I have noticed that SR players tend to like Submachine Guns and Assault Rifles and the like. I personally think Full auto is over-rated. It had heavy penalties and can never be full compensated for by the runner(drones and vehicles no included). One under utilized area is Automatic Shotguns. With a few mods I can get a Enfield AS-7 to have no recoil on a long burst on both burst in a pass. And with the Ammo options you can have with a combat shotgun would make it a very nasty weapon.

RC 6
Gas vent 3
sling
foregrip
personalized grip or electronic firing

Submachine gun on full auto RC5 (complex Action) is taking at least a -4 to his die pool to do +9 DV

Shotgun long burst RC 6. two long bursts (Simple Actions). no dice penalty and +5DV for each shot.

Don't forget the magnificient range the shotgun can get.

add an improved Range Finder, You have no range penalties for short and medium range.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTPz59y5538...feature=related

This is The AA-12 auto shotgun. This a real combat shotgun with options

According to SR4A, shotgun slug ranges are equivalent to those of an SMG and flechette ranges are equivelant to those of a heavy pistol. Even without using any tricks to offset range penalties, in most of the SR games I've played in or run, those ranges are more than sufficient since most firefights tend to be in urban environments at fairly close distances.

As a player, my most successful 'muscle'-type character (more of an urban merc than a street samurai) primarily used the Franchi SPAS-22 shotgun. Reasonably concealable, BF capable and even with only an 8(m) ammo capacity, he was able to finish most fights without having to reload. Recoil could be a pain, but that could be worked around most of the time. He possessed and sometime carried other firearms (such as a tricked out assault rifle), but he generally considered them to be specialty weapons for specific circumstances rather than his standard load out.

A shotgun is an awesome weapon. The one short coming is that it is not as readily concealable as other weapons. But for take down power and intimidation (although not quantified within the mechanics) it is an excellent tool.

"Heavy penalties that cannot be fully compensated by the runner."

Excuse me?

A Gas Vent-3, a gyromount, and just a few other minor tweaks will reduce the recoil on an HVAR-modded MMG to zero. You'll be spitting death in the form of bursts of 12 bullets, with no penalty.

When you go to gyro mounts sure. Most people are not going to carry a MMG into combat unless you are amped up troll. I can explain the use of a shotgun to the PD. Using a MMG in a city is a quick way to long jail sentence.

I have an adept sniper. Longarms with sniper spec. He will be using a Modified Enfield AS-7 that will work with his longarm skill. It is a great short and medium range weapon. With shock locks is is great for removing door problems. Combine it with stick n Shock, ex, apds rounds and you have a very versitile weapons platform.

Modern day they have minigrenades for a AA-12 Combat Shotgun.

Mmmmmmm...minigrenades.

Speaking of modern day advances in science!

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2...rbide-nanowires

Nanotech is sooooooo cool!

My streetsam has gyro-implants in his arms. Besides, are you saying that the main disadvantage of using big guns is that they're illegal and you're going to jail for a long time if you get caught? Isn't the legality of your guns the least of your worries when you're shooting at corp-sec?

Shotguns are severely underrated by the mechanics in SR. So I don't blame people not using them.

Main benefit of the SMG over the Shotgun is suppressive fire. At least in SR3, suppressive fire was less effective than aimed fire, at least for characters with high skill, good combat pools, and multiple initiative passes.

Like brennanhawkwood, I had a character (my namesake) who used the Spaz as his go-to "no limits firefight" tool. I similarly found the ammo capacity not an issue; switching to single shot for a free action let me conserve ammo, and with 3-4 actions a turn (sr3, VERY fast samurai) and high quickness, I could re-load on the fly as needed. A side benefit was, I spent less on ammo. Plus, when wounded, I could use scatter shot and set the spread to reduce to-hit TNs down to where I was still hitting with every shot (if doing less damage). Though I have to admit, my experiment with using spread shot gell rounds while seriously wounded was more amusing than anything else (the phrase "snot cannon" comes to mind).

Sr4 makes the difference less dramatic, but the Enfield AS-7 does look like a very appealing gun to me.

I also like shotguns for fluff reasons; they are really the only (current day) guns that offer a broad range of effective alternate ammo types. If your GM limits S&S rounds to shotguns... well, that would make them VERY popular, no? I'm also surprised there's no special mini-grenade rounds for shotguns; if they can fit effective S&S or APDS tech into a pistol caliber round, then surely there would be 12 gauge mini grenades.

