Like my previous threads, this one is for shamelessly sponging off the forum's collective wisdom to help me go from clueless to powergamer in an acceptable about of time. My laptop is down, my PDFs are unavailable, and I really have not much to do but beg for your wisdom with my thumbs.

So. Firearms. Best friend of everybody with an enemy. Teach me of the weapons of the future.

What types of firearms should I be using for which characters in which situations? Are there some types that are completely inferior?
Of the useful types, which specific weapons do you recommend for character creation? What about acquisition in play? Drone loadout vs personal?
What modifications and accessories are mandatory, recommended, or traps?
What situations call for ammo other than Stick and Shock?
Other tips on the collection and use of death projecting devices?

What weapon is the best weapon?

The one in your hand when the drek hits the fan. That's the best weapon you can ever have in the world, even if it's the lowly Streetline Special.

Yes, but if you get to pick beforehand, which weapon is in your hand when you need it?

It's like everything else. You accessorize properly for the party.

A Heavy Pistol or a Machine Pistol will never serve you wrong for most concealed carry situations, however. Ares Predator is the King of Heavy Pistols and for a damned good reason, but the Colt Manhunter and Colt Government Model of 2066 are also good contenders. For a Machine Pistol, the Ceska Black Scorpion or the new Onotari Equalizer (Gun Haven Heaven) appear to be two good options, with the Ares Crusader being a strong contender as well.

Anything else, you use the right tool for the right job. But, if it's down and dirty and you need something that throws a lot of lead and won't let you down: AK-97, kill every motherfragger in the room but you, accept no substitutes!

Pistols and Automatics are the cause of, and solution to, most of a 'runner's problems.

Modifications: Unless your weapon has Electronic Firing, get Personalized Grip. If it's a Smartgun, get Skinlink so you're not broadcasting your gun's presence. Hackers can eject said gun's clips afterall.

Pistols have three uses: as surprise, backup, or primary weapons.

Surprise: Holdouts or Light Pistols, these are for sneaking firearms into places where you're not supposed to have them (both meanings). The Morrissey Elan is best for this as it is not detectable by MAD. Just make sure to bring Hi-C (plastic) rounds so the ammo doesn't set off the detectors.

Backup: Light or Heavy Pistols, this is for those times when your primary weapon can't be used for whatever reason. I prefer the Fichetti Security 600 filled with Stick-n-Shock, modified for Full Auto and Additional Clip. It's pricy but it can let you unleash suppressive fire with SnS, then switch to the next clip and do it all over again. Advisable to equip it with a Smartgun external accessory for this purpose (Free Action to switch between smartgun clips, Simple Action otherwise)

Primary: Ares Predator IV. Smack on a Personalized Grip and Skinlink for a cool 500 pistol. Accessorize with a Silencer. Cheap, reliable, and functional. Works as a Backup weapon as well. Alternatively, the Ruger Super Warhawk is a great heavy revolver. But it is LOUD.

Stealthy Primary: Arsenal gave us the Colt Government 2066 which has Electronic Firing. Modify this (not accessorize) with Smartgun, Skinlink, Silencer, and Powered Easy Breakdown for a 2150 gun that you can take almost anywhere with you and fills all the roles above. That said, it's also less disposable due to its price. You can throw away the Elan after using it.

These are just basics, Automatics get more ornate.

Sometimes you want loud. Also, when you consider your main opponents to be a vehicle, the Ruger Super Warhawk is your weapon of choice. Power that round into the engine block!

Pistols are essential runner gear, they are concealable, cheap, legal in most areas, and still pack a punch, but unless you are some kind of pistol adept you don't want to be caught in a hot zone with just a pistol. For pistols it's hard to do much better than the Ares Predator IV. It's got high damage, a good clip size, and built in internal smartlink, so it's ready to be modified to your hearts content.

