I designed this weapon to fill what I preserved to be a hole in the market. I tried to make it balanced although to do this I did have to break the weapon design rules 3 times (in 2 cases to the weapons benefit, in another to its detriment).

The Ares HP232 versatile gun

Designed to accept 2 different clip sizes with its 6 round clip the HP232 is one of the most concealable weapons on the market being of totally ceramic construction and using caselles ammunition. The lager 40 round clip is much more difficult to conceal but provides staying power when combined with the weapons burst fire capability. The HP232 comes with our latest SL2 package as standard. The weapon will allow you to fire a 3 round burst threw the removable silencer we provide but doing so will void your warenty.

>>>>>>>(Void your warranty is what they say, destroy your silencer is what happens. Throws your aim right out and doesn’t work as well as a sound suppressor after the first shot. And do you think it’s a standard silencer. Noooo 1500 nuyen special order. More if you want it in less than a week and you wont find them on the black market. Don’t get me wrong it’s a great weapon but you don’t want to use burst fire with the silencer.)<<<<<<
-gun bunny 5

rules points. I allowed this weapon to mount a silencer in spite of the fact that it is burst fire capable. If you use the burst fire with the silencer attached you damage the silencer imposing +1TN and reducing its effectives to that of a sound suppressor. 2 shots latter it becomes completely useless. If you roll more 1s than successes on the first burst or any subsequent shot internal parts of the silencer have detached and jammed the gun. Removing the silencer will remove all penalties. The choice of clip is normally a no advantage option but I imposed a conceal ability penalty for using the lager clip.

Heavy pistol
Shortened barrel
Level 3 ceramic construction (undetectable by MAD)
SA-SA/BF
Improved conceal ability 2
Weight decrease 6
Internal smart gun 2
Extended clip.
Range finder
Silencer +.2kg & -2 conceal when attached
Improved FCU 6 (.25 unused)

Damage 9M
Mode SA/BF
Conceal ability 7 or 3
Weight 2.05
Ammo 6c or 40c
Mounts barrel, top
FCU 0.25
DPV 780

3900 nuyen

Anybody have any comments.

Edward

Why break the rules to make a super gun? Why would you bother with any other HP in the book?

Um...

Besides the obvious jokes, exactly what hole does this gun fill?

-Siege

Heh. The ceramic-caseless-burst-fire-capable-silenced-pistol-with-6-round-or-40-round-magazine-capacity hole. Duh.

Quite a leap, there. 6 rounds to 40 rounds. How did we come up with that?

I'm trying to visualize a handgun with a drum magazine, but I can't get past the mountain of phallic jokes springing forth.

-Siege

I would use any other HP in the game if I wanted both moderate conceal ability and a clip that will last a fight. With this one you can do one but not the other at any given time. Also I would use a different gun if I wanted recoil compensation for the burst fire as this weapon has none and can only get 1 point without removing the silencer.

The hole it fills in an infiltration weapon that can be used in a serious fight if you also managed to sneak in its lager spare magazine (and find time to load it) effectively a lower version of the puzzler.

Edward

Edit add response to posts made while I was typing.

It isn’t to hard to envisage a 6 to 40 round jump with an associated drop in conceal ability. The 6 round clip slides into the grip like most pistols. The 40 round clip is in the same place but extends down in a fashion similar to an SMG.

Edward

Cough.

Is that a balrog in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

-Siege

Any constructive criticism?

Now that you know what I was trying to achieve how would you change it?

Alternatively what is wrong with the concept to start with?

I am as much trying to work out how to make balanced weapons as I am trying to create this particular design.

Edward

Um...wow.

Ok, I don't know how constructive this is going to be, but you are trying to take every cool, nifty and otherwise wiz bit of gun construction to make the ultimate handgun.

And I will grant, there is certainly a market demand for the ultimate handgun, but I think the general reaction is...gawd, I hope that's a balrog.

-Siege

The larger clip, having no separate conceal, can be smuggled in and swapped once beyond all security.

~J

The Glock 18 can take a 17 round standard mag or a 30 (or was it 32?) round extended mag. We all know how much use that turned out to be in real life.

And oddly enough, the Luger 08 artillery drum holds "only" 32 rounds. It's the same mag the MP18/I submachine gun used, at least until they figure out it sucked.

I forgot that little bit of mechanics.

Then the mechanics for clips suck anyway.

The same price and mass for any clip from the 4 round clip on the tiffany needler to the 50 round clip in the ares HVAR. And the fact that a clip has a mass 3 times that of several holdouts.

