I'm sure this has been debated before, but other than using a different skill, and having more ammo...is there any benefit to using an LMG over an assault rifle?

Well, even IRL light machine guns aren't all that different from assault rifles. They use the same caliber of ammunition (generally) and are just as man-portable. IRL they are used as force multipliers and in that role they benefit from their greater ammo capacity and ability to sustain fully automatic fire. The idea is (for example) if a squad of five guys includes one guy with an M249 they are going to sound like 9 or 10 guys when they open fire.

So yes, the main benefit is their belt feed capability. This makes them ideal for weapon mounts and is enough to categorize them differently.

More Reach?
Also, under SR3,LMG's started out at Serious Damage where Assault Rifles started out at Medium Damage.

in SR3 they usded to have the serious damage code. Even with a low-power attack they could cause a moderate wound when used for suppresive fire...

Not really, but the fact that lmg uses heavy weapons skill might be a great benefit for some character builds.

Game-wise, range and ammo capacity.

IRL, I think LMG are more reliable than assault rifle when sustaining automatic fire for a long time. Also, the weight difference between belt and clips becomes significant when you're carrying one or two hundred rounds.

IRL, LMGs are designed to provide sustained automatic fire (using heavier barrels that can be rapidly swapped in combat) and mountable on tripods to provide final protection line fires, which will pretty much kill anyone crossing them. When tripod mounted they can deliver accurate automatic fire at many hundred of meters, which an AR can't.

In SR they are pretty pointless except on Drones, as 400 rounds of linked is a lot better then a 30 round mag.

The Ingram White Knight comes equiped with a Gas Vent 5 that cannot be found anywhere else. It does make FA aimed shooting much easier.

Does your GM use range penalties?

It's really the MMGs that start having the huge range, as is appropriate for the barrels and bullets involved. As above, LMGs *are* ARs with more ammo and more ability to sustain fire. That's all.

with the right dice pools, being able to belt out full auto for pass after pass can be a asset.

Ingram White Knight with a shock pad, foregrip, and personalized grips can fire full bursts at a -1 penalty, from the shoulder. Swap out that foregrip for a bipod and you've got no penalty, if you have anything to brace it against. Not impossible to do with a rifle, but a lot harder for a "nearly off the shelf" weapon.

Just go with an internal bipod, that one can be used as a foregrip when you dont have anythink to brace you weapon against.

With the arsenal rules, just have 6 strength. Zero penalties at that point and no need for a bipod.

Easier but more costly solution: Get a Gyrostabilization Unit. With it you can fire full bursts with an unmodified White Knight while running without penalty. That you can't get with any other accessory or weapon mod.

Wasn't there fluff text mentioning the inability to turn with the gyro stabilization unit?

It was RAW in SR2 and SR3 (possibly in SR1 as well, however I haven't seen the stats for it si I can't say for sure). It gave a penalty to movement related tests equal to it's RC.

This however is no longer true in SR4.

High strength and/or internal bipod work great as well, I was just aiming for "minimally modified" to make the point of how much RC you could get on there.

I'm rather fond of cyberarm gyromounts, myself.

That depends on the game level. The gyromount is strictly forbidden. There is no way for a PC with one to enter a quite secure area through the front door. One way to circumvent this is to put the gyromount in a modular limb.

Has it ever been confirmed or denied that gyros in both arms actually stack when using two-handed weapons?

Yup, street sam guide had a poster that claimed something to the effect of "Yeah works great but try to turn while running at full speed."

Mesh

Those are annoyingly Forbidden. How often does your PC get scanned for cyberstuff?

Auto-adjusting weight + Personalized grip + Shockpad + Gasvent 5. = 9RC

Get to choppin' son.

I guess I'm the only one that reads the White Knight's 5 recoil compensation as the combination of the Gas Vent and the folding stock in its descriptor instead of some mythical Gas Vent 5 system.

+one arm gyro and you may even be able to run. The rules seem to imply that.
@Railgun's Ninja-post: I believe the RC is listed as 5(6), so that is 5 points for the Gas Vent and one extra if the stock is unfolded.

Just paint the limb in Wifi-negating paint and it's scanproof.

. . you know, i think nobody else ever thought of this even here on dumpshock O.o

It's a good idea, the only problem I can see with it is that it will show up on the scanners as a block of "something" that can't be pierced. It could still lead to questioning.

Why should wireless negating paint block scanners? Those are 2 different kinds of sensors.

I've got a gnome NPC named Rayon Red who pretends to be a streetpunk tagger kid with a red painted cyberlimb. Little do people realize the exquisite nastiness waiting inside that arm.

