Indeed... I have a Character currently refurbishing a MIL-24 Hind for just that reason...
Taking forever, but it is a fun sideline.

Pegasus : Also unhackable.

Pegasus with a runner on it > most things.

It is, indeed, 20% cooler than the next-most-coolest form of air transportation. Can your pegasus have you inside the corp compound in ten seconds flat?

Preferably it'd have me inside the compound in 10 seconds normal. Elevation decreases and the flatness of a runner don't tend to go well together.

But Yeah. Buddy of mine is starting up a new campaign, needed a character. Went with a beastmaster unarmed adept. Between adept powers, qualities and such, you can really amp up your animal handling skills. So a pack of Fenrir wolves, a Pegasus, and a Merlin Owl. I took some skill in parachuting, figure it'd be safer (and fucking cool) to drop into target areas as opposed to driving/walking up to them.

And once again I point out that explosives warheads and chemistry has major advances in SR tech.

If I get twice as much boom for the same weight... then it's reasonable to assert I get twice as much propellant for the same weight. That actually causes much larger savings than it would seem... because now the missile also weighs half as much so I need even less propellant on top of that since I don't need to accelerate as much fuel.

So it's quite reasonable on those terms for a 50lb missile to match the performance of a 200lb sidewinder simply due to advances in chemistry. And similarly for the 200lb sidewinder to match the AMRAAM.


So count me out as not in your chorus line of a 1950's fighter using the old speed is king line and screw maneuverability.

Also your 15km to the ground doesn't mean much when gravity is pulling the missile down the whole way. They even have fighters launch guided bomb ordinance in ballistic lobs by releasing them in an arc on afterburner. The main reason for the missile on an AGM is for standoff range on low-altitude attacks. Some of the Mavericks the warhead is HALF the missile's total weight.

Which is still all hypothetical, Falconer, since the game does not proivide any standard of weights and measures.

What is not hypothetical is actual ordinance capacity of vehicles. It is a verifiable fact that Modern (Current) Aircraft/Drones are able to carry MORE ordinance (in Quantity and WEIGHT, apparently, if you follow your logic) than the Vehicles/Drones of the 2070's (as written by the developers). Take a step back, anyone? If the ordinance of the 2070's is lighter and smaller (with same capabilities), you should be able to carry MORE than what is currently available. That is not the case.

What is actually happening is that there are people writing rules that have absolutely no idea about what they are talking about. In shadowrun, this has occurred through all of the Editions. You cannot add Military Grade weaponry and maintain game balance (for a non-military game), so they fudge numbers/capabilities, make rulings that make no sense, and come up with something that is far from what it should be. *shrug*

Can it work? Sort of... But you get inconsistencies. The more Military tech that you add, the more inconsistencies that crop up.

Well, I disagree with you on one point, Tymaeus: I think you can add military weaponry and maintan game balance.

For one, bring back Street Index ... and for military stuff, jack it through the roof (in scale to how much better it might be than otherwise-available "security grade" gear).

For two, jack that availability through the roof, as well (again, in scale to how good it is).

Poof, it's balanced - by being godawful expensive and godawful hard to find/get, for anyone outside of an actual, established military organisation. So much so in either event, that the result is that milspec stuff is never seen as "expendable" (the way an ordinary drone might be, or an ordinary gun, etc).

I can agree to that as soon as you can show me a modern fighter plane that can back 11 light howitzers like the CI-81 Vicious can.

AC-130?

Is a gunship, not a fighter jet.

The plane you referred to is a Fighter-Bomber.

Also, define "light howitzer", because I can find no listing for such a thing in any of my SR4 books (not War! nor MilSpecTech nor SR4A.

If you mean, one of the "main guns" from Arsenal, p123? Or similarly-sized systems from War! or MilSpecTech? Sorry, those won't go into a Reinforced mount. You need a heavy turret for them.

That would be the Heavy Mortar from WAR.

The text under the Main Guns heading on that page of Arsenal says otherwise "Unless otherwise noted, all of the following weapons can be installed into Fixed Weapon Mounts or Heavy Turrets (p. 144)."

