If you look back through some of the old novels and adventures you see a couple of people with custom or unusual weapons. The people who always seem to notice them are the other bad guys, not the cops. The shadows start to mark this guy with a rep for using a certain weapon and it becomes attached to his name. Personally, I'm always a little more worried about the criminal element gunning for me than the cops, as the criminals will happily gack me for my 5000 pistol/rifle/shotgun what ever while the cops are more interested in the crimes I commit.

As a side note, my current character has murdered 19 people with the same heavy pistol. Of those 19, about 2 were found by the police. Even if all 19 had been linked together the gun will only add time to my case. The cyberware I possess as well as the explosives and other weapons would get me a life sentence not counting all the cyber crime I have committed with the deck implanted in my body. As many people have said, getting caught with a murder weapon only insures a life/death sentence. I have no SIN, I have no rights. Why get rid of the weapon I have become very comfortable with.

And again we come back to the whole "it's not an issue because it'll only come up if the GM wants it to come up as a plot element... and if he does, it doesn't matter what weapon you're packing."

Sometimes style is more important than substance. This happens to be one of those times. Go with whatever you think fits your character the best.

Austere, I think he's saying that regardless of forensics, you're not going to become known as the guy who carries the marginally more powerful pistol around town, and you sure as hell aren't going to be recognized as the guy who carries the marginally more powerful pistol in the middle of combat. In combat, most likely your opponents will recognize that you are a guy with a gun and that'll be where it stops. Having a really unique weapon really only matters on the forensic level (though a chrome gun is going to draw attention in other ways, naturally).

If there's a teacup sized exit wound (or none at all) The gun wasn't horrendously powerful. If there a hole in the dude the size of a bicycle wheel, however...

yes, kevyn668, trained forensic investigators can indeed determine the "stopping power" of your gun based on how many times you had to shoot him before he finally died. if the evidence shows you shot the target fifteen times, and the target was still moving (as determined by blood trails), then your weapon had very little stopping power. if you hit him once and he keeled over dead (based on how much blood was pumped out of the wound, and how much just settled within the body), then your weapon maybe had a bit more stopping power. of course, hit location must also be taken into account; a .22 in the eye has more stopping power than a .357 in the knee. and this doesn't even get into studies like wound trauma, in which the forensic investigator studies the exact effects the bullet had on the target by examining the wound or wounds. if that doesn't indicate the stopping power of the weapon, i don't know what would. not to mention simply digging the bullets out--if it's a .50AE, your weapon has stopping power in whatever scale you choose to measure it.

the question was not about canon rules. the question was whether or not you could be identified by your custom weapon. the answer is "yes, eventually".

you can guestimate the number of rounds the weapon held by studying where the shell casings landed. if you see lots of piles with fifteen shell casings in each pile, chances are the guy had a 15-round clip. this isn't possible at every crime scene, of course, but it's possible at some of them.

unless the GM states that all cops are idiots, you should probably assume that this is how it's handled--at least, you shouldn't act surprised when your GM offers up stuff like this as an excuse, when he decides that he wants Lone Star to nab you in order to progress a run he has in mind, and you question how the Star found you.

the book and page references you asked for can be found in the Lone Star sourcebook, in the Forensics section. it talks about pretty much exactly the same stuff i'm talking about. it doesn't give rules, of course, because players aren't generally expected to be forensic investigators. it does, however, give your GM the ammunition he needs to nail you to the wall with forensic evidence.

and for chrissake, watch a few episodes of CSI or CSI: Miami. they may not be the most realistic shows on TV, but they've got a stronger grip on the realities of forensic evidence than you seem to.

There seems to be some concerns about forensics tracing you. What about magic? Given the ritual linking rules from SOTA:2063 whats to stop a forensic mage from ritually linking a bullet back to the gun that fired it?

Pel

Ritual links only connect to living matter.

No matter how often you think your gun is talking to you, she does not create material links.

-Siege

Where is the restriction on living matter? One of the examples given in SOTA:2063 was a mage linking a brick to a chip of that brink she planted on a target. Most bricks don't talk either If you can link a brick to a chip of that brick I don't see why you can't link a bullet to the gun that fired it. Yeah, it would be harder as the link isn't as direct... so the Star only pulls this out for the big cases.

Pel

Ok, I have a headache now.

You could use psychometry to try and track details based on the bullet casings found at the scene.

However, the ritual link planted on the subject, while indeed inanimate (? That's a new one for me), has to be something placed by the mage.

"Use the larger to find the smaller" - the chips of stone can be tracked by using the big building as a ritual component.

Those specific bullets are not an integral part of the gun - whereas the chips are a fundamental part of the building itself.

Of course, this is strictly my interpretation and a reminder why I don't try to understand the magic system anymore.

-Siege

All that CSI stuff that mfb was talking about applies to normal firearms, too. Not just a custom weapon. Right now, everyone in the campaign i'm playing in/running occasionally has at least one, as do a fairly good number of NPC's. It's really not that hard to get one, even after chargen.

Yes, they can link all the rounds you leave to the same gun. They can do that if you're using a Super Warhawk, if you're using a Predator, a Manhunter, or something you had tailor-made. But they're not going to pick up one round you've left from your custom and automatically KNOW it was you. Getting pinched for murder one is just as easy with a normal, run-of-the-mill pistol as it is with your brand new baby, Charlene.

No, being able to link different crime scenes together makes things more dangerous for you as your career progresses. A non custom weapon is disposable if necessary, common, solid, relatively cheap, and much less of a potential liability.

mfb:
Your initial post used the word "noticed." As in "stopping power would be noticed right away." It mentioned nothing about forensic investigation. It implied to me that someone was observing the shooting. Not investigating the corpse. So maybe we just have some miscomunication there.