For better guns, automatics are usually the way to go. Assault Rifles are usually the winner hear. Sub machine guns, machine pistols, ect all have their uses, but if concealability and price are not an issue, go straight to the big guns. Auto fire wins fights pretty darn quickly, so load up on recoil compensation. Once again, Ares does well, with the Ares Alpha being one of the best guns around. Has an internal smartlink, bonus RC, and a grenade launcher built in, leaving more mod slots to play with.

Longarms and heavy weapons are more specialty things. When you need a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher, they're great, but general combat they tend to lose out.

Pistols to SMGs are your most likely common-use weapons.

However, if things get hairy, remember this: Those that escalate faster are often the winners.

Then, run away!





-k

...I may be biased, playing a rigger who has been know to define "escalate" as "level the entire structure with heavy vehicular weaponry".

See, that's what I'm on about. Do elaborate on the heavy vehicular weaponry.

Off the Shelf
Defiance Ex-Shocker, no license required.
Ares Predator IV, good solid staple
Morrissey Élan, broken. Made entirely out of forbidden parts, it's just restricted
Streetline Special. 100 If you're going in to rescue hostages, and you want to arm them, buy these in bulk.
Ingram Smartgun X, broken, comes with a good selection of mods including forbidden mods in a restricted gun.
Ares Alpha, again, a good solid staple.
Predator XXL, When you care enough to kill everyone involved.

Mods:
Airburst Link on the Ares Alpha
Any of the mods on "Honey" (below)

Excessively Modified.
HK-227X ("Honey") 5P - SA/BF/FA 6(7) 28© SR4 318
Concealable Holster, Gas-Vent 3 System, Quick-Draw Holster, Spare Clips, Spare Clips, Stock, Underbarrel Weight, Additional Clip, Camera Upgrade, Thermographic, Camera Upgrade, Vision Magnification, Personalized Grip, Skinlink, Sling, Smartgun System, Sound Suppressor

Note on Smartguns:
For whatever reason, glasses, binoculars, goggles, scopes, etc don't have a recording feature and can't get one. Cybereyes do. Cameras do. You can get a recorder implanted in your skull. However, the Smartgun System contains a camera. The upside of this is that you can get some useful camera upgrades for doing recon and the gun records your killing of people you've been hired to kill. The downside of this means you actually have to point your gun at whatever you're reconning and the gun records your killing of people you haven't been hired to kill. Anyone wanting to arguing recording with a smartgun, feel free to start a new thread and point to it.

Additional Clip: Personally, I like my clips to be one lethal, one non-lethal. I'm not sure why it isn't standard for law enforcement.

------------------------------

People keep saying that. I don't see it as reasonable.
1) They can do so if they've hacked the master that gun is slaved to. At this point someone's PAN is compromised or, worse, that PAN is slaved to a compromised Tacnet.
or
2) If they want to hack or spoof (at -6 admin) then they need to get the access_ID, which should only be available from #1 (above), or scan hidden (up close and personal). There is no reason the access_ID should be published or the gun should be running in active or passive mode.

Meanwhile, restricting your gun to skinlink means that every time you check in your gun at a bar it's out of your control. If you leave the wireless on, you can look through the smartgun camera and notice anyone attempting to remove/replace clips, turn it off, etc.

Both have their risks, but skinlink isn't the clear advantage people claim.

It's not standard for law enforcement because non-lethal bullets are in fact not, non-lethal in many cases.

Why risk it when you can use a taser? It's a good idea for Shadowrun though

There are four shooty skills. Pistols, Automatics, Longarms, and Heavy Weapons. Of these, Longarms are useless because everything they do, Heavy Weapons do better and with less drawbacks. Gunnery also deserves a mention.

There are two basic elements to each firearm. "How concealable is it" and "How good is it at killing things." These break down into:

1) Can I hide it?
2) Does it look like something that is not a gun?

and

3) How good is it at killing dudes?
4) How good is it at killing robots?
5) How good is it at killing things that are far away?

