More like "<censored> <censored> <censored> <censored> <censored> <censored> <censored>."

That's brilliant.

Uhhhmmmm. KE is a corp that would take 10,000 bullets "stolen" pretty seriously. And they have every right to investigate him as they enforce the law. And they will stop every other person who does it. Arms dealing is a massive crime.

"The five largest arms dealers in the world are the US, Britain, France, Russia, and China.

They are also the only permanant members of the UN Security Council."
-Lord of War





-k

France sells weapons to any government with Cash Money.

France:
Purveyors of cheap, easy to maintain armaments since the 1950's.

You know that the Russian AK-47 is actually more popular, cheaper, and easier to use and maintain, and is much more effective than anything else on the market, right?
(Source)

Those are guns.

I was referring to Rockets, Missiles, Airplanes.

You remember the USS Cole Incident?
A multimillion dollar anti missile system, and a US Warship severely damaged by a French made Missile that cost 10k Euros each.

"Of all the weapons in the vast soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947. More commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It'll shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars." - also from Lord of War



I'm pretty sure that even in 2071, there are folks running around with AK-47s.



-k

Probably. In fact, there'd probably be enough of them (without having made more since now) that every man, woman, and child could have one.
(There's already 1 per 70 people in the world, and SR's population is much smaller)

.Yeah AK-47:s are so common, that the AK:s in the arm depo in Lord of War where actually real as those where cheaper to get then non working props

I remember hearing stories about US Marines in Vietnam who would pick up fallen AK47's because they worked better than the M16, especially in the jungle conditions they faced.

There is an AK-97 in Shadowrun, which is supposed to be an updated version.

The M16 was designed to be accurate at 400m+ and was rushed into production.

So yeah. The AK-47 was superior in the short fighting spaces of the Vietnam jungles.

The M16 is doing better in the Sandbox.. except that it likes to jam with sand in it.

The AK-47 vs. AR-15 debate is a long-standing flame-war that's older than the very Internets themselves. There were a number of reasons that the M16 wasn't favored in Vietnam, not the least of which was that the army didn't issue cleaning kits for them.


There's a number of newer versions of the original AK-47, including, but not limited to, AK-63, AK-74, AK-101, AK-103, AK-107, AK-9, AK-200. Look it up on Wikipedia sometime, its a good read.

I make characters buy their "standard loadout" of basic ammo and magazines at character generation, and assume they "top off" off-screen when they have downtime (usually between runs). Lifestyle level required hasn't come up - the one character in any of my campaigns who didn't maintain at least one low or higher lifestyle didn't use guns. Specialty ammo they have to keep track of and rebuy as needed.

As noted earlier, a shooter is going to expend a certain amount of ammo in practice anyway. I'm not a serious shooter, and I dump anywhere between 100 and 300 rounds into the backstop in a typical range session, for example. That's on the low end for a range session from what I understand - and I don't get to the range as often as I would like. An amateur practical shooter can easily go through a couple thousand rounds a month in practice. (And by "I" I mean me in real life. Though I will admit that knowing RL firearms tends to cause me to wince when I read SR on guns...)

But, I don't run low-end street campaigns, nor are my runs shoot-fests. My players have always been of the opinion that a firefight indicates something has gone wrong (not that I encourage that sort of thinking at ALL, oh no). Murphy's law applies, but I can recall at least one run where no guns were fired (and no damagins spells cast, for that matter).

The AK-10X series are re-engineered versions of the AK-47 & 74, designed to be built on the more precise machinery IZHMASH has now. In fact, In my personal version of SR, the AK97 _is_ a AK-101/103, just upgraded to be smartgun-compatible.

A big reason why I think the AK47 will live forever in Shadowrun is that in 2070, you can crank them out wholesale with tabletop automated CNC machines. Sure it won't be smartlink-compatible, but that's no big deal if YOU aren't smartlink compatible... like the thousands of desperate individuals in the Barrens.

Uh... CNC is a really inefficient way of making an old sheet-metal gun like the AK-47. You can use a CNC machine to make your expensive custom guns, not old crap. What you want is old industrial plants. A bit of refurbishing and you're done.