Ah, OK.

A-10?

You went there? Really?

You cited the same book that gave us the seaside docks of Bogota?

I'm going to presume that whomever wrote that book is an imbecile and thought you really should need a whole weapon mount for a single missile, hence putting 11 weapon mounts on an airplane. Also, I can't really imagine any rational use for a plane that has eleven launchers for mortars.

That said, I'll see your unholy abomination and raise you the A-10 Warthog. Or, if you don't like reading (or if you want to skip to the pretty pictures,) an A-10 Warthog in flight.

That's eight missiles, an ECM pod taking up the same wing pylon mount that has two missiles on the other wing, and the GAU/8 Avenger. That makes 11. By the ridiculous reading you're extrapolating from the RAW that lets you fit a Main Gun onto every single fixed weapon mount, you could put eleven GAU/8 Avengers on that thing.

Somewhere in the South-West, Kane is combing the Aircraft Graveyards trying to put one together to do just that.

Then as a GM, I would say "you can't mount ANY of them on ANY aircraft, period."

I mean, for chrissakes, it's a MORTAR. It fires upwards, and LOBS it's shells in a high, arcing trajectory.


However, the text for the actual weapon mounts only lists Main Guns in relation to the heavy turret.

My best friend, who's better than optimizing than me, was a huge fan of the Seacop boat in arsenal since it happens to come with a Heavy Turret built in
Lighter Than Air was also one of his favorite mods, because its just so potentially FUNNY to put on anything.

One of his most memorable optimizations was putting LTA on an upside down Seacop to turn it into a gunship with its tank cannon pointing at the ground.
Things got slightly sillier with the addition of the Airfoil. He realized the hydrofoil mod could double its base speed before the LTA could cut it down to nothing.

Now THAT is something Kane would do.

And THIS is why we need Rigger 4...

Do you seriously trust hardy to put out a GOOD rigger 4?

No I don't trust Mr Hardy to do anything more than screw up the rules set even more and keep pushing stuff out the door with poor editing/playtesting.

I can half understand it, with the finance troubles the company had at one point. But on the other, in for a quick buck tends to piss off the customers and there isn't a lack of other games and settings to play with.

Point the first: the howitzer you quote is a mortar. Mortars are by definition low velocity (read subsonic) weapons and pretty much useless on a true fighter since the rounds wind up behind the plane. Might as well toss grenades or satchel charges out the back of the craft. I forget the plane in question, but an early subsonic fighter (Korean War, maybe) was able to go supersonic in a power dive and could actually outrun its cannon rounds, resulting in at least a couple of documented cases where pilots shot their own plane and one or two possible crashes.

Point the second: The Eurofighter Typhoon has 13 hardpoints plus a 27mm cannon.

Point the second part two: Russia's SU-30 has a 30mm cannon and 12 standard hardpoints (the Indian SU-30MKI variant can be upgraded to 14).

Point the second part three: The 1980s F/A-18 has 11 hardpoints plus an internal 20mm vulcan cannon.

Depending on the plane, those hardpoints can hold a combined 14,000-16,000lbs of munitions. Ironically, 1960s' Phantom F4 would be a better choice for your "grenade chucker" because even though it "only" had 9 weapon mounts and an internal 20mm vulcan cannon, it has the largest load-out at 18,000lbs.

Yep. And those hardpoints can carry gun pods, many of which carry cannons. For example, the GPU-5/A, which carries a scaled-down version of the A-10 Thunderbolt's main cannon.

Because we're in such a rush for SR5, right?

The curse... THE CURSE!!!Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I want to see that!!!

Mortars are also muzzle loaded by definition, otherwise they're Howitzers. And frankly, the thought of a muzzle loaded weapon mounts on a plane is hilarious. You might as well use bombs or missiles. Howitzers, on the other hand, if you have a sufficient crew for the plane and a large enough bay, can be mounted since they're breach loaded, or if you have a contained ammo bin that can autoload and clear the breach. Still, humorous to think of a plane with what would be equivalent to a semi-automatic rifle mounted on its wings firing with the expended casings falling away (even though it would probably be caseless shells it's still fun to dream!)

