Before I get started, I'd like to preface this with a short statement. First, I know the metal storm subject comes up quite often. I also know that it the merits of such a weapon system is much debated.

I don't care. That's not what I'm here for.

ok...so...now for a little background.

Reading the description of the Yamaha Sakura Fubuki, there is mention of "Yamaha's new line of electronic weapons" which intrigued me. I pondered this and thought, "what are the other Corps doing as a response?" Since Metal Storm would probably have been bought out/absorbed/bankrupted by the time 2070 comes around, someone has to have purchased the IP associated with it (name, patents, designs, etc.) Whoever did probably decided to dust off that part of their portfolio and started research into a new line with the "original Metal Storm, trusted since 200x" to try to hedge in on Yamaha's new market.

In the game I'm running, someone has done just that and the players were hired to snag the designs along with a batch of their first run production models.

So I've created a line of electronic firing weapons, which I will post here in a few weeks after the players have completed the run.

But what I need your help with as a community is which corp should be resurrecting Metal Storm? I don't really want to do Ares, cus there is so much Ares stuff out there already. Other than that, any weapons manufacturing Corp, be it a mega or a AA, or even A rank Corp.


[edit] Here is the information on the new line[/edit]

I'd say, Metal Storm simply was never founded in the Shadowrun parallel universe.

Personally, I consider each weapon in the gear entries to be just a representative sample of that kind of weapon. Just as vehicle entries in Arsenal have a "similar models" paragraph with a few alternate names and brands you can slap on top of those specific stats, so does every other piece of gear in the game, in practice. Just because the "electronic-firing pistol" presented in the books is called "Yamaha Sakura Fubuki", it doesn't mean you can't take the exact same stats and call it "Ares Metal Storm 2070", or "AZT Tormenta", or "H&K Tornado", and so on.

As for witch corp moves in to take on Yamaha. SK seams an ok bet for armerments same with Aztech who even have their own version of the Alpha.

As I said, I don't really care. That's not what I'm looking for. What I'm here for is depth. I have no experience with previous editions/settings for SR so I have little knowledge of existing corporations in canon. Who makes weapons? Particularly, who out there is on the leading edge of weapons development in the SR universe circa 2070.

Besides, I already wrote it all out anyway, along with some fluff so I'm not gonna waste the work I did and throw it out. Instead I'll post it here for anyone that's interested and those that don't care to create new content for their players and that will create excuses for not doing so can still use the run idea and just use their "Similar models"....

Hmmmm, what's the name of the SK weapons division. I don't think I've ever seen any SK weapons so I'm assuming they own some other brands? SIGARMS? Steyr Mannlicher? I'm not sure what German area manufacturers there are...

Similar question for Aztech...only aztech weapon I know of is the flamethrower....

I've been looking at FN Herstal but I don't know much about them as a corporation in 2070.

Which brings me to another thought....I don't necessarily need to use Metal Storm in name at all if it would fit better with a different angle. In fact I think I might do this and leave all the metal storm baggage behind. Will have to come up with a name for the line though...I hate naming stuff.

The similar models in Arsenal were meant to be different in some way, by possibly adjusting values up and down equally, i.e. this one's better at Handling, this one's got a higher top speed. If this was done for firearms, you would have to adjust the stats there too. Maybe one type of pistol is more powerful, but can't fit as much ammo or something.

Well, the granularity of the rules is pretty high, as is their level of abstraction. The damage difference between a light pistol and an assault rifle is just 2 points, so I imagine you have plenty of wiggle room without having to actually change stats.

You can have people saying the Ares Metal Storm 2070 is more reliable, or that the AZT Tormenta handles better, but that the Sakura Fubuki is lighter. They can still all have the same stats since all those differences comfortably fit below the level of abstraction the rules concern themselves with. You can even make up detailed manufacturing histories for all of them without ever having to change any weapon stats. That's more than enough depth for me.

If you want a more detailed lineup, with every different model having slightly different stats, you might be happier with a different rule system. GURPS is a good one for this - check out its High-Tech supplement for more guns than you ever thought you'd see in a single book!

