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Strungest
Due to the relitave compelxity of shadowruns firearms resolution mechanics, I decided to try to write a program to analyze specific outcomes so that I would have a better understanding of how the mechanics work. If you have a copy of Matlab or similar program you can just copy and paste the code and run it. Things I have learned:
Damage value is a Huge deal, as is called shots/long bursts. If possible you should always go for a higher effective damage value.
-Wide bursts are useless in almost every situation.
-Armor is not very important except for a threshold where several points can make the difference between mostly stun damage and mostly lethal damage. An example would be with the having 20 armor instead of 17 armor gives you 40% less chance to take lethal damage, while only lowering the actual damage you will take by ~5%
-It is almost impossible to disable a moderately optimized combat character in one simple action, and almost easy to do it in two.

I'm Posting this here so that some other people can play around with it and fix bugs/learn more about how the mechanics of Shadowrun firefights ACTUALLY work.

clear all
close all
format short g
format compact
screen_size=get(0,'ScreenSize');
clc
fig=figure;
set(fig,'units','normalized','outerposition',[0 0 1 1]);
tic
for a=6:2:22
for b=4:2:10
for j=2:2:26
for n=[0,1]
for l=4:2:20
for e=[0,1]
clearvars -except a b j n l e fig
%a=12; %attack Pool
%b=6; %Gun Damage
%c=20; %Recoil Controll
d=6; %Burst Count(semi=1, short=3, long=6)
%e=1; %Narrow burst(1=yes, 0=no)
f=0; %Off hand(1=yes, 0=no)
%g=0; %called shot(1=yes, 0=no)
h=0; %range penalty
%j=12; %Defense pool
%l=7; %Armor
m=1; %Health
%n=2; %armor piercing value
o=ceil((l-3)/3); %body value
c=d-1;
g=e;
info=sprintf('Attack Pool %1.0f, Gun Damage %1.0f, Shot Count %1.0f, Narrow Burst %1.0f, Called Shot %1.0f, Defense Pool %1.0f, Armor %1.0f, Body %1.0f, Armor Piercing %1.0f',a,b,d,e,g,j,l,o,n);
i=a-4*g-2*f-(d-1-c);%total attack pool
k=j-(1-e)*(d-1)-n;%total soak pool
m=zeros(50,1);
m(1,1)=2/3;
m(2,1)=1/3;
if i>1
for x=[2:i]
m(1,x)=m(1,x-1)*2/3;
for p=[2:50]
m(p,x)=(m(p,x-1)*2/3)+(m(p-1,x-1)/3);
end
end
m=m(1:50,i);
end
if k>0
for x=[2:k+1]
m(1,x)=m(1,x-1)+(m(1+1,x-1)/3);
for p=[2:49]
m(p,x)=m(p,x-1)*2/3+(m(p+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
m=m(1:50,k+1);
end
for x=[1:50]
m1(b+e*(d-1)+g*4+x,1)=m(x,1);
end
m=m1;
%shock=stun
%lethal=physical
shock=zeros(50,1);
lethal=zeros(50,1);
oneHkill=zeros(50,1);
twoHkill=zeros(50,1);
for x=[1:50]
if x>l-n
lethal(x,1)=m(x,1);
else
shock(x,1)=m(x,1);
end
end
if l+o-n>0
for x=[2:l+o-n+1]
shock(1,x)=shock(1,x-1)+(shock(1+1,x-1)/3);
for p=[2:49]
shock(p,x)=shock(p,x-1)*2/3+(shock(p+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
shock=shock(1:50,l+o-n+1);
end
if l+o-n>0
for x=[2:l+o-n+1]
lethal(1,x)=lethal(1,x-1)+(lethal(1+1,x-1)/3);
for p=[2:49]
lethal(p,x)=lethal(p,x-1)*2/3+(lethal(p+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
lethal=lethal(1:50,l+o-n+1);
end
total=lethal+shock;
for y=[1:50]
lethal1(y,1)=sum(lethal(y:50,1));
shock1(y,1)=sum(shock(y:50,1));
end
total1=lethal1+shock1;
x=[0:49]';
plot(x(1:20),shock1(1:20).*100,'- .b',x(1:20),lethal1(1:20).*100,'- .r',x(1:20),total1(1:20).*100,'.k',x(1:20),shock(1:20).*100,'-. .b',x(1:20),lethal(1:20).*100,'-. .r',x(1:20),total(1:20).*100,'ok');
axis([0 20 0 100])
grid minor
xlabel('Damge')
ylabel('% Chance, Solid: At least this much damage, Dashed/Hollow: Exactly this much damage')
legend('Shock Damage','Lethal Damage','Total')
title(info)
print(fig,info,'-dpng')
end
end
end
end
end
end
toc
Yerameyahu
Stand back, he's using MATH!
Cabral
You might want to put the code in spoiler tags. It looks like you were examining automatic capable weapons. Did you perform any analyses of pistols?
Strungest
QUOTE (Cabral @ Oct 6 2012, 07:07 PM) *
You might want to put the code in spoiler tags. It looks like you were examining automatic capable weapons. Did you perform any analyses of pistols?