You do realise that it's a semi randomly chosen example weapon to illustrate the ridiculous weapon capapility SR4 planes can have, you could just the same have 11 of those 20-30mm cannons(ofcource the best move is a mix of multiple different weapon types fro different scenarios)

I thought that was called Eclipse Phase?

Tempt ye not THE CURSE!

You do realise, you chose a weapon which (a) doesn't even really EXIST in the game as an "example", and then when called upon to clarify, chose a weapon that is roll-on-the-floor laughable to put on a plane under ANY circumstances .... right?


Fine. Have 11 of them. The Eurofighter Typhoon will have thirteen of them, PLUS it's internal 27mm cannon. The American F/A-18 will have 11 of them, plus it's internal 20mm cannon.

Military craft really ARE that bad-ass.

This is the only thing we should care about.

There are breach loading mortars. For example, the Soviet 240 mm Mortar M240.

Actually, putting 11 mortars on an airplane makes perfect sense... Assuming your world has just been reality-raped to be a side-scrolling 2d schmup where your high-tech jet-fighter cruises along at a liesurely pace of about thirty miles an hour and is at risk of attack from helicopters and foot infantry.

ROFLMAO

Have you even read the entry for heavy mortar?

Except they can't really carry that much weapons, not even close.

Have you ...?

War! p173, emphasis mine:
Heavy Mortar: The term “heavy mortar” encompasses
large mortar weapons, small artillery guns, and light howitzers.
For all intents and purposes, the heavy mortar is a larger version
of the mortar launcher (p. 31, Arsenal), and fires the same
types of shells, but with di erent ratings listed on the Heavy
Mortar Rounds table. A heavy mortar can only be  red once per
Combat Turn

Arsenal p31, emphasis again mine:
M-12 Portable Mortar System: The M-12 is an example of
the classic portable mortar systems used by military forces since
the First World War. It consists of a long barrel tube ending in a
round base with four prongs that dig into the earth to stabilize the
unit. A bipod brace props the barrel at the desired firing angle.



Except, yes they can (if you select the right gun pods, of course). The GPU-2/A pod, featuring an M197 20mm multibarrel cannon and carrying 300 rounds of ammunition, weighs in at only 586lbs (266kg).

Eleven GPU-2/A pods would total 6,446lbs.

The F/A-18E "Superhornet" has a maximum external ordinance load of 17,750lbs. Eleven GPU-5/A's would underload this plane by over ten thousand pounds. Honestly, you could swap out eight of those GPU-2/A's for the much heavier GPU-5/As, and still come in almost 800lbs under maximum weight.

The Eurofighter Typhoon can carry up to 16,500lbs of external ordinance - barely less than the S/A-18E. So, it'll only have SEVEN GPU-5/As, with the balance being GPU-2/A's.

Either way, both planes can carry the weight of those eleven external gun pods (ignoring only the detail of where those mounts are - two of them on the Hornet are wingtip mounts, and solely due to placement, unsuitable for carrying a gun pod). And to add insult to injury:both of them also have one internal cannon. So that's TWELVE cannons, on each plane. Real world.





.... you were saying?

I think at this point, i'm just gonna chime in and say that the Weapon Mount rules are hella dumb.

This deserves to be immortalized.

Well, yes, yes they are. That's why I redesigned them for my own home campaign.

I started looking at the missiles, trying to find something with enough range to actually, y'know, hit a target at range, and revisited the Heimdall drone. Its the only significantly supersonic craft (speed 3,000) but, here's the stupid part the flavor text says it maxes out at 300kph.

If, in a 3 second combat round, you can travel 3,000m, that means you travel 1km/s or 3,600kph (mach 3).

As extra stupid, I realized that it'll fly out of its default Signal range since it can only make 30 degrees of turn per round due to "limited maneuverability." since at its subsonic speed it still cover about 12km. And what's its handling? +2

Sighhh..

