Hmm, how is that? Provided you mean Stick-and-Shock ammo.

There's a 8P -4 AP pistol (including its high-power ammo), which seems good for spirits up to and including force 6. Beyond that, standard assault rifles/sniper rifles with APDS, then lasers. At no point is SnS absolutely required, it's just the most available alternative.

There's a lot you need to give up to play SR, as far as logic goes, and I understand that. It still breaks the suspension of disbelief when 30 or so years of spirits being common, no one has mass produced a munition designed to take them down.

I love how War! is still managing to frag up our experience long after we buried it.

Also, I loved the art as well, but some of the stats left me wondering. For example, for that pistol with a bayonet - it's all cool and all, but Arsenal only has damage stats for a bayonet on a rifle, stated specifically. Don't you think wielding one would be quite different, and produce quite different results, from having a blade along a pistol barrel?

Fire Hydrants work against Fire Spirits.

I guess a sand blaster should work equally well against a air spirit. And i find myself reminded of a earlier edition example of a fire and water spirit going at it, resulting in a whole lot of steam...

Oh, and i think there is stats for a water cannon somewhere...

I think it's one of the non-lethal weapons in Arsenal

Yep, as a vehicle mounted weapon. I do wonder if one could turn it lethal and make it blow sand or similar against air spirits

Not that capsule rounds filled with sand or water would not make a interesting experiment vs certain spirits.

err, never mind. Seems only fire and water spirits have any listed allergies. Boring...

Not quite the same though...this is like Nitrous Oxide itself being completely illegal, but having Nitrous Oxide Injectors for those with a permit. You can have the system, but not the fuel. Or saying: sure, you can get a license for a handgun, but you're not allowed to buy any ammo. At all.

It's legal to own a gun and load it with ammo, but in most cases it is illegal to start shooting said gun on the street. Different things.

That's odd. You'd think that each would have a weakness, based on the old methods.

Water beats Fire.
Fire beats Air.
Air beats Earth.
Earth beats Water.

If you want to non-tradition it, you can swtch Water and Earth, like so:

Earth beats Fire
Fire beats Air
Air beats Water
Water beats Earth

Depends on how you want to define your mythology.

I agree, however, that all the elementals should have a kryptonite, just as bug spirits go down to insecticide. A mundane method to fight something gets the other team members into the game in a way that "Throw spells at him while we, I dunno, look for clues I guess?" never does. One of the reasons the Stick-n-SHock method has never been nerfed, I'd think.

Perhaps things wouldn't need to be changed that much. Just an in-game mention that SnS has been found to be fairly strong against spirits, thus fluff-wise solving both the lack of effective in-game solutions to spirits and the fact that SnS is really good ammo.

Watch a Storm Spirit laugh at it, however.

Almost Normal's 2nd law : Every fiat has an equal and opposite refiat. The strong electromagnetic force generated by a materialized causes standard ammo to be magnetically attracted to the center mass of the spirit, doing both more damage and hitting more frequently.

Let's get one thing straight:
A Smartlink is a visual accessory.
A Smartgun System is a weapon modification or accessory that interacts with your Smartlink.

Only one gun gets this (half) right - the Izom CSM-419, which lists a "Smartgun" under Standard Weapon Upgrades/Accessories. The other 15 or so smartguns list "Smartlink". The first Gun Heaven suffered from the same problems.

There also needs to be some clarification when talking about Upgrades, which I'll assume means the same thing functionally as Modifications, and Accessories. For example, the Izom CSM-419 - it lists Smartgun as an Upgrade/Accessory. Okay, we can figure out that they're talking about a Smartgun System. However, we can see from the illustration that it's an External Smartgun System, and therefore an Accessory, not a Modification. That's not something that can be divined from the stat listing, or even the accompanying fluff text for that matter. Same deal with the Terracotta Arms Mordred. There needs to be a clear distinction between the Accessories and the Modifications in the stats, especially for "Upgrades" that can function both as Accessories and Modifications, like Flashlights and Smartgun Systems.

