Gross inconsistency.

If S&S is used by RAW, it's the perfect security & police ammunition – less-than-lethal, doesn't overpenetrate, bypasses armor, disorients / incapacitates and even does more damage in a light handgun than a heavy handgun. All for just 4 times the price of the cheapest ammunition available – even if it were 10 times, it would dominate the market.

And here comes the fun part:
Tasers are worse than a light handgun loaded with S&S when it comes to ammunition capacity and firing speed.

And yet not everyone uses it. How can that possibly be?

We will just have to agree to disagree. While I see your point when it comes to different munitions types, we differ greatly when it comes to weapon types. Even your comparison doesn't hold water. You use the vehicle variants as an excemple, but no one uses them. Find me a single character builder that uses them. If you were referring to vehicle categories, I have to disapoint you as well, as the vehicles within a given category vary drasticaly.

Find me a single character builder that uses them.

PCs and NPCs alike.

And that fixes the "out of reference frame" issue… how?

The Toyota Coaster, a Rover 2068 variant, is all-electric.
The Renraku Yokujin, a Cyberspace Designs Dragonfly variant, has a Tool Laser instead of the Dragonfly weapons.
The Esprit Industries Delivery-TF1, a variant of the Esprit Industries Recon-TF1 which is a Federated-Boeing Kull variant, has Lighter Than Air instead of Signature Masking.

What he probably meant was the "Similar Models" entry of the vehicle list. At least I have used them already for PCs and NPCs as well but without any variation in the vehicle's stats.

Because that argument doesn't make any sense?

By the rules, all those are simply the base model with options applied.

The name change is totally meaningless and can be applied to everything else in the game.

Adding accessories and switching names doesn't really mean much of anything.

The problem of "The specialized device is worse than the generic device equipped with a more expensive kind of expendable materials." doesn't make sense to you?

The fact that, by RAW, technology required to create S&S (extremely miniaturized, selfsustaining shock system projectiles with reliable shelf life) would allow for much more efficient and versatile tasers (longer range, full auto, more ammunition), replacing firearms doesn't connect?

Yeah, that's the point of a variant system. It's also suggested that the statistics can cage slightly.

Yeah – that's the point of a variant system. The different names for all those handguns with slightly different ammo capacities & accessories are meaningless, and a waste of space.

So, you're seriously saying that it would be good for the game if there were three skills A, B and C. Skill A can be used in every situation B and C can be, and costs the same amount of points and other resources to buy for a character as B OR C.

Having options that are just bad is a total joke - it just punishes players who don't know the rules inside out.

Exceeeeeeept, yet again, people still choose those "handguns with slightly different ammo capacities and accessories," just like in real life. Thus it can't be a waste of space or meaningless. If no one ever chose them, you may have a point. But alas...

You mean like Pistols, Automatics, and Long Arms? Oh wait, no, you mean Unarmed Combat (Martial Arts of Choice), right? No no, you mean Clubs, Exotic Weapons, and Swords! Oh wait, you're trying to point to some rhetorical example that doesn't exist. Right. Right. I'm hip.

So, you're seriously saying that it would be good for the game if there were three skills A, B and C.

Be pissy about tasers and SnS ammo all you like. That's one thing.

I understand why SnS ammo twists people's knickers.

But suggesting and advocating that having choices, some worse than others, is a bad thing, not realistic, or a waste of space is absolutely asinine simply because people actually do -- and quite voluntarily and knowingly -- choose those inferior options. Go blue in the face trying to argue how stupid that is, but them's the facts.

The problem with your argument is that it's arguing for a completely generic system.

You know, like the Rigger books of old did.

And if you were around then […]

you'd have seen what a horrible mess of unbalanced idiocy that actually brought with it.

Exceeeeeeept, yet again, people still choose those "handguns with slightly different ammo capacities and accessories," just like in real life.

Thus it can't be a waste of space or meaningless.

No, I'm not. But nice try with the strawman.

I just like the FN 5-7C more, because it looks better.

I'm not sure why you think I was talking to you?

So, you're seriously saying that it would be good for the game if there were three skills A, B and C. Skill A can be used in every situation B and C can be, and costs the same amount of points and other resources to buy for a character as B OR C.

