"A character can fire up to two bursts per Action Phase."

"Long bursts only take a Simple Action, but only one long burst can be fired in an Action Phase.
An attacker could, however, fire a long burst and a short burst in the same Action Phase (or vice versa)."

"Full bursts use 10 bullets and take a Complex Action."

"Only one Complex Action is possible per Action Phase."

from the Shadowrun 4E 20th Anniversary Edition

So, let's see if I've got that straight ...

An Action Phase is not a single Initiative Pass but a whole series of IPs (up to 4), right?

So even with 4 IPs you can only fire either two bursts, one long and one short burst or one full burst, correct?

No, an Action Phase is every character involved playing out one Initiative Pass.

Start Combat Turn
Roll Initiative
Start Action Phase one
Go character with highest Initiative
etc
Start Action Phase two
Go character with two Initiative Passes and highest Initiative
etc
End Combat Turn
Start Combat Turn
etc.

Scooped.

Ah, I see.

But it would actually make sense, wouldn't it?
I mean, it's not like your aug/magic/whatever that gives you extra IPs also increases your gun's rate of fire.

To answer the next incredulous question: yes, a gun on Full Auto will fire four times faster if the trigger is held down by a character who can move 4 times faster.
Asking why this is will result in the world ending, like matching magic and physics.

Edit: aaah, crud! You actually ninja'ed the question in.

Gun RoF is not the limiting factor. (Meta)human ability to aim and fire is.

See, I see it as only the guys with 4 passes can take advantage of the true fire rate of the weapon. The explanations work better that way. Yes, I also know that the Fire rates of weapons at that point are impressive. But, 40 Rounds/3 Second only results in the average Cyclical Rate of Fire (800 Rounds/Minute) for an M16. In the end, it makes sense.

For a Minigun - That result is 2400 Rounds/Minute, which is actually less than the ROF of the 7.62 Minigun it is modeled upon (which is actually as low as 2000 Rounds/Minute and can be used at up to 6000 Rounds/Minute, with the average at 4000 Rounds/Minute)

Damn, Shadowrun is such a fucked up system, it makes my head spin.

This is actually a fairly clearly, cleanly, and concisely explained section of the rules.

Generally though, my rule of thumb is to not worry about the specifics of why rules work the way they work. Just accept that they do and don't break your head over it. Until they start breaking things down and being a detriment to gameplay and the enjoyment thereof.

Yep, the way it is now is pretty silly. Suggested house rule (copy/pasted from other topic):

More correctly, it goes something like this.

Start Combat Turn
Roll Initiative and Surprise. (Lets assume 3 combatants labeled A, B, and C respectively. And that due to a quirk of dice they are acting in alphabetical order with A starting first)
Initiative Pass 1
Action phase: A
Action phase: B
Action phase: C
Action phase: Anyone else with lower initiative
Action Phase: Initiative 1
Initiative pass 2:
Repeat action phases
Initiative pass 3:
Repeat action phases
Initiative pass 4:
Repeat action phases
Initiative pass 5: (matrix only)
Repeat action phases.
End Combat Turn if nobody has actions or passes left.

Depending on how Movement is being handled, it should be inserted somewhere in the turn order

If it hurts your head, you can always rule that any person firing on full auto dumps their whole clip at the end of the turn, and note that everyone is firing at the same speed, but only the faster-reacting people can direct them bullets accurately? Which is pretty true to life. Check out this video - the guy starts firing at 0:27, and the clip is empty at 0:30. So three seconds later, no more bullets for anybody.

Yeah, it's fucked up, but the basic problem is that there aren't a lot of options for modelling fully automatic gunfire that are both realistic and enjoyable for the average gamer.

If you're going to houserule full-aut-clip-dumping, there might just be a better way to handle it.

I'd be more likely to change the limit on how many bullets a gun can fire - currently, its limited to 10 per pass(full burst), which is also why there is a restriction that you can only long+short (because 6+3 is less than 10, and two long bursts would fire more bullets than a full). This is modified by high velocity weapons, which let a gun put out twelve bullets per pass - in combinations of short, long, and full.

What I'd likely end up changing is putting a limit on the amount of lead that any one gun can fire during a Combat Turn. A sort of 'my gun can only fire so fast' limit, de-linking the speed of the gun and the speed of the shooter in the rules. The most notable example/abuse of this is with Suppressive fire: that it costs 30 bullets to initiate, and lasts either the entire combat turn or until you go again, so a guy with one pass lights up an area for four entire passes, while a 4-pass samurai spends a hundred twenty bullets and four complex actions to do the same thing.

I'm not sure what the exact value should but, but the idea would be to encourage people to use more controlled bursts, save holding down the trigger for important threats - and more importantly, make people consider melee in the later passes when people have used up their bullet limit for the turn.

It's all abstract.

Real life rates of fire are MUCH faster than portrayed in Shadowrun, so really it's just that the high IP folks can target and act faster, the gun isn't speeding up.