1: how do?
2: The weapon is defined by: damage, recoil compensation, burst type, and armor piercing value. I think that those values cover basically every posible firearm with the exception of special ammo like S&S.
UmaroVI
One point about armor - the thing with it is that it's relatively "cheap" compared to other things. For example, for 30 bp, you can get +3 agility (for +3 dice to hit, which if you were already going to hit is +1 DV on average) or +3 Body and thus +6 armor for 9 extra soak, and thus about -3 DV.
Yerameyahu
Well, that's the reason that everyone uses a combination of defense (diminishing returns and differing costs). It's less complex in Diablo 3, but you see the same thing: armor, dodge, and resistance all reduce incoming damage (and increasing HP lets you take more), but the mechanic mostly pushes you to raise them all.
UmaroVI
I was just pointing out that the reason armor seems lackluster is when you look at how valuable raising soak by a few points is, without accounting for its relative cheapness.
Ryu
Electing a Wide burst is sensible if an agile opponent has a dodge pool close to your attack pool, but not the armor to just take a hit. As long as you can assume a hit, -2 dice on the opponents pool is dominated by +2 damage. Where do you figure in the possibility of a successful dodge? I am challenged reading that code.

The value of armor depends on the campaign, much. We play close to street level currently, and high armor is much easier to get away with than a large firearm. If you are in the "2 hits = gone" bracket, go for initiative. Hard.

Strungest
QUOTE (UmaroVI @ Oct 6 2012, 07:34 PM) *
I was just pointing out that the reason armor seems lackluster is when you look at how valuable raising soak by a few points is, without accounting for its relative cheapness.


While it may seem lackluster, it ends up being very important for deciding if you are unconscious or dead

QUOTE (Ryu @ Oct 6 2012, 07:54 PM) *
Electing a Wide burst is sensible if an agile opponent has a dodge pool close to your attack pool, but not the armor to just take a hit. As long as you can assume a hit, -2 dice on the opponents pool is dominated by +2 damage. Where do you figure in the possibility of a successful dodge? I am challenged reading that code.

The value of armor depends on the campaign, much. We play close to street level currently, and high armor is much easier to get away with than a large firearm. If you are in the "2 hits = gone" bracket, go for initiative. Hard.


Ignore the legend. the blue lines are defense values from 15 to 35 in increments of 5. the cluster above is a narrow full burst, the five on bottom are wide bursts. Acording to the math, wide bursts are completley inferior except in extreme edge cases.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/K4BTS.png[/IMG]
CanRay
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Oct 6 2012, 12:54 PM) *
Stand back, he's using MATH!
Worse: Algebra.
thorya
QUOTE (Strungest @ Oct 6 2012, 03:30 PM) *
While it may seem lackluster, it ends up being very important for deciding if you are unconscious or dead



Ignore the legend. the blue lines are defense values from 15 to 35 in increments of 5. the cluster above is a narrow full burst, the five on bottom are wide bursts. Acording to the math, wide bursts are completley inferior except in extreme edge cases.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/K4BTS.png[/IMG]


Except for one of the most common edge cases, spirits. If you can't count the increased damage from narrow burst for overcoming ItNW, then wide burst may be the better option. Still not as good as called shot.
Strungest
QUOTE (thorya @ Oct 6 2012, 09:40 PM) *
Except for one of the most common edge cases, spirits. If you can't count the increased damage from narrow burst for overcoming ItNW, then wide burst may be the better option. Still not as good as called shot.

