What type of combat does your main character excel at and use the most often? While everyone may use several types of weapons, what would you consider your best attack skill/weapon?

Pin 'em down, catch in cross fire and jam their signals.

My ex-CASSOCOM guy avoids firefights whenever possible, but his weapon of choice on MOST runs is a custom M-23 with an internally suppressed upper receiver chamberd for .300 Whisper.

A Defiance T-250 loaded with 3" magnum buckshot works well too when quiet goes out the window.

I don't have many active characters so..
Shockwave.. he'll go with AR's, SMG's, light/ heavy pistols, blades, razors and Muay Thai.

Mo.. Matrix Combat only since she has no combat skills (auto shotguns when playing paranormal crisis.

Issy, Light pistols only at the minute, though Muay Thai class's are being taken.

If I ever got to actually play, it would be a tie between a light pistol (well, a hold-out really) and ATGMs.

Because I'm always the GM, however, it's always the ATGMs. No question.

I picked "other", because, as any player of that old Aerosmith video game could tell you... music is the weapon.

Nevermind.

Other:
"With mind-bullets, that's telekinesis, kyle."

(edit)
"everybody knows pterodactyls fear the wail of a guitar."

Sorcery at range, my trusty battleaxe when it gets up close and personal. No one ever expects that the brawny dwarf charging them with battleaxe raised is the mage...

If I ever get the enchanting shop up and running, I intend to combine the two... magic battleaxe. Stacked high-Force weapon focus and Frost Aura anchor...

My character in one online game actually has Dirty Fighting for an Unarmed specialisation.

It's all about taking careful aim and making every bullet count. Large caliber semi-auto, something like a G3, for my main weapon; a slug-loaded shotgun as my "Oh, shit!" backup.

Drop the rifle as a free action, the three point harness will carry it out of the way. Draw Mr. chopped-down T-250, paint the walls, reload the rifle and continue. Heck, I don't ever carry extra shells.

All G3s seem to have Safe-Semi-Auto trigger groups. Nothing stops you from firing them only in semi-auto, though.

Lets see:
Sys Ed- Light pistol, point and pray he hits something.
Percy - Big guns, on boats, rockets, missles, torpedos, and and thing that goes boom.
Brewhouse - Mojo and hard sticks

Rifles, Unarmed, Pistols. Rifles at longer ranges, Pistols for social occasions, and finally melee. Most people tend to be vulnerable at a certain range. If they concentrate long range, they have to be weaker at melee. If they are good at melee, then consequently they are weaker at range. Rarely, you have someone who is good every step of the way.

There's just something that makes John Smith feel safer walking down the street with a smartlinked FN P90 in his briefcase (rigged for SL fire via an induction pad).

Given the urban nature of most of our group's runs, SMGs are the way to go. Hence, other: not really a heavy weapon, and without the style of a heavy pistol.

Depends on the individual situation. But more often than not, heavy pistols and SMG's make a appearance. Although I'm a sucker for a good shotgun.

*sigh* Gunbunnies, gunbunnies, gunbunnies. Will they ever learn?

Do all the talking. That way, you very rarely ever need to fire a weapon. Failing that, have some nice city spirits use confusion.

And if the shit every *really* hits the fan, have someone else do all the weapon-work.

well, my guy's the "someone else". there are plenty of suckers out there who think they're slick enough to talk themselves out of every situation; when they prove themselves wrong--as they so often do!--i make my profit.

and, "other", as there's no spot for SMGs up there. my main char is also pretty 'leet in unarmed.

Mr. Lynx, I'd like to introduce you to my associates, Dr. Fabrique Nationale and Mr. APDS.

I think I'll let them do the talking.

My good friend Mr. Lightning Bolt would like to put in a few words, too, probably regarding his favorite topic, rigger brains cooked over easy.

Unarmed, although I don't need it often.

I love combat spells.

Dumpshock, people with no necks. People with no necks, dumpshock. You two get aquainted, I'm going to go lay the mayors daughter so I can scam my way out of my property taxes.

