I've looked, I've read, I've searched the forums, and I cannot find anything that said single-shot weapons ever have to deal with recoil. Is it the case that, say, the Panther XXL can be fired with no recoil compensation and no recoil modifier to hit, or am I missing something?

Also, are there any rules for firing two-handed weapons in one hand?

Any single shot weapon, by definition, is only firing one projectile per action phase. Considering that any barrel creep (or jump in the case of weapons with high RoF) only occurs after the projectile leaves the barrel, it only makes sense that single shot weapons would never suffer those effects (so long as you buy into the RAW assumption that you have enough time to ready your weapon between initiative passes...which is a bit iffy for the dual-wielding gun bunny that shoots 16 times in 3 seconds).


As far as the second question goes...unfortunately, I'm AFB, so some one else is going to have to answer that one.




~R~

This has always bothered me, too. Oh well!

The 2-hand question is answered in Arsenal, at the end of the book, 'More Ways to Die'.

Yerameyahu is correct:



That whole section is pretty useful, frankly.

Regarding recoil, the combat system treats every IP as if it was the first and last time the weapon was fired. This may be slightly unrealistic, but frankly the rules are already as complex as I want them to be. If you want a RAW reason to lean on heavy weapons, check the section above - the next entry includes rules for characters trying to use heavy weapons on the move. If you want to houserule something, you could always track recoil across the entire Combat Turn, bringing that uncompensated heavy weps recoil into play.

In that same section, actually, are rules limiting heavy weapons (seemingly written for that Panther cannon specifically) that include things like BOD/STR requirements. While I'm not sure the precise number are perfect, it's certainly something you could tweak. The RC of a heavy weapon could be 'traded' against those requirements, even for SS guns.

...correct me if i remember wrong (AWB) but i vagely remember line " all heavy weapons suffer double uncompesnsated
recoil modifiers,including first shot" so Panther Assault Cannon Would make -2 recoil modifier +1 from shock pad (if used)

I'm pretty sure that's not the case, which is why the OP is confused. While it might address the Panther issue, it'd also wreck the unified recoil system for MGs and other weapons. More trouble than it's worth, probably.

And frankly, applying a recoil penalty to the first shot of a single shot weapon is asinine. How can the gun be suffering from recoil before it's even been fired? The whole reason that recoil penalties for SA, BF and FA weapons is [# of bullets fired-1] is because the recoil starts because of the first bullet.

Effect cannot come before cause.


Oh, and the rules of the game don't work that way either. Y'know...in case you prefer those to reality. (I know I do.)

~R~

It would suffer 0 recoil if you're using the shock pad. The doubling is applied after all recoil compensation is applied.

The two-handed weapon rule makes me chuckle. It legitimizes dual wielding PACs. I promptly expect any and every GM to brain someone with the nerf bat for trying to do that.

That depends. I would expect someone wanting to do that to brain any GM with the rulebook first.

For some reason, I'm reminded of a scene in the "Preacher" Comics, where we find out where Tulip O'Hare learns to shoot.

Hint: It's at a young age, with Dad, and involves a revolver much too big for her. Hilarity ensues!

That was one of my favorite scenes too. It's really sad how few people have actually read Preacher; It was a horrific kind of masterpiece. +1 Rep for awesome taste in graphic novels.



~R~

There is a rule osmewhere baout the size of the gun limited by your strnegth but otherwise yeah, poeple have covered it. recoil modifiers have to do with throwing off the aim for the 2nd shot on. With a SS weapon there is no 2nd shot before you re-aim. Personally, RL when firing a .357 magum at the range I manually recock the gun between shots. This takes the barrell out of line but following Wyatt Earp's injucvtion I'd rather take my time and aim, quickly, than just spray. it is more accurate.

Maybe what you're thinking of is the "Carrying Heavy Weapons" entry in Arsenal, page 162, Snow_Fox? In short, you have to have a Body AND Strength of 8 or use some kind of stabilization in order to use a heavy weapon without taking half its power (round down) in Stun damage whenever you use said heavy weapon. Then there's also the chance of being knocked down as well.

And in checking for some rules, an unrelated thought did occur to me. What if someone (troll or not) was crazy enough to try and wield a Panther Cannon in each hand and fire both in the same IP, using a Simple Action for each?

