also, it's the Awesome™ factor

Dual-wielding Warhacks works very well by RAW. No recoil, no rule saying you need both hands, and since you fire one shot per simple action you don't have to split the dicepool. Perfect if you want good damage and penetration in a cheap handgun and still fire at SA speed.

If you want to be really anal about recoil stacking over the combat turn (so even a troll with 4 passes can't single-shot a panther canon 4 times in 3 seconds) is that you specify recoil as two numbers. The second (new) number would indicate how much stacking recoil you have that carries from pass to pass until you take a simple action to stabilize (which can be stacked with other simple actions, such as reloading, running, as well as a new "take aim" choice (eliminate all cumulative recoil, do not get +1)).

Only uncompensated recoil generated in that pass would be subject to that value (eg, if you have 3 uncompensated recoil and the gun carries over 2, then next pass you start at a -2 in addition to any additional recoil for firing multiple shots, the following pass you have a -4, but if you only rack up 1 recoil, the fourth pass you have a -5).

This would allow panther cannons to have the recoil effect they should have: they generate--say--10 recoil, even for SS, and it all carries over to the next pass, severely reducing the capability of making a second shot (as a giant 50mm gun should when wielded by a metahuman) unless you take a simple action to get the gun under control. So instead of two SS in a round, neither penalized, you instead get 1 (your other simple spent getting the gun under control). The panther cannon remains a powerful weapon, as with the right augmentations you could reduce the per-shot recoil down to, say, 3 and be able to pull off two or three shots before needing to stabilize again, while other guns take a minor hit (do a short burst, then a long burst and had uncompensated recoil? Next round your accuracy is off by 2 dice--not too much of a penalty, just don't keep it up!).

The only place this falls short is that someone who is firing long bursts every pass and doesn't reduce their recoil through spending an action gets it all eliminated at the end of the 4th pass, but carrying it over for everybody means those with 1 pass get stacking penalties too, despite having more actual time to deal with the recoil.