You'll still need some kind of machining for most of the inside parts, The parts that are wood/ stamped metal today might well be injection molded/vacuum formed polymer in 2070.

My point was that the simplicity of the AK47 would make it easy to make in late 21st century cottage industry manufacturing.

One would assume so, considering that the cottatage industry of early 21st century makes them just fine.

I don't buy the CNC angle.

The AK-47 is ubiquitous largely because there's so damn many of them around already. millions of them.

They'd still be fairly common in 2070, mostly because there will likely still be millions of them floating around.

Why would the ability to make more have a factor, more than making any other firearm? I mean, it's not like most 2070s firearms as presented in Shadowrun are vastly different in mechanical design than 1970s firearms. Barrel, firing chamber, breech block, firing pin. How much change CAN you have?

Why would you CNC the AK-47 when you can just as easily CNC a 2070s firearm?


-k

Especially if you're machining a gun from a block of steel... which is entirely the kind of manufacturing the AK-47 was designed to avoid.

It's true that it's a very simple, yet proven, design. But so is the modern adaption, the AK-97 (which is really dirt cheap, anyway), in a modern calibre, which you might even be able to just buy ammo for.

Ok, granted, SR hasn't done much in that department. In fact I don't know if they worry about calibre and ammo at all - it certainly doesn't seem that way. Fact is, a lot of ammo used NOW is of really old design - the Colt .45, or 9mm Parabellum for example, and it's still in plenty use. Innovation does seem to come slowly in the area of personal firearms.

The only reason to machine a gun is when you want something really custom built. Like the good old Pocket-Assault-Rifle that you could legally build in SR3!

Firearms design has hit a bit of a plateau. "Hitting power" (muzzle velocity * projectile weight) has reached the limits of the human physical capacity, and there are few improvements to be made that aren't tradeoffs. A weapon system design in the first decade of the last century (1911) is still used as the basis for new designs with essentially no changes except for caliber and manufacturing process.

What I would be mildly surprised about if I didn't know better is the absense of gauss/coil/rail guns as personal armament - pure electromotive propulsion. Laser Weaponry and the smaller drones show that the power problems are solved. For a game design POV though, they're just like gunpowder arms in stats; so no demand. Lasers are gee-whiz - EM guns that replace the gunpower with magnets aren't.

SR doesnt' care about caliber from a mechanics point of view and never has. And this is A Good Thing. It's just another PITA to keep track of in the end; and easy to get wrong without careful checking (Which is more powerful, 10mm or 7.62mm, for example)

Actually... the human capacity in SR is rather under-represented. All you got is smartgun, and now, affordable cyberarms with gyro mounts. Making guns GOOD usually involves adding copious amounts of recoil compensation, which is strangely frowned upon, too. The human factor is represented as a side-line in advanced rules in Arsenal, with ONE point of RC for any affordable strength rating. Whereas it's plain as day that with advent of augmentations the calibres should go UP again. The human limit should be surpassed. The super-human body should be able to hold and control a bigger gun. But no, they don't do that, which is just stupid, really.

Another irritating thing is also the prevalent amount of stupid guns. Like the "High Velocity" bullshit guns. I mean, you can't put enough compensation on them. Then what's the fucking point? Recoil is stupid, you don't want it. They should have gone the way of all crappy products and vanished from the market long ago, to be replaced with high-cyclric rate guns that actually have 10 points of RC. At least.

Actually Firearms design hasn't really reached a plateau yet. We just don't know yet how to advance. But looking at NEW bullets like the 4.6 and 5.7mm bullets that actually offer unequalled penetration at basically very manageable recoil makes me think that there will be innovations. Innovations that should improve the handling of aim, recoil and increase the destructive properties even further. After all, humans are MOST inventive when it comes to killing each other.

None of this is really represented in SR guns. Not even close.

Many, SR firearms are caseless.

Maybe that's because of how a caseless weapon is more difficult to produce..

You mean to say that man-portable miniguns(in two different calibers even) aren't super-human.

Actually their recoil aint that hard to compensate.
Internal 3
Stock 1
Gas-vent 3
Personalised grip 1
Heavy barrel 1
=9
Then have strenght 10 and you have 11 points of compensation or get a Cyberarm Gyromount giving you 12RC.
Or only add the gasvent and get a Gyro Stabilization harness which takes you to 12RC.