I agree.
Lantzer
QUOTE (Strungest @ Oct 6 2012, 07:30 PM) *
Ignore the legend. the blue lines are defense values from 15 to 35 in increments of 5. the cluster above is a narrow full burst, the five on bottom are wide bursts. Acording to the math, wide bursts are completley inferior except in extreme edge cases.


Who has defense pools of 15 to 35?

I take it we aren't talking about reaction here.
Is this Reaction + dodge + Body + Armor?

Never mind - I also don't see Characters with Attack pools of 20. 12, sure, sometimes, but not 20.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Lantzer @ Oct 6 2012, 08:26 PM) *
Who has defense pools of 15 to 35?
Never mind - I also don't see Characters with Attack pools of 20. 12, sure, sometimes, but not 20.


Ditto. 20 is pretty much the upper-end maximum possible by the rules. 15 Reaction is also strongly weighted towards the absolute max (hell, most people don't even have 15 armor).
Dolanar
20 is not uncommon for an Adept specialist
Yerameyahu
How common is that? smile.gif
Falconer
His analysis is seriously flawed... you only do more damage if you actually hit. If you look purely at soak then yeah +1 damage for -1 dice is always the best deal.

On the other hand... if your'e having trouble hitting (going from 50/50 odds of hitting to say 66/33 is quite significant and doesn't take a lot) and this can skew your results quite a bit since you've gone from 1 for 1 to 2 for 1.

Also as brought up spirits and vehicles... both commonly have reaction pools of 5-9 dice. Every dice out of this pool you cancel is one less dice reducing the damage below their ignore the damage hardened level. A tank doesn't care how many spitballs you fire at it on full auto... it only cares how many end up in vulnerable spots.

In a low level ganger campaign... I'm only tossing ~8 dice on attack. Against opposition in cover also with ~3 dice (3 reaction + 4 cover). That shifting of the pool to to 8 vs 5 from 8 vs 7 is huge for actually hitting most of the time and doing reasonable damage. Simply hitting and doing damage is a big help as well.. wounded opposition has more trouble with penalties on them. Missing and still not doing enough damage to drop them in one shot doesn't help much. If I'm needing two bursts to down a target... two wides do the job far more often than two narrow simply because they hit far more often.

Jaid
as has been pointed out, wide bursts can help improve your base DV for the purposes of getting through hardened armor, damaging vehicles, and dealing with immunity to normal weapons. as well as making damage more likely to stun, and of course dealing with opponents that would otherwise just completely avoid getting shot at all, or using ammunition where hitting once is the most important thing, such as capsule rounds and such.

that said... those situations (wanting to damage vehicles, wanting to damage spirits, dealing with hardened armor, needing to deal physical damage, needing to be certain to hit) are not really all that uncommon at all. they may not be the majority, but i wouldn't be surprised to see some need for these things come up at least once a session.

wide bursts are also more likely to be valuable to NPCs than the runners. odds are good the runners are throwing enough dice to regularly hit for good damage anyways. NPCs, especially when dealing with the runner team, will likely need every advantage they can get just to hit in the first place. runners may want to use wide bursts once per session. NPCs may very well be trained to use wide bursts for almost any situation.

it definitely adds some benefit.
Ryu
Your general conclusion is based on a high attack pool, where misses are rare. You are also looking at a weapon that will usually not cause damage without several net hits, and has little gain from hitting just so. You need to model misses if you go into lower pools.

Look at a guard (Agi 5 Skill 5 Smart) shooting a runner on full dodge (Rea 7 Dodge 3 Ranged+2) or in cover. Those are not fringe cases the way we play.
Jaid
agi 5 skill 5 is not exactly a standard guard. for an ordinary guard, you're probably looking at around agi 3 skill 3, for a total dice pool of 8 after smartgun. maybe 10 if they specialize, but even that would be pretty unlikely for an ordinary run-of-the-mill guard.
Strungest
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Oct 7 2012, 01:45 AM) *
Ditto. 20 is pretty much the upper-end maximum possible by the rules. 15 Reaction is also strongly weighted towards the absolute max (hell, most people don't even have 15 armor).

The initial values posted were for my mostly optimized gun bunny shooting his clone.


QUOTE (Falconer @ Oct 7 2012, 07:51 AM) *
His analysis is seriously flawed... you only do more damage if you actually hit. If you look purely at soak then yeah +1 damage for -1 dice is always the best deal.

On the other hand... if your'e having trouble hitting (going from 50/50 odds of hitting to say 66/33 is quite significant and doesn't take a lot) and this can skew your results quite a bit since you've gone from 1 for 1 to 2 for 1.

