I've never seen someone else declare that a gun that comes with a mod built in still has a free barrel slot. If it has a suppressor on the barrel, it can't have gas vents. If it has a gas vent on the barrel, it can't have a suppressor.

1. Yes they can. Pg. 276 under the Pistols heading.
2. Having a GV in a pred is stupid if you have Cannon Companion available, but if you don't, there aren't many other ways to get two shots off in a round with no recoil with a pistol.

1. Yes.
2. You add up the prices. There is no cost multiplier. This is explicitly stated on pg 280 under imaging scopes, last sentence of the page.

Really? There's been at least two characters placed on the board in the last 3 months that do exactly that.

Well, I'm only 100% sure about 1 but I'd say it happens more often than not around here.

I'm looking at the Medic right now, I'm not sure about the rather cryptic notation he uses for his equipment. He's bought both a Gas Vent IV and a suppressor, my guess is that he designed the character on the assumption that he can switch out barrels.

Ot not. That's exactly what the extended barrel on the MAC series of SMG's look like, and that's not a supressor. Methinks you may assume too much.

Got a pic??

Exactly.

The gas venting keeps the barrel from sporting the necessary threading or mounts to support a suppressor.

As for the suppressor functioning as a gas vent, Raygun's section on suppressors states that even when the suppressor vents gasses fired, it usually does so after the gas knocks around a bit inside the suppressor to cool itself (so it doesn't 'crack' the air as it escapes). Gas vents vent the fired gasses along with the bullet to fight muzzle kick-up, suppressors don't do it in time to counteract this.

Or that's my take on it anyway.

Exactly. The two work in completely opposite ways. The function of one precludes the function of the other.

In the real world, there are a few ways to muzzle-mount devices. With some devices, for example a muzzle brake (called a Gas Vent in Shadowrun vernacular), you can actually make the device part of the barrel itself, as a single piece, by machining said muzzle brake into the end of the barrel itself. In that case, it really isn't "mounted", it's actually part of the barrel. Usually things that are done in this manner are designed so that other devices, such as a suppressor, can't be mounted to the muzzle. However, there's nothing saying that you can't have both. In these cases, the muzzle brake resides inside of the suppressor while the suppressor is attached. Otherwise, you'd get no effect from the suppressor as all the gases would vent into the atmosphere at high pressure before they got to the suppressor, thus making that undesirable BANG!

The other thing that is done is to thread the end of the barrel and mount anything you want to that thread. You can detach the device and attach another any time you want. Another thing that is commonly done is that the barrel is threaded and special combination gas vent/suppressor mount device is attached to that thread, then a suppressor can be mounted to the gas vent/suppressor mount.

But as far as SR's rules are concerned, it states somewhere in the BBB that once a gas vent is installed, it cannot be removed. I don't have any SR books here at the moment to quote page numbers, unfortunately.

A gas vent is a device that catches and redirects the propellant gases used to push the bullet from the gun (in the form of muzzle blast) so that its energy is used to either compensate for the upward motion of the barrel (usually called a compensator IRL) or to push the weapon away from the shooter's shoulder in order to slow down the rearward motion of the firearm, reducing felt recoil (usually called muzzle brake IRL).

Here's a picture of a muzzle brake. Here's a link to Glock's compensated pistols.

Realistically speaking, yes. Sound suppressors and silencers have the secondary effect of reducing recoil by lowering gas pressure, volume, and velocity, as well as adding some mass to the firearm. But by canon rules, you don't get that benefit. As a general rule, I give silencers a -1 recoil modifier while sound suppressors get a -3 recoil modifier.

Making a realistic excuse for that, I'd say that that would qualify as a machined-in compensator without a threaded barrel mount, which makes plenty of sense. Like the above Glock pistol.

I wish I could take credit for the concept, but I can't. They are handy.

You shouldn't get the benefits from both at the same time unless you decide to assume that sound suppressors reduce recoil on their own, and that you can mount a suppressor over an existing gas vent (which provides its benefits when the suppressor is removed).

um...yeah. Raygun is THE guru for firearms on Dumpshock. In fact, this entire query could've been answered quickly with a link to Rayguns site (which is in his signature but wasn't posted.)
Since he didn't post his site link.
All you need for SR firearms designing.
http://matrix.dumpshock.com/raygun/

Heh, actually he was. Thus the gunsmithing shop and the SMG B/R 4 chip. I was thinking that he would could swap out the sound suppressor or gas vent system as needed, and had already swapped out the builtin GV II with the GV IV that he bought. Later on I planned on him doing some other mods like a personalized grip and such when he got the time.

But maybe that's not all actually possible? I just don't know anymore.

I can't get you chapter and verse but there is. Look again it is ontop of or near the entry for Pred III's.

It is someone what debatable becasue some people feel unless there is a caption or a big shiny arrow pointing at it then it may not be the gun. But yes, it is the pred II. And in the AR section there is a picture of an Ares Alpha.

Right. Which, again, is not very realistic. You can't have a gas venting system and a suppressor working in tandem. They work on opposing principles. A little more info for those who would like to hear it...

Gas vents use the energy of expanding propellant gases to either push the muzzle of the barrel down, compensating for the upward thrust of recoil, or to push the firearm forward, opposing the rearward motion of the firearm into the shooter's shoulder or hands, thus reducing the potential for experiencing pain. The downside is that the energy source you're using to compensate for recoil in this manner is the main energy source that is responsible for making the noise we tend to associate with firearms.

Silencers/suppressors initially contain that same energy source in order to dampen its noise by reducing its pressure, volume, and velocity. By the time those gases get to the muzzle of the silencer/suppressor they are moving subsonically and tend to make the kind of noise associated more with a pneumatic nail gun than a firearm. Unfortunately, because the energy is contained and released this way, you're seriously lowering the amount of energy that could otherwise be used to compensate for recoil. Therefore, you can't benefit from the effects of both at the same time. Period.

Fortunately, because you're reducing gas pressure, volume, and velocity as well as adding mass to the firearm, you'll get very significant effects in reducing recoil as well when using a silencer/suppressor. On the same order as most muzzle brakes even, with the benefit of less noise as well. In short, realistically speaking, there's really no reason not to use a silencer/suppressor as long as funtionality isn't significantly affected. Unfortunately, SR's canon rules don't model that.

In the case of the SM-3, I handle that rule by either saying that A) you can't benefit from the effects of the gas vent while the silencer is attached, B) the silencer provides the -2 recoil modifier itself and there is no gas vent (thus there are no recoil compensation benefits when the silencer is detached), or C) the silencer mounts over the gas vent. When the silencer is attached, you get the benefits of both, when the silencer is detached, you get the -2 recoil compensation. Options B and C are the most popular with C being the player's choice 100% of the time, and B being my choice probably about half the time, which puts a little variety into the process of getting an SM-3.

And after all of that explaining, the last time someone used an SM-3 in a game I was in was a long, long time ago. Go fig.