Exactly. The name is bad (in the sense of incorrect *and* misleading), but there's nothing wrong with abstractly high RoF guns… if that's what people want. They're not incompatible with reality.

No excuse for duplicating errors from previous editions. Keep the mod, fix the name.

Well, the smoking barrel alone should be a big enough hint that maybe it's time to pull out a different weapon before barrel droop happens. Unless the name is copyrighted and was given by marketing because they have no idea what they're doing, but knows what sells well.

I mean, they're selling to the same audience that Yuri Orlov is: "I want the gun from Rambo." "Which one, there were three." "I've only seen the first one." "The M-60, no problem."

Later on: "DIE BY THE GUN OF RAMBO!!!"

Hehe, nothing wrong with that. At some point, a gun is just a gun; might as well get one you like.

From a webcomic series: Assassin to Grandmotherly Lady: "Have you ever heard of a .454 Cassul?"

GL: "Oh, is that some kind of muscle car?"

A clip is something that holds bullets before you feed them into a magazine, like on the M-1 Garand or the SMLE.
Just to join the naming mess, hi velocity in guns means the speed of the bullets, not the rate of fire. a Low velocity gun, like the HK mp 5 SD (I think that's the right name) actually keeps the bullets subsonic reducing the noise it makes- the 'stealth' option. Hi velocity means better pentrating power-good for getting past armor-but it does so at the cost of sacrificing take down power.

That's 2 dolla bullets all over again.

FN five-seven with a 30 round mag weighs about 60 grams more than with a standard 20 round mag, and the clip extends about one and quarter inches past the grip. No big deal. That same increase in capacity for something that shoots .308 would be a lot more significant.


It is true though that the standard +25% cap increase from the extended mag mod doesn't change the weapon's concealability. Though it's easy enough to argue that the 50% increase referenced above doesn't significantly alter the 5-7's profile. Either way, a high cap mag's visibility isn't even relevant to the weapon unless the mag is locked in.

SR example, someone is walking around in a duster hanging their Colt M23 in a concealer beneath. It's modded for a drum, but has a clip in it currently. Conceal is +2 for the weapon and another value for the drum mag. Firefight starts and the guns come out. 2 turns of suppressive fire later, the Colt is empty. Runner drops the mag and slams in a C-mag from under the duster, and now he's really cooking.

Yep, that's the only thing 'high velocity' possibly *could* mean. It's totally transparent, which is why the SR error (regardless of the edition it came from) is so baffling. Even a 'layman' couldn't make that mistake, as long as they spoke English.

--
In that case, he's still concealing the drum. Let the GM deal with it. Besides, they should be loaded at all times, you're a runner. I'm happy to have that extra 1.25 inches inflict a Conceal penalty, on general principles.

The bolt moves at a higher velocity in an SR HV weapon... :-/

So do the scared enemies, maybe.

This makes sense from a marketing standpoint.

Yeah, you'd have to really not give a damn.

Like I said, Ian Fleming was a world respected gun guru compared to the people who get paid to write SR.

It could be worse... we could have the gun addicts from Cyberpunk 2020 who broke down the gun gameplay into such detail they cold quote the ballistic physics of the Armalite handguns & the FPS with Lbs per sq inch stopping power.

Well, yeah. Instead we have nimrods making broken guns such that there are about 4 guns of the 50?? or so in the game that are used by 95% of the players because they are obviously better than every other gun in their category.

You mean ARES PREDATOR and what else?

Also, guys, remind me: is recoil penalty applied for a combat turn or only an initiative pass?

Alpha. There is a machine pistol (whose name I forget - since we never used them) that is pretty spiffy and I think there there is another weapon.

Pistols: Ares Predator IV
MP: FN 5-7C
SMG: HK227-X / Smartgun-X
Assault Rifle: Ares Alpha

Actually, MPs are probably the most varied guns in the game since there are so few of them and each has its own advantages.

There's the FN 5-7c which has a piddly 20rnd cap, but 1pt integral RC. Real popular, but not "the obvious choice" on account of the clip size.
There's the Crusader which has a 40rnd cap and GV2 standard (which is kinda irrelevant.)
The Ceska Black Scorpion has a 35rnd cap, folding stock, and a dirt-low pricetag, so it's good for those mods based on weapon cost.
The Steyr TMP has a 30rnd cap and is FA standard at a good price. Starves on mod slots though since it has no RC.
The B&P MP9 comes with FA and a foregrip as standard, but only a 25rnd cap. Also only one with an avail of 6F instead of 8R.
The Ontari Equalizer has a folding stock, laser sight, and additional -1AP. Too bad it only holds 12 bullets and costs a grand.
The PPSK is full ceramic and easy breakdown. Availability is stupid high, natch.

