I was creating a new character to test out a generator the other day and a couple things crossed my mind.

The first one was pretty straightforeward; is there a Y splitter for fiberoptic cables? The character I made is a sniper and he's hooked up via datajack to his rifle but also to a drone he uses as a spotter. I would think there would be SOMETHING at that point in time that would enable multiple fiberop connections.

The second one is a little more esoteric; what new advantages and tricks could snipers have at their disposal with Shadowrun technology? There's the obvious with better optics and a smartgun system, but what about beyond that?

The obvious Tacnet. Hook into enough Drones, and you have your own distraction/clean-up, spotters, and enough bodies to run a good tacnet that'd make many of todays snipers look like chumps.

I wouldn't worry about a few extra fiberoptic cables. Your 'link is bound to have at least a few slots for them.

Also: agility and skillboosting 'ware will get you a long way.

Don't forget though: a sniper's best friend is stealth. Don't skimp out on the ruthenium, stealth skills, get a to provide invisibility, silence (or multi-sense invisibility) and spirit-concealment, etc.

If you are still using datajacks, just get a second one. They are dirt cheap both in and Essence.

Or skinlink the rifle..

I had a scenario where the PCs were in a forest, and the opposition sniper had dropped a dozen minidrones along the likely avenue of approach. When they started taking cover behind trees, he would find them with the drones and use the indirect fire rules to shoot them through the tree - with a good sniper rifle and ammo, the extra armor is negligible.

Fair warning, though, that was an awful scenario. The players spent five hours inching forward, trying to beat the guy's stealth, while the troll drew fire. It was tedious and frustrating.

As it should be, in this case.

...how so? I considered it a failure, since as a GM I'm trying to run a fun game.

I would find it an interesting challenge, were I a PC. But, I usually take odd things no one else really thinks about.

For example, in one run dubbed "The Tower" my Troll Wuxing magician focused on metal spells (pre-SR4A) used Slag [Armour] on a Troll heavy tank, after spending edge, the opposing troll was nude, and easy picking to the rest of the team. I also used a Poltergeist variation to create a cloud of metal grit (bullets, gunpowder, etc.) to diffuse a lethal security laser grid, and get through it without major issue.

Your team had no Matrix specialists or a Rigger to take care of the Drones? No Magician to summon a Spirit and kill the sniper? Or do other useful magical things like say Trid Phantasm (F5 but still).

I'd view it as a challenge, but it does depend on the team makeup.

1) There's probably a fiber optic "hub" or at least multiple ports. However, I'd consider modifying the weapon at least with a Skinlink. Unless that interferes with your cool-factor, in which case, plug the Drone into your Commlink instead.

2) Well, Drones can actually be both the Spotter and/or Sniper depending on the scenario. Rotodrones are your friend. An Awakened Sniper would be dangerous, a Spirit with Concealment can make it difficult to be perceived and the Sniper can carry gear that will defeat tech that doesn't need perception rolls (mostly).

- Holoprojectors' images require 2 hits to be seen as fake, and man some NPCs can't even buy that many hits.
- An Adept of mine (Speaker's Way) very convincingly ordered several people to "Stand up!" in the middle of a gunfight with a lot of cover. Two of the team's snipers took most of them down, the Adept was the bushwacker of sorts (and killed three by himself).
- I believe WAR has sensor rounds, where you can shoot a bullet with some sensor enhancements. I forget the details, but it's a nifty trick I want to try sometime. Cheaper than sending a Drone, but at least you can re-use the Chameleon-ized Fly Spy if it's not spotted.
- Most Sniper Rifles can be modified to fire Full Auto. If your GM lets you mod it with a Drum, go for it. Otherwise, you can consider a Battle Rifle instead which should be modified with a Drum and Full Auto (2 slots total).
- Krav Maga's Take Aim as a Free Action will let you use Vision Magnification to remove any range penalties.
- WAR also has some shrouds (camo and ruthenium and thermal I believe) which would go great with your Chameleon (or Ghillie) Suit.

My players were pretty sick of "interesting challenges" after having me as a GM for a year. I stranded them in an Arctic base full of cannibals, played cat-and-mouse with a kunoichi on an ex-Soviet aircraft carrier, initiated a Mexican standoff in a fireworks factory, sent them to recover a psychic warform cybergrizzly, trapped them in a high-rise elevator controlled by a homicidal hacker, convinced them to jump-start Ragnarok, established the Seattle branch of the Azatlan Bloodsport league, trapped them in a cave full of Shedim, pioneered a field-expedient invisibility counter with a fire hose and an electric fence, and hid a dozen ghouls in the basement of their bed & breakfast. These guys are probably praying for boring.

Dude. I wanna play in that game!

Bah, Mexican Standoff in a fireworks factory... Pah!

Munitions dump! Go big *BOOOOOM* or go home!

'Course, I grew up in a mining town.

