During the Civil War, Competent Shooters could fire 3-4 times a minute... That is really, really fast for a Muzzle Loader.
I think that some reality show proved that it could be done, too, but sadly I do not know which one.

Civil war weapons were much better than the arquebus .
Actually, the cartridge started being more commonplace at the end of the civil war (and with it, a vast increase in firing rate).

Single Shot is nice, but I bet there will be plenty of times that -9 to the target's defense dice will be much nicer.

Ouch, that means that if you have dead average stats and go on full defense, you still get 0 dice to defend against a full auto attack.

If Shadowrun has taught me one thing over the years, it's that getting good cover is the number one most important thing. Ever.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

And remember that heavily cybered troll on your team counts as cover.

Remember that if you tie on the opposed test while in cover, you still take the base damage -1 DV. If the DV of the gun exceeds the armour value of the structure you're using as cover.

Oh, wow, I get it now. Thanks, Werewolf!

It reads "an action other than (shooting for an entire Action Phase.)" Added the () to mark which part should be said out together and belongs together. It also makes sense that recoil builds up if you keep stringing complex actions together, meaning, you actually never stopped shooting / holding down the trigger. /facepalm

Yay, understanding was had!

Don't you get to reduce the DV by a resistance test from the cover?

Nope. Penetration rules apply, off page 198.

That really does make a lot of sense and potentially changes everything. We'll see if it is covered in the eratta.

Now that we've sorted that out, why do machineguns exist? They're like assault rifles, only worse.

Sustained fire, I guess? But each machine gun listed really ought to have it's damage code bumped up by at least one. LMGs tend to use assault rifle calibers, MMGs tend to use battle rifle calibers, and HMGs tend to be anti materiel weapons.

They're worse than assault rifle, but they use the heavy weapon skills. I guess they're good for Assault Cannon trolls who don't want to invest in Automatics.

But yeah, aside from that, an Ares Alpha is a like a cheaper more concealable, much more powerful LMG with a grenade launcher, a better availability, the ability to fire in single shots, and that only has 8 fewer rounds in the charger.

Machine guns don't need 1 more damage, they need 3, or 2 and an extra -1AP. Alternatively, more built in recoil compensation.

The only real advantage they have is the ability to take belted ammo for sustained suppressive fire. I was hoping all of them would at least offer some sort of bonus to suppressive fire damage or an additional penalty on tests to avoid suppressive fire. The machineguns do at least offer range improvements over the assault rifles.

Sadly, when Duffel Bag of Guns gives you the option to make an EBR fire FA from a 100 round drum or a belt feed, you'll never see another machinegun.

If I understand correctly, IRL, the main advantage of LMGs over assault rifles is resistance to overheating and sometimes better ability to support sustained fire. Overheating isn't in the rules, but I would abstract that as 2 freebie recoil compensation.

Maybe we should also add something like +2 dice for suppressive fire tests? (Which de-facto increases the penalty on the test to avoid suppressive fire)

Machineguns sucking is kind of a tradition is shadowrun

By definition, Freelancers cannot be Word of God on a game system. Freelancers are contracted by the company holding the rights but are not direct representatives of the company that holds the rights to the game. As such, unless an official Catalyst employee were to state what you state and do so on the record, it's not word of god.

Note that one the record means that the statement must be made in the capacity of his official position within Catalyst.

To: All GOD divisions
Subject: Referencing to memos and sources of same

Please note that all internal memos generated within the Grid Overwatch Division shall not be referred to as Word of GOD as Legal and HR are having to field numerous complaints on this subject.

Memo of GOD will likewise not be allowed.

Also will the party or parties responsible for creating the Icon of two stone tablets with memos from HQ inscribed on it please remove this immediately and refrain from such juvenile actions in the future or appropriate disciplinary actions will result.

They're the closest thing to an official word on the rules we get for now - since they made those rule, and the line developer (while a nice person) has shown several times he doesn't know the rules of the game.

For everything else, there's an errata, but Aaron already explained the sentence in detail, including a language analysis. You may choose to ignore what they said, it's not really my business, but chances are they're the ones who are right.

By RAW machineguns actually have worse recoil and controllability than rifles, since unsompensated recoil is doubled. (Apparently in SR-land the heavier the weapon the greater the recoil.)

My quick-and-dirty fix would be to strike the double-recoil rule, and instead say that machineguns halve all recoil generated. 6 rounds? 3 recoil. This means that a gyromounted machinegun can fire 10-round burths for several phases in a row before having to pause, giving them an actual niche (and matching their real-world niche of sustained automatic fire). Combine that with the +2 dice to suppressive fire you suggested and I think we're done.