Oh, and at a max range of 18km, its only got about half the range than a short-range missiles like a Sidewinder.

To a certain degree, what do you expect?

Shadowrun is the brainchild of FASA, who also gave us giant stompy 'mechs shooting high-tech lasers and autocannon 20s over iron sights.

BTech actually tries to explain away the limits in targeting things, in-setting, though: most computer tech that would help with things like that are LosTech.

What were your houserules? I've been thinking about doing the same thing, mind sharing?

That's what makes it so insane. There are rules to handle weapons actually hit things as far as the horizon, it's just 'Targetting' that can't handle it. So what prevents guided mech fired missiles? Uhm. Energon cubes.

Well, for one, I tried to make sure it would be as retro-compatible with the rst of SR4's vehicle modification rules as possible, and not completely invalidate existing any future non-MilSpec vehicles, drones, and their prices. There might be a few cases wher things wind up "off" by a slot or two, or a couple thousand "nuyen: ... but nothing _major_, one hopes.

So ... let's see if I can format this reasonably on the forum:

Vehicle Modification: Weapon Mounts
… to allow smaller drones to carry very small weapons, and to make mid-sized drones not always carry an LMG, the following changes are used:

Basic Frame

• Mini Mount (Minidrone); 1 slot / 500 nuyen; kit, threshold 3 (Armorer); Can mount Holdout and Light Pistols.
• Light Mount (Standard); 1 slot / 1000 nuyen; kit, threshold 6 (Armorer); Can mount Heavy Pistols, Machine Pistols, and SMGs.
• Standard Mount (Standard); 1 slot / 1,500 nuyen; kit, threshold 9 (Armorer); Can mount any rifle, shotgun, or generally rifle-sized grenade launcher. Minimum body of 4, may have one per 4 body (round up).
• Reinforced Mount (Standard); 2 slots / 3,000 nuyen; shop, threshold 12 (Armorer); Can mount Machineguns and man-portable Assault Cannons. Minimum body of 6; may only have one per 6 body (round down).
• Heavy Mount (Standard); 3 slots / 10,000 nuyen; shop, threshold 15 (Armorer); Can mount vehicle-scale weapons (e.g., rotary assault cannons). Minimum body of 14; may only have one per 10 body (round down).

Mobility

• Fixed; +0 slots / 1,000 nuyen; no tools, no threshold
• Flexible; +1 slot / 3,000 nuyen; shop, +6 threshold
• Turret; +3 slots / 5,000 nuyen; facility, +16 threshold

Visibility

• External; +0 slots / 0 nuyen
• Internal; +2 slots / 1,000 nuyen; shop, +6 threshold
• Concealed; +3 slots / 4,000 nuyen; shop, +10 threshold (Disguise)

Special

• Armored Control; +2 slots / 2,000 nuyen; shop, +10 threshold
• Manual Control; +1 slot / 0 nuyen; no tools, no threshold
• Remote Control; +0 slots / 500 nuyen; shop, +6 threshold

So; note there is no "Heavy Turret"; if you want that, you're taking Heavy Mount (3 slots, 10K:nuyen: ), Turret (+3 slots, +5K ), and External (+0 slots, 0 ) .... for a net final cost of 6 slots and 15,000 nuyen. Poof, "Heavy Turret".

Also note that you can now put a holdout pistol, or a single grenade perhaps, into a minidrone. Sure, it's going to look like a Tank Main Gun on the thing ... but hey, RC Tanks sound like fun to me ...!

I would suggest moving Battle Rifles from Standard to Reinforced. BRs are mostly between MMGs and HMGs in effectiveness.

It's not about effectiveness to me, exactly. It's about size and force of recoil.

Yeah? Pity that doesn't explain Star Leauge Royals and Clan OmniMechs having barely more range.

Royals are a Herbtech invention. Herbtech sucks balls.

Clan LPL's have more then double the range of their IS counterparts.

What Almost_Normal said abotu the "Royals" you mention.

