In the main book & Arsenal book, there are a ton of weapons and vehicles. While each is pretty unique, most of them follow the same principles in terms of balance. Heavy pistols do 5P. Heavy rifles do 6P to 7P. Mid sized cars average 8 to 12 Body, and some may have Armor. The weapons and vehicles are listed by company name. Ares Predator. Remington Roomsweeper. Mitsubishi Nightsky. In Arsenal, there are some time listed alternative vehicles that share the same stats as the one listed, just under a different company name. So while your car has the same stats as the Eurocar Westwind, it's actually made by Lamborgini & it's called the Cheetah. Nothing special about it.

I was wondering if the same thing can occur to weapons? I know Ares has some special technique which they get an additional point of RC for some of their weapons. Does this mean if I wanted a clone of the Ares Alpha... & wanted to call it the Winchester Scythemaster, would I still get that special point of RC?

My main reason for asking is, I want my character to have a signature weapon, but don't wanna cheese some sort of uber-build weapon. I want him to use an esoteric weapon that's not common among runners, yet the weapon doesn't give him any added bonus or benefit. Stat wise, the weapon is like any other of it's class.

I say go for it, as long as your not unbalancing the game from a stat point of view then its all cool.

My suggestions would be look at some of the options in arsenal for pimping weapons and i think there is a light pistol that can come in different designs like pearl handles that kind of thing. You can use the costs to justify a different gun looking different but shooting the same as something normal for its class.

No need to go overboard with it either its the small things that make something stand out. Other options might be to look in gun haven/heaven at the older tech, it has downsides but lots of flavour


unknown to my current players they are about to come into possession of some very old guns but hey gangers can be choosers

Why not alter the stats a little? All the stats have explanation in the books. For example, one of my characters had a pretty much bog standard pistol named Steiner-Bisley Zenith (after the DXHR weapon). As for your Ares/Winchester problem... Why not have a free personalized grip/custom stock mod that helps with recoil control?

Obviously, your GM's going to have to approve it, but there's just no reason not to allow new weapons with identical stats to old ones. Most GMs would even let you mix things up a bit, trade one inherent quality of the weapon [say, recoil compensation] for an equivalent capability for the different weapon [say, AP bonus]. And, of course, many GMs will allow the creation of entirely new weapons from the ground up, using the modification rules as a basis; Dumpshock is a nice place to try those out, as we're a critical bunch of bastards with too much spare time.

Eclipse Phase explicitly encourages this.

As a GM I would have no problem with you changing the name of a gun to whatever you wanted it to be. In fact I'd use that. Say you got your gun from NitroTech, the newest gun manufacturer on the market that specializes in custom made guns. Maybe you know someone in the company. Could be the good start for a run to steal that Ares RC technology. (Perhaps part of your fee for doing the run is to gain that RC to your own gun, making it truely unique). I'd certainly go for simply changing names and probably using your new company in game for a run or two...or three.

Also check over all the add on options in Aresnal and look over the weapons in war and the other suplements. Certainly as a GM if you wanted to do anything reasonable I'd be all for it.

I've been looking at a lot of gun porn, & love some of the designs I've seen. As a result, I want to use the more "realistic" or at least "better looking" weapons & not use the ones I've seen in the books. While the Ares Alpha is a kick ass assault rifle, the books make it look like a prop from the old V series from 1980's tv.

Sure, I could simply use Arsenal and customize the look of the gun, but I wanna totally get away from set items & spread out the flavor of the charcter as someone who is prejudiced against Ares & would never use their weapons or stuff. (Which hurts as he's a razorboi/sammy with a serious gun jonez).

Thanks for the input guys. My current SR group is on break so I have plenty of time to play around with this & maybe try this with a new group (if I ever find one. LOL!)