Dakka Dakka: Dunno. You're probably getting too realistic/science-y though; don't forget, it's Shadowrun. The Airburst Link is inexplicable, but so is Scatter. The Airburst simply makes the rocket more *accurate*, which is ridiculous and insane. Oh well. Let's all just call it the Rocket Rules Fixer; it's required and that's what it does. Add 500¥ to the cost of all launchers.

Interesting, Ascalaphus. A Complex Action might be too harsh (9 seconds for the iconic RPG or LAW), but a wired runner could probably handle that.

Airburst in game, is not necessarily the Airburst of Reality. In this case, the Airburst Module allows you to reduce scatter on Rockets, so that your impact is more in line with your point of aim. In theory, you could also use a Smartlink as well, but the smartlink only adds to accuracy. Using both would result in pretty good odds in hitting with the Rocket though.

I like it. It should also remove the need to take the "compulsive urge to destroy floor near enemies" Flaw.

That was kind of the idea... as I understand these weapons simply take time to aim properly; firing one per round is special and not everyone can do it. They take time to aim in the movies (suspense!), and this is an easy way to implement it.

---

As for the "but the PCs would be dead!" - several options.
* Super-armor; it's out there, and now you know why you need it
* Geek the Heavy Weapons dude first

It's basically the same as snipers; those can easily kill PCs too.

This is the world of Shadowrun. Corporations supply the armies, and those supplies are bought based on marketing. They don't give a regular Joe the rocket, they have their hyper-trained specialist fire it on video and in strictly controlled circumstances. Then the army finds itself contracted to buy 50,000 units of this "awesomely accurate and devastatingly powerful" weapon. They've got to do something with them so they give them to their infantry.

Is this one of those situations where a troll with a massive soak pool attempts to disarm, fails, and consequently detonates a nuclear device but somehow manages to survive the blast damage?

It depends. IRL there are a couple types of "air burst."
I know there's one for grenade launchers that does explode them before impact to throw shrapnel around corners and into trenches.
For rockets/missiles its actually more of a "wait 2 seconds after impact before exploding" thing so that kinetic energy punches through walls first.

ShadowRun uses the former for all situations.

I fail to see how this is any different than current reality. see: XM25 tests.

1. Super Armor is not wearable by most people...
2. Heavy Weapons dude is already the 2nd on my list anyways...

Which is why Snipers do not make good PC's or NPC, and for the exact same reasons. They are Useful for GM Fiat purposes only...

Could be...

Or you are in a moving vehicle that takes a missile/rocket and it detonates (which generally results in a lot of secondary explosions as the internal magazines/fuel lets go). It is so exceedingly rare to survive such things that any other outcome than death stretches believeability to the breaking point. Realistically, it should require either a new character, or a montage about how you can "rebuild him, make him better than he was before."

No worries though... I steer clear of most Military hardware in the Game, because it draws WAY too much scrutiny.

Honestly, I'm cool with players dying if they take a rocket or missile blast in close quarters. It's a fraggin' missile, for christ's sake. You were at point of impact when it went off? Cool. What's your new character going to be like? Or otherwise blow edge.

That said, I don't generally target *people* with rockets and missiles. But if we're going up against light or medium armor vehicles and we know our small arms aren't going to do much, and we're not worried about enemy casualties, the last thing I want to be faced with is an "option" that can't do what it's designed to do: hit your target. *shrug*

It's not come up anytime recently, but I'm fairly certain our group (when not playtesting) ignores scatter on successful attack rolls. (I'm an HMG-wielding troll at present, so no real need for a rocket at the moment)

How about...?

See new scatter chart:



(These of course are not necessarily definite numbers, merely a quick attempt)

I agree with you on the Consequences of taking a Rocket/Missile to your vehicle. If inside, make a new character. However, there is very little in the way of Military Grade hardware generally in use in our campaign. Even the HMG's and such are heavily restricted by our team. We do not like to stand out much. However, if you are targeting a Vehicle, People are a natural casualty of the munitions, as the vehicles are generally piloted by.... you guesseed it... People.

If it comes up in our games, we equip the launcher with an Airburst Link and go on from there. Problem Solved. Uisng the right equipment, we hit... *Shrug*

Anyways...

Some house rules to consider:

Thrown grenades scatter as normal.

Grenade launchers only scatter on the imaginary line connecting the attacker and the target. (Edit: and beyond the target, so that you can only either fire too short or too long. Firing way to the left or right is unlikely.)

Missile launchers should work like rockets (below), with the missile rating as a bonus to the attacker's dice pool. Additionally reduce the scatter of a miss by (Sensor RTG) per hit.

--
Rockets:
When firing a rocket perform a normal ranged attack test, opposed by a normal defense roll. Multiply range penalties by 2. Rockets only scatter if the attacker achieves no net hits. Reduce scatter by the attacker's total hits (instead of net).

If targeting a person or person-sized vehicle or drone (small/mini/microdrones, motorcycles), apply an additional -4 penalty for the size of the target. For passenger-sized vehicles, apply a -2 penalty for the size of the target. Rockets are mostly designed to shoot at bunkers and larger armored vehicles.