Has anybody ever bothered to apply a conceal ability to a clip. Would weapon concealability +1 or 3 whichever is greater be appropriate. This was based on the assumption that a clip will always be easier to conceal than the weapon in fits in and will not be harder to conceal than a pocket sectary (the most approximate sized object I could find in SR3)

Perhaps a more appropriate way the build the weapon would be as a light pistol and have the extended clip at 20 rounds.

Edward

40 round clip conc 4, BBB referenbce to concealability of ammo, then there's the problem of plastic rounds having serious chemsniffer issues, people the clip is not undetectable

That's for the ammo itself, not the clip. So four different people all sneak in ten rounds.

~J

riight so the party sneaks enough ammo for the sammy to have one clip.... this only produces a net saving of 10% on chance of detection (read multiply chance of detection if sammy carries the rounds by himself (assume guard perception test has at least 4 dice, if less you can get up to a 33% saving) what's the point?

If your problem is such that you need ammunition and security is tight, stop trying to sneak it through the front door. No security is perfect. If the front door is battened down tight, it's human engineering time, and a dead drop by a coerced employee or group plant can do wonders. If security is tight on that end, there are other ways. A ceramic knife is generally undetectable if you're careful, and that opens up all avenues of procure on site. Even without that, an adaptive and skilled operator can deal with the situation without needing to be initially armed— and, indeed, this can even be an advantage against more 'civilized' opponents.

But more important than all this is Sun Tzu's maxim: "to win without fighting is best." If you can enter, get your job done, and exit without ever starting a fight, or better, without ever being detected, you have succeeded far more than any braindead smash and grab team. Sneaking in 40 rounds for some machine pistol is a waste of time. You'll likely find more on the first guard you neutralize.

Alternatively you can simply seal your hi-c clip in a airtight bag and wash the outside of the bag well. This will get it past chem sniffers.

oh and Aret, one of the best ways to win without fighting is to scare them into submission with a huge gun.

I think it depends on just how airtight the bag is and how thoroughly cleaned the surface happened to be.

-Siege

:: nods :: considering that it would be very easy to completely seal and cleanse a container using just a machining kit, I would trust it. I wouldn't prolly even call for a B|R test. What skill would it be for? box b|r?

I just have hermetically sealed magazines available for sale that cost several times the cost of a full magazine. Needless to say, they're only good 'till you break the seal.

~J

B/R Hermetically Sealed Containers.

-Siege

I prefer Shamanically Sealed Containers, myself.

They're cheaper, and they get Totem bonuses.

But you can only have one of them per domain at a time.

~J

Indeed Sun Tzu's was a great tactician I started to reed his work a wile ago but time became scarce. I very much doubt he would advocate single line planing. A plan should be fluid. Every option you deny yourself is a way you can fail. If you are confidant you can take a gun with you on the run that calls for no combat then it would be nice to have one. That way if you get dreked on you can shoot your way to an exit.

Edward

When it comes to clip weights, I ignore the weight of the stamoed steel outer and only make people worry about the weight of the ammo inside it. A STANAG clip is roughly the same size as my PDA, so use the Pocket Secretary's Conc is reasonable. SOTA64 has some handy concealability tables.

As for the gun, why not just use a silenced 10M SA only pistol? Your ammo goes further, and it only takes an extra pair of sucesses or a Called shot (which with smart 2 isn't a biggie) to get up to that S code anyway.

+1 to Dodge.

~J

Okay, granted, but if it's for an infiltration specialist he should be able to surprise the guards - no dodge then.

It's all swings and roundabouts though, tradeoffs between one thing and another. Unless you pimp the darn thing out.

You can only surprise two guards at a time.

My main problem with the gun is that the flavour suggests a disadvantage to the larger clip that really doesn't show up very well.

~J

When it comes down to it, how many people playing SR actually keep track of the weight of the gun? Sure, I for one consider that into how a PC might react to it (insert some great quote from Snatch here about heavy guns and reliability).

An empty Glock 17 standard model is 625 grams. The FN Five-seveN is about 620 grams with an empty magazine. The USP Tactical .45 weighs 820 grams empty, while the "too heavy for standard use" Mk 23 Mod 0 weighs 1100 grams empty. The biggest of the ridiculously huge, the Mark XIX .50 AE Desert Eagle weighs in at about 1990 grams with the 6" barrel and an empty magazine.