I'm not being sarcastic:

Why don't you have recoil for the second long burst?
Why can't an AR fire long bursts in this scenario? It seems like you're comparing BF to FA, not Automatics to Shotguns.

I love shotguns as much as the next guy, and it's sad they're not quite as good as they ought to be in SR.

Oops, another edit: Why can you fire two long bursts at all?

Hell yes, Burst Fire Shotguns rule in SR.
Best gun in SR3 was the Franchi SPAS-22.
We allowed a Franchi SPAS-12 with Smartlink1 and a Franchis SPAS-02 without any Smartlink.
Burstfire, foldable stock, good to conceal, 10S/13D Damage with Slugs, 10D Damage on single Shot with Flechette.
Bigger Reach than the standard Heavy Pistol. instead of usual Slug load up with ExEx Ammo and you are at 12S/15D Damage.
3 Points of Recoil which can be compensated EASY. Nicest thing about shotguns is loading them up with Gel-Ammo.
Basic Damage is S, so the knockdown is D, which means any target gets to automatically hit the ground when hit.
And 8S/11D Stun damage with that kinda reach and man stopping power is not to be trifled with either.
If you have good eyes and a good laser pointer, you are guaranteed to hit what you aim ait too. Even Trolls will feel THAT.

Even just for the fluff reasons. A shotgun is a very intimidating weapon. Just on that alone would ward a few bonus dice to intimidate rolls. I tend to agree the rules could use some tweaking concerning shotguns and certain ammo like Stick n Shock. I would let the shot gun fire mini-grenades as an option. The bore is as big as a mini-grenade launcher (a good armorer might be able to make or modify them).

If the PD will come down on you for just carring an MMG, but not for a shotgun(you get a license for a Shotgun). For the rest of us that are not cyberZombies, gyro platform is not small or light.

A few things...

• Shotguns can't mount gas vents. If you're house-ruling to allow them to have gas vents, that's another thing, but they aren't able to use them normally.
• You can't fire two long bursts in a turn without having an HV-modified weapon. Shotguns can't be HV-modified, only SMG's and assault rifles can be.
• Recoil compensation doesn't get applied to each burst you fire in a turn, it gets applied across all the rounds you fire in a turn. In your example of firing two long bursts from a RC6 weapon, the first long burst will be at no penalty, the second long burst will have 5 uncompensated rounds.

Getting a reasonable (hell, a ridiculous) amount of recoil comp onto a SMG or AR isn't hard:


This weapon can fire a full burst at -1, for a +9 DV. It holds enough ammunition to do this 5 times.
Add in Modification High-Velocity, and it can fire either a full burst at -3 for +11 DV, or two long bursts (the second at -2) for +5 DV apiece.


This weapon can fire a full burst with no recoil modification, for +9 DV. It holds enough ammunition to do this 10 times.
Add in Modification High-Velocity, and it can fire a full burst at -2 for +11 DV, or two long bursts (the second at -1) for +5 DV apiece.

See, that's exactly what I'm asking about. That sounds like what I know of the rules, Shrike30.

The double uncompensated recoil for shotguns is what makes using them on full auto really hard. If you stick with bursts they do alright.

The AA-16 is a good place to start out, as it does have a built-in gas vent (getting around the "no gas vents on shotguns" restriction)...

This is about as much recoil compensation as you can fit on a shotgun in this game... starting with any other shotgun leaves you with 2 less points of RC to play with. RC 6(7 with burst fire) will let you fire off a couple of short bursts with no penalties. Firing a short burst/long burst combo leaves the second one at -2. Full-auto will rack up a -6.

Having a character with either forearm gyros or a high strength rating will let you reduce some of the issues here. It still can't beat an assault rifle, though, especially beyond 150 meters... and any time you have to "explain the use of" anything to PD, you're in deep shit, regardless of whether it was an assault rifle, MMG, or a shotgun.

You want to talk about the king of no-recoil full auto? Let's get started with the Ingram White Knight...

One little thing:
The FN P93 does nut support under barrel accessories/modifications, so the Auto-adjusting Weight is out.

Doesn't say a thing about modifications

As far as RAW is concerned you're right, sorry.
But when I look at the pic of the gun that all smells a bit cheesy imho

"You wanna do what? Hunting ducks with that full-auto shotgun? You've got a hunting licence? Yeah, right. Ye know what? You're under arrest!"