If targeting something stationary, such as a parked vehicle, wall, or specific spot on the ground, apply the usual modifiers for the attacker (remembering double range penalties) and set a threshold for success based on the difficulty of the shot (with total hits reducing scatter):

Target Threshold Example
Easy 1 Large building, large vehicle (tractor trailer, tank, cargo helicopter, other large aircraft)
Average 2 Small building (such as a utility shed), medium vehicle (box truck, AFV, utility helicopter, other medium aircraft)
Hard 3 Passenger vehicle (car, pick-up truck, passenger van, small/personal aircraft)
Difficult 4 Roughly man-sized target, such as a door, window, refrigerator, small vehicle (motorcycle)
Extreme 5 Small or very low-profile target, such as a toaster or lamp post. Any specific point (1m section or smaller)

--

Rockets don't really "scatter" in the sense that a grenade scatters. Grenades bounce when they hit things, and roll around before exploding. You might also botch the throw and fling that grenade far off course. Rockets fire point-to-point. An AT4 rocket travels in a straight line at a higher velocity than some pistols. The only reason to even consider "scatter" for such a weapon is that handguns don't often fire 10m blast radius explosive bullets. If you miss with the rocket, then you need to consider where that rocket goes afterwards. However, you don't need to treat it as an inherently inaccurate weapon that will, given the chance, take a 90-degree corner and fly off to rocket freedom land.

Rockets should simply be tweaked to reflect the difficulty of hitting a very small target versus the ease of hitting a very large target. That takes care of the players pretty well, since they are small targets and unlikely to ride around in very large targets.

It looks weird that the projectiles scatter differently depending on the target, almost as weird as targets being able to move grenades by dodging. I'd rather have the same scatter but you measure from the center of the target. 1-2m off center from a tank should still hit it, a metahuman not so much.

No, it makes perfect sense. A human only has to move a few inches and a rocket/missile will fly right past them (happens in the movies all the time), whereas a car would need to move several meters and have a slower reaction time.

I should have noted that for missiles and rockets scatter occurs in only one direction: beyond the target measured as a distance from the shooter (i.e. not left or right, nor closer to the shooter than the target).

Not that it often matters, but I'm fine with scatter in various directions. It means you missed. I assume that's the point.

Scatter is independent from the target's movement, by RAW at least.

So they always hit the target or more precisely the spot where the shooter aimed? Can they scatter vertically? Am I understanding this right?

Yeah, but it's utterly ridiculous that you can get a critical success when trying to throw a gas grenade inside the room badguys are in and becouse of scatter the grenade might end up between you legs.
And as said that can happen even when you get a critical succes.

That's because the scatter rules are stupid. Instead, set a threshold based on target difficulty (or make an opposed test with pretty hefty modifiers for using indirect weapons against a person), and only scatter on a miss. Reduce scatter by total hits rather than net hits to allow partial success.

We're talking "skill: dodge" levels of movement. The "combat is chaotic and things aren't always right where we've modeled them."

The dodge roll means that the target moves out of the way, this is represented already as part of the rocket attack. Thing is, a metahuman ducking doesn't save them from bullets much, but would save them from being hit in the face with a missile (conceptually also, most people believe that rockets can be dodged because you see them coming, whether or not this is true doesn't matter--we've all played quake).

So the same "amount" of dodge goes farther.



I chose "linear" because trying to model the miss going high/low in a table top game isn't easy. Yes, rockets can scatter up. I'd leave that to the GM.
(It's even entirely likely that 6" of scatter strait up causes a rocket to impact the ceiling right above the target, resulting in no effective scatter, thus I don't want to right rules for how to do it)



It's worse when it was because of the guy's epic dodge roll. Had you targeted the floor (which by RAW you can't do if there are metahumans in the blast zone) you'd have hit dead on.
Makes me want to make a demo man with an intense hatred of furniture. "I lob a grenade at that chair. It gave me a funny look."

Mäx, I was just responding Draco18s' suggestion that *rockets* can't scatter back (he's actually fine with grenades doing it, btw).

I don't believe you can't target a location if metahumans are nearby. You can't target the ground at a guy's feet in the middle of the street, but a small room? Psh.

Lob the grenades at dead guys. They still have stats.

Hence my point of having a missions character who hates furniture (and anything else I can justify).

"My intent is not to kill that man, he's just in the way. My primary target is that G*d d*mn chair."

Targeting furniture is targeting a location. *shrug*

I agree, it is. Hence the point. I'm not trying to hurt that dude there (rational by RAW for having a primary target) I'm trying to blow up the chair (rationalization by RAD* for making dude secondary).

*Rules as desired. The "can't target a location because there are people" is stupid. AoE shouldn't care if there are people or why the "primary" target is the only one that gets the dodge.

GM's prerogative: when a rule causes something stupid to happen, ditch it for a better rule or simply adjudicate.