Overall, I do like the weapons presented in this book, but some of the standard upgrades seem kind of just...tacked on. Like how it seems like half of the guns have Reduced Weight thrown on for fun. Or how Melee Hardening combined with Electronic Firing somehow doubles as an Extreme Environment Modification (Model 71).

The artwork is mostly awesome, especially the Onotari weapons (the JP-K49 in particular). Some weapons look kind of weird (Cavaliers, I'm looking at you), but I do appreciate the out-of-the-box approach to these, like the K-2072. Sure, it may look like something a little green man might wander out of his crashed U.F.O. with, but it's definitely not just another pair of grey rectangles.

I think the cz64 just ousted the Colt Government 2066 as the best heavy pistol in the game. 350Y for 5p, -1AP, 1 recoil, and room for plenty of mods? Sure, why not? No idea where the recoil comp comes from.

Both the Onotari Violator and the Nemesis Arms Praetorian have an unexpected point of recoil compensation as well.

I also noticed that Renraku is spelled Reraku in the tables.

It's the second iteration of Renraku. It's been ReRaku'd, clearly.

Tradition and caring of Czech manufacturer

Ummm... That is what SnS is for...

No, that's what SnS *does*. It's what APDS is *for*. It's wrong to say no one's made ammo for them: anything powerful works, just like for vehicles. There's just nothing *specifically* for spirits, because they're magic. Duh.

Phalanx Rotary Cannon towed on a trailer and attached to GridGuide for electricity.

Not really, all but 2 of them are part of Shiwase's Stream™ line of firearms and reduced weight is part of the lines concept.

No, it's not, since NO ONE HAS MADE ANY MUNITION DESIGNED TO FIGHT SPIRITS.



No. Not like vehicles. Vehicles have ammo designed to be used against them. The APDS you mentioned, for instance.



Except the pages of rulebooks devoted to materials designed to ward off or kill magic and magical creatures.

And yet, Almost Normal, APDS, AV, and SnS rounds are ideal for killing spirits. Why invent something else, when what you have already is sufficient?

Put it another way. We've got frangible rounds, so that cops can shoot folks in urban areas/airplanes. We've got anti vehicle weaponry. We've got anti-tank weaponry. We've got stun weapons, injection weapons (which includes a whole batch of chemicals), Silver bullets to take down some para critters. Would "BIG FUCK GUN BULLET SHOT" work in most of those situations? You bet your sweet ass. But there's still specific munitions designed to target a specific target. That there isn't a single mass produced munition ever designed to fight spirits is a flaw, an oversight. Something easy and fun, like... the hardened seeds of the paranormal peppercorn plant, fired in buckshot, or biofiber material kept nourished in a paintball hoper style tank with UV lighting, fired pneumatically. ANYthing. For me, the game balance issue is secondary. The primary aggravation for me is that nobody thought to design a munition* to kill one of the most common, diehard and intrusive foes that they'll face.

The previous argument, for sake of direction, ignores that all munitions previously listed also have the uncanny ability to miss any spirit that hasn't materialized.

*S-n-S works by fiat and 'game balance' alone. It wasn't designed to fight spirits, and many GMs seem to disfavor their spirit fighting qualities.

NO, APDS is designed to be used against heavily armored thinks, that includes both vehicles and spirits.
So yes, just like vehicles.

Removed the faceplam-gif. Not cool, dude.

The lack of munitions to shoot an un-materialized spirit is because YOU CANNOT SHOOT AN UN-MATERIALIZED SPIRIT. Duh.

And as others have indicated... APDS is for hard targets (as is AV), so they are perfect for Spirts, AS THEY ARE HARD TARGETS. The fact that SnS, or Flamethrowers, or Acid Weapons works on Spirits as well indicates to me that we do not need a SPECIALIZED anti-spirit round, since all of the above work just fine. And in fact, the best SPECIALIZED Anti-spirit weapon is a mana-Based Spirit Bolt (Limited Target Mana Bolt, F/2-1 or if Stun only F/2-2). It is often the rule that the best counter to magic is... you guessed it, magic.