Pistols have weapons that are so good at 1) that 2) doesn't matter. With Stick-n-shock, pistols are acceptable at 3, and without it, they are not so good at either 3 or 4, but they might well be "good enough." They do not bring 5) at all.

Automatics have weapons that are pretty good at everything, but are the best at only 2) [Ares Executive Protector] and 3.

Longarms are in theory good at 4 and 5 but Heavy Weapons are better.

Heavy Weapons bring 3, 4, and 5, fail miserably at 2), and have only the ArmTech MGL-6 for 1, although it is a nice trick (pistol-sized grenade launcher).

The good stuff in each category:
Pistols: Morrisey Elan is very concealable and gets past MAD. The Ruger Thunderbolt has BF (albeit only narrow bursts) and high base damage, and can be modded to have enough recoil compensation for two short bursts. The Yamaha Sakura Fubuki is more concealable than the Thunderbolt, just as good with Stick-n-shock, but worse without Stick-n-shock.

Automatics: To get the full use out of automatics, you need a cyberarm gyromount, a high strength, Foot Anchors, or some combination of the above. You can get OK use out of them anyways.

The B&P MP-9 (Gun Heaven) is the best machine pistol in pretty much every way. The only other machine pistol really worth using outside of niches is the Ares Crusader, for the large clip.

The Ares Executive Protector looks like a briefcase. This makes it pro.

The Ingram Supermach 100 is the cheapest way to get a HV Stick-n-shock gun, but has low base damage. If you are sufficiently recoil-compenating-y or willing to use a Gyrostabilizer, you can instead mod the Praetor to be better for HV lethal ammo. If not, you can mod the Praetor for fully compensated FA fire.

The Ingram Smartgun X is restricted, but has a sound suppressor.

Assault Rifles:
The Ares Alpha is good, because it has 2 innate recoil compensation; if you have some innate RC, you can mod it enough for fully compensated HV fire. If not you can almost certainly mod it for fully compensated FA fire.

There's a narrow range of lacking enough innate RC for a HV Ares Alpha but having enough innate RC for an Ares HVAR where it is a good gun for SnS spam.

There are various more or less equivalent assault rifles that are only Restricted and not Forbidden but are less good than the above. The AK-97 has the virtue of being cheap.

Battle Rifles:
Good for sniping because they use sporting rifle ranges.

If you have a little innate RC, the Ares HVBR is the best Battle Rifle by a wide margin because it is HV-capable and has 3 innate RC, but doesn't suffer from lower base damage than other battle rifles. Oddly enough, you apparently need to mod it for FA in order to use its HV capabilities, although some GMs might rule that it is supposed to have FA.

If you don't, the AVC-7.62 is the best Battle Rifle. It is also Restricted, not Forbidden like the HVBR. Mod it for FA.

Heavy Weapons:
Thankfully, these are simple.

The Ingram White Knight has magical Gas Vent 5, and thus can get a whole lot of recoil compensation. Other than that, it is an inferior weapon; there's no reason not to just use the biggest machine gun you can with a Gyrostabilizer; it's not like machine guns are subtle anyways.

The RPK HMG is the biggest gun.

The Ares Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle (check the errata - it is ap -half then -4) is the sniper rifle of choice. and also good for blowing up tanks and whatnot.

The ArmTech MGL-6 is a concealable grenade launcher.

There are like a zillion more or less equivalent not concealable grenade launchers and you can get them as underbarrel attachments and all that crap. Go hog wild.

Mods: Chameleon Coating is very useful.

In general, you should familiarize yourself with how recoil compensation stacks. You will typically want to mod the bejeezus out of every weapon you use for more recoil compensation so you can spray bullets everywhere.

Gunnery: Gunnery is nice because it covers every weapon you can slap onto a vehicle. The good stuff:

Ares Screech Sonic Rifle is completely legal and quite nasty.

AK-97's are cheap and alright.

The Auto-Assault 16 is the best "LMG or smaller" option for non-reinforced mounts as a short-range weapon, as it is like an LMG, but does more damage and is only Restricted, not Forbidden.