The only MP that's got no particular place is the Ruger T-983. 1,400 yen pricetag and 17rnd cap completely blot out it's meager benefits of FA, foregrip and advanced safety.


Basically there's no one MP that has FA, RC and a good cap.

The 5-7c (which, the IRL 5-7 shoots like a dream,) has a potential for FA and 7RC using 5 slots, but 20 bullets limits the FA's effectiveness. That's 1 pass of suppressive fire or 2 passes of FA fire. Not really doing it.
Basically, the integral RC only really matters if you're going FA since 5RC for BF is easy enough, but the magazine isn't big enough to allow extended FA fire.


The crusader is nice for suppressive fire since it can cover 2 passes, but since it already comes with an extended clip you can't increase the cap past 40. A favorite tactic is to lay down suppressive fire from the left hand with one of these while taking the rest of that CT's passes gunning with an SMG in the right.

Meanwhile, the Ceska with 6RC and FA fire can take easy breakdown and an extended clip to bring the cap up to a sexy 44 rounds.

Your saying that like it isn't same for pretty much every rpg in the world, statting up fire-arms has a high tendency to result with some guns being better then others.

Every gun in "Gun Heaven" is a complete fail, because it is worse than the guns mentioned before in this thread AND considerabably more expensive.

You mean not wanting an Ares Alpha is odd? I agree the Ares Alpha out of the box is the best of the best assault rifles, but once you start with modding the differences between it and the other assault rifles is minimal. At Chargen, yeah you could go with the Alpha---after chargen cost and availibility are significantly higher than an AK-97/98 or M22/23.

...it's the same bloody thing. MP9 is an updated version of the TMP actually.

For heavy hand guns sr seems to be dominated by the Preator, colt Manhunter and the Ruger. and as crazy as that seems think about it. in the US revolvers are dominated by S&W and Colt. Although a .45 Colt would be ideal, a great many semi autos are Glock .40, Browning 9mm and then a mix of Sig's and Berretta's. Sure there are others out there, Taurus anyone bleah- but those are the most common weapons.

SR dreams of a bright future where Ruger handguns are widely issued to law enforcement, who are happy to have them.

(Not slamming Ruger...I love my P97. It's just that from what I've seen hardly anyone chooses to use a Ruger handgun as a duty weapon given the choice.)

Watch the first two Terminator movies- no seriously. when they made the first one most police had revolvers. When they did the second one most had gone over to semi-auto's. Revolvers in SR have great intimidation and impact- loaded with EX ronuds they've got the biggest bang for the hand gun buck, but are slow to reload and and have a limited mag- if you can hit with one it's great but hedging your bets with a 15 round mag is going to win out on planning over the 6 round cylinder.

They also had a helicopter and a SWAT team in T2.

Did you quote the right person, as i'm not in anyway saying anything like that, i'm just acknowledging the fact that giving stats to weapon most often results in few guns that are better then other.
I don't personally care to min max to that degree and mostly choose guns for my build based on a whim and/or what i envision that particular character would want to carry.

Generally, these guns in SR are all but identical anyway. Players are very sensitive to numeric edges, and some (Alpha) are indeed significantly better. Again generally, though, a gun is a gun. This is particularly true when you full mod them out; at that point, the 'chassis' advantages really get diluted (in most cases).

Why use different firearms when the stats are so similar?

Style. That's what! And that's why I loves me my gear porn books!

The reason why there are about 30 different flavors of handguns sold in real life isn't because everyone that doesn't carry a Glock 19 is stupid. It's that there are a lot of subtle things about guns that make it more appealing or useful to one person that another. However, all the handguns all pretty much do the exact same thing. They have about the same effect when you shoot someone with them. If you are using highly abstract system like SR always claims the only difference SHOULD be is the name. Oh, and it would be nice if the rifles did more damage than pistols.

Uhh...rifles do do more damage than pistols.

There are a few odd exceptions, but by and large Heavy Pistol damage tends to be 5P, Assault Rifle damage tends to be 6P, Shotguns 7P, Sport and Sniper Rifles average 8P...the only major issue I have with it is that SMGs get the short end of the stick (being the same base damage as a Heavy Pistol and losing a level of AP), but I don't think anyone's ever claimed the system's perfect.

I mean, base weapon damages kind of making some sense in comparison to one another was one of the biggest things I think SR4 got right. Compare it to SR3, for instance, where SMGs had about one-third less Power than Heavy Pistols, and even Assault Rifles had a lower base damage code than King Handgun™.

Meanwhile all the PDWs have lower AP than a heavy pistol...

Which I just said. Yeah.

SMGs fire 9mm ball and should do less than a handgun whose caliber starts with a .4

PDWs fire specialized bottleneck cartridges designed to be armor-piercing. That shows a basic misunderstanding of the weapons purpose as well as action.