I have most of the gurps books so thanks for the suggestion. But I'm not super fond of the way the system works in general.

And considering I've written at least 3 systems, I don't balk at changing one.

But considering that the Heavy Pistol section alone from both 4a and arsenal has as many guns as it does, adding more that are as functionally different from them as what I've written up warrants a separate weapon stat. My players (as well as myself) enjoy the little differences with each weapon...Not to say the using similar model isn't a good idea. I've done it with a few things in my game so far, guns included...but how do you make a metal storm SMG when there isn't one to base it off of. Or holdout, machine pistol, heavy pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle and assault rifle for that matter (I have one of each).

I also don't like the rules mechanics for the Yamaha, so I've changed it in my game.

But again, its not really houseruling for me when I make my own gaming system as often as I play a new one.

What happened to the original company isn't likely to matter much : the base patents will be more than fifty years old by 2070 - which means they're probably no longer valid and anyone willing can tinker with the concept.

Indeed, you make a very astute observation. I actually considered this after my post, and thought of ways to rationalize it, whether it was due to changes in patent law after corps owned everything or whatever ...which makes me more inclined to ditch the Metal Storm name for whoever decides to pick up the opposition to Yamaha.

Patents only last 20 years with one chance to renew (for a total of 40 years). After that time the tech goes 'open source'.

Isn't there already the Colt Government in Arsenal with an electric firing mechanism? Mind you, their drawing of it makes it just look like a normal pistol and doesn't explain how its feeding mechanism would work without blow back and a slide. And since it appears to actually have both of those components, how it becomes more reliable since a significant number of weapon stoppages occur from faulty ammunition or improper feeding as opposed to malfunctions of the actual firing mechanism.

The Metal Storm concept seems to be closer in line with the YSF pistol's description. Linear stacks of rounds in multiple barrels. The problem with these kinds of weapons becomes firing rate control. There's little chance that anyone but the most heavily reaction enhanced could do anything except fire off the entire stack in one go unless it was hard coded to fire in specific bursts, and not fired by a conventional pull trigger (which the picture shows).

Has any book ever delineated who owns Colt? I think that might be a good bet for a competitor and a company that has been around long enough to have reasonably acquired Metal Storm at some point. Even if you probably do have to scrap the Colt 2066 or just assume it doesn't look anything like the picture, heh.

It *is* hardcoded to fire specific bursts (the YSF, I mean). For that matter, so are all SR guns: 3, 6, 10, (15), etc.

The Yamaha is. I'm just saying there's no way these weapons could be fully automatic (in the real world sense, not the SR4 rules sense) without some kind of smartlinked fire control, and even then, would probably fire way too fast for anything but but the most obscenely sensitive (read: heavily enhanced) user. It's a weapon that doesn't really conform to the RAW because of its firing rate. It should be able to fire a 10 round full burst as a simple action if it were FA.

Of course, the concept of the YSF also doesn't really work for it to be a pistol sized weapon. If you remove the casings but still assume it's using a similar sized projectile to the conventional 9mm slug, it is hard to believe the weapon could stack 10 rounds in tandem. The last (first) round would be essentially sitting at the end of the barrel, providing for almost no spin or back pressure to provide the impetus for acceleration. But, then again, we're back to game designers versus weapons designers, lol. Just like James Cameron's M40A1s could have an ammunition capacity of 99 caseless 10mm (!) rifle rounds.

I guess if you were just dying for it, you could make it an even better version of High Velocity (I hate that term, there's no velocity to speak of). However, I don't think it's warranted.

You're right about the real life technical implications, of course. Oh well.

They own H&K and maybe a few others.

There's the independent Ruhrmetall (Luger, Mauser, Walther) and Hecker & Koch might be a subsidiary company of SK. The status of HK was supposed to be resolved in Corp Guide but I haven't read that book.

If you're looking for a major player, I'd go for Ruhrmetall.



FN's owned by Monobe International, Japan. They own Beretta via Esprit Industries as well.



If Metal Storm ever existed in the SR universe, the tech might have been simply lost in the first crash, just as other tech like the iPhone, UMTS, etc.



IRL Metal Storm firing rates are AFAIK controlled by a computer.