Maybe give them all +1 DV to match other weapons of the same calibre, but in that case I'd emphasise the big-and-loud-and-awkward-in-close-quarters nature of machineguns more during play as well.

Don't forget that a bunch of the Heavy Weapons are SS, making their recoil meaningless anyway. In truth, the only ones where is matters are the MGL12, the Krime Kannon, and the machineguns.

It's interesting, since this has been a "problem" since SR4.

I'll stay out of the heavy weapons bit here, my thoughts on the previous bit about RC: I had thought it was particular to the aim action to reset recoil. That, to me, made the most sense. I suppose I need to read that section again now.

At Origins, the judges were having any non-firing Simple Action reset Recoil.

Not any kind of official confirmation, but still...




-k

Well it helps to know they were playing it that way at least and seemed to work.

I've made two rules for this sort of things, actually:
-Long range accurate weapons have a maximum accuracy at point-blank range (half short range's max distance); that would be 3 for the Ranger Arms (and similar anti-material rifles) and Assault Cannons (on the account of them being spiritual offsprings of anti-material rifles, see Robocop), 4 for regular sniper rifles and 5 for battle rifles.
-Weapons that are too large, heavy or awkward to maneuver for the situation can give between -1 and -3 dice to the range attack roll (this can be an assault rifle in an environments with very little room, or a heavy machine gun in slightly more open room, etc).

So we now know that if you take an action that isn't shooting, that resets your recoil.

My question is, is a free action an action for this purpose?

When they reword that rule in the errata, perhaps they could make it explicit, like, "Recoil continues to accumulate until you take, or are forced into, a Simple or Complex Action other than shooting."

Or not. I mean, I wouldn't mind shouting, "Chicken Butt!" after every full auto burst to reset my recoil.

Yep, it never made any sense that a weapon that uses the same ammo (or simlar DV) and the same cyclic rate AND was significantly heavier somehow got MORE recoil. Opposite physics I guess.

Sorry, but i just read this whole thing and there is nothing wrong with the example or the rule. Per the rule you rack up recoil until you stop shooting for one Action Phase. The example shows this by breaking down the "Action Phase" into its parts and Wombat does not fire on the last simple action of the one action phase and does not fire on the 1st simple action of the 2nd action phase. Thus he has not fired for 2 simple actions which equals one whole Action Phase. So if I fire a 3 rnd burst as my 1st simple action and have no penalty (because of strength and the free point) and then use a take aim for my 2nd simple. Next action phase I shoot another 3 rnd burst as my 1st simple action and take -3 penalty and then use a take aim for my 2nd simple action. Next action phase I use a take aim as my 1st simple action my recoil resets because I have not shot for 2 simple actions (or one whole Action Phase). Then as my 2nd simple action I firs a 3 rnd burst I have no recoil (it reset). Next Action phase I fire 3 rnd burst first and take -3 penalty...

As long as you have two back to back simple actions that you do not shooting in you are resetting your recoil. The rule is very specific:


Bold portion states that you cannot shoot for and entire Action Phase. Action Phase = 1 complex action or 2 simple actions per pg 158


Until and unless I see some errata that changes this, that is the way it is written and that is the way it gets played, regardless of what anyone has said to the contrary.

So the confustion is simply this. Does the sentence "an action other than shooting for an entire Action Phase" read:

a) an action other than shooting, for an entire Action Phase

or

b) an action other than; shooting for an entire Action Phase

Honestly option b doesn't need punctuation at all, but people seem to be adding in the pause while intrepreting option a, so I had to do something and the semicolon button was compalining that I haven't pushed it in a while.

*Edit: I read it as option B initially, and am not convinced that it is not intended to be read that way.

Rumour has it they are thinking of adding recoil to indirect spells just to mess with the reckless casters.

However, if they choose to be dual-natured, they can ignore the Spell Recoil.

You can only use one action for combat spells (or any other attack) per round anyway, because dissociated mechanics are awesome and making sense sucks.

Guess it is some variant of a garden path sentence.

What the devs must've been trying to model was that heavy weapons are big and unwieldy and unless you have support are hard to fire accurately. In retrospect, doubling recoil may not have been the best rule to use. (For SR4, using as few game mechanics for everything as possible was very much a stated design goal).

So, how about, unless used with support (bipod, tripod, gyro harness, weapon mount), you receive a penalty mitigated by STR?

I actually quite like that idea. It lets you have guys like Blaine without needing to use Cyber.

~Umi