Also as brought up spirits and vehicles... both commonly have reaction pools of 5-9 dice. Every dice out of this pool you cancel is one less dice reducing the damage below their ignore the damage hardened level. A tank doesn't care how many spitballs you fire at it on full auto... it only cares how many end up in vulnerable spots.

In a low level ganger campaign... I'm only tossing ~8 dice on attack. Against opposition in cover also with ~3 dice (3 reaction + 4 cover). That shifting of the pool to to 8 vs 5 from 8 vs 7 is huge for actually hitting most of the time and doing reasonable damage. Simply hitting and doing damage is a big help as well.. wounded opposition has more trouble with penalties on them. Missing and still not doing enough damage to drop them in one shot doesn't help much. If I'm needing two bursts to down a target... two wides do the job far more often than two narrow simply because they hit far more often.

I would love help in finding any math errors, but if there are none there, than im not sure how the analysis can be "flawed" unless the assumptions are flawed. The assumptions I made were that a mostly normal metahuman shooting at another mostly normal metahuman with a "bullet" firearm. Situational modifiers such as cover bonuses should be factored into the relative dice pool(ex: -2 to attackers dice pool due to concealment). Appart from that, saying " analysis is seriously flawed" is basically saying "math doesn't work"...and math does work.


QUOTE (Jaid @ Oct 7 2012, 08:07 AM) *
as has been pointed out, wide bursts can help improve your base DV for the purposes of getting through hardened armor, damaging vehicles, and dealing with immunity to normal weapons. as well as making damage more likely to stun, and of course dealing with opponents that would otherwise just completely avoid getting shot at all, or using ammunition where hitting once is the most important thing, such as capsule rounds and such.

that said... those situations (wanting to damage vehicles, wanting to damage spirits, dealing with hardened armor, needing to deal physical damage, needing to be certain to hit) are not really all that uncommon at all. they may not be the majority, but i wouldn't be surprised to see some need for these things come up at least once a session.

wide bursts are also more likely to be valuable to NPCs than the runners. odds are good the runners are throwing enough dice to regularly hit for good damage anyways. NPCs, especially when dealing with the runner team, will likely need every advantage they can get just to hit in the first place. runners may want to use wide bursts once per session. NPCs may very well be trained to use wide bursts for almost any situation.

it definitely adds some benefit.

You are right, however, vechicles and hardened armor are outside the scope of this program. The program DOES account for dealing 0 damage if the attacker fails to get >0 hits on the attack-defense roll.


QUOTE (Ryu @ Oct 7 2012, 08:36 AM) *
Your general conclusion is based on a high attack pool, where misses are rare. You are also looking at a weapon that will usually not cause damage without several net hits, and has little gain from hitting just so. You need to model misses if you go into lower pools.

Look at a guard (Agi 5 Skill 5 Smart) shooting a runner on full dodge (Rea 7 Dodge 3 Ranged+2) or in cover. Those are not fringe cases the way we play.


I am modifying the program so that it will make image files for each permutation that a metahuman vs. metahuman firefight would reasonably have. I would aprechiate suggestions on the lower and upper bounds for values such as attack pool, defense, damage, AP, armor, etc. I also need a web based service for sharing over 5000 image files in a searchable-by-filename format. I am thinking a .torrent, but I don't have much experience in this area so suggestions are appreciated.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Strungest @ Oct 7 2012, 12:30 PM) *
I would love help in finding any math errors, but if there are none there, than im not sure how the analysis can be "flawed" unless the assumptions are flawed. The assumptions I made were that a mostly normal metahuman shooting at another mostly normal metahuman with a "bullet" firearm. Situational modifiers such as cover bonuses should be factored into the relative dice pool(ex: -2 to attackers dice pool due to concealment). Appart from that, saying " analysis is seriously flawed" is basically saying "math doesn't work"...and math does work.


Well, at a minimum, you have at least one flawed assumption. Cover bonuses are ADDED to the Defender's Pool, not subtracted from the Attacker's pool. smile.gif
ZeroPoint
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Oct 8 2012, 09:01 AM) *
Well, at a minimum, you have at least one flawed assumption. Cover bonuses are ADDED to the Defender's Pool, not subtracted from the Attacker's pool. smile.gif



depends on if your using standard 4th ed or anniversary edition.

