I need some help here. I'm working on a character who is Ex-Tir Na Nog military and I'm thinking he might even have some of his old gear.

Can somone possibly tell me what Firearms and other gear the average member of the Tir Na Nog military has, and if possible the Book and page number to confirm this in?

Thank you very much.

Unfortunately, there's likely nothing particularly specific about that. Take a look at the Tir na Nog sourcebook for hints, but I don't think you're going to find anything particular - you might get lucky with a statblock or something, but realistically I doubt it. I suggest Heckler-Koch weapons, since they're the standard in the area, and since SK is the big corp in Europe...

Tir na nOg sourcebook (circa 2054) introduced Armements Eireann-Tir corporation as the local producer. AET NN8 light pistol was equivalent to Fichetti 500, AET NN8/2 to Fichetti 500/a, AET NN11 to Ares Predator (with Concealability 4, Ammo 25), AET NN12 to Ares Viper Slivergun (with Concealability 5, Ammo 25), AET NN15 to Remington Roomsweeper, and AET NN22 to HK227 and Dealanach to Defiance Super Shock.

Yeah. Aside from their crazy face-matching sniper rifle zany stuff, most of their gear was just "use the stats for ______, but call it ______ instead." Which, to be honest, I much prefer to hundreds of different, but almost exactly the same, firearms bein' out there. I'm a tremendous fan of quick name swaps like this, personally.

Whereas a gun nut like me...

Not a regular member of the Tir Na Nog military but in Artifacts Unbound pg 109 Felicia McGuiness is equipped with this:

Light military armor [w/ holster, mobility upgrade 3, rutheniumpolymer coating, skinlink]

military helmet [w/ flare compensation, image link, smartlink, thermographic vision]

Weapons:
FN HAR [w/ personalized grip, smartgun, 7 clips APDS ammo]
Ares Predator IV [w/ personalized grip, smartgun, 3 clips EX-explosive ammo]
Short sword [Weapon Focus 5]
Cougar Fineblade Long Blade
3 fragmentation grenades
3 high explosive grenades
4 thermal smoke grenades

She's an elite operator and her equipment probably reflects that her superiors want to have some level of deniability if something goes wrong. I also noticed her skill set seemed incomplete there's a "," and it just ends I mentally added thrown weapons because it makes sense.

Edit- I also imagine that's more of a combat load for when she knows she has to roll hard.
I've been trying to get more info for both the Tirs and have been told something is in the works.

How common is it, in 2070, for a skilled solider to leave with their highly-controlled military gear?

Honestly, depending on the background it could be fairly easy. One option is he deserted while on a mission in a hostile area, another is the mission was blown and he got burned by his government. Those are two just off the top of my head.

Except with RFIDs in all gear and traceable weapon/gear id that may not be the best choice in the 2070ies...

I'm assuming we're talking about soldiers, not deniable covert ops (as mentioned, they'd have 'deniable' gear anyway). Either way, both of those examples seem to answer my question with 'very rare'. Desertion is a big risky deal, and I feel like 'burn your priceless troops' ops must be considerably rare.

Yeah, the 'in 2070' was the key aspect there. I just feel like this is a common and BS reason for having things. This isn't WW2 or anything… it feels one step better than 'I'm an escaped prototype killing machine' as backgrounds go.

*Cough* Lots of time in a hide-away with a tag eraser.

Sure - but if you desert on a mission chances are they'll track you before you get to such a hide-away.

Well, What if they wanted to get rid of you to begin with?

Being an Ork in the pro-Elf Tir Na Nog military has a way of attracting the wrong kinds of attention.

I was thinking that when he's finally forced to leave, his Quartermaster buddy slips him his uniforms and some of his gear because "They told me since I probably wasn't going to get the 'Ork Stink' out of them I should just burn these so who's gonna know?"

I'd allow that, as long as it's not very rare/valuable gear.

Well yeah. I mean Common sense there.

You probably could get away with a Uniforms, some basic rucksack gear (entrenching tool, messkit, etc) , a Rifle of some kind and a sidearm but I doubt he'll say "And here's a Pocket-Nuke for your troubles."

Every shadowrunner knows you gotta earn that Pocket-Nuke,

Nah, it's actually because I'm a gun nut that I don't care for a hojillion different heavy pistols that are all almost exactly the same. I'd rather people just stick with a core 8-10 models of any given firearm type, and swap out the name when they want to change descriptors, then have page after page of practically the same gun, because the simple truth is you can't (or shouldn't, in the case of an abstract game like SR) really quantify the little stuff that, IRL, differentiates between one gun and the next. So all the cool shit that makes a Glock a little different from a 1911, or a Sig a little different from an HK, gets brushed aside. All that matters in an RPG is damage code, capacity, and what upgrades come automatic, really.