Feh. All these guns are just crutches...Nakahira, street name Kensai, is a terror with a blade. Going into melee with him is like fighting a twisted cross between the Tasmanian Devil and a Kryptonian.

Until you catch a bullet between the eyes.

I prefer heavy pistols, and that's normally all we ever need on runs until things go wrong. And things always go wrong.

Other. If I end up having to kill the bad guys it doesn't really matter how you do it, the result is the same in the end. Avoiding the bad guys altogether so you don't have to unleash your armoury - now there's a skill.

A completely dirty bastard application of ChemTech.

Mr Drone, meet Mr GM MGS3.

That thing'd take at most two or three Great Dragons to down. (Wasn't there a yawning smiley once? Oh... it's only available as a post icon. How odd.)

~J

I'm not very good with the rigging and vehicle combat rules, but I was under the impression that SIG6+ECM5 made it pretty hard for a run-of-the-mill cheapo drone to spot and kill. At least before it can spot and kill the drone, with its Sensors-8 and ECCM-5.

I'd be interested in seeing all your überkilldrones, though. I'm all out of ideas in that front.

(Yes, there used to be one. Just :yawn: IIRC. Oh well.)

[Edit]Checked the SR3 ECM rules and I still think that, at least against any drone with Sensors-5 or less, the MGS3 shouldn't have serious problems. It can easily throw 21 dice as the Flux for the ECM.

Humans with ATGMs are much more problematic, though.[/Edit]

[Edit #2]Oh crap, not much use after all. Just one success being enough for a lock-on, and if all drones have PowerAmps-10, then the Sig won't be raised high enough to significantly affect Sensor-Enhanced Gunnery. Blah. Note to self: Give all "stealthy" vehicles at least ECM-6.[/Edit #2]

I'll have to look at the numbers. If all else fails, you send a comrade with the ATGM and do things the old-fashioned way.

~J

I have of recently become very fond of the hand axe, not becuase it a real damaging weapon, but just because using one sounds just so frickin bad ass. I made the damage code for it (str)M, because of its size. a hand axe is not anywhere in the SR3 books.

Just because you mocked my GM MGS3 I designed a new, tracked version. The price tag is a hefty 1.18 million, but it has 38 points of armor (including the ablative), a Body of 7 and ECM-6. HAH!

I also noticed that even an Ares HVAR with AV ammunition can rip drones (and anything else with less than 12 Vehicle Armor) apart rather nicely when mounted in a turret, with Gunnery Recoil Compensation-6. Fits snugly into a medium turret with the Light Railgun.

And my group is currently in the middle of a war -- thanks Nath!

So on average it'll take a Light wound from a GDATGM with one success. Not too bad, just means you need to roll in the light railguns.

~J

Assuming the rigger does nothing, yes. A Light Railgun will either do absolutely nothing to it, or 2D with 5 Over-Damage unless you get at least 2 successes on the DR test, depending on how you deal with the Ablative Armor.

I was assuming the rigger did nothing because I was also assuming a single success on the attack test. The rigger can tip the balance, and a skilled attacker can also tip the balance, so really there's not much comparison in general terms unless you pare it down somewhat. Things will, admittedly, probably favour a skilled rigger unless you can get a good barrage of the things going in a single round.

As for the railgun, how is it that binary, out of interest?

~J

You're absolutely correct. After all, I wasn't really trying to make an ATGM-proof vehicle -- which would be impossible with the APC-chassis anyway. It has decent survivability against such threats, however, which I'm pretty proud of.

[Edit]OOPS! The Power of LN weapons against non-ships is only multiplied by two, so the Power of the attack is actually only 12. In other words, the vehicle in question, even the MGS3 wheeled version, is completely immune to the Light Railgun.[/Edit]

Ah. I hadn't realized the hardened nature of vehicle armor applied to AV weapons as well.

~J

Heck, you could be right, it might not. I had always considered that it does, but I haven't read that section of the rules in a long while.

[Edit]Damn, it seems I was correct anyway. SR3, p. 149, Attacks Against a Vehicle, 3rd paragraph: "If the AV weapon Power does not exceed the reduced Armor Rating, the weapon does no damage."[/Edit]