The Ingram White Knight is a good balance between range and power for LMG or smaller mounts. It is Forbidden, though.

If you want you can stick a sniper rifle onto a vehicle or drone and use it to snipe people. The Barrett Model 121 is the best of them.

If you aren't restricted to LMG or smaller mounts because you have a Reinforced mount, the good options are the GE Vigilant Light Autocannon (5000Y, pretty awesome), the GE Vindicator Heavy Autocannon (20000Y, extremely awesome), the Lone Star FlashFlood Water Cannon (5000Y, Restricted, nonlethal, won't even make the evening news), or just using a smaller weapon anyways if you want a Restricted lethal weapon.

I believe that Automatics is the absolute second-best firearms skill in the game (Gunnery being the first - it can fire every single weapon in the game). In automatics you get Machine Pistols, SMGs, and Assault Rifles - basically your short, medium, and long-range forms of attack. That is amazingly efficient for one weaponskill.

I myself did a weapons comparison, or "Best-of-the-Best" for each classification, but basically don't feel like reposting it. Besides, there are a few other people with similar lists given already, and even though I just glanced over them I bet all of us agree on things.

EDIT: Oh, unlike a person or two above I never use automatics with BF/FA. A 40 round clip means never having to reload.

Playing a fairly slight elf-girl, whose only firearm skill is pistols, I find that light pistols just seem most suitable for the character, and if you are using stick-and-shock, unless I am misreading the rules it makes no difference what gun I'm firing them out of, they still do the 6s(e) damage.

Since she's very much about the well placed, single accurate shot, and has the Eagle Eyes quality, I'm rather liking the Nitama Sporter for its light pistol form factor but heavy pistol ranges.

Shame its so expensive - and when the gun is expensive, so is an internal smartgun :/

This new gun called 'anything'. All the firearms are the same in Shadowrun, with a few minor distinctions.

1) Most runners that aren't hackers make do with Firewall 3, sad to say, and hope that keeping their Commlink in hidden mode is enough.
2) Yep.

If a player Hacker can do the same thing a corp Hacker or Spider can. Or a corp TM. It may be difficult to do so, but it can still be done, more likely if your GM wants to make a point about security.

From Arsenal, p153


So yeah, if you have the Skinlink option it doesn't mean it removes the wireless functionality.

It is a clear advantage and only if you don't need your gun to be a Smartgun (just in case your PAN can be hacked to find out if you have any guns subscribed to it) should you not have it installed.

If your group dislikes WAR, then modding a Sporting Rifle for FA fire can be quite nasty when mounting on a gyro-linked vehicle mount with an ammo bin. It's certainly the highest base damage you can get short of Battle Rifles or HMGs (at 8P/-1), and you can get it at chargen without restricted gear.

Only technically. It's still Forbidden, after all. I'd rather just get a real MG, it's belted. Your sport rifle has a 5 round *internal magazine* (8c with a modified Wildhuter), and no amount of ammo bin changes that.

I thought there was that cheese bit that ammo bins add belt feed to anything below a rocket launcher...

Well then, a Wildhüter can still accept a Drum mag mod (4 points for FA, 2 points for drum), and then you can add belt-feed via the ammo bin. If avail is restricted to 12 at chargen you can't get a good vehicle and spirit killing MG any other way, and if you are letting the pilot roll and wide-bursting, then the higher base damage will go a long way towards that.

Alright, the drum mag isn't available for sporters. So you have to get the ammo-bin introduced belt-feed by your GM.

Umm.. Weapon Mounts automatically hold 250 rounds already without having to add any extra Ammo Bins. I assume as part of the process of affixing the gun to the weapon mount some sort of feed mechanism delivers rounds from that 'free' hopper to the weapon.

Nope.

Arsenal pg. 147:
"Each weapon mount can also hold up to 250 rounds of ammunition, if the weapon has a beltfeed loading mechanism. Weapons with other loading mechanisms or larger ammunition (rocket launchers, for example) are restricted to their standard amount of ammunition."

