Hmm, where is that in the rules?

SR4A p153, Narrow Bursts. Otherwise, why would anyone use anything but autofire? No snipers, no pistols, no assault cannon…

How ever the bonus from fireing a burst dosen't count to wards overcoming armor to deal P damage thus the medium MG DV of 7 with one net hit and with the ap of -2 would only overcome up to 9 armour on a vehicle. That leaves 6 vehicles out of reach of a MMG. Hell the city master needs around 5net hits to be breached by the panther cannon with out snazzy ammo.

Dunno - haven't seen that many non-automatics using runners in my time, really.
Also, you could argue that per RAW that rule only applies to narrow bursts. :3

Anyway - thanks, I haven't noticed that ruling before. It's really really crappily placed.

… Yes. It does only apply to narrow bursts. What kind did you think you were talking about?
I dunno, it's exactly in the Narrow Burst rules. You literally couldn't be attempting to increase DV with burst fire *without* reading that section, because that's what a narrow burst is.

Granted, MMG/HMG are *great* freaking weapons.

I meant short narrow bursts, of course. :3
And eh, when I read about full auto mode, that rule is nowhere to be found.

Wide bursts drop the defenders dice-poll narrow up your DV. Against vehicles wide bursts might be a better bet as it's net hits you need to punch the armour.

Minding that vehicles most often buy hits on damage resistance tests anyway, it's not like even 9 dice would matter all that much, Dumori.

3 net hits is 3 net hits. That's +3 DV against armor (more if you're rolling well, I guess). It can be the difference between destroying the vehicle, and not hurting it at all.

3 net hits is 3 net hits. That's +3 DV against armor (more if you're rolling well, I guess). It can be the difference between destroying the vehicle, and not hurting it at all.

And that was a narrow burst post.

Wide bursts do help kill ghosts though.
You've got to keep your hits up to keep the DV up, and nothing craps on Casper's rediculous dodge dice like a full auto wide burst.

Why one earth would they print that basic narow burst rule in every part of the burst rules, that would be a total waste of word count.

Because normally universal rules go into the sections on universally applied rules, not in the short narrow bursts subsection, which contains rules for a certain specific case.
Well, or a note is added - "Note that the DV change incurred by burst fire never counts when calculating penetration" or samesuch.
Otherwise it just leaves space for rules lawyering.

Why shouldn't a full auto narrow burst DV increase count for penetration?

Because it doesn't? I mentioned above that it would destroy any semblance of balance between more bullets and bigger bullets, as well. You could break armored cars with a machine pistol; it's a realism nod without having a more complicated system of armor hardness.

Well, but you /can/ wear down walls, armor using Full Auto.

Fire one bullet at a concrete wall, not much damage. Fire a couple hundred a minute and you /can/ chew through that wall.

Same with a bullet proof vest.

Hell, for most targets a runner team could conceivably find themselves up against just get an M79B1 LAW. It collapses down so it can be stowed in a rucksack for emergencies, it's only 12 F so it's available at Chargen, it's cheap at 750 and with a damage code of 12P with -6AP vs Vehicles it should be able to handle anything up to and including an General Products COP, and in the hands of a reasonably skilled user put a pretty damn big dent in a Citymaster.

Fair enough, sabs: if you fire 200 rounds at an armored car, I'll let you wear it down.

That particular weapon has made my "Best of the Best" list for a reason.

it is also a missile, and therefore scatters a stupidly large amount and is likely to deal a lot less damage because of that fact.particularly since while no blast value is listed, it presumably uses anti-vehicle missile blast rules (since the weapon fires anti-vehicle missiles) ... ie -4/m

so the much much much more likely situation is that on a successful attack, the missile blows up a few meters away and doesn't even do damage to an unarmored human target, let alone a vehicle.

but hey, at least it's a much less expensive piece of junk than other weapons. heck, it presumably comes with the rocket in it, since it doesn't even fire an actual AV rocket and you can't buy ammunition for it anywhere else in the book... so it's actually even cheaper than buying even a single rocket. but it also still couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. best of the best is entirely relative... it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be less bad than anything else in it's category

(note: if you change the scatter rules to make sense, for example by not applying them on a direct hit, you get much less stupid results, and rockets actually become potentially useful)

Actually, it is a Rocket, not a Missile... Just sayin' (But you apparently inherently knew that, not sure why you called it a Missile though)

And you can equip it with a Airburst Link to minimize the Scatter to 2d6... If you are not doing that, then you are obviously missing something in your tactics. At 2d6, and -1 per net Hit... it works out pretty well, if a Little off... No doubt that the rules for it in SR4 were better, but I am sure that they changed that to make them more surviveable... as for a Direct hit... you do not directly hit unless scatter is Zero...

Anyways...

Plus you can rip the airbust link of and stick it on the new one you buy.

At -4/m, you need a fair number of net hits, ie 5 or more to be able to do appreciable harm to an unarmored human. This seems a little 'off' to me.