Fair enough. I was just stating the current state of affairs.

Just the Glock, Smiley and a specific Glock at that. Haven't seen a conversion kit for my Sig as of yet.

Not that I've really felt the need to empty my magazine in three seconds flat, but then again who knows?

-Siege

actually, kevyn668, it's not all that far of a stretch. it's not usually possible to narrow it down to, say, a 15-round clip as opposed to a 14-round clip, but it's definitely possible to narrow it down to a 15-round clip as opposed to an extended 30-round clip.

my initial post also went on to talk about forensics investigations, dude. relatively speaking, the wound effects of your weapon will be noticed right away, in the course of the forensic investigation. "right away", in this case, means "within the first day or two of the investigation".

rules were not a factor in this discussion until you brought them in. the original discussion was on whether or not a customized weapon would get you noticed.

and, yeah, based on the fact that you posted with a fairly derogatory tone about the possibility of profiling your weapon's characteristics based on what happens to people who have been shot by your weapon, i would assume that you have even less exposure to forensics investigations than i do--and all i know is what i've googled. review your response at the top of this page, specifically

Fuzz is (very) archaic slang for police.

Oh, right, so it seems. M-W.Com did recognize it after all. I suspected as much.

cheese it, it's the fuzz!

no, it doesn't sound very super. it sounds like a 3d mapping program. given a standardized light source (so that shadows could be analyzed by the program to infer the z-axis), such a thing would be possible today--and it wouldn't involve a supercomputer, though it would definitely involve an expensive program and a very high-rez camera.

having a custom pistol or using custom rounds will make it easier to find you because they know what to look for. if the crime was committed with a regular .45 pistol, they'd have to search through a lot of criminals who use .45s to find you. if the crime was committed with a custom round or pistol, they just have to find the guy with that custom pistol or round.

And this 3D mapping program can tell you who made the round, can it?

right. and since most .45 rounds are made by huge companies that produce million-round lots at a time, knowing who made it isn't such a big help--especially since the rounds were probably sold illegally at some point, meaning that you can't track it down by sales receipts.

edit: oh, you were questioning the ability of the program to figure out who made the round. eh, it's possible, especially for rarer rounds--you probably won't be able to determine the manufacturer of a simple .45 round by studying the wound. you might, however, by looking at the casing.

re-edit: well, this whole discussion is about customized weapons. even if you, specifically, aren't talking about that, the rest of us are. *shrug*

So they dig your .45s out of a few bodies and start looking for a guy using a .45. To me, that would make it a lot harder since you're firing a gun that's supposed to be 9mm, but you changed it. If they kick down your door and get your weapon, yes, they'll definitely know it was you. But if they do that, you're boned anyway.

[EDIT]Use caseless. And yes, I am talking about customized weapons. I didn't think I was being unclear about that...

well, yes, except that many weapons can be purchased chambered for any number of rounds--you can buy the same gun in .45, or 9mm, or .357 SIG, or whatever. having a firearm that's usually chambered for 9mm, but which you've altered to shoot .45, won't throw the fuzz off all that much.

yes, many firearms in SR use caseless. however, please don't mention the fact that, by the rules, any firearm in SR can be purchased as either cased or caseless, because that rule makes my brain hurt with its stupidity and hopleless insanity. do it in your game, if you wish. just don't tell me about it.

cool. (my favorite part of CSI is how the forensic techs get to conduct all the investigations.)

well, no. like Austere is saying, this program could easily narrow it down to a very specific model of gun--but if you're using a common model, that doesn't really help the police track you. it's like being able to narrow the list of suspects down to all white males with short, dark hair--that might occasionally be enough to pick someone out of a lineup, but it's unlikely to be helpful in your search for the criminal.

So how does any of this matter if you have a gun customized to fire in burst fire mode? Or is made out of ceramic components? Or has a personalized grip? Or a smartgun-2 system? Or a range finder? Or a custom finish? Or engraving? Or an underbarrel mount? Or {insert other customization options here}?

Various ammo types are also non-pistol specific. EX Explosive ammo is the same EX Explosive ammo whether its for a Ruger Super Warhawk (10M SS) or an Ares Predator (9M SA) or a Savalette Guardian (9M BF). You can even use one in the other.

It is possible to figure out that the weapon is burst-firing. Again, if this is a rather common burst-firing weapon, it's no biggie. Glock 18s are plentiful. Burst-firing Desert Eagles are not. Just a matter of how far you take the customization.

It's a reality of the game world.

So what if it IS burst firing? The cops would still have to have YOUR gun in hand to figure out it was you. Again, if it gets that far, you should already be kissing your ass goodbye.

Something being burst-fire doesn't make it any easier to track, from the cop's point of view.

Universal ammunition is also a reality of the Sixth World.

Considering that, as far as I know, there isn't a single real-world firearm in canon Shadowrun (there's some similar names, but that's about it), that's a pretty good indication that somewhere along the lines of the next 60 years there was some huge technological advancement in firearms that completely replaced the firearms of old. Most likely, older firearms and ammunition types aren't even mentioned because, apparently, the SOTA changes in both armor and other firearms have completely outclassed them to the point of utter uselessness.

If you're going to use the "technology changes over 60 years" argument like you did earlier in the thread, Austere, you have to stick with it all the way through. You can't -- or more correctly, shouldn't -- just limit it to one field.

And once again, anybody you can find who is going to make a burst-fire pistol for you isn't going to be making one for JUST you. They probably have a business to run. And considering how handy a burst-fire pistol is, I'd lay good odds that it's not that uncommon a request.