There is currently no method of adding a beltfeed to any weapon that doesn't have it to start with.




-k

Yeah, we've had threads about that. It's an obvious cheat that would be illegal if it weren't already not true.

*puts away his magnifying glass and iPhone* I stand corrected sir. Hrm.. looks like that Lockheed Optic-X drone with the Machine Pistol needs a little tweaking.

Turret ammo capacity, though, is a great reason to go out and grab the Arachne drone when you can get it if you're rocking an LMG anyhow. Slap it on the LMG, and bam, 250 ammo count, plus you can toss your weapon down and it'll operate on it's own.

The Arachne PROBABLY should have had a Flexible Mount instead of a Turret, but what can ya do.




-k

Indeed there have been threads about this, but this is it, white on black, or something like that. It's RAW, which means your group has to house-rule it not to work.

This is also nice for your home-grown full-auto grenade launcher .

It's not RAW. At all. You're simply misreading the sentence. Arsenal clarifies for the illiterate.

Still, let's review the *other* arguments: it costs basically nothing (so it can't rationally perform that tricky gun mod for nothing), it explicitly breaks exclusions (like internal magazines, or your GL), and it eliminates the reason for belted weapons to exist. So, even if it were RAW, it would be stupid, bad RAW, which everyone is honor-bound to reject.

That is what a good Armorer skill rank is good for.

And since there are no Modifications for such, nor designs in existance for such modifications for the weapons that are not built with them, how exactly are you going to cost that one out? It can be done, to be sure, but not without proper tooling (Should require a Facility and a hell of a design team). It is often just easier to design the weapon with the Belt feed as part of its manufacture. Altering one is not as easy as you may think, and it will NOT resemble the original weapon in the least.

Yeah, to accomplish something like that, you'd basically have to build a new weapon from the ground up. I wouldn't consider it the same weapon.

Like everything that man has created, firearms are tools meant to solve a specific problem: Killing something at range as quickly and easily as possible.

All of the guns presented in Shadowrun are capable of doing this, but they're all tools calibrated for specific tasks. You don't use a wrench when you need a screwdriver, right? Similarly, you don't use a Submachinegun when you need a Sniper Rifle.

Due to the highly-abstracted nature of the Shadowrun ranged combat rules, I feel that the three best firearm catagories are Pistols, Assault Rifles and Sniper Rifles.

A Heavy Pistol can be easily concealed, modified with just about anything you'd need, and is powerful enough to serve as a main-weapon. The foil of all pistols is their lack of range and armor-penetrating ability, so pick your targets and aim your shots for maximum effectiveness. There are lots of good heavy pistols out there, but really, you don't need anything more than a Predator IV.

Assault Rifles, like in real life, are highly versatile and reasonable powerful. They can carry underbarrel grenade launchers, are long enough range to serve as a marksman rifle, and have Full Auto and large ammo reserves to use suppressive fire, and can still be silenced. Best of all, you can modify a single rifle to fit all of these mods. The best Assault Rifle, hands down, is the Alpha.

Its fairly obvious what Sniper Rifles are good for. Last I checked, the Desert Fox was still the best option for sniping (Haven't read WAR, so I dono what they added).

As for Modifications: Smartlink, Personal Grip, Skinlink on pretty much everything. Gas Vent 3, Integral Sound Suppressor, Sling/Gecko Grip as you see fit. Keep a few weapons in reserve, each designed with different tasks in mind (infiltration, assault, ect.), and always dress for the occasion.

Times when not to use S'n'S? Well, ultimately that's up to the GM, and his level of hatred for S'n'S.

A misinterpretation of the wording of a rule does not make it RAW. It should be read as "adds another 250 rounds of ammunition (belt feed)"

As in, adds 250 to weapons with belt feed, not adds 250 belt feed to any weapon.

The former matches the rule from Arsenal and does not require any leaps of twisted logic.