So the cool little fiddly bits that make one company different from another? All that gets broken down to damage code, capacity, and built-in upgrades. Then an (arbitrary?) cost gets slapped on, and you call it a day. I don't want to call it "dumbed down," because it's a level of detail that I think is appropriate for a game. But because I think that it's the level of detail that's appropriate, I don't see why we pretend otherwise, and pretend like we need book after book of almost-but-not-quite-the-same-gun.

Agreed, with the added wrinkle of the 'one best gun' problem (freaking Alpha).

It is funny, though. Gun Enthusiast (Gun Nut has so many negative connotations ) that I am, I have never had a character EVER use the Ares Alpha in Game. *Shrug* Not sure why, exactly, I just do not really like it all that much.

It has negative connotations for a reason. But no, I wasn't saying gun nuts would prefer (or not) the Alpha; there's no correlation. I was saying that the array of guns we have manages to be boringly consistent and yet dominated by 1-3 'best' options at the same time.

Agreed.

Guns should have the 'similar models' thing that vehicles have, imo. Then we'd have the 'best' 3-9 at least

Interestingly, most of the "best" guns are in the core rulebook. There is not a single gun in Gun Haven that i use, because the are worse than the other guns AND more expensive.

I'll talk about terminal ballistics of various calibers and the difference between Bushmaster, LMT and Colt AR-15s all day long, but in SR there isn't any way to portray this kind of minor subtle differences. What you end up in SR when you try to create differences is creating one or two super weapons and this huge list of essentially worthless junk.

I've always been of the idea that one should call a spade what it is: "That's the thing you're going to use to dig your own grave."

The Ares Alpha is a nice firearm. If I went that route, however, I'd likely get an AK-98, however. Easier and cheaper to ditch and replace if need be.

I guess... heh.

I like the AK, but I find myself typically with a Sernopal vz/88V or the AK-147 over the AK97/98 when choosing an Assault Rifle. The FN-HAR is another decent choice that I often make as well.

… They all are. That's the point: apart from the Alpha, they're all the same. Especially if you start modding them a bit.

I prefer the Nitama Optimum II over the Alpha.

Edit- My current character is using a modded FN-HAR.

No way. The Optimum is F, one of the more expensive, shotguns are worthless, no good RC, small magazine, and no good mods.

Atleast half of the ARs are F, expense is a one time thing, standalone shotguns kinda suck but add an AR and imo they don't, you can add RC, mag size isn't bad, and it has an int. smartlink right out of the gate.

But half of them aren't F, it costs more than the Alpha, expense is every time you need to replace it, shotguns always suck, you *must* add RC, the mag size is literally the worst, and better guns have smartlinks (which are also easier to add than RC). Okay, now your turn.

Which, when you come down to it, are like real life assault rifles. They're designed to put bullets downfield. Hopefully reliably.

Everything else is just minute.

The fact that shotguns are crap is a system issue. No easy way to fix it without major system changes. Just ignore it and move on.

I don't understand the big deal about the F, both the Alpha and the Nitama are F. I tend to take care of my gear so I don't replace it often , shotguns are niche weapons just like grenade launchers, I add RC to all my BF/FA weapons even the Alpha when I get one, combat is over so quickly mag size generally doesn't matter, I wasn't arguing "better" guns didn't have smartlinks I was pointing out the Nitama had a worthwhile mod on it.

Totally, CanRay. That's the point: it's fine without the Alpha and its special magic specialness.

Grenades launchers, while niche, are a potentially useful one. The shotgun is useless.

My point, though, was that the Optimum is almost the perfect collection of bad traits. No single aspect is awful, but it has *all* of them: cost, illegality, shotgun, smallest mag, etc.

Eh, I still like it for some reason, I also like the SCAR battle rifle haven't been able to play with one yet though.

Oddly enough, I've never had a character take ANY of the assault rifles. I tend to stick to concealable weapons, or high explosives.

Well Angelone, even if it were the worst AR, it's still an AR. They're all good.

The game has the damage ratio between pistols and rifles totally hosed. So yeah, mechanically in SR you are almost as good with a pistol as an assault rifle if you are in effective pistol range. It's only the grenade launcher on a rifle or in combat at longer range that makes a long gun worthwhile in SR.

For Shadowrunners, if you need an AR, you're likely to do as well with a SMG.