In standard it was subtracted from attacker's pool. Anniversary edition changed it to add to defenders pool instead.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (ZeroPoint @ Oct 8 2012, 08:32 AM) *
depends on if your using standard 4th ed or anniversary edition.

In standard it was subtracted from attacker's pool. Anniversary edition changed it to add to defenders pool instead.


True... Forgot some people could still be using vanilla SR4. smile.gif
The change in 4A makes a LOT more sense, though.
Yerameyahu
They both 'make sense'. It's just a question of where you want the glitches.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Oct 8 2012, 09:42 AM) *
They both 'make sense'. It's just a question of where you want the glitches.


Yeah... My gun jams because you take cover... In what world does that make sense Draco18s?
Draco18s
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Oct 8 2012, 11:51 AM) *
Yeah... My gun jams because you take cover... In what world does that make sense Draco18s?


Huh? I never said anything about cover and dice.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Oct 8 2012, 11:51 AM) *
Yeah... My gun jams because you take cover... In what world does that make sense Draco18s?


Huh? I never said anything about cover and dice.
ZeroPoint
First, that was Yerameyahu that posted that, not Draco.

Second, unfortunately, thats the problem with many things regarding modifiers and glitching. Being in full darkness, fog, or shooting around cover? running? splitting dice pools for dual wielding? Extreme Range?

shooting at someone at extreme range, from cover in light fog is a -10 penalty. I don't see any reason why that should cause the gun to jam either.

Personally, I don't like it either, but when it applies to the defender's pool then what happens when they are unaware? Since they can't make a defense test do they not get any benefit from cover at all?

I think a GM should feel free to apply the 2 to 4 dice wherever they should go as is appropriate for the situation, since they will work out the same numerically in 90% of cases.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Oct 8 2012, 10:08 AM) *
Huh? I never said anything about cover and dice.


Sorry Draco18s... My mistake. Long Morning already. I stand corrected, and now implicate Yerameyahu. smile.gif
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (ZeroPoint @ Oct 8 2012, 10:09 AM) *
First, that was Yerameyahu that posted that, not Draco.

Second, unfortunately, thats the problem with many things regarding modifiers and glitching. Being in full darkness, fog, or shooting around cover? running? splitting dice pools for dual wielding? Extreme Range?

shooting at someone at extreme range, from cover in light fog is a -10 penalty. I don't see any reason why that should cause the gun to jam either.

Personally, I don't like it either, but when it applies to the defender's pool then what happens when they are unaware? Since they can't make a defense test do they not get any benefit from cover at all?

I think a GM should feel free to apply the 2 to 4 dice wherever they should go as is appropriate for the situation, since they will work out the same numerically in 90% of cases.


If they are unaware, they still get the dice for cover. smile.gif
But you do have a point.
Yerameyahu
I think I pretty clearly mentioned the glitches. If anything, that's a problem with the glitch mechanic, not the cover mechanic; or, a smart GM would probably not *choose* 'gun jam' as the resulting glitch. ZeroPoint nailed it.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Oct 8 2012, 09:50 AM) *
I think I pretty clearly mentioned the glitches. If anything, that's a problem with the glitch mechanic, not the cover mechanic; or, a smart GM would probably not *choose* 'gun jam' as the resulting glitch. ZeroPoint nailed it.


Indeed... smile.gif
Ryu
QUOTE (Jaid @ Oct 7 2012, 08:27 PM) *
agi 5 skill 5 is not exactly a standard guard. for an ordinary guard, you're probably looking at around agi 3 skill 3, for a total dice pool of 8 after smartgun. maybe 10 if they specialize, but even that would be pretty unlikely for an ordinary run-of-the-mill guard.

Agreed. I would also add that "non-combatant" runners have it easy ending up with pools below 12, too.