Um, I count 6 rounds in this model and this one seems to be filled next to the end of the barrel.

In a dystopian future where corporations make the law, one can assume that these durations have been extended.

And that's the point where Shadowrunners enter the stage.

How quaint. An artist's interpretation of a gun that doesn't actually exist.

Anyhow, let me give you the abridged lesson on how firearms work. The propellant's combustion provides the energy for the round by creating significantly higher pressure behind the round than in front of it. While eventually the round will outrun the expansion of the gasses, the longer the barrel, the more energy is applied and a higher rate of speed for the projectile is achieved.

How important is barrel length? Let's look at the M16 and its shorter barreled cousin, the M4. Muzzle velocity for the M16's 20 inch barrel is approximately 3100 fps. The muzzle velocity for the M4, with its 14.5" barrel, drops to 2900 fps and loses 50m in effective range, though in reality it's probably more than that. Meanwhile, the muzzle velocity of a 9mm H&K USP is closer to 1100fps with the 4.5" barrel while the 9mm MP5 with its standard length barrel can get as high as 1300fps.

Now, the next important factor of modern firearms is twist. A bullet is a somewhat aerodynamic object, however, what keeps its flight relatively flat and stable is the twist in the barrel. Typically achieved with grooves (however there are different methods), the rifling (hence the distinction between rifles and the older muskets) on the barrel imparts a rotation to the bullet, which stabilizes it in flight. Modern smooth bore weapons like the main gun on an M1A1 Abrams tank, for example, use rounds that are fin stabilized, not too unlike the fletching on an arrow. The twist on the M16 is 1:7 which means it rotates one full time for every seven inches of barrel. The twist on most handguns is far less dramatic (explaining how twist works is too complicated for here), the aforementioned USP is approximately 1:15 , and since the barrel is only 4.5 inches, that tells you the round doesn't even get a full rotation before it exits. Now you can see more why the MP5N has an effective range of almost double that of the USP.


So now we have a theoretical weapon with its first round exiting the barrel without time to accelerate and without the distance to have much of a rotation imparted on it (if at all). You're loosing a round that is both slow, and unstable. You might be better off having a troll throw bullets, and given how broken physical adepts were, a physad troll might well have a lot more success throwing bullets, lol.

This is simple physics. If Metal Storm has defeated physics, please let me know. I've seen the videos of their handguns years ago and while I've never seen a real world cut-away of them, they all implied having at least a few inches of empty barrel at the end.

Ah yes, Ruhrmetall. Forgot about them...that might be fun.

As for barrel length and bullet capacity, I've tried to address this in my designs, using only about half the available length where appropriate. One thing I've tried to remember is that the way caseless ammunition works is by encasing the bullet in the propellant. This reduces the length of the round as well as the weight. It works (from what I can tell by my research) by using a boost charge that causes an initial push to the bullet, ejecting it from the propellant while at the same time aiding propellant ignition. This also works to make recoil more of a push than a kick.

But, given the lack of real modern day examples of caseless ammunition, I've estimated it to only be about a 20% reduction over standard ammo to be on the safe side, even though there are designs that can theoretically reduce it further.

Additionally, since there is no need for an action at all (no moving parts) there's more room to use than a standard pistol would have (though that might only net you half a round in some cases). A bullpup AR on the other hand could have the stock and receiver streamlined so that the barrel goes right to the end of the stock.

So, a pistol that would fire 9x19mm parabellum could fit about 4-5 rounds in a 6" barrel that uses a standard weapon design and only be taking up half the barrel length. Give it 4 barrels, now its got 20 rounds.

Here's a video. It's a proven concept, but with very limited application.

Anyway, I liked Cross Applied Technologies. The fact that they got splatted by Ares could explain why their Metal Storm weapons were so slow to market.

the YSF is an interesting gun, but it doesn't have the rules needed to really make sense or distinguish itself. For instance, can it take weapon modifications? What modifications does it already posses? Why the hell doesn't it come as a smartgun, standard? It's completely electronic, with no moving parts, it seems like it would be a perfect candidate for an ammo skip system to allow for different loads in a single gun. Also, 4 barrels + 3 round bursts leaves an extra barrel. Is that one for semi-auto? Is an extended clip also an extended barrel? Since you've got 3 9x19mm rounds with three powder loads, all landing on the same point of impact all within microseconds of each other, isn't it really closer to a single massive 9x57mm round? So, where's the armor penetration?