Except that you are apparently talking about actually hiting a HUMAN with a Rocket (which can be done, if you are very good, but is a waste of a munition designed for a different purpose)... if that is the case, well, that may be your problem... Rockets are not for targeting people, they are for targeting vehicles and structures... Grenades are for targeting people...

I have fired a fair number of Rokets in my time from the Little Ones (LAAW, AT4, and SMAW) all the way to Man-Portable/Crew Fired Missiles (Tow, Dragon, and Stingers), and though you can target a human with a Stinger at 10,000 meters (did that once on an airfield in Honduras), you would not want to fire one at a human, as that is not what they are designed to target. The LAAW is not for people, it is an anti-vehicle munition, and should be used as such...

Want to target People? Use grenades... you will be much happier I think...

I wasn't so much talking about targeting a person, but more using said person as an example of how pathetic the rocket is. Given the average scatter from a Law in SR with anything other then a world class marksman, is likely to miss a stationary target by a wide enough margin as to cause little to no damage at best. I see the average user having 3 dice skill, 4 dice stat, and 2 dice smart link. That still leaves an average of 4 meters scatter, which means no damage is done to the target.

Rockets,Missiles and Grenades the only weopons in shadowrun where you can get more then enought nethits for a critical succes and still miss your target.

Also, my Best of the Best list was made before the SR4A errata.

yup. pretty much exactly what i meant. i mean, sure, if you manage to roll 2 on the 2d6 scatter you might be ok. that way you would only need 2 net hits to actually deal the weapon's damage, and even if you only score one net hit at least it's enough to breach 14 points of armor. (note: i'm not entirely certain you can technically equip airburst on a rocket)

but let's say you roll a 3, well now 4 net hits is only enough to breach 10 points of armor. if we make it a 5, which is still on the low end, suddenly 2 net hits means you did no damage at all to an unarmored human. if you take the average of 7 scatter, you need 5 net hits just to deal 4P damage with -6 AP. if you roll "only" 4 net hits, you deal no damage at all. and should you be unfortunate enough to roll 12 on the scatter dice, well, so much for that. the best marksman in the world would have little to no chance of actually dealing any damage whatsoever with that kind of roll. in order to hit reliably on the average scatter, you would need to have 21 more dice than your target. that's not exactly common.

so sure, you can go ahead and say that the weapon in question can breach 18 points of vehicle armor. but i can tell you now, i wouldn't want to be relying on that thing for breaching 18 armor. hell, i wouldn't want to be stuck relying on that thing to breach 10 armor. even when you hit, you've got a really high chance of missing completely and dealing no damage.

I could be misremembering this but dont you get bonuses for targetting a really big thing like a vehicle. I seem to remember trolls being a +1 and vehicles being +2 - +4 depending on size. This wouldnt help too much granted but if your shooting a rocket at a bus for example a nice +4 to hit would be a nice thing



Edit,

Found it, its in the optionsal combat rules in Arsenal

Problem right now is that all the net hits in the world probably are not gonna help on a bad scatter roll . .

Fair nough,

RPGs have a wide array of anti-personnel rockets, including fragmentation and thermobaric ones.
The new rules are just hilariously bad.

Except that the LAAW, which we were initially talking about (or at least I was) does not... it is an Anti-Vehicle Weapon...
Yes... current Scatter sucks, but on the other hand, characters now survive such attacks... so it is a wash for me in most respects (I agree it is not realistic, but there you go)...

Meh if it was a keeping chars alive change then meh edge is there for a reason if annythig I think the only problem rockets used to cause was the silly damaging passengers rules sure its going to hurt them but by RAW its morelikey to kill the passengers than the damn craft they are in.

This is true...
People on the interior of a vehicle tend to experience bad things when superheated plasma enters the vehicle...
Especially when that plasma cooks off the ammo stores...

Yes, but if the ammo stores cook off, the vehicle is likely not going to get away from the affair with little more then scorched paint.

Also True... For the record, I never had a problem with the lethality of said Munitions from previous rulesets... and my Weapons purist alter-ego rails against what they did, but it made the game a BIT more survivable... not sure I agree with it, but I have managed to keep it from bothering me too much...

Tymeaus Jalynsfein, what you said was



That is plain wrong, because quite a number of rockets exist for wiping the infantry out.

Also, it's not like even highly-trained corporate guards carry rocket launchers around (even on corp ground), so if the runners are up against someone who does, I am perfectly ok with them dying on turn 1. Because they're clearly out of their league.

it's also wrong because grenades use the same scatter rules, and even a frag grenade is likely to only do something like 5P damage with less armor penetration than the heavy pistol which could have been used to inflict similar damage...

BUT... Rockets made for actually damaging people are not targeted on the People; they are targeted on the area the people occupy, and make up for lack of accuracy (for people) by raining destruction on a large area with a large output of Rockets... a Single rocket is NOT for targeting people... I have witnessed the effectiveness of MLRS's that use rockets for Anti-personnel attacks... and they did not target the people when they fired it off...

But your point is taken...