The latter results in a magic device that somehow adds a beltfeed even to a single shot weapon, but without altering the weapon in any way, because if you remove the weapon from the mount it does not have the beltfeed anymore. And you can then put in a completely different weapon with a different feed mechanism and it will somehow make it beltfed without altering that weapon or the ammo bin.

Which makes more sense?



-k

It does't necessarily have to be a belt feed. It could be a really large serpentine clip.

I have a bolt action rifle. I install it into a turret with an ammo bin. Magically it now has a 250 round ammo feed.

I take the rifle out. It's still the same unmodified rifle. I now install a Sakura Fubuki into the turret. Since this weapon is loaded from the muzzle, the ammo bin magically adapts to feed the 250 rounds into the tip of the barrel.

I now install a revolver into the turret. Wow! The feed mechanism now somehow loads 250 rounds into the cylinder!

And all this for nearly free! What a deal!

Can you see how silly this is?

Or, y'know, you could go with the interpretation that matches the rest of the rules.



-k

On a side note: What concealment mod does the MGL-6 grenade launcher pistol have? It says pistol sized, but there's like no drawback to this gun; it doesn't count as short-barreled, and does not fire slower than any other handheld grenade launcher outside of WAR!

Somewhere between -4 (holdout pistol) and +2 (machine pistol). I assume that it is heavy pistol sized (+0) but YMMV.

The drawback is only the small ammo clip compared to other grenade launchers.

Away from books, so I can't check the modifier, but best I can tell, the only drawback is that it counts against the upper limit of awesome you can handle. For those that have limits, I mean.

It's a 40mm Bullpup Glock! The awesome cannot be measured!

You cannot grasp the true form of Giygas' attack!

The Earthbound reference raises the Awesome level of this thread beyond Hardcore. These are not safe levels for most people.

Bolt action has been around a very long time so I'm pretty sure there is hardware out there to automate opening the bolt, inserting a round and closing the bolt. Same with the muzzle loader. As for the revolver. Open the cylinder and leave it to the side, a carriage feeds a round out and holds it in front the firing pin and opening at the near end of the barrel. As long as your tolerances are as tight as the cylinder spinning to the correct position your good to go with the revolver. And it isn't nearly free. You are paying at least 1500 for a normal, fixed, external weapon mount. If there is a mechanical process to something, then it can be automated. I can and will find a way to autoload any weapon you would like to put in that mount and I would be willing to bet a lot of them have already been worked out by the weapon mount manufacture. Doesn't do any good to sell a product to a customer if they can't use their weapon on it reasonably easy. If the customer has to go through the trouble of finding a Ballistic Weapons design team when they buy a weapon mount then they will go elsewhere.

Safe? There's no such thing as "safe." There's "still running" and there's "dead." You kids these days have to dice everything up into little groups.

You are missing the point. Weapon mounts are designed for Automatic weapons that are belt fed. Any other weapons only receive their normal allotment of ammunition, based upon their loadout. Says so right in the description of the Weapon Mount.

It's called a "Soldier".

Then why does the write up specifically say it "holds 250 rounds, belt feed". If it can only add belts or double large round capacity (missiles etc) then why did they say 250 rounds?

Because Belt Fed Weapons can chew through a LOT of Ammo in a very short time. It holds 250 Rounds of Belt Fed Ammunition. It the Weapon is NOT Belt fed, it holds the normal amount of ammunition for the weapon. Simple.

And my 250 round serpentine large capacity clip in a weapon mount says my Ares Crusader Machine Pistol gets to use it and I've got the Armorer skills to do it.

Excep that that modification does not exist, anywhere, in the game. Which has been the point of all this.

Until the barrel melts. And droops.

Thus the Permissive/Restrictive nature of your game world. Armorer skill and maybe some Mechanical Engineering and you've created a 250 round large capacity clip that fits in the belt hopper of your weapon mount.

While you're at it, slap on an underbarrel shotgun for the lulz. With an ammo bin