There are some SMG which fire .45

Not really, if some SMG:s had better AP then others and same damage, those would make all other SMG:s utterly pointless.
Witch is why i hate the fact that MP7 got an extra point of AP. Gun Heaven is technically nice as it add:s more realism with the higher damage carpani and the better AP PDW, but it's infuriating that only those specific guns of those types get this special treatment, that PDF should have so included an optional errata for weapons from other books to be used if one includes the guns from that book to the game.

it's a toss up. The Thompson M1 fired .45 bullets but the impact of the bullets was somewhat offset by the fact that the recoil led to massive muzzle climb- so yeah it hits hard, if you hit with it. I know it's iconic for the likes of Audie Murphy or think of MP40 Clint Eastwood used in where Eagles dare means it's a killer but the M-1 Garand was a much more useful weapon. I think we have what I call "Rambo syndrome' that we like to see burst of fire while in fact single shots would be more accurate.

There is no significant difference in outcome between someone being shot with a 9x19, 9x18, .40, .45 etc. SMGs have a significantly higher MV due to having a much longer barrel. But they are still shooting pistol bullets in the low Mach 1 velocity range. So modeling SMG's as a more accurate pistol would be perfectly reasonable.

"Pistols are pistols and rifles are rifles."

"You use your pistol to get to your rifle that you shouldn't have been away from in the first place."

A few pieces of wisdom I've learned from a variety of sources.

Vaguely combining some of the above, I've long thought a good (and pretty simple) 'fix' for the SR4 DV/AP codes would be be to make some dramatic changes in AP stats. This way, you can make weapons much better against armor, without raising their DV insanely. You can allow things to 'hurt' armored targets without auto-killing them, or always doing massive stun. The same principle works for vehicles, where the 'kill or nothing' effect is even more noticeable. AP is a great mechanic, if we take advantage of it.

Not in SR there aren't, unless Ingram and Uzi decided to get all wacky on us.
There are a few PDWs and a few carbines, which Gun Haven actually got statted alright.

I'd actually put a PDW as 4P -2 AP since it's built to stab.

I would like to know where you get you info on fictional guns calibers, not that it really matters for this point as Gun Heaven has MAC-10 that the picture marks as a .45ACP version.

Maybe they just retired all the historically popular 9mm versions in a world where people wear body armor to work?
The likely answer I suppose?

And then every heavy pistol uses a magnum cartridge?

Not impossible, and it explains the capacity on most of them.

The more I play, the more I agree with this.

I could even see ceramic core armor piercing rounds that penetrate armor well, but because of the reduced mass and no deformation do not create as large a wound. These would be small arms rounds designed to puncture engine blocks and get through vehicle armor. I've considered this as another alternative round to APDS that gives higher armor piercing

I also would like to see caliber rules. Because when it comes to damage in most cases a 9 mm handgun is a 9 mm handgun. A Glock and a Beretta operate differently and feel different in your hand, etc. But once they hit the target, there's not really a difference. There can be modifiers for snubnose concealed carry weapons and firing rounds out of longer barrells like rifles, but really I would like rules to build my own weapons based upon cartridges and the class of weapon.

It would also be nice to see strength or body play a role in recoil reduction.

Well, there's the Strength-to-RC rule in Arsenal. You could adapt it to include Body, as well. Honestly, it's way too easy to get RC already, so be careful.

And some SMG's that use 7.62X39 and 5.56mm--which is where you run into a RL and SR discrepancy. Statting these variations is that is could be endless, leading to an unlimited supply of gun porn for Canray.

I was thinking of adding more recoil for low scores. So the opposite of recoil reduction. Because I don't think anyone really worries about it for most things now anyway. I'll have to get Arsenal eventually.

Sounds good to me. Like I said, I feel like there should be more recoil, and what you propose is the same math in reverse.

Actually, I'm for an Assault Carbine class between SMGs and Assault Rifles.

But I've talked to folks and they've stated that they're trying to keep things simple to placate a larger audience that doesn't know about firearms. Considering my group whose eyes glaze over when I talk about 10mm versus .45 ACP, I actually figure this is a good way to go, even if I'm personally offended.

That said, I'm still upset over the Clips Vs. Magazines issue, but know that I'll never win that argument.

There is a HUGE difference between being shot by a rifle round and pistol round. A SMG bullet will be stopped by most soft body armor. Plus it's a pistol bullet.

A short barreled rifle isn't a SMG. It's far more lethal. A rifle round will go through your soft body armor, through your chest and through the back armor. Unless it's moving fast enough to fragment, at which point you won't have a hole in the rear panel, but the trauma surgeon will have more work.