-k

Indeed. I am glad that some people understand that.

A lot of actions are much faster than portrayed in Shadowrun. Their explanation of melee being "Rather than a single blow, each attack is a series of moves and counter-moves executed by those involved." covers why a non-augmented fighter would take 3 seconds to execute a melee attack but it ends up totally excluding taking someone down with a single punch.

And lets not forget the whole "time warp" effect of the IP system in general... If you have 2 people each with 1 IP in a fight then all their complex actions take 3 seconds to execute. Let a 3rd person who has 4 IP's jumps into the fight and suddenly everyone's complex actions take .75 seconds and the 1 IP combatants get to stand around, more or twiddling their thumbs for 2.25 seconds, while the zippy combatant has their wicked way with them.

That's kind of the point, though. A 4 IP fighter is almost unthinkably fast, hugely faster than a 1 IP person. In the time it takes them to take one action, he gets 4. Theirs can actually be on any of the 4 IPs, but they only get one total (or 2 simple, etc.).

It is much more fun this way, though. The more realistic option is that the 4IP guy takes 3 actions before the unaugmented take theirs, so they don't even get to play. I think it used to work like that in SR2.

What I'd like to know is why does shooting 10 bullets only get you +1dv? If SS is say 5DV surelu a controlled burst with ten bullets would be lethaly dangerous (i.e. 5DV x 10) since there are so many more bullets flying. Yup, I'm a Noob! Sorry if this is a stupid question

You get +9, 1 per bullet. So it's triple the strength. This seems reasonable, just for balance issues, and because not every bullet literally hits, penetrates, makes a separate wound, etc. Burst fire is hugely deadly in SR4 as is.

Remember that SR (and all RPGs) are not reality-simulators. They're game environments. SR tends toward cinematic.

I don't know where you got +1 DV from.

Bursts (be they short, long or full) can either be narrow or wide. Narrow bursts are focused on the Target with the aim of turning it into Swiss cheese - DV is increased by the number of bullets fired after the first. Wide bursts are sprayed all over the area the target's standing in with the aim of making sure at least some of them hit - the target's Reaction/dodge roll is reduced by the number of bullets fired after the first.

Don't forget that you'd also have to give the target 10 separate Damage Resistance tests, once against each bullet. It tends to balance out, depending.

Udoshi hints at it here, but just to be clear, Initiative dice are rolled to see who goes first, with the highest Initiative acting first, and then proceeding in order of next highest, etc. down to the lowest score, repeating again in the next IP.

Whoops. Mindfart. Let me correct that. xD

I got it from my noobish tendencies my friend. Thanks for the info, I will be doing a lot more burst firing in my runs

This. With emphasis on aim.

If a guy wants to just shower ammo, then please, you, with one IP, are welcome to leave the finger on trigger and use ammo as much as shooting in 5 IPs in a combat round. But these bullets will not hit (some may; let's roll attack dice pool with -2 modifier and damage as per single burst).

Realistic? Reasonable?

Except for the 5 IPs part - a combat turn never has more than 4

Actually, if they want to spray a target like that, what would make the most sense to me would be to turn it into a cone area effect attack and just have the area affected for all IP's in the turn. Character would make his initial attack roll (including the full auto modifier) and anyone in or passing through the affected area would make the reaction and dmg resistance rolls against that initial roll each IP they are in the area with a bonus of +2 per IP since the spray began .

What, never played a Technomancer before?

Technomancers and Hackers can have 5 IP. And to use them in the Physical, they only need to use a Drone.

What, you mean like suppressive fire?

So how many bullets get fired? 10 x 4 IPs = 40?
Would that be 39 points of recoil?

I believe there is an intended distinction. I don't think it's clear one way or the other by RAW, but I believe suppressive fire is not the same as firing a constant stream over a given area - it's more like shooting at anything that moves, which is why the firer's IPs are still relevant.

I think the rules actually support the "constant stream" view of SF; the firer just kind of holds the trigger down while panning the weapon across a given area. b

I disagree. Unless it's the case that no weapon in SR has a RoF above the (pretty low) one specified by Suppressive Fire, the crunch is more representative of a 'fire intermittently at any targets'. Suppressive Fire also does not strike 'scenery objects' within the area (in the same way that nothing does); you can't suppress a wall, though you can *attack* one.

All we really know is the crunch, though, and it's not a great idea to claim strong conclusions about fluff from it.

Hell, a tommy-gun's cyclic rate is enough to support SR rates of fire and it came out in 1919. Suppresive fire uses 1,600 Rounds Per Minute if on 4 IP, a tommy gun had an RPM of around that as well. To paraphrase the old Fields of Fire, while cyclic rates of modern weapons vastly exceed that of those portrayed in the rules, they are there for reasons of game-play and sanity.

At least

Nope, Just Suppressive Fire.