There are a number of ways to harm spirits in game already without the idiocy (in-game) of Spirit Only Ammunition. It is a waste of Resources to even go down that path, when there are already many viable alternatives to such research.

When I read that the first time, I didn't realize that "thinks" was a typo and I just thought it was new slang for a brain in a jar. It sort of captures the brain part with think and is similar enough that to tanks to imply the cyberbody. I think I might start referring to them as "thinks".

It's possible that all the types of weaponry they have researched were too volatile, cumbersome to use or ineffective. Just because one can conceive of a goal does not mean that there exists a path to it. I can especially see resources being diverted away from a project such as this when the spreadsheets show no significant progress, and fairly few targets it would be required against (especially when mages are not *that* rare, so that corporations aren't completely helpless).

God, is this forum turning into an imageboard?

No, it isn't.

Yet cyberskates are in mass production.

Just in case someone found the shotgun/GL combo far out:
http://1loop.com/6xwmc

I want one. For gopher hunting.

dude, do those gophers happen to be green?

No, but I want a reputation amongst them as someone not to mess with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4xuZMpmXtc

just felt it relevant

Now you know why I want one for Gophers.

Woah...now THAT's what I call a crime-deterrent!

"I call 357, not 911."

Friend of mine picked this up, just got a chance to read through it today.

I must say, there're a lot of errors - not just the Smartlink / Smartgun System thing, but even directly contradictory stat writeups between the individual weapon listings and the tables on the last couple of pages. The one I remember offhand is the Krime Stopper, the shotgun-pistol, which caught my eye as being a powerful and highly concealable weapon with mini-AoE via flechette, which is a great ace to have up your sleeve.

But I was confused because it was listed in one place as holding 2 rounds, and in another as holding 3 rounds. If I recall, the accompanying image clearly listed it as a break action weapon, which would suggest the 2 rounds, but 3 isn't impossible for break action (such weapons do exist in real life). But what's worse, I distinctly remember it listing the ammo feed system in both places as being a magazine! They also don't mention how it handles Shotgun rules, whether as normal or special, and the ability to manage the choke is one of the primary draws of a shotgun. It also simply says it fires shotgun "shells" and fails to make it clear whether the 7P / -1AP is for slugs (rather high DV if so!) or for flechettes (rather low AP if so!).

Seriously, who did the Quality Control Checks on this? Gonna hold off on buying and using it in the hopes it gets cleaned up.

~Umi

At first glance, I thought you were talking about the 454 with 30mm grenade launcher!


Yeah, I hope there's an errata coming.

Only think from those that has anythink to do with the quality of the book is the wrong ammo capacity in the table(the table is wrong as the text clearly only talks about singular reserve round).
Rest of it is totally ok, yes it's (M) just like all the other pump-action shotguns and the damage code is quite clear.

I would point out for folks who don't realize, that in contrast to real world terminology Shadowrun labels all internal ammunition containers as "magazines" and all removable box-style ammo containers as "clips".

Yes, it's wrong, but that's the rules.



-k

Unofficial, maybe

This is something that's been around since 1989, and cannot be changed. I've suggested it.

Put it down to people using the term "Clips" to mean "Magazines" for so long that it's become right in linguistically except for really, really anal people. So, English Teachers with Military Experience.

All the documentation that properly referred to magazines and clips got lost during the 2029 Crash.

That, and Ares Small Arms marketing department started using the terms the other way in their ads in the 2030ies, and the corporation sued every one who claimed they were wrong.

[Stan Lee]
This is a wonderful explination. As such, expect a No Prize at your door in short order. Excelsior!
[/Stan Lee]

It's true, though: the 'wrong' term is now right. Hardly the first time. Language, deal with it!