Last session i was about to kill somebody in a car and thought it was a good idea to shoot the window with a long burst and then let a grenade from my underbarrel grenade launcher follow, but the GM said that this wasn´t possible. Both fire-modes are simple-actions only, so where is the problem? He also didn´t knew about a corresponding rule, he said that this doesn´t feel right. Any comments?

The GM got it wrong. That is an advantage of using the underbarrel grenade launcher.

I agree with Warlordtheft. If your DM pulls this kind of stunt again, introduce him to the MGL-6 paired with any other one-handed gun.

Preferably, another MGL-6.

My face took a pair of those in the latest game. It's nice blowing stuff up on a miss.

Depends if you have smartlink or not. If not you'd have to change firing modes manually which is a simple action I believe. If you have the gun smartlinked its a free action and you should be good to go. I'd give you a negative modifier for shooting the grenade through the window,however(Called shots and all that).

I'd always assumed UB grenade launchers (if not others too) would have a separate trigger mechanism by default. Is that not the case?

I'd carry over the BF recoil too.

It's the case on modern weapons, yeap.

Wasn't even thinking about a separate trigger, but thats possible as well. I don't think theres anything in the rules saying it takes any kind of action to use a different trigger.

I like it. It makes sense that you'd have to switch *something*.

Depends on where those triggers are, of course. If the GL one is on the fore-grip...

I, too, disagree with your GM's assertion.

So what'd you end up doing? Just shooting one grenade "to take out the window," then a second for fun?

I as well disagree with your GM's view of events. If for no other reason than if the weapon is smartlinked, you can fire it with but a thought.

You probably would've taken the recoil (if any) from the burst, though, on the grenade launch.

Even if it was a seperate trigger, such as the current M203 (with the trigger right in front of the rifle maagazine. It would be at most a free action to switch since the wapon is already readied. Making it a simple action to switch is a little extreme.

I think I disagree with you there. Since manually changing firing modes is a simple action(and pretty similar to changing what trigger your using) it makes more sense to me to rule it so that it takes a simple to swap between the two. But thats not supported by RAW, AFAIK.

Right; absent other factors, I'd say there's no reason to slow things down. But, given the actions for Change Firing Mode (or whatever), it seems only fair to require a similar action. This seems particularly true with UBGL used manually.

However, it depends on the table. I can't recall the last time anyone spent even a Free action to change their firing mode. It's not really a big deal, but anything that slows down grenades is good in my book.

I'm a bit confused on smartlink. I thought you just needed some type of AR friendly vision (contacts, goggles, etc) and the actual smartlink. Where does changing firing modes mentally come into play?

The smartlink (in conjunction with a smartgun-equipped gun) allows you to control various weapon functions electronically. You can give those commands using any of the standard methods: DNI, eye tracking, voice commands, even pressing buttons/touch controls. A smartgun can accept any matrix commands, so there are some cases where you're not even holding it. This is how most smartgun hacking works.

Me, I say trodes + skinlink is the easiest and best method of controlling anything, guns included.

I'm not sure about that. If your gun fires every time you think about it, you'd need some pretty extreme thought discipline to stop it going off at every stray impulse. I think a positive, physical control like a trigger is still the best, simplest, and easiest method.

A DNI probably has some kind of regulator to it to handle your thoughts built into the firmware & software interface. Otherwise it might be possible to "Diablo-2 click" an icon to death when you only mean to tap it once.

But then, you could potentially let a character go off like Kotoha Isone of Yozakura Quartet...

Hehe. Tanegar, we assume that everything always works perfectly; the rules never imply they don't. If anything, your finger is liable to accidentally twitch, right? ("I accidentally shot Marvin the face!")

"Must have hit a bump or something"

I both agree and disagree with the GM.

If the weapon have manual triggers (as a normal gun) I would say that it is a free action to move you finger to the other trigger (if you dont already have your other hands finger on that trigger already as an assault rifle with grenade launcher is held with two hands...).

I would either make the shot a complex action (Fire-Switch-Fire) and a +1 recoil for essentially firing two weapons at once.
I would also say that you need to make two shots (rifles and grenade launchers behave differently) but that would also depend on the range (within 10 meters or so it wouldnt matter).

I would say that electronic firing modification is needed to fire two weapons at once without manual action combined with the smartlink. It allows you to mentally command your gun through the smartlink to fire as no muscles needs to be used.

In the end, its also about how cool it would look within the game.

Ok, the deal is that a) you are making a called shot, which is a free action. (And I may be wrong, but don't long burst take FA, and you can't do called shots with FA?) And then you have to switch device mode using smartlink from rifle to grenade launcher, which is another free action. And then you want to make another called shot to hit the window again, I presume, to get some nice chunky in the car. However, in SR4 you only have one free action. Or you have to use shenanigans (Multitasking + Focus RA, for instance).

So that really doesn't work.

You CAN fire a short or long burst as a simple action, then switch as a free action and fire the launcher as another simple action. The launcher is then not ready to fire in the next round, although one could argue that like with an SR4 revolver the action doesn't really need another user interference to cycle, it just takes longer, so you could use your second simple action in the next round to fire again.

Let's hope that he's not firing a grenade at a target 10 meters away.


Depends on the type of launcher, if it has a cylinder of grenades or a SS.

A lot of it depends on the type of equipment the character is carrying. Since it's the same weapon (bottom mounted) definitely agree that there should be at least recoil modifiers applying, called shot, so on. So it should be tough, but you should be able to do it with the actions that you have at least.

Depending on the type of grenade, it might not be such a bad idea. If he's wearing full chemical protection, for instance, and it's a DMSO grenade, or a gas grenade. Or maybe he has flare comp and a noise filter and it's a flashbang?

Aye, it's got to be either/or imo. If you're taking the time to switch modes (simple action) then obviously you don't have the recoil modifier. If you're smartlinked and want to fire the attached launcher (or shotgun/flamethrower/whatever) then it's a free but you'll take the recoil.

I don't think he's going for subdual tactics if he's firing rounds through the window.

If he's firing DMSO loads or gas, flashbangs, or smoke, into a moving vehicle, it's not subdual, it's "vehicular homicide."

No matter what kind of ammunition i use, it is always homicide.^^ In this case it was because a mage was sitting behind mirrored car windows and i had to pick him out quick (spirit fight with my teammembers was already going). IMHO this was a quite good solution, but that it shouldn´t work....confused me.

Yeah, if I had been your GM it would've worked - Simple Action for the first sdhot, Free Action to reach the second trigger/smartlink switch, and second Simple Action to fire a grenade...

Narrow full-burst at the car would have worked jsut as well: Since it's FA, anyone in the car has to resist the damage, and it's unclear if they even get to defend, and even if they do, they get -3 for being in a vehicle, IIRC. One decisive strike might have been better than allowing two damage resistance tests for individually lower damage.

On the other hand, without called shots this should have definitely still worked: FA burst the car, not the guy, and then shoot the grenade at the car, too. Thanks to vehicle rules the guy has to take the damage both times.

I still don't like the rules to directly target the passengers, at least in heavily armored vehicles.

Especially in cases where the targets are in something like a main battle tank.





-k

Which is why you just enforece penetration (ie, it bounces or is totally soaked). If the damage does not penetrate, the passengers are safe. Kind of hard to hurt a Driver in an M1 MBT with a M-16, even one with FA Capabilities.