The canon fodder should spray and pray.
Xenefungus
I think every guard worth his name should have at least

agi 4 (above average because he is more trained than joe average)
used muscle replacement 2 (it's only 5k! and essence doesnt matter for those guys, they won't use it up anyway)
skill 2 (if you use the silly descriptions of the skill value page. if he was just spending karma points, 4 at least)
specialization (2 karma for two dice? yes please!)
smartgun (just a few nuyen)

for a MINIMUM total of 12 dice. i really dont see any guard having less than that.
Strungest
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Oct 8 2012, 03:01 PM) *
Well, at a minimum, you have at least one flawed assumption. Cover bonuses are ADDED to the Defender's Pool, not subtracted from the Attacker's pool. smile.gif

This is exactly what I needed. Thank you. Do you see any others? Ill edit the OP with my current code.
Jaid
QUOTE (Xenefungus @ Oct 8 2012, 03:40 PM) *
I think every guard worth his name should have at least

agi 4 (above average because he is more trained than joe average)
used muscle replacement 2 (it's only 5k! and essence doesnt matter for those guys, they won't use it up anyway)
skill 2 (if you use the silly descriptions of the skill value page. if he was just spending karma points, 4 at least)
specialization (2 karma for two dice? yes please!)
smartgun (just a few nuyen)

for a MINIMUM total of 12 dice. i really dont see any guard having less than that.


the average security guard is not there to shoot the bad guys. the average security guard is there to scream like a little girl and hit the panic button when the bad guys show up, then shoot in their general direction to slow them down by forcing them to take cover and such, and discourage people from just throwing rocks at the windows and such things.

good training and expensive gear (like 5k worth of 'ware) are not going to be wasted on an ordinary security guard. they're going to be spent on the people who show up when the crappy security guard screams frantically for help. if programs could be trusted to know when to call for help rather than being easily fooled and causing regular false alarms, you probably wouldn't even *have* a security guard there in the first place, quite frankly. if there weren't so many guns that come with smartun systems pre-installed and if smartlinks weren't so cheap and easy to get, i wouldn't even presume the guard had even a smartlinked gun.

now the people the security guard calls for i would agree should be throwing around 12+ dice on the attack. depending on just where you're at when the security forces get called in, i would say it's reasonable to expect 16+ dice or more (choosing people with 5 agi, training them to 3-4 skill and giving them a specialization, throwing in some agi-boosting 'ware, etc).

unless by "security guard" you mean "high threat response team", i don't think you're going to see much spent at all on them. the security guard is there so that a person can't drive up in a main battle tank and tell the computer they're the floor cleaners using an exploit they hacked the night before with a few thousand nuyen worth of hardware and some pirated hacking programs and an agent, and their job is to call for help, not to fight off the main battle tank.

frankly, i wouldn't be surprised if a large number of security guards don't even *have* guns issued to them...
Manunancy
QUOTE (ZeroPoint @ Oct 8 2012, 06:09 PM) *
First, that was Yerameyahu that posted that, not Draco.

Second, unfortunately, thats the problem with many things regarding modifiers and glitching. Being in full darkness, fog, or shooting around cover? running? splitting dice pools for dual wielding? Extreme Range?

shooting at someone at extreme range, from cover in light fog is a -10 penalty. I don't see any reason why that should cause the gun to jam either.

Personally, I don't like it either, but when it applies to the defender's pool then what happens when they are unaware? Since they can't make a defense test do they not get any benefit from cover at all?

I think a GM should feel free to apply the 2 to 4 dice wherever they should go as is appropriate for the situation, since they will work out the same numerically in 90% of cases.


A glitch isn't necessarily a jam - it can esaily mean hitting something embarassing or toher mishaps. In that light there's no problem with the od for glitches going up. The more marginal and difficult the shot, the more likely it is to get a result diffrent from what you wanted.
Midas
I think that it is fair to say that different GMs have different ideas on how skilled and cybered corpsec mooks will be, and it is an interesting question.

I tend to use AGI 3-4 (with the odd 5), skill 3 and smartgun as baseline, possibly with specialization but not always. Experienced team members might have skill 4, and if appropriate weapons specialists 5. I then tend to round out the corpsec detail with a smattering of cyber - one or two guys might have WR1 or a cyberarm, perhaps Bone Lacing or Muscle Replacement/MT/Reaction Enhancers or whatever. There is probably a company programme for corpsec to buy cyber in instalments from their salary, but I do not hold with the "corp requires all sec guards to get skillwires/muscle replacement whatever" gameview, or the assumption that every average corpsec Joe wants to replace his body with as much chrome as he can.

This ad hoc system of "a few extra stat points and bits of cyber here and there" approach helps flesh out these mooks and gives me as the GM differing tactical hooks they might employ when they come up against the bad-ass shadowrunner gang (assuming they survive the first salvo, of course), and keeps PCs a little out of their comfort zone (you never know if the guy you just shot has bone lacing or not).
Blade
QUOTE ("legal text on boxes of explosive ammo")
Warning: Use of this ammunition in bad vision conditions on a target far away can be dangerous to some users, especially when wounded.
Aerospider
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Oct 8 2012, 05:23 PM) *
If they are unaware, they still get the dice for cover. smile.gif
But you do have a point.