Going by pictures is dangerous. It shows the FNP93 as a bull pup weapon, which means it should be faster to use than say an AK97 carbine. No rules to cover the differences between bull pup weapons and standard weapons. They should have some recoil mod, range mod, or nebulous "speed mod" to simulate real life. I allow under barrel mods on this weapon in my game but not as accessories. I guess the armorer just shoe horns the weights in there somehow.

I can get rc6 with an auto assualt-16
normal RC2
Foregrip 1
Sling 1
personalized Grip 1
Heavy Barrel 1

RC4 with an enfield AS-7 and a sound suppressor

If I am doing two short bursts it doesn't matter.

As far as gas vents are concerned. if you stick with solid shells. You should be able to use them on shotguns.

The shotgun rules need a major edit. Auto shotguns are easier to handle than submachine guns. Take a look at the like I put in a while back. AA-12 has a fairly light recoil(A real Combat Shotgun)

BTW it wouldn't duck hunting. Deer or buck and there are more dangerous thing in the woulds that animals.

But now you're talking about short bursts. What's your point here of shotguns versus automatics? They get 1 DV more than ARs, I guess; any other difference? It's firing slugs with almost identical effects as the SMG or AR, except for concerns of concealability and clip size.

The big difference is that burst fire is just insanely powerful now. Even if a Shotgun had a base DV of 9P, it'd still be an iffy choice compared to an assault rifle or even an SMG. And since they use a unique skill unrelated to those weapons, not to mention the game's crazy prices for skills... it causes a big ol' "why bother?" Why bother with a shotgun when you can take Automatics and have access to pistols, smgs, and rifles, all of which use the crazy burst fire rules?

If they'd have done something more sensible such as get rid of the Automatics skill and just base weapons on Small Arms, Long Arms, Heavy Weapons, and Launch Weapons, a lot of those issues would be fixed. Then people would feel okay about carrying around a shotgun whenever their assault rifle wasn't appropriate (since they used the same skill), and a SA/BF Machine Pistol could actually be used by the same person who has no trouble firing a SA/BF Heavy Pistol. You'd also see normal rifles being used more often, too.

In other words, while the weapons and their related rules are part of the problem, the biggest issue is the skill one.

Hmm, no defaulting to other skill?

Defaulting doesn't work like that anymore. When you default it's Attribute-1, rather than Attribute+Skill.

If you default to attribute alone, yes, but is there no defaulting to other skill which means a -2 to the dice pool but otherwise working like intended?

Not unless they changed the name and hid the rule somewhere. Which may very well be the case; wouldn't be the first time we've been playing this long without noticing something like that. I just double checked; didn't see anything about that. Here's the text. SR4A, p 121:

Hmm, okay, i thought i had read something to the stated by me extent . . may be mixing up SR3 and SR4 again . .

I think they tried to get around skill webs and the old school method of defaulting with the creation of Skill Groups. They clearly thought those would be far more popular than they are, and even if they were they'd still be kind of full of fail.

*shrugs*
In SR3, there wasn't even a FIREARMS Group.
Nor a Group for Bladed weapons.
There was pistols, smgs, rifles, shotguns, heavy weapons.
And edged weapons and pole-arms. Even if the latter are just the former on a stick.

Uhm, I know. But you didn't need them, either, because you could use, say, your Rifles 6 skill to shoot with a shotgun as if you had Shotguns 4. And skill points were a lot easier to come by then, too, so you could be a very richly diversed character without having to cripple yourself in other areas. Now you can't do that. You can't use your Pistols 4 skill to shoot a Machine Pistol. But if you had the Firearms 4 skill group, you basically could.

Yeah. Why would anybody ever take single skills instead of the firearms group? O.o
Aside for point costs being too high in creation, i don't see any drawback from that.

Lack of specializations and the limitation to a rank of 4 at creation are the two big stopping blocks. Unless you were already planning on taking 3 or more skills from the skill group and using them on a regular basis, it's not cost effective in the least. The only ones I regularly take are Influence and Athletics, and even Athletics is iffy since Climbing and Swimming are pretty marginal skills.

Well, better to have and not need than not to have and indeed need i allways say ^^

if they consider a max starting skill of 4 in all firearms skills too low.

That's only 2 less dice than you could have anyway. Maybe 4 if you factor in specialization and Aptitude.
Most of that can probably be picked up with good modifications on other parts. You may not be completely hardmaxed at the beginning, but you can split up the group in game, will have the unneeded skills at level 4 still and be able to take specializations for your favourite skills in game too.