Just like my adept gun bunny with two ruger super warhawks one in each hand and ambedex

odds are you couldn't aim them one handed,hence the rule- thank you for updating the rule reference to 4th ed. The famous scene of Rambo firing an m-60 one handed is pretty iconic for action films but it is not reaonable. if you can't hold it steady god knows where the shot is going. RL I have a PS-90 carbine. I can hold it one handed but aiming? for that I want 2 hands and that is a small, light (6 pound) weapon.

For those that say that recoil would not spoil the first shot, because it hasn't happened yet... you either have significantly more arm strength than I do, or you've never fired a powerful handgun.

I'll admit it, I'm a nancy-boy with poor wrist strength. The first time I fired a .357 Magnum revolver, I got so much climb on the shot that I missed the target by a distance measured in feet not inches. I would argue for a strength minimum on any firearm bigger than a light pistol, though not an onerous one. The bigger the caliber (damage value?) the higher the min STR/BOD/combo/whatever would be required to avoid added recoil penalties from the first shot.

Note to self: Troll dual wielding Assault Cannons.

I'm pretty sure you don't have a Strength of 8 though.
Which, let's admit it, is on the low side for a troll sam.

Reason warps with superhuman stats.
What Would a Samurai Do comes to mind.

"One good shot is better than six bad ones." (Edit: I'm not sure if this is from any of the Earps themselves, or just from a movie/TV. But it does sound like something Wyatt would say.). And he lived in a time when you didn't have a chance to reload in the middle of a gunfight. Cap & Ball revolvers and such.

Oh, sure, that didn't stop armies from having battles and such with single-shot rifles that you had to muzzle load from the get-go... But, then again, their idea of fighting was standing in a straight line shooting at one another with said rifles until one side said, "Bugger this for a game of not-soldiers!" and went home.

Actually, thinking on it, some of the original Gonnes (No, I did not misspell that.) would be quite interesting in Shadowrun...

As I see it, there are two issues with recoil.

1. Actual recoil, which would only effect the next shot.
2. Anticipated recoil, in which an inexperienced user throws off their own aim due to the recoil they expect.

Shadowrun ignores that latter on the premise that all characters have at enough experience to prevent it.

Note to self: Troll dual-wielding arquebus.

I mean, if you consider capitalizing an improper noun to me 'misspelling'…

What role could a handgonne fill that's not already surpassed in SR4? Besides resale value, I guess.

Question:
Doesn't higher weight usually mek weapon firing easier but carrying harder?
More weight, less of an upward kick in the weapon, but more straining to hold up at all?

And i still want my backpack mounted dual missle launcher . .

I have shot powerful pistols before and I am thinking it's the arm strength. Anecdotes!

Anyway, Stahl, that is true to an extent. A heavier gun may not have any recoil until you fire it but that doesn't mean a scrawny kid can handle a SAW like a marine.

Now I got the urge to make such a character. Or two. I keep bouncing between adept and cybernetic in thoughts.

Hence the "Heavy Barrel" weapon modification, though RAW it only works for full bursts. You could instead use an Underbarrel Weight or Auto-Adjusting Weight, either of which I think are better than the Heavy Barrel. All can be found in Arsenal.

Yeah, for once i was asking a question about real weapons and stuff, not about shadowrun . .
seeing how i am not fit for military life, i don't know much about this stuff.
i know about the modifications though . .
and i know that a 1kg under barrel weight gives 1 point of recoil reduction, while a 1kg bayonette does not *snickers*

Ok, physically speaking, I don't know where this idea comes from that recoil only affects the second shot IRL. There are several levels of recoil. It might be controllable, but the shockwave from the charge hits the chamber and the bullet at practically the same time. The expanding combustion gases likewise. At that moment the centre of inertia for the whole system shifts forward as the bullet travels - hence the body has to move to counter that. Normally the bullet travels much faster than the body of the gun, but then the body only has to shift sideways or upward a small fraction of a cm to throw the bullet off target. And that can happen on the first shot, if the body is too light compared to the bullet. Of course, this small shift in the mass of the body is very quick, and can be cushioned into merely a backward motion before the forces swivel on the butt of the gun into the usual upward motion of the barrel. That is what throws the aim off. But the initial recoil is the reason why some big guns let the chamber travel on a slide until the bullet exits (for instance in artillery pieces). I would assume an Assault Cannon does the same thing.

Look at the Metal Storm Tech.
Basically, it shoots the first bullet, the expanding gasses/traveling electrical current ignite the next bullet and so on.
And they are all gone before the barrel so much as twitches.