And that it would also be good if some players chose skill A and some took B/C noting that the players who took the first option are just straight up better than characters that took the second option.

It's just bad. Having options that are just bad is a total joke - it just punishes players who don't know the rules inside out. Would you be in favour of two races that cost 20 BP each called Ork and Superior Ork, which cannot be distinguished by any means, have the same fluff, but Superior Orks just get stat bonuses that are twice as big?

These examples are obviously absurd, but when you make strictly superior items in any category you are creating the same effect.

I'm not arguing having the choice to have sub-par equipment to be a bad thing.
I'm arguing about listing pretty much every possible choice is a wast of space, when you can replace that with a variant system.

It is a generic system already. It's just that the variants for handguns get more space than the ones for vehicles.

You know – like Arsenal does.

So your conclusion is flawed – it is a waste of space and utterly meaningless.

I have yet to use that darn swim skill, but I keep hoping it will come in handy. Or how useful is that darn Industrialism mechanic Skill. By your logic these skills are just a waste of space because clearly the BP is better spent on Unarmed Combat or some such.

Yes you are.

It's a good thing that "every possible choice" isn't available.

Especially with ammo. They have a bunch of very different ammo types, each offering something another one doesn't. Be it price, power, side-effect, weapon limitations, or availability.

Probably because weapons play a much bigger role in the game and the combat system.

The Rigger books let you BUILD vehicles from scratch.

Course, so did the Cannon Companion, but that was another edition, too. Which created even worse balance issues precisely because weapons play a bigger role in the game.

For it to be a waste of space and utterly meaningless requires those options to never, ever be chosen by anyone.

And the thing is, S&S doesn't fit that scheme by RAW.

No, statistically speaking there's always at least someone to pick something.

Your problem is you do not understand the concept of 'strictly' superior. If something is 'strictly' superior, it needs to be the same or better in every detail and respect.

it just punishes players who don't know the rules inside out.

I never said that. I said 'bad options are bad design' - that said the problems you point out with device ratings is just 'the hacking rules are shit' which is well established SR fact.

There is lots of room for variation on weapons. One assault rifle can be F and have a smart gun, one can be R and have a red dot sight stock. Those two are in the book, and do offer a useful point of differentiation. You could then easily add a third one can be F, not have a smart gun and offer a collapsible stock giving it a conceal ability option. A forth might have no mod cons, very low availability and low cost. this gives us a weapon model of

A) Baseline, restricted, small bonus accuracy
B) Dangerous, illegal, high bonus accuracy
C) Assassin, illegal, no bonus accuracy, concealable
D) Cheap, legal/restricted, no bonus accuracy, very low price and availability.

That gives you variation between the four - clearly one is better for mages and one is better for street Sammie, and even then the third 'concealable' option might be the go if you need to take your gun through a security checkpoint into a no weapons zone. The restricted version might be more useful in many circumstances to because it offers a 'legal' option that you can explain away if a cop finds it in your car boot. If you quickly need to find an assault rifle after having landed in Europe, your arms dealer can connect you up with the forth. Bam! Differentiated weapons that all have a clear role.

As you point out, stuff that is 'Like A, except worse' is just a waste of space and should be removed because why do we have that, and replaced with differentiated weapons. In pistols, again you could see something similar (a powerful forbidden model, a less powerful restricted model, a cheap as chips model and a concealable assassin model) offering you 4 guns that players might want to use. Which also makes this
Total bullshit. I just dashed out 4 differentiated weapons concepts no problem. None of them is superior to all the others. yes, in a particular role one is better, but in another role, you might prefer another. Of course you could just have 4 guns, but only a weapons specialist is likely to do that, and hey, that's a fine character schtick too.

Ammo just needs strong points of differentiation because it's unlikely to can support multiple weak differentiating points. Given that, there is no reason for lots of types if you cannot support it. An example of ammo model could be: 'easily available, non lethal, AP bonus, damage bonus' where easily available is R and the other two types lethal types are F, offers differentiation and low word count. It's reasonable for a player to want to choose any of the 4 available types.