Weight of an empty 17-round 9x19mm Glock magazine is 78 grams. Empty 15-round 10x25mm magazine for Glock 20: 75 grams. Empty 7-round .50 AE magazine for DE: 130 grams. Empty 100-round 5.56x45mm Beta C-Mag: 1000 grams.

15 rounds of .45 ACP: 321 grams. 15 rounds of 9x19mm: 174 grams. 15 rounds of 7.62x51mm: 381 grams. 15 rounds of .50 AE: 500 grams.

Yeah it's on your sheet, but does it really serve any purpose? One gun is rather trivial, but 20 or 100 might pose a problem.

I don't make my players track weight unless they are carrying gear that seems excessive.

According to the rules as printed in the rulebook, a character can carry STR x 5 kilograms in weight without penalty. So, a STR 4 character can carry 20kg. With a jacket, pistol and a couple of clips and an assault rifle with a couple of clips you're getting awefully close.... 16 to 17. Now, that character picks up 3 kilos they're taking stun.....

Weight is actually, once I bothered to make my players to track it, came really important. The mage in my party was carrying far too much, like almost double weight, on almost every run.

But seriously, that's absolutely silly. A strength 4 character is above average... they shouldn't be about to fall over from carrying that much. Just look at how much your average soldier carries... an assault rifle, ammunition, uniform, and a rucksack full of gear. By shadowrun weight systems, that soldier has to be about S6 just to carry his gear.

JaronK

The weight of ammo (and guns) is so far off in Shadowrun. If you convert kg. to lb., it comes out a little closer, which is what I do as a general rule.

Normally I just use common sense as to what the character is carrying and how it affects him or her at any particular time.

I know I enforce rules for encumbrance simply because I don't trust myself to be strict enough otherwise. Pplayer: "I've got 18kg of stuff now, can I pick up and take along that laptop?" Me: "Sure." Player: "And the shotgun of that secguard?" Me: "Ok, go ahead." Player: "And the shotguns of the other four secguards we shot earlier?" Me: "Fine by me." Player: "And that desk, the carpets and the filing cabinets?" Me: "Yeah, fine, what the heck."

I go with Str x 5kg being the No Penalties limit and anything up to Str x 10kg only causing slight problems, mainly in the long run (Light Stun per Body x 20 minutes).

If I had stuck to the rules the gun would have been better. My rule breaking weakened the weapon because by the rules the conselability doesn’t change for a lager clip. The conselability f the weapon would have been better than the consealability of the ammunition it held (40 rounds consealability 5 gun consealability 7). Ok I let it have a silencer and burst fire but I made using them together impractical.

As to load rules. It has been pointed out that gun weights are way to high and I know from personal experience that carrying capacities are way to low. (I have personally carried 45+Kg for a 9 hour day at the age of 16. what dose full US solder’s field kit amount to. Including food water guns and ammunition they probably average strength 4)

Edward

I do think you've made this gun too good at everything - that would be fine for someone's custom-made gun, which trades off superiority for being easily traced. But if it's a gun that will be up there with other guns, for a player to choose from, then most players will probably go for your gun. Why not? It is concealable, silent, and beats MAD detectors, yet is also powerful and can hold a big clip. Why ever bother using a different pistol?

My personal ideal, when designing a new weapon, is for it to be better than the guns in the book in some ways, at the expense of other things. Like, maybe it's a ceramic composite gun with 6 Concealability and an integral silencer, but it has a clip that only holds 8 rounds, and you need to use hi-C plastic rounds to get the full advantage of it. So it's better for sneaking past detectors, but not as good as an Ares Predator in a brutal firefight.


The main thing that doesn't make sense to me is why they would put two things that don't work together into the gun. If burst-fire messes up the integral silencer, then why for heaven's sake wouldn't they put on a sound suppressor instead? It doesn't seem logical.

A Royal Marine Commando carries, on a normal route march into combat, roughly 35 to 40 kilos of weight, quite possibly more.

The emcumberance rules for SR are way too wrong for my tastes. I've actually brought in a sliding scale for calculating the weight of things. This was put to vote by my group, and they voted for that as opposed to recalculating weapon and ammo weights into kilos.

In my games, the value for each point of strength varies. STR 1 to 3 generates 7kg per point, STR 4 to 7 generate 6 per point and STR 8+ generates 5kg per point.

This means an average human (STR 3) can carry 21kg, while the average Troll (STR 7) can heft 45kg without problem. I also only include half the weight of worn armour and clothing since we're talking encumberance and the clothes you're wearing don't impede you as much as if you were carrying it in a pack or bag.