Superhumans (be they trolls or just really borged up humans, if your GM has half a brain) reduce the penalties for using oversized weapons and/or using two-handed weapons inappropriately one-handed.

This means that a cut-down "assault rifle" can be used as a machine pistol by a borg/troll, with a minimal penalty (easily compensated for by, say, a specialization in "borg guns," a smartlink or a reflex recorder). Another way to go is to deploy burst or autofire-capable assault cannons as "battle rifles," HMG's as "assault rifles," chopped assault shotguns as large-caliber handguns... you're good to go on some serious damage output this way, all for what (IIRC, I'm away from my books) works out to an easily fixed -1 or -2 penalty. And that's before you load antivehicular ammo into them.

Want to deal even more damage? Work up a drone (either one of the ones meant to be used for Jarheads, or something else entirely) so that it functions as a suit of powered armor (usually this involves adding passenger capacity or a rigger capsule/pod/whatever). Start with one that's got 6+ body. Why? Because that'll let you mount a 30mm autocannon in a Main Gun mount.

This isn't CP2020, sadly... nobody's handed out 14.5mm carbines, 30-tround (sic) autorevolvers, Helix gatling autoshotguns, and flywheel driven flechette guns (if you're trying to be subtle). So, you gotta fudge the numbers around a bit. It's still do-able, and I might drag out some of the monstrosities that've been cooked up at my table lately just to show how.

I agree with the point you were getting at, though... there should be "big fraggin guns" in the system already, rather than players having to hack together monstrosities that accomplish the same goal from vehicular weapons.

Caseless ammo for one.

Well... the system wouldn't cater too well to upping the damage a lot more. For one, the differences in resilience between your "tank" borg and the party face might just be so large, that the face would explode from the bullet richochetting off the tank . This is a problem inherent in the system, I think. You would have to change the armour rules a bit.
Then it again... it's funny that I actually also like the fact that a little gun can be useful again in SR4. In my last game session my girlfriend's character took out a whole batch of security guards with an almost un-modded Morrissey Elan, a five round, 4P, plastic holdout. (Using Cheat&Shock ammo, but... well...) The Ares Alpha she was also carrying didn't see action.

And yet, it seems no matter what I do, there isn't any gun in the system that a serious RUNNER could use just out of the box. In SR3 we went to extreme lengths with this, with basically everyone using guns designed from ground up. Pocket assault rifles, semi-auto snipers with dual clips, full ceramic Hpists, fully compensated HMGs, etc. I don't feel I still need to go to such lengths, but the guns in the books, as they are, are inherently unsatisfying.

I think giving generous amounts of RC for both strength and agility would be the first step in the right direction. Then the recoil should be actually increased or decreased per round fired based on the weapon itself. Automatic fire shouldn't up the damage linearly in tight bursts, nor produce the weird super-damage on single hits in wide bursts. And of course cybernetic armour should be increased, even without lots of cyberlimbs.

I have to say I generally don't like cyberlimbs, much, even though they are finally usable in SR4. But they produce real freaks, whereas the cyborg I'm envisioning packs his superhuman body in a largely human (or metahuman) frame.

But... well, maybe you're right and I'm playing the wrong game for this.

I've played-around with rules for this kinda thing over the last couple of editions - although I might use strength and body for RC. I end-up making a bunch of tables based on weapon-weight and caliber granting a multiplier to recoil modifer. I.e. a low body/strength character has a huge disadvantage when using an auto-cannon, whereas a big troll can shoot it one-handed. It tends to get complicated, like many attempts at realism end-up.

It goes back to the old 'Its a game, not reality'. Reality gets boring sometimes, that's why I play games.

I don't think it's quite true that "there isn't any gun in the system that a serious RUNNER could use just out of the box". I mean, what are the requirements of a 'serious RUNNER' in the first place? The Smartgun X has long been the one-stop (smartgun, suppressed, GV2, *and* big clip), the Thunderbolt has BF and magic 2 RC out of the box, and the Crusader has the huge clip and GV2.

