It's a free action with the smartgun because you're sending a mental command to the weapon. Don't ask me how this works for non-cyber smartgun rigs, because I have no clue. Considering the length of the round and the number of simple actions combat characters get, one simple action is really only about .5-.75 seconds, so a button press seems to meet that timeframe. (assuming 2-3 passes for an average "combat character")

I generally list them by weapon and by type. So you might see:

Ares Alpha Combat Gun (modifiers go here)
- 2 clips Ex-Ex
- 2 clips gel
- 2 clips normal ammo

It's a good idea to note weights for the ammo, too, so you can tell how much you can carry.

See previous assessment of time in combat.

I'd say you can't conceal it. Generally weapons you reduce that low are the kinds of things you only carry when you don't care about them being seen, anyway. You can't even fit it under the long coat.

Sort of... but it only works under water most of the time.

Check the Applied Chemtech segment of Man and Machine.

Very carefully...

Well, seriously, you can inflict a wound of any severity on yourself if you have a weapon handy. Check out MitS the section on blood magic.

I think there's a rule stating that "clips" (which, while not techinically correct, by 2063 will likely be in the dictionary as and widely accepted as the right term... it almost is right now) have to be all of one type of ammo.

[edit] Thought so:

[/edit]

Keep in mind though that the weights (and the encumberance rules in general) are pretty poorly written; IMO almost everything except clothing is off by at least a factor of ~2.5 (eg. the difference between pounds and kilograms).

too late:

clip n 1 : a device that grips, clasps, or hooks 2 : a cartridge holder for a rifle

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Well, like you said, it varies. Then there's the difference between cased and caseless -- a really big deal especially with rifle rounds where the weight of the case may make half or more of the total cartridge weight. With Caseless rifle rounds up to and including Sniper Rifle ammunition you could reduce weight by half. With other ammunition, you could reduce it by 15% to 40% -- least with large caliber and pistol ammunition.

Even cased ammo will weigh less. Polymer cases are already being developed, and something similar is likely to be common with cased rounds in the 2060s. You could reduce cartridge weight of cased ammo by half of what the respective caseless ammo reduces the RL weight by. If RL AR ammo weighed 120 grams per 10 rounds, SR caseless AR ammo might weigh 60 grams per 10 and SR cased AR ammo 90g.

This is not an exact science, however. Here follows a few common cartridge weights, taken from this Technical Manual.


The current NATO Standard 5.56x45mm M855 FMJ/Ball rounds weigh 190gr or 12.31 grams each. 10 of those particular rounds thus weigh 123 metric grams or 0.123 metric kilograms. A very large part of that is case weight (suggest -50%/-25% caseless/cased for SR, 0.06/0.09kg per 10 rounds). AP rounds for this (M995) weigh almost exactly the same.

US 7.62x51mm M59 FMJ/Ball weighs 393gr, the M993 Armor Piercing (not sabot though) weighs 363gr. That's 255 grams for 10 rounds of M59, 235 grams for 10 rounds of M993. The case makes up a lot of it, so perhaps -50%/-25% for 0.13/0.19 caseless/cased per 10 rounds of regular (MMG & Sporting Rifle ammunition, mostly).

9mm Parabellum M882 NATO FMJ/Ball weighs 179gr. That's 0.116kg for 10 rounds. The case nominally weighs 57gr (~32%), so I suggest 0.08kg/0.1kg caseless/cased 10 rounds of Light Pistol regular ammo -- I do not want to get into a debate about what counts as Light Pistol ammunition at this time.

.45 ACP M1911 FMJ/Ball weighs 331gr. I would never consider this a Heavy Pistol round myself, but the weight might well be representative of one (even 10x25 Normas weigh significantly less, and I still don't want to argue about this). That's 0.214kg for 10 rounds. The case is a very small part of this, so I suggest 0.18/0.2kg caseless/cased for 10 Regular Heavy Pistol rounds.

Military issue 12 Gauge shotgun double-ought shot ammunition weighs between 736 and 930 grains per round. That's max 60.26 grams per round, or 0.603kg per 10 rounds. The case weight is likely to be a rather small part of this, I suggest 0.5-0.55kg for both cased and caseless per 10 Shotgun Shot rounds.

For the 12.7x99mm/.50BMG, Ball and (non-saboted) Armor Piercing ammunition average around 1770gr. That's 1.15kg per 10 rounds. The case weighs somewhere slightly under 50% of the whole cartridge, I suggest 0.65kg/0.85kg per 10 rounds of Regular HMG ammunition.

The 12.7x99mm/.50BMG M903 Saboted Light Armor Penetrator ("APDS") round weighs 1466gr, 0.95kg per 10. I suggest 0.45kg/0.65kg per 10 rounds of Barrett M121 or HMG APDS ammunition.

The Autocannon rounds are fricken massive. The ones listed in the Technical Manual are also likely to be quite a lot bigger than you'd see in Assault Cannons in SR, so I won't bother doing them up.

Not that a 5.56x45mm cartridge will still weigh 160gr if you cut the projectile weight in half (a teeny-weeny APDS), which is only a drop of 15% in ammo weight. On the other hand, dropping 50% off the weight of the bullet in a Heavy Pistol round might shave off 35% or even more of the total cartridge weight. That's serious micro-managing though, and most likely not worth anyone's while to ponder about.

[Edit]As for what a Free Action or Simple Action is: It's a Free Action to Drop Prone. You try doing that before I can press on the little switch that's right under my thumb -- all it takes to release a magazine. Or even before I switch this here USP replica from Safe to Semi -- a one-inch flick of my thumb.

Other Free Actions that certainly aren't faster than releasing a magazine/changing mode of fire include Drop Item and Gesture.[/Edit]

This is only an issue with bullets that are supposed to deform and/or fragment in the first place. Such bullets would generally not enjoy the heat involved in the Dikoting process, because, AFAIK, soft lead-like alloys get rather runny when you get close to 1000 degrees C.

You could easily consider all Regular ammunition to be Full Metal Jacketed, and constructed in such a way as to not fragment easily in human beings, in which case Dikoting them would not cause any significant hindrance to their effectiveness. Neither would it significantly add to their effectiveness -- but who cares! Dikoted bullets, w00t!

Y'know, I think that's the most sensible explanation for it that I've ever heard.

First of all - it's been nearly a year since I last posted, so if something looks wacky I'm llearning the new interface.

The house rule I played with was if you were in a hurry you could thumb out the clip and reload a new one on the fly, but you left the old clip behind (it just landed on the ground). This includes the fingerprints and markings on it.

GM discretion - I've played under both.

Of course now I have to ask why you're `carrying different smg's.

I call them 'soda cans of doom' - and that's an understatement of their size.
Think of something a little smaller than a football.