Funny, it seems to fit it just fine to me. It offers a fixed damage value, electrical damage, and halved armor. I'm not aware of any other ammo type that offers that.

And it costs more than most of the other options, too.

Too bad the statistic you're talking about is such a huge percentage. Munchkins and powergamers aside, I rarely ever see anyone choose Stick-n-Shock ammo except in the case of an emergency clip for special situations. And even that's fairly rare.

I know hardly any of the NPCs in the game come loaded with it, too. But how could that possibly be?!

How can SO MANY people NOT be chosing the munchkin's wet dream of ammo types?!

I'm pretty sure all those people who don't choose it would greatly miss all those other options they do choose, too.

Lets stick to the SR4 abstraction level here. How much variance do you see in handgun damage code? Most of them is just the secondary stats, and some details.

[…] it is all fluff difference in presentation... I think that this is mimiced fairly well in the game...

Then the Real world must really piss you off... There are literally thousands of different handguns in the real world, that are differentiated by caliber, ammo counts and various other minor differences... there are some obvious Optimal Choices, depending upon what you really are looking for, and yet for the most part, this is all minor fluff... Much like the game world...

Same goes for Ammo types... Lots and Lots of variation for minimal gain...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

Good.

Now, for the other thing:

I'm not arguing having the choice to have sub-par equipment to be a bad thing.
I'm arguing about listing pretty much every possible choice is a wast of space, when you can replace that with a variant system.

It is a generic system already. It's just that the variants for handguns get more space than the ones for vehicles.

You know – like Arsenal does.

Yes, but it's not like the real world if limited by 'page count.' Why do people persist in taking one of the issues and focusing on it out of context. You need to focus exclusively on real viable options because

A) Bad options are a trap for new players

B) Redundant options waste space that could be spent on other things

That still doesn't make options a bad thing.

Your ranting and raving about SnS is exactly that; you ranting about SnS ammo.

Flechette ammo is more than a bunch of needles. It encompasses a wide array of things.

For it to be the Stormwind Fallcy, that would mean that "roleplayers" would avoid Stick-n-Shock simply to avoid being "powergamers." Which isn't the case.

Munchkins and powergamers aside, I rarely ever see anyone choose Stick-n-Shock ammo except in the case of an emergency clip for special situations. And even that's fairly rare. I know hardly any of the NPCs in the game come loaded with it, too.

It's their reason for choosing it that makes them a powergamer/munchkin, not the fact that they actually chose it.

Printing mechanics dictate that you would not, you need to print books in multiples of 16 or 32? (I think that's it, it might be 8? You get the idea though) so chopping out half a page of wasted space requires putting something else in, even if something else is only 'improved layout to capitalize on increased white space budget instead of jamming everything together'

Plus SR free lancers have said on these forums before that stuff has been cut due to word count limits, so pretty sure that yeah, if you could cut pointless stuff you could add stuff somewhere else.

"A" is only true if you buy into the argument that a sub optimal character is a bad thing.

As for "B" well what other things would be referring to? You seem to be arguing that options are not needed at all. Just pick the best and print only that. You can not claim to want fewer options and imply you want more in the same sentence. Oh, and you have yet to show that options are redundant. You have only shown that you do not like the other options and see them as inferior. Which, by the by, and option can not be both inferior and redundant.

As for "B" well what other things would be referring to? You seem to be arguing that options are not needed at all. Just pick the best and print only that. You can not claim to want fewer options and imply you want more in the same sentence. Oh, and you have yet to show that options are redundant. You have only shown that you do not like the other options and see them as inferior. Which, by the by, and option can not be both inferior and redundant.

But that still does not equal that cutting out a half a page requires putting something in. It just means you are paying for space you are not using. Unless of course you can cut out enough to reach the lower multiple.

But that still does not equal that cutting out a half a page requires putting something in.

Plus SR free lancers have said on these forums before that stuff has been cut due to word count limits, so pretty sure that yeah, if you could cut pointless stuff you could add stuff somewhere else.

To be honest, I'm tired of the repeated quoting, so I'm just going to go with the lame "agree to disagree" comment and be done with talking to you.