You can certainly make them much better with accessories and mods (and much more expensive), but what are you asking of these guns? What does the Smartgun X lack? Ruthenium? Or is it just that the bullets aren't big enough to tear open a main battle tank? Is that what a 'serious RUNNER' typically requires?

Indeed...

My primary character's typical, Personal Weapon of Choice, is the Hammerli 620S... Simple, Easy and 1 RC... The 6 Shot clip is kind of a disappointment, but I rarely ever use all the bullets in a single clip anyways... It is highly concealable and is deadly in the right hands (which mine tend to be)... What more do you really need...

My second choice (for Larger Firefights when necessary) is the Ingram Smartgun X... Nice weapon, easily portable and easily replaced...

My stable of characters tends to go with the Colt Manhunter as the primary sidearm for anyone without a smartlink. I had one character use a revolver as his primary, though. He was fun.

I tend to choose my weapons to fit the idea of the character and not necessarily go with what's mechanically best.

Well, as I said, I contradicted myself there and then, I really like that little Elan.

What always happens when I look at guns is that I end up slapping on mods. And what I'd like to do is just get a gun out of the box where I think "that's an awesome gun". I may be a little too stuck in my SR3 school of thought that "recoil is bad". Maybe I should just suck it up and accept the few dice penalty on the second burst. I tend to think that RC of 5 or 6 is the minimum - and when you're not totally cheesing out your attack dice, I think that really adds a lot.

So yeah, basically, I think guns have too much recoil for the available tech. If I CAN make a gun that can spit out 10 bullets without recoil, then why can't I buy it? Or at least, why can't I buy the gun that has RC5 out of the box? (Yes, I know the machinguns actually are quite good in that respect. But... they're machineguns!) I mean sure, the guns in the book usually mean that runners shoot better than enemy mooks, because enemy mooks are satisfied with 500 stock guns, whereas the runners might use the 5000 heavily modded bullet hose. But then that's a lot of value that can get lost, there.

In the two latest characters I built, which was my mystic adept and my girlfriend's beginner friendly pseudo-sam, I wanted to give both them a stack full of different guns, just because it's cool. I wanted to imagine they have rooms full of guns, like those movie scenes you see all the time, where people have hideouts where all the walls are covered with guns. So I started (in the excel sheet) to just pick lots of different stock guns, but then I thought, naw, that won't work. And I customized them all again. Which of course increased the cost to the point where I coudln't plaster the walls with them anymore...

Then you just pick a few favorites to modify-up and leave the rest of the stack-o-guns vanilla.

Pretty much how I do things as well...
Sometimes the Absolute Best is just not all that Cool or Stylish in my opinion...

Well... I'm not sure I agree. Of course, if there were an out of the box total cheese gun, and EVERYONE would have to have it, then... Sure enough, it wouldn't be cool.

But... In SR3 with cannon companion you could design your guns back up from the ground, and you could do that micro-assault rifle, the 9M, Conc 7 AR, with Bullpup and shortened barrel - no gas vent and a teeny folding bipod. I had one of my characters use that as a signature weapon, and I thought it was totally cool, even though it was hard to get an objectively better gun.
(I guess you can still design your guns now, I just haven't done it.)

I think the point is that sometimes Revolvers are just damn cool, even if many Semi-Automatics outstrip them in performance.

With or without modifications.

It's not JUST about "using a unique signature weapon". It's about style.

Like one movie which I forget everything else about, but the main bad guy used nothing but an old single-shot breech-loading pistol. When everyone around him had assault rifles. Because he was that much of a badass.


-k

Indeed...

I can go with this one. A Super Warhawk is just too ridiculous to pass up for those called shot moments. Oh, and you can use one almost out of the box, you only need a smartlink. There I have it, my second gun I can use like that, and I even had it on my damn sheet, I just didn't look. .

Also the think about having to mod guns before you feel that you have weapon that you see your runner using is that in chargen it's purely a matter of coming up with a backgrounds for the weapons.
There's no need for that background to be "My character bought a stock gun from weapons world and a bunch of mods and then installed them"
My Sasha for example has a pretty big pile of modded guns, but all of those have different background stories.
For example she has a pair of custom made double barrelled sawed-off shotguns she picked up from Grand Bazaar of Istanbul.