Those are some interesting ones. I had my players meet a Jason Voorhees clone (Free spirit inhabiting a Giant, using PC spirit creation rules, with regeneration), after his murder of the teenagers at the lake (the run involved figuring out what the hell happened there. They figured it out); one player gave me access to using a Ninja school against the group (via the enemy quality); was about to send them after a toxic Lindworm living in the sewer (created using Prime runner rules); and sent them on a non-lethal mission, where the objective was to get the information without setting off the alarms (they would still get paid, just not as much).
My setting is a little light on the nuyen. So, in order to get ahead, they had to take every advantage they could.

Pfft, I'd open fire.

...yeah, funny story - so did they.

How many survivors?

Well, the scene was that the local fixer was meeting a mafia drug-runner, and set up the exchange in a fireworks factory he owned. The fixer claimed to have a magical gimmick that would keep him alive if the drug runner decided to start shooting, while the mafioso was incinerated in the resulting inferno. The PCs' pointman, a heavily-modded Fomori Troll, determined that the mafioso was messed up enough to take the shot out of spite and went for a headshot, hoping to defuse (literally) the situation and grab the goods. The mafioso was chromed enough to survive the shot, but wound up at the epicenter of a 90P blast a few IPs later. Our Troll was far enough away that he only got a face full of 36P; as I recall, he soaked 15, trauma dampener dropped it to 20, and he had enough Body that it dropped him into overflow, but not dead. His backup at the treeline was a medic mage, who had him stabilized and back on his feet so fast that they almost didn't see the local fixer walking away with the briefcase.

Moral of the story is, Troll tanks are kind of hard to kill.

Be prepared for the GM to get annoyed with the rules and (possibly) with you if you play a dedicated sniper. The ranged combat rules are broken when it comes to sniping - it's nearly impossible to miss against an unaware target at ludicriously long ranges. And if the target isn't unaware, then you haven't done your job as a sniper.

As a GM, sniper players suck. There's not much you can do to counter them without being an absolute jerk - the sniper is (typically in SR games) off on his or her own, and when that force 5 spirit shows up, they are pretty much toast. There's only so many times that the sniper's hide can be stumbled upon by random passersby or noticed by a recon drone before the player gets killed or annoyed. But if you don't do stuff like that, the character is just sitting a klick out from the target site, and occasionally blowing the head off a guard. It gets dull, and leaves the sniper with little to do. Which kind of makes sense - real snipers spend most of their time in a hide, waiting for hours and days for the target to appear.

The other problem with snipers as a GM is what's already been mentioned: there's not much the players can really do about it. It's basically a case of having a player roll a ludicrously impossible perception test to notice a concealed guy a mile away. They fail the roll, and one of the PC's head explodes. Party panics, calls in a few spirits, and the sniper either flees or gets gacked by a spirit (or...God help the team...his spotter is a mage). End of encounter.

For that reason, I have a "no sniper" house rule: if you don't do much sniping, I won't do much sniping. Does sniping make sense? Heck yes! It's terribly effective! Is it fun? Welll...not so much.

On the other hand, if you are playing a sniper, I highly recommend doing it as a sorcerer. Eat an essence point for cybereyes and a smartlink, if you are "old school". A bunch of longarms skill, some infiltration skill and the basic spellcasting stuff. Throw in an invisibility spell, a levitate spell and a slay spirit spell, and you can deal with just about any counter-sniper stuff that they can throw at you. A few good guns, a few good scopes, and you have yourself a very badass sniper.

My 2-nuyen.

Shipyard. Shipping Container of something dense and heavy. Crane. Strategically placed Maguffin.

Using more lethal rules helps, too. In my game, the troll would likely have lost a couple body parts (and needed reconstructive surgery to be recognizable, likely resulting in a loss of 1 or 2 charisma), the mage wouldn`t have been able to heal him (at least, not with the heal spell. streamlined it with the rest of the magic rules so boxes to be healed=force of the spell. Stabilize would have helped, still), and the Troll, even if he did survive, would be spending a lot of time in recovery (assuming he had 10 body, at 20 boxes damage, he would have a -5 penalty to his heal check (15 boxes, assuming he didn`t have High pain threshold. 5 overflow) and would likely spend at least 2-3 days unconcious (baring a medicine check to watch over him, and help him heal).

Edit: Fireworks tend to cause fires, too. So that would add more damage to the troll (I enforce the "What catches fire" rules)

What are the rules/benefits for assisting in combat rolls? IE: A spotter for a sniper

Spirit of Man at Force 6 (Oversummoned with Levitate and another spell of your choice)
+ Mage with a Battle Rifle, Vision Mag, and a Drone Spotter
= Levitating, Concealed, auto-fire "sniper"

Drones come by, he can zap with Lightning Bolt. Spirits? Stunbolt from him or his Spirit, depending on the services.

(His "getaway" vehicle is a Segway with Lighter Than Air modifications.)

Counter? One wagemage with Mana Static and a good perception roll. My Mage almost fell to his death before the Segway could be summoned... Ahh Levitate, the cause of, and solution to, most of life's problems.