There is precedent tech that avoids recoil until one or several bullets leave the barrel, Metalstorm only accomplishes this due to it's extremely quick firing rate. When metalstorm weapons fire slowly, they get the full effect of recoil. I haven't seen any demonstrations of anyone firing a metalstrom handgun at high ROF, and all the test beds were fixed and bolted on, so naturally the effect of initial recoil will be low. If you bolt a .50 cal MG to a slab of steel you'll also get less recoil. The tri-barrel metalstorm 40mm launcher that was attached to one of these test robot thingies (similar to SWORD) showed a good deal of recoil.

The G11 rifle prototype used a moving slide mechanism, and so does that russian rifle that fires two-round bursts, to allow the bullets to leave the barrel before recoil reaches the shoulder. However, that only delays it, it doesn't get rid of it. I would assume readjusting the aim after the firing is then harder, because you get triple recoil at once.

AN-94 i think is the russian rifle you are talking about.

That tripple recoil would be harder to readjust from so I can see why its a 2 round burst for the russian rifle. All things considred equal a tripple burst and a standard 3 round burst may eventually end up on the same point of the muzzle climb scale is just 3 (or 2) rounds will be the most acurate of the string

That was the one. Well, the idea of these weapons is to get more rounds on target, rather than wasted up in the sky. Seems a bit weird, because you would think, if you go to all that effort for more effect on target, you might as well use a more powerful round. You can still try cushioning the recoil on that one, but that's not quite how it works, I guess.

Even so, the videos I have seen of G11 firing seem to show quite a lot of recoil after the burst, but it also seems to be rather manageable, in that it't not erratic and sudden, it's rather delayed and gradual.

So... I still think first shot recoil should count. And recoil should not always be 1/round, but rather vary in intensity more commonly than the usual "uncompensated recoil is doubled".

Maybe your just a lousy shot without recoil having anything to do with it?


From high speed photography which demonstrated that the bullet has left the gun before the gun barrel even begins to lift.

As I said earlier, everthing I have read and seen, says that recoil throwing off the first shot is due to the firer over-reacting to the expected recoil as they pull the trigger.

If you could get yourself to not care (consciously and subconsciously) about the recoil, then it should not effect that first shot. I will admit that I was unsuccessful at this myself, the one time I fired a large handgun at a range. (not that I am much better with a 9mm, but I only ever used freinds handguns, and it was years ago).

On to another point raised in this thread, heavy barrel (or even weapon frame) does reduce recoil, but if it makes the weapon too heavy for the user to aim properly, than it introduces a problem worse than recoil, that Shadowrun also sort of ignores. (one could argue that it is part of weapon skill)

The lifting occurs when the backward motion of the inertial system pivots around the length of the gun as the butt/grip pushes against the the shoulder or hand of the shooter. Of course this happens later. But the counter-forces to those pushing out the bullet are pushing at the body of the gun all the time - from the first microsecond. It's just not particularly detrimental to the accuracy until it starts pivoting. I would assume if your hold on the gun is too strong, and you don't allow that microscopic backward motion to happen, then pivoting happens earlier, and throws the shot off target.

That would make firing fixed guns in mounts accurately impossible . .

No, if you miss badly on the first shot it's because you just suck, not because there was recoil.

Either you can't keep the gun steady or you jerked the trigger when firing.

Note that a LOT of novice shooters jerk the trigger, pull it backwards and thus pulling the whole weapon off target. You're supposed to squeeze the trigger.


-k

Breath, release, hold, squeeze. That is all...

And with fixed weapon mounts?
If the weapon has no way of recoiling, what happens to the recoil?

it gets transfered to the body of the vehicle/drone.
Hence why the optional rule to give 1 point per body of the drone/vehicle

Could be that there's such a heavy pull on the trigger that he started to lift the gun to get the leverage necessary.. The pull on a .357 S&W is nasty, and it wouldn't surprise me.



High speed photography also shows us that the bullet plowing through an apple is amazing.

the point of contact teks the hit and transfers the recoil to the afixed body.
fixed mounts are nothing but and extended recoil lug that uses the vehicle or whatever platform its attached to as brace. make one out of cheap alluminium and see how long it stays mounted when firing say a M60 off it in full auto

its also a good way to split a cheap plastic stock on a magnum rifle if you afix it to a immobile platform and your swivel stud->fixed platform point of contact isnt braced properly internally in the stock