Personally, I like a nice AR with a MasterKey system and ShockLock Rounds. Not as likely to harm people on the other side as a 40mm HEAT, and still does a good number against Tangos if you do need to make a big impression on the Ork with the heavy duty armour.

That's true, but we've only been comparing rifles to rifles anyway.

Oh I see how it is Canray can like underbarrel shottys but I can't. Bah.

Gotta love shocklock rounds.

No, but we *know* he's crazy.

I remembered there was another Tir Na Nog operatavie in Artifacts, Felicia's nephew, Rory Mcguinness pg 133. Here's his gear:

Autopicker 6,
camouflage TRC fatigues [w/ smartpouches],
contacts [Rating 3, w/ flare compensation, image link, smartlink],
earbuds [Rating 3, w/ audio enhancement 3],
hardware kit,
keycard copier 6,
laser link,
low-light micro flashlight,
maglock passkey 6,
maglock sequencer 6,
miniwelder,
signal repeater 6,
TRC ID card,
wire clippers

Weapons:
Ares Predator IV [w/ personalized grip, smartgun, 3 clips EX-explosive ammo]
H&K 227-S [w/ adv. safety, folding stock, gas-vent 3, personalized grip, smartgun, 2 clips APDS ammo]
Cougar Fineblade Long Blade
Extendable Baton
3 flash bang grenades
3 thermal smoke grenades

He's SIGINT, without the specialized gear I think his is a good representation of Tir gear.

I tend to agree with Critias on this one. I think SR4 has just the right variety of firearms options. I think to do anything more you'd be looking at adding specialty rules or worsening the Ares Alpha ubergun problem (speaking of, isn't there a more uber Alpha in War!?).

Having said that, however, I loved Gun Haven/Heaven because it allowed me to flood my Barrens game with so many crappy weapons that my players have (almost) stopped looting every corpse they come across.

I agree with the SG problem, which is why in my game certain ammos only come in SG rounds (stick-n-shock and shocklock rounds in particular, but also most chemical rounds, etc). This actually creats a niche for SG in the game and eleminates over use of certain ammo types that I find uncharacteristic for the setting, but commonly abused for certain mechanical benefits (ahem...).

Somewhat back on topic: the first thing I though about when I read the OP was the fabled Tir-Nan-og "Morph-seeking rifle" of yore. My players used to tremble in fear of that gun, although I don't think its ever really been clearly explained, and I don't think they ever had the misfortune of meeting one. So what do you guys think it is/was? It occured to me that with rules for things like sensors, information-guided ranged attacks and facial recognition software in SR4, we could probably come up with an actual weapon (and push the ubergun curve up a bit).

IIRC, the Morph-seeking rifle was a sniper rifle with facial recognition software that saw through disguises and had crazy accuracy. Maybe a souped up smartlink as well.

I agree that with the current rules it's easy to do.

Amen.

I have largely lost interest in SR4 for a number of reasons, one of which is the constant struggle with vat-grown-super-assassinitus.

Some people get a cheap thrill out of picking up 22 dice and thinking that rolling a lot of 5s and 6s means they are cool...

Personally, story and background matter more than dice pool or mechanics, and finding players of a similar mindset is difficult. SR4 attracts a lot of power gamers with more interest in what they think is 'cool' (and is actually generally just shallow) rather than telling an interesting story. Form over substance, most of the time.

What can ya do.

The OP clarified that he (personally) intended small things, of course. If this 'morph-seeking rifle' were worth having, obviously that's the kind of thing I'd be wary of someone claiming he 'kept when he left'. It clearly depends on the specifics.

Yeah, based on the fluff the morph seeking rifle is the kind of thing they would hunt you down to take back.

Of coarse that was back in the 2050s. Add 20+ years worth of new technology and a wireless computer in every gun and your average snipper character could probably make one out of any stock rifle.

I think in historical context, it was like the sniper rifle of 2070 back in 2050, which made it cool. In 2070, it's just a specialized long gun.

Canray--honestly how many variations of the .45 Automatics are out there and game wise would the differences be stististically significant in terms of stats.

THe only one I can think of is the difference between the double and single column mags (a 7-8 round clip, to a 12-14 round clip). Everything else is covered by the customization rules.

A lot. And even more firearms that started out in a different caliber and then the company came out with a .45 ACP version. Or was converted by a Gunsmith.Not much, as we don't have rules for reliability or maintenance.*Sighs* I know. Oh well, I got my M1911A1 (Well, M1991), I'm happy. Until the Para-Ordinance P14-45 is included.

Now that you are writing for SR, why not convince them to add a 'smiliar models' list for existing firearms? I'm sure you could come up with a few...