So many questions.

Basically, what it boils down to is that it's a next-level weapons system, which the rules can't stand, since it should be so unbelievably potent it would wreck the game.

I'd say that very few mods make sense for it, and that's fine. The obviously used the normal Burst rules (3 rounds, Narrow +DV) instead of inventing a million complicated new ones, which is understandable. In the core book, it simply has the most ammo and burst fire, both of which are very distinctive for its class. After Arsenal, yes, it becomes much less interesting; there are plenty of large clips and BF guns, plus modification rules. I don't think that reflects badly on the YSF, in context.

I think you're right, Saint Sithney, that there is some potential for more interesting post-Arsenal revisions, but any changes to the firearms rules and options bring with them great potential for imbalance. As you say. :/

Well, it is imbalanced, but it's also a 2000¥ pistol.

There could be levels of tech on the turf, where the street gets old style weapons and the authoritarian overlords get shiny future tech stuff that just cuts the peasants down. They sort of did that with laser weaponry, but they made it have a separate skill (durr, point directly at what you want to hit and pull the trigger. A child could use this.)

So, a whole class of highly-lethal highly-regulated firearms isn't really a bad fit if you run your game punk enough..
Makes the cops scary again..

Well, like I said, it *is* the strongest light pistol in the core book. It's 50% stronger (Narrow Bursts), and has 25% more 'clip' than even the incredible Fichetti 600; and, each burst is only 1 recoil, not 2. That adds up to a significant edge over other light pistols. Arsenal blew away that edge.

A long duration, ironclad patent law would meanthat many of the things you can snatch from the competition will be worthless : if there's already enough partial patents going (a likely occurence - as soon as you get a part of the project squared, it's patented to protect your R&D investment), whatever you might develop from your theft will still be covered by those patents, meaning the offended party can and will sue you out of using what you stole.

And with the fast pace of technological change, most 20-years old patent will already be worthless - except to toss as roadlocks into the competition's teeth. Which would mean a litigation feast that's going to make every corp's business a nightmarish cat's cradle of claims, counter claims and trials as everyone dusts off moldy patents that might be applicable to the competition's product and sues them for licensing fees or stopping a line of products...

In the [lt]dark future of mankind[/lt] dystopian future where corporations engage each other in a constant intelligence war, copyrights do not seem to be as much of a concern as today. I mean what's the point of extracting a scientist if all his stuff is copyrighted and you have to respect the jackload of NDAs he's bound to?


@Sithney: The only thing Metal Storm has proven is how you can make people believe that you are selling the best thing since sliced bread if you just get Discovery Channel to push it enough. Thank god military procurement takes other things into account than "every boy's dream, as seen on Future Weapons".
And with no bolt, extractor or anything, how du you plan to implement an ammo skip system?

Tag each preloaded barrel (or muzzle tube, according to SR4A) with a non-RFID chip that says what kind of ammo it fires. If you want three tubes of S&S and one of Ex-EX, then you load three tubes of S&S and one of Ex-EX. The gun's computer reads the chips in each barrel/tube when they're loaded, goes "Oh hey, barrels 1-3 are this kind of bullet and barrel 4 is this kind", and groups them together into seperate "firing modes" that only fire from the barrels loaded with the ammunition you want to use.

It'd function more along the lines of the Additional Clip weapon modification, in that each group of identical ammunition is treated as one clip. In fact, thinking about it, the notation used for dual-clip weapons (that is, [Ammo In Clip] (Reload type) x[Number of Clips]) is identical to that used for the YSF. Maybe a houserule that says the YSF functions like it has two Additional Clip modifications straight out of the box is in order?

Doesn't Metal Storm normally fire each barrel simultaneously?