I figure anything with a signal rating can be blocked or jammed by something..

If wifi-negating paint only hit a specific frequency, then a Nonstandard Wireless link would be crazy awesome, critical gear.

It would block radar... I guess it would have to be a GM call if it would block millimeter wave scanners or not. Seems like it would, to me.

thing is, milimeter wave gives quite a different image from standard radar as even water is more or less opaque to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millimeter_wave_scanner

a SR cyberware scanner probably use the echo not to reconstruct a 3d image, but to look for shapes that match known cyberware, and list them.

so a non-deployed gyro in a synthetic limb could perhaps look like a odd joint design, if the scanner can penetrate the shell of the limb in the first place (depends on how "real" the external cover is i guess).

That's a lot of stretch for that rationale. Since all of these technologies - including the paint - are likely much more advanced than what we have currently, I don't think there's really any good answer to this quandary aside from what your GM rules about the situation.

Everything with Signal can be jammed, and the standard jammer does so. Blocking the signal is different. Every signal can be blocked, but not necessarily by something as thin as a layer of paint. Actually, the ability to easily block the signal might have been part of the specification when the corps chose the Matrix spectrum.


Not so much: it could only connect to other nonstandard links, not to the Matrix (so it could not benefit from its routing either), would be more expensive since produced in smaller amounts, and would still be affected by jamming. But it should be a staple in military communications.

This is pretty much how the rigger wireless communication protocol used to work in SR3.

i would say that any device with a non-standard link can also make use of its standard link if it so wants to, so its quite possible for a device to act as a matrix "bridge" for devices with non-standard links.

You forgot Strength 6 (or 9, or 12, or...) ^_^

One of my players runs a troll who, when the shit hits the fan, dual-wields hypervelocity Ares Alphas with no uncompensated recoil with maximum usage (yes, that's 11+ RC). BOOyah!

lead hose?

I wouldn't let paint block a cyberware/UWB radar scan.

+



=

Reasonable conclusion.

If you don't like it, you're welcome to interpret it as "like jaming ≠ jamming" but UWB uses the same frequencies as 'Trix traffic, so it's not outlandish.

Now I've got to get back to statting up a crazy TM bum who wears a wifi-negating wallpaper hat to keep the voices out.

I should have been clearer: I wouldn't let paint *defeat* that scanner. A blocked arm is an instant red flag for that kind of scan, so they're not sneaking past anything.

Since Wi-Fi Negating Paint is the general counter to Radar, whether it be millimeter wave or not, in the Shadowrun system, you are unfortunately on an island...

It is mentioned in the Arsenal Section for the Smuggling Compartment Modification... Page 144. "Wi-Fi Negating Compartments would protect against Radar." In conclusion, any Wi-Fi Negating technology (Paint, Wallpaper, etc) should work just fine in that regard. And since a Cyberware Scanner uses Radar as well, it too would be somewhat stymied.

Keep the Faith

Stymied cyberware scanner = "Sir, would you step over here please?" At least, it does after seventeen other yahoos pulled the same stunt in the last year to smuggle cyberguns and explosives into the same building. Running a game where the security forces are moronic to the point that they haven't figured out "boy, we can't see what's in that cyberlimb, let's just let him into the building without asking" makes you wonder how any of them stay in business.

but it isn't based on the guard's skill at all. it's based on the device's rating. which basically just looks for things that it recognises, and tells you what it sees.

And hence sophisticated 3d pattern recognition. Which won't recognize an RF barrier why?

Ever notice it's easier to notice things that have blinking strobe lights and painted bright red? Or that the guy wearing the ski mask and long coat as he tries to rent a SEA-DOO on a beach in Florida in July attracts attention, no matter casual and relaxed he tries to be?

I houseruled all LMGs get 2 points of free RC (already included in the White Knight).

The device looks at your arm and goes "well shit, I can't see anything... no joints, no servos, no nothing. Are you sure that's an arm?" You didn't paint magical cybergun-invisibility-paint on it, you painted jamming paint on it. The guard looks at the scanner, sees that it doesn't even recognize an arm there, and figures "okay, something fishy with this guy's arm." Not exactly a hard conclusion to come to, since someone went to the trouble of jamming the crap out of his scanner.

The jam paint thing works, yeah... you can't tell what's in the arm. The problem is that a security guard isn't going to let a blackbody cyberlimb past his post; he'd have to be a terminal retard to do that.

Has anybody seen the Crying Freeman movie? This guy has a bright way to pass his guns through the airport checkup: he is a potter and his guns are hidden in a cubic meter of clay. Clay is very rich in iron oxyds. Hard to do the same with an arm, unfortunately