A is silly - in a class based game, you could have a duelist class (or whatever). Some guy wants to play 'Zorro' so he goes to the duelist class. As the game designer you can either give him something that is balanced against the other options in the game, or you can give him or the other players a shit sandwich by making the class crap or OP respectively.

I cannot think of any possible reason you'd want to give out the shit sandwich over the balanced choice. If you do you're just beating people up for wanting to be a duelist or whatever, and I'm not cool with people randomly sucking or being overpowered just because they wanted to have a rapier or be a wizard or whatever. It's really not good for the game - people rage endlessly about power gamers and munchkins ruining the game - if the options were balanced while retaining differentiation, it wouldn't impact balance if someone was a wizard and some other guy was zorro allowing people to play what they want without flinging 'power gamer' at each other (see Doc Funk vs Rotbart)

What the heck?

A is silly - (clipped for space sake)

Players need to have a ranged of highly differentiated options! The more differentiated options the better!
(once again clipped to save space)

Players need to have a ranged of highly differentiated options! The more differentiated options the better!

Incidentally, an option can be both inferior and redundant. Imagine two skills, one called 'Swim' and one called 'Swimmy-er' The only difference being that 'Swimmy-er' is twice as good as 'swim'

Swim is both inferior (as it does half as much) and redundant ('Swimmy-er' duplicates the functions of 'swim' and the game only needs one option for swimming - one is 100% fine)

It's an absolutely ridiculous and absurd notion. "Variety is the spice of life." That phrase exists for a reason. It's one thing to have issue with the individual choices, but to say that having those choices is a bad thing is... well, I'm damn glad you have no way of impacting the game with nonsense like that.

Funny, that's all I ever see in class-based systems. Gross imbalance.

The best part is that you're just not seeing it. All those classes are options. Each one offers something different, even if some are similar (Rogue vs. Duelist vs. Fighter, or Sorcerer vs. Wizard, or etc.). Some are easily more powerful than others (especially if you move on to prestige classes/paths). So, by your argument, all of that should be abolished in favor of a minimalist class system consisting of two classes: Magic-Users and Non-Magic Users. Everything else is then dependent upon the customization options you make. Which, incidentally, would all have to be exactly equal or else you're wasting space. Which can only be accomplished by making everything the same. And even with this scenario of only two classes one is GOING to be more powerful than the other in some fashion. Oh noes! Prepare for the world to explode.

It's an absolutely ridiculous and absurd notion. "Variety is the spice of life." That phrase exists for a reason. It's one thing to have issue with the individual choices, but to say that having those choices is a bad thing is... well, I'm damn glad you have no way of impacting the game with nonsense like that.

Except that you have not shown that the Shadowrun System has both an Inferior Option that is Redundant... Much of what you are posting is pure opinion, and as such is not capable of providing a valid comparison as such... Opinion is not fact... what you declare as Inferior, someone else will contest... so, it actually does not progress anywhere productive...

Umm no. Because we are playing Roleplaying Game in which the goal is to have fun. Not to see who can make the most optimal character. Maybe you get some kick out of trying to min/max your way out of an inferiority complex, but some people prefer to roleplay a character without regard to optimization.

but some people prefer to roleplay a character without regard to optimization.

By RAW, there is no point in a corp guard or police officer not to use it.

I'm absolutlely certain they would despair if there ware a handfull less handguns listed. What would they do?
Make up new names and change some stats slighty? Crazytalk.

Except that you have not shown that the Shadowrun System has both an Inferior Option that is Redundant...

Yes, Increased Sensitivity allows for part of the functionality of Audio Enhancement (it does not grant dice) for a lower cost.

Taser darts are cheaper than Stick N' Shock ammo. Also the tasers can be clearly non-lethal weapons, a pistol with stick n' shock in it is no different to a gun with regular ammo in it. It may be preferable to have the mall cops carrying tasers than pistols.

Well you can make up any rules and fluff for yourself if you want to, but we buy these games because we want them done for us. And I crack open my copy of SR4 and I find that they've done exactly what you suggested - made up some names and changed some stats slightly.

If the choices were balanced in the first place by the game designer, Doc Funk wouldn't be calling someone a powergamer or munchkin about their ammo selection.