Programmable. Depending on how high rate of fire / recoil you want. I could think you could even mix ammo types in a barrel. Hell... if you get this rifle-thingy with 6.8 barrels.. just mix ammo through and through and write a algorythm choosing the nearest type of ammo next to the one needed *g*. It's like a surprise-gun.. never know what it will shoot next.

so, since we have tabletop forges able to build stuff.

Why has noone made a HMG or Rifle with an integrated forge.
It's creates each bullet as you fire it, based on computer guided instructions.

Because it would be the size, price, speed, and availability of tabletop forge?

And you'd still have to load it, it just would be magazines of nano-material instead of bullets.

One thing I liked from another game was a teleport-based magic ammo feed. An army's bullets got fed straight from the ammo warehouse. Special ammo was done at the gun altering the incoming bullets as they arrived.

But that only works in a system where teleporting is allowed.



-karma

I mean, Deus Ex had nano-clips, but that was mostly a convenience thing. The reasons I already gave are plenty.

Wouldn't your rate of fire rather suck as well, since it has to create every bullet on firing?

That takes time, aye?

Would be much better for a shipmounted rail gun or such. Making a round that would have the perfect flight characteristics plus nothing says the HMG ect cant produce a basic stockpile of X ammo.

I had forgotten how slow the desktop forge was.

although I can see shadowrun 2110 having that kind of gun

All right, then you'd have a 100-round box and...a 'please wait, loading' hourglass on the ammo display while it recreates said ammunition. It'd be quicker to slap another box in the feed and keep going to town.

Magic teleporting ammo system? Cool, that'd work as the ammo is already created. Nanoforge? Not so much.

Not everything is patented because to apply for a patent you have make the specs public. The corps should patent anything that can be retro-engineered from the final product and keep the rest secret.

It fires each barrel as it is programmed to, no more no less. If the YSF did that, then it should fire 4 round bursts since it has 4 barrels and all..
Also, did you not see the video I posted? It's certainly not a pistol, but it is a working mass driver that fires 5 bullets each from 36 tubes only microseconds apart. Like I said, the tech is extremely purposed, like for shooting down incoming missiles, but it is working tech.

Indeed. Nanoforges specifically say that they work slowly. You can't Rush A Job, even. Perhaps in 2090 or later, this will be a good idea. Until then, it's a bad one.

Btw, who's going to ensure your patents, if you're an exterritorial corp? The state? Your own privat court? The Corp Court?

The corp court, as for any conflict between 2 corps.

No shit, they just invented the shotgun. Only that theirs is 3141592 times more complicated than just taking a smooth bore and a canister round


As a colleague of mine would say "it compiles, let's ship it!". If a weapon fires (in a video kindly provided by the manufacturer) that's a "proof of concept", not "working tech".


@Traul: That's why I said "copyright";)
Eligible works are automatically copyrighted, published and registered or not.

That's only true of creative works via Copyright.*

Patents and Trademarks are not automatic.





-karma

* - even then registration is recommended, as without registration it's often much harder to prove you were the creator.

Case in point, the russian and chinese governments getting into spats cause of the chinese attemps to copy russian Military technology. Has soured theri relations somewhat, and I assume that a corp can only take its case to the corporate court. Which is a dead end.

The fact is in SR as in the real world, reverse engineering, make a few changes, and viola new patent.

"Yes, my competitors product and mine have many similarities, but mine minces as well as slices and dices."

I would say it's fairly obvious, although not stated, that the Sakura Fubuki fires a 4 round burst.

I don't really see why that's "fairly obvious".

That's not how that technology works (in the real world). It doesn't have to fire one round out of each barrel. The rounds are lined up end to end and electronically fired so they could be fired in pretty much any sequence you wanted.

The only thing "fairly obvious" is that whomever came up with the idea for it and/or commissioned the picture, doesn't know much about firearms.

Shots at designers aside, let's take some basic logic and assign it here, shall we?

Said weapon has a total of 40 rounds, 10 per barrel. It fires short, narrow bursts. If it was firing those from 1 barrel, you would have a left over round in each barrel. Why not give it 9 round barrels at that point?



The emphasis there is mine. It makes note that because the barrels are in-line, that it allows for the short burst. This implies quite heavily that all four barrels are fired during the burst.