Hence why I'd do it in missions. It has to run by RAW, of course, but I'd be there explicitly to find the holes in RAW that cause things to fall apart.

Anybody still remember the SR3 Ares Great Dragon ATGM?
The single strongest Weapon in all of the books? 22D AV Damage.
-2 to Power per Meter from Point of Impact.
And available at character generation. With only 2d6 Scatter.
*sigh* i really liked that one . . GM won't let me near it again <.<

Just get an agent to edit out all of the people's before the image is send to your brain and tada no people in the room as far as you can see

This thread makes me want to cry. If you can't hit a barn door with an RPG, why would they get shaped charges as ammunition?

Also, apropos to scatter - we just fell back to the scatter table in the original Core. At least that made a modicum of sense.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2011/03...rpg-7-launcher/

Don't get in a battle with people with heavy weapons, it's unhealthy.

In the comic books and anime that the SR4 writers used this as their reference this issue was never brought up.

The combat rules are full of issues that make it clear that nobody involved in writing them had any experience or understanding as to how firearms/explosives/etc actually work. Unfortunately some of these are really hard to fix, this one isn't.

What we need are more authors and rules creators that have military experience.

Worked for Deadlands.

Yeah, no doubt...

More like: "Choose your battles carefully."

I think I mentioned hacking that 70-year old's CommLink while he's taking his Nieces to DisneyLand might be a bad idea...

Exactly.

Also I have to dispute the fact that you should need to buy another attachment to make something even remotely functional. It's like buying a pistol with no sites on it and being told "ÿou can get those separate, they're cheap". If it's so important to have an airburst link to make the weapon system accurate then it should be standard to the weapon. Also Rockets and launched grenades shouldn't even have scatter since they are impact detonated weapons. Scatter is designed to account for the bounce and roll of a thrown grenade or explosive before it detonates.

I'm surprised I didn't immediately comment about my buddy in The Sandbox who found out that the last thing you want to do is pick a fight with a tank.

He was driving said tank, BTW.

I agree. The reason people use grenade launcher and rocket launchers in real life is because they're very effective. If they weren't, people would realize that and just use other things. Airburst technology exists to make them even more deadly (or really to make cover less effective). If rocket launchers always scattered 4d6 meters from the target, people would simply switch to things like panther cannons and never even worry with rockets. The good news is you don't have to worry about the rocket blowing up your A-team van. The bad news is that you have to worry about the much more accurate panther cannon with ExEx rounds blowing up your A-team van.

Well from a simulationist standpoint the ability to hit targets is far too easy. Then again I don't think anyone wants their characters to be shooting for 20 minutes never hitting. As for rpg accuracy I am not sure exactly how to address this other than to look at it as every 2 net success you reduce the scatter by 1d6 meters or maybe reduce it by 2 meters for each net success. This makes it very hard to hit an individual target, but clusters of targets are just fine. You can always vary the accuracy depending on the distance and size of target. The goal with an RPG is not to hit a person, but to hit a group of people. That said is it is not too hard to hit a bus with one if you are close and aiming at the side. The stryker is about 7 meters long and the M-1 is about 10 meters long.

Let's face it an RPG is the equivalent to the Mortar rounds. Blast radius is 18 meters with fragmentation. Even if it hits within 14 meters you will tear a person up pretty badly if they aren't armored. If you hit within 8 meters a character with a high armor rating the person will be severely stunned and knocked to the ground in most instances. Average crowds each person takes up 10 sf, with packed crowds as high as 2sf. This means lobbing a mortar or rpg into the midst of people can be expected to wound or klll anywhere 100-500 people.

Except the combat manuals for RPG operators point out the vulnerable parts of the tanks, for example, for them to hit with a shaped charge, again I reiterate on my point. RL RPGs are rather precise, and they are a squad's main anti-vehicle weapons.

Right. Don't forget, those wide-area frag rockets won't be harming any vehicle that you'd *need* a rocket for in the first place, so they don't count.

And the rockets you do need for said vehicle have an absolute blast radius of 4 meters (beyond which their DV is 0). Their effective-against-soft-targets radius is 2 meters (8 DV) and effective-against-hard-targets is 1 meter (12 DV).

Hmm, one could change scatter depending on distance.
short distance:1d6
mdium distance:2d6
long distance:3d6
extreme distance:4d6

That sounds eminently reasonable... I like it...

It seems so obvious, now that you mention it.

"Scatter dice # = range modifier", that also factors in the use of image magnification to reduce (but not eliminate) scatter dice.

I read through the first page, and then skipped to the last post. I'm glad I did. This house-mod sounds eminently reasonable.

Ideally, the range penalties are supposed to already account for this. Since they don't… yeah.

The underlying problem is that the people who get paid to write the rules don't have any idea what they are talking about, or any interest either. Details like anti-armor warheads only are armor penetrating if you HIT the target are clearly too complex for them to understand.

So they write dumb rules that don't work, then they clarify them with idiotic interpretations (no, of course you can't throw a grenade at a desk, are you crazy?), and instead of fixing the rules in revisions they write even more stupid versions.