Emphasis mine.

Huh what? Do you specifically mean Machine Pistols, or are you also talking about BF capable heavy pistols like the Guardian and Thunderbolt?

4 fewer dice isn't nothing. Anyway, I agree that Automatics is very broad, and that the skill divisions are uneven. I just didn't understand Triggvi's argument that shotguns were better.

I assumed he meant machines pistols, which makes Automatics plenty broad

I meant Machine Pistols, just like I meant Assault Rifles. Automatics includes at least one type of weapon from each of those categories, which grossly limits the point of those other skills, demonstrating exactly why it shouldn't be a skill itself.

I was not saying shotguns where better as a general statement. Shotguns in close quarters urban fighting are better than SMG. They back a bigger punch with less ammo expended. They are less likely to kill innocents if they catch stray pellets instead of bullets. They f**k intimidating. There are good reasons swat and anti-terrorist unit use them.

I can agree that the skill distribution for firearms is a little weird. Pistols, SMG, Long-arm would be a better way of doing it.

I think the flechette rules could use a bit of work. what would make flechettes nasty verses unarmored or low armored target. add+2 dv to the damage with 0 AP(impact). then take and split it into to separate hits(round up). Armor would be considered hardened for the attacks.

A sliver would do 5+2dv/2 =4p and 4p. if someone is wearing a armored coat would not take any damage unless the net hits gave them enough to breach the armor rating. against a leather jacket, you would take two shots at 4p+net hits. That would mean a Slivergun at SA with 2 simple actions would hit someone 4 times.

Flechettes are suppose to be very deadly verses unarmored people but nearly ineffectual verses armor and another good reason for flechettes is that they don't penetrate walls very well.

Mossberg with Long Burts, Narrow Burst, Wide Choke Options... deadly.

There is no reason it can not be internal. Take a look at the Kriss for excemple.

Ah. Well, my point was that shotguns are barely different from ARs in the game, so I was confused.

I don't like shotguns because I don't like too much extra noise. silenced smg with caseless is quiet and has a significantly higher ammo capacity. Less reloading in combat, easier to avoid large-scale engagements. If I geek a mook with a 12-gauge somebody's going to come looking; 3 rounds from a silenced hk227, and the loudest noise is him hitting the floor. If shit well and truly hits the fan, the less frequent reloading can be quite handy. Concealability is nice too.

Old timers are probably tired of hearing me say this, but I think the best way to go is to put practically everything with a trigger into one weapons group and then have sidearms, small arms and support weapons as the categories within that group-- with such a grouping the weapons are essentially divided up by way by the manner they function by RAW, which is all that really matters as far as I'm concerned, since RAW behavior is a prime concern for most players.* Players choose Sidearms (Holdouts, Tasers, Pistols, including Machine) when they want convenient/concealable, small arms (SMGs, assault rifles, shotgun, sniper) for when you don't really give a crap about who knows you're heading to a fight and support weapons are the big guns and mil-spec launcher weapons. Under my grouping, the Samurai can still get by just fine with a sawn off shotgun and one skill group (sidearms) if they want to, the Face gets a new toy in MPs if he sticks with sidearms (the de facto pistols group) and the weapon specialist gets a big ol' fat discount that frankly they desperately need-- My philosophy is that SR4 doesn't have granular enough rules that paying a ton of BP for slightly different ways of hurting people with bullets to be very economical. The RAW differences are small enough that the average runner is usually best off sticking with one weapon type and then grabbing Hardware, Etiquette or Infiltration instead of paying for another way to make people dead.

*Yeah, the naming conventions aren't great, but it's the best I could come up with as far as intuitiveness goes, even if technically speaking sidearms fall under the small arms umbrella.

The reason I was looking at shotguns as a good choice is that I am running a sniper with a high long-arms skill. I was looking for a good close quarters weapon for him that used his long-arms skill. The Enfield AS-7 with mods was a good choice. With RC 3 and no gas vent you can use a sound suppressor with it.. AutoAssault-16 with mods is a good choice too. with RC6 I can do long bursts and short burts and use full auto for supression fire.

The rules are a little over simplified and weighty at the same time where firearms are concerned.

One thing I have noticed from edition to edition of games is that the writers tend to have there favorite weapons and least favorite weapons. In this case the writers loved automatics and hated shotguns or it was a knee jerk reaction to 3rd ed where shotguns were bad-ass weapons.

Without bothering to look at RAW...I gotta call zombie bullshit on that one.