I thought they didn't and my justification was that cover is of little use if you're not trying to hide behind it. It might be near you, it might obscure half your body, but standing still and looking the other way still makes you a non-resisting target.

But if you say they do I'm sure it's true.
Aerospider
Not to derail the thread, but the main mechanical effect of the cover rules change is that lower DPs are better off and higher DOs are worse off. A slight levelling of the playing field as it were.

This is down to the fact that probability of success in opposed tests is proportional to the ratio of the DPs. If you have 8 dice against 4 dice and the gap must narrow by 2 dice, you would be better off taking a penalty than your opponent gaining a bonus. 6 will beat 4 more often than 8 will beat 6.

Ergo, relatively strong attackers would on average prefer to take a penalty. Similarly, relatively strong dodgers would on average prefer the attacker to take a penalty. Thus the new rule is to their detriment and to the advantage of weaker attackers/dodgers.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Aerospider @ Oct 9 2012, 10:06 AM) *
I thought they didn't and my justification was that cover is of little use if you're not trying to hide behind it. It might be near you, it might obscure half your body, but standing still and looking the other way still makes you a non-resisting target.

But if you say they do I'm sure it's true.


Well, if it qualifies for the term "Cover" (ie. you can only see half their body) then they would get it. If they are standing in front of a wall in relation to the shooter (with nothing obscuring the Shooter's view), then it is not, by definition, "Cover." smile.gif
Yerameyahu
QUOTE
It might be near you, it might obscure half your body, but standing still and looking the other way still makes you a non-resisting target.
Wherever you move the bonus/penalty, this is affecting the shot. It's harder to hit a smaller target.
Aerospider
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Oct 9 2012, 07:21 PM) *
Wherever you move the bonus/penalty, this is affecting the shot. It's harder to hit a smaller target.

Usually only in extreme cases. Dwarves, for instance, don't count as any harder to hit. A skinny person could have less than half the cross-sectional area of a rather fat person with no difference in dice pool to hit.
Yerameyahu
If 'extreme cases' means 'whenever we're talking about Cover', yes. smile.gif The point is that cover affects the shot, that's all.
Strungest
I now have 16+ thousand images showing values for most combinations of weapon/attacker/defender situations. Any idea where I could upload a .5 gig file so that you guys can see them without having to mess with matlab?
Yerameyahu
Dropbox.

QUOTE
A glitch isn't necessarily a jam - it can esaily mean hitting something embarassing or toher mishaps. In that light there's no problem with the od for glitches going up. The more marginal and difficult the shot, the more likely it is to get a result diffrent from what you wanted.
However, it's still true that there are many cases where the GM is having to gut it out. It's hard to constantly remember to include gun jams, but not *too* much, y'know? Because we don't track where the penalties come from in that way. It's not a big problem, but the abstract system kind of ignores that stuff. smile.gif A more (annoyingly) simulationist system might have a constant jam chance added to the overall 'screwup' chance. Bleh.
Aerospider
QUOTE (Yerameyahu @ Oct 9 2012, 09:07 PM) *
If 'extreme cases' means 'whenever we're talking about Cover', yes. smile.gif The point is that cover affects the shot, that's all.

No, you misunderstand me. My point was that the cover modifier is not simply a matter of the target being made smaller from the attacker's perspective, because it can incur a modifier where a target of an equivalently smaller size would not. E.g. Shooting at a fat person and shooting at a slim person incur no size modifiers (except for the extreme case, like Janna the Hut vs Kate Moss) but if the fat guy had enough cover to reduce his visible size to that of the whole slim person there would be a modifier for cover.

My view of it is that the cover makes dodging easier by giving the target somewhere to move to for protection. Maybe it's academic, but for me it makes cover more suited as a bonus to defence than a penalty to attack.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Aerospider @ Oct 10 2012, 09:15 AM) *
My view of it is that the cover makes dodging easier by giving the target somewhere to move to for protection.


Even if it's not something the target is aware of. Maybe he bends over to tie his shoes at the critical moment. If he is standing behind a low wall, then the cover is important: when he bends down to tie his shoe, he's completely hidden.
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