My rule of thumb with snipers is sniper is a thing you can do, but is not a role. Don't make a sniper, but feel free to make a character who can snipe when the situation calls for it.

Nothing on its own, you need to add a Tacnet to make it work. Then you can get Initiative and combat pool boosts.

WAR includes rules for directing fire, giving bonus dice on a ranged attack after a successful Leadership test. It isn't perfect, but it is the closest to spotting that SR has.

Isn't there a rule section that says the spotter can make a perception test and add the hits to your firearms test-6?
Edit: I've always believed it should be more of a communication test to accurately describe the details needed, maybe negotiation or leadership (haven't read War!), possibly maxed by the perception test.

Information Guided Targeting is in Arsenal...

It's still around, and gives spotters a mechanical use before WAR!

That's for indirect fire. When the sniper can see his target, using indirect fire will usually cost him dice (-4 + hits on the spotting check).

THat is true, unless the spotter is very good. But that particular question didn't specify whether or not the sniper could see the target. Both answers are legitimately useful, to their respective situation.

And yet, a Spotter, unless he is with the Sniper, will be seeing things from a different prespective, and therefore will be a FO for the Sniper. This is the definition of Indirect Fire. The Sniper cannot see his target directly.

If the Sniper has Direct LOS to the Target, then the Spotter can cover the Sniper, and perform some of the calculations for him? In this case, a Tacnet/Smartlink combination is the preferred method.

In the real world, the spotter is typically co-located with the Sniper, and processes most of the targeting calculations before giving them to the Sniper. Range, Movement Speed, Direction of movement, angle of shot, lead factor. These are all calculations that a competant Sniper or Spotter can calculate. Sounds an awful lot like a Tacnet in combination with a Smartlink to me.

If the sniper cannot see his target, he will have a hard time damaging it. Although sniping through a wall is possible with a Barrett, indirect fire was mostly meant to be used with curved trajectories that can reach their target even if the straight line of sight is blocked.

This is true. I even Practiced it extensively when I crosstrained as a Machinegunner in the Corps.
But in game, with the Weapons available, Indirect Fire through walls is a viable option.

I am reminded of a story involving an old Soviet soldier, having to shoot at someone WAY out of range for his AK, telling his subordinate spotter to "walk me onto the target".

He then proceeded to point his rifle upwards at a high angle and rain bullets down on his target using a ballistic arc.







-k

I cant imagine that'd be very effective.

If the bullet kept a ballistic trajectory, I could see that working. But if you shoot the bullet too straight up in the air, it'll stop once it's kinetic energy runs out then drop to the ground like a penny. It'd irritate someone, but not kill them.

Of course it kept a ballistic trajectory. I just put the 7.62x39 through a ballistic calculator, and at 650 yards it has 1000 fps, at 1000 yards it has 800 fps, at 1300 yards it has 700 fps. It'll be more like getting shot with a low calibre pistol than a rifle, but still very much like actually getting shot.

I infer from the "high angle" reference that the muzzle of the gun was pointed between 45 and 89 degrees from the horizontal. So the round would travel very high up then turn over and fall and most likely hit terminal velocity before it hit the ground.

So yes, the triggerman could have done a "point the muzzle above the target so much that he can't see said target through the sights" and let bullet drop bring the round to target. Or he could have pointed the gun nigh on straight up and used a very high angle of attack path.

I'm pretty sure you infer wrong. There is absolutely no point in going above 45 degrees. You get shorter distance, lower velocity at target (you probably won't even have the bullet impacting nose first if drag can't overcome gyroscopic forces, it might even not be spinning along its length axis anymore), longer flight time over which wind will move the target so accuracy becomes even worse. A soldier will know that all weapons use flat arcs except for mortars, and I doubt there's any chance you can get any sort of consistency from high-arcing small arms fire.

High angle probably just meant much larger than what you'd normally use for shooting.

That was the impression I got from the story.

should that sub title not be "reach out and (double)tap someone"?

Nah, the double-tap was developed for the 9mm to ensure that the person stays down when shot, IIRC.

Snipers are the "One Shot, One Kill" types. I forget what one book was titled, but it was about the cost of one 7.62mm NATO round...

I was always partial to "93 Confirmed Kills" myself.

So let's see.

Either the soldier actually fired his weapon in a wholly ineffective way against his better knowledge.

Or the soldier fired the weapon effectively, and either KarmaInferno heard the story wrong, or the guy who told him the story told it wrong, or KI told it wrong, or "high angle" just means high compared to normal shooting but not above 45 degrees.

Yeah, Sounds about right...

loved that book by the way

As A Marine, it is almost required reading material...

Or you could, y'know, not be a dick about it.

There are A LOT of battlefield myths floating around and I simply pointed out something that struck me as odd regarding the story and questioned if it wasnt possibly one of the multitude of mythology regarding what does and doesnt happen in war.

Fixed that for you.