As for the Clans ... while they managed to preserve MORE tech than the Star League did ... they, too, suffered massive backslides in technology due to infighting, and also due to the generally less-habitable nature of the worlds they ultimately settled on. Their rigid caste system, while it certainly helped preclude massive losses like that again, would also have stultified their culture and thus slowed the pace of their regaining those missing technologies.

There's also this to consider: it had to be a playable game. The game just wouldn't be nearly as much fun, if it had been rigidly realistic - not only with range, but even with damage.

I'd rather a fun game with some "dumb but necessary" moments of plot-blindness, than an accurate but un-entertaining simulation.

What's Herby done this time? It's been ages since I last talked to him. Royals?

But you don't have it quite right. The reason the ranges are so short in BT isn't because the weapons don't go that far it's because electronic counter measures at ground level have advanced so much. Beyond a certain range you get lost in ground clutter was the official rationale for a while. Aerospace weapons still go a long range, space they go even farther. Air to air targetting is measured in multiple mapsheets (even of VTOL's on the ground map). But once the VTOL lands and gets lost in the ground clutter like mechs and vehicles suddenly it becomes very hard to sense and target them. I'm not saying it's overly realistic (as if stomping gigantic mechs are)...

But I'm fully with Pax on the playability bit. My only real gripe with the system is the +2 range breaks in the system. There's not a good reason for not having +1 range increments. On a 2d6 system... that +2BTH is a huge modifier on the odds of the bell curve. The other problem is the game doesn't translate well at all to computer games.


Pax:
I've taken the time to look at your house rules int he past... I'll just say this bluntly. You have WAY too many of them. Once you hit the point where you're replacing 10% of the rulebook with your own stuff you're no longer playing the same game as the rest of us.

That said, the reason for medium drones carrying a LMG is because of one thing. Belted ammo. Assault rifles are almost always a better pick for no good reason. (they're lighter weight and should suffer double recoil penalties not MG's as well as suppressable, more and better mods, and all the rest). That and there is no ultra light MG.

First off ... so what? It's not like your game has to conform to what I'm doing, after all. "There is no One True Way".

Secondly, 10%? Pffft, not even close. More like half a percent, tops. My entire "houserules" document is 21.6kb, comprising 5 pages of plain text:

Page 1: a list of rulebooks and supplements allowed, and a statement that I'll be using Season 4 Missions as adventure modules;
Page 2: a list of which published optional rules I intend to use;
Pages 3, 4 and 5: actual house rules. Yes, all sixteen houserules.

In extremely brief form:

• Redesigned Weapon Mount rules;
• made Recoil Compensation count/help for Suppressive Fire;
• Free Contacts (CHA + INT + Etiquette);
• Stick and Shock ammo damage changed to "-1S(e)";
• Commlinks can be (hardware) Optimised for Firewall and System;
• Redesigned rules for Cyberlimb Armor;
• Removed Automatics skill; added Heavy Weapons to Firearms; specified which weapons use which skill;
• Changed "High Power Ammunition" to be a modifier - so someone wiht more money than sense can buy HP-APDS if they really really want to;
• Changed how Edge-for-dice interacts with cap on hits when spellcasting (add your Edge to the Force of the spell, rather than "no limit at all")
• Changed the cost of Improved Attribute power for Adepts
• Explicitly state that Adepts may gain a PP in place of a Metamagic when initiating
• Explicitly state how I interpret the split Magic ratings of Mystic Adepts
• Made combat slightly more lethal (damage converts to stun only if the DV is less than HALF the armor rating)
• Changed maximum armor encumbrance to Body+Strength
• Made the minimum Karma cost for any advancement be 1, regardless of discounts available (matters where Learning Nanites are concerned, for example)
• Added three custom Lifestyle Qualities (Hidden Storage, Concealed Room, and Saferoom)

Honestly, if that's even 0.000001% of the rules changed, I'll be shocked into a coma.


My desire was for there to be OPTIONS, trade-offs, and not have every medium drone sporting an LMG. In other words, make it no longer be "LMG or don't bother".