Tracers say they can be loaded with other ammo, and other ammo has modifiers. If you load your gun with tracer and EX rounds does that reduce damage or anything?

Loading tracer rounds has no effect other than that listed: increasing to-hit. If you don't think this makes sense, keep in mind that when firing more than one bullet at once, you only apply the ammo mod once, so it really makes no less sense.

OSUMacbeth

But can you load two EX, then one tracer, then two EX, etc?

yes. Think about it, do you get any addt'l bonus for firing three ex ex rounds? No, just for the fact that you are.

The really messed up thing that happens is when you then use that ammo loadout in SA mode.

P.S. Personally i'm inclined to require that tracers be added as an option to a specific type of round. You want to use tracers with Ex-ex? You have to buy the tracer ammo that way, and pay more than the 10 /round Ex-ex costs for it.

well, then y not just tack the costs of tracer ammo onto the ammo you're using?

Pity they didn't just say something like "For a little extra money you can get a thin coating of phosphor added to any ammo type, effectively turning it into a tracer without modifying damage capacity."

Tracer rounds have a small hollow ass-end that is usually filled with a magnesium blend to create a light so that you can see it as it flies. Based on that, you can make any type of ammo "tracer".

For the M2 .50 cal machinegun the military uses "Incendiary, Armor Piercing Tracer" rounds.

The problem is that material in the back end of the slug takes up enough room that the weight difference from a normal slug actually can change it's tragectory. Even more so as the material burns away (within an little as few 100m, depending on the types). So squeezing it into some types of ammo could be a bit tougher than in standard rounds, without designing the round that way to start with.

SR rounds might also no longer be using traditional burning tracers, but instead electronic LEDs. This has been considered, but i don't think ever successfully implemented, for tracers IRL. The distinct advantage to them being that the LED's light is a lot more directional making it a LOT harder for others to follow the tracer line back to the shooter. The rules don't actually mention anything about that effect.

P.S. The bonus dice for Tracers do not stack with the 2 die SL bonus. Nobody mentioned that here, but i just noticed in the other thread talking about tracers someone suggested stacking them.

That's why I was saying it could just be a thin luminous (possibly heat-activated) coating around the projectile itself, thereby not significantly altering its ballistic properties but giving it a better visual signature.

Ooh, tracer buckshot. That'd be purty.

But they can still stack with a lasersight, by my understanding....

C'mon, this is SR4. Why cant there be a 'tracer chip'?

Basically a rice sized chip to any bullet that sends out a signal over short range and then shows up on the image link of the shooter, all calculated with the smartlink's processor.

Kind of like that thing they did with hockey a few years back, where the puck had a red or blue streak behind it on television so people could keep their eyes on where it was and was going.

This way though, you would need to download the proper codes for each bullet beforehand, but only YOU could see the streak.

It's possible to be hacked, but not within the time that it takes for the bullet to hit the hacker. If hacked beforehand and used by another source....like say the target. I'd give them a bonus to dodge.

One problem, even in the 2070's adding microtronics to ammunition costs money, and money makes the world go 'round. Why spend x amount of nuyen per round to add a night light to it when it's more cost effective to do the old standby of a phosphorous/magnesium blend. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Also, tracers (in the real world anyway) only provide a significant benefit when used in full-auto weapons, and they come pre-belted every fifth round. One downside to tracers is that they work both ways, your opponent can see where you are firing from as well. In our world this isn't such a big deal because our weapons still use gun powder and there is a often a muzzle flash that is more visible than the tracer. But in SR caseless weapons are more the rule than the exception, no muzzle-flash natch. However, tracers are better at giving away your position this way then. An interesting not is that (real world) the US military has adopted new IR tracer rounds that can't be seen by the naked eye, but are like torches when using night vision, pretty cool huh? Great way for runners with augmented senses to gain a slight edge, unless your opposition has augmented senses too...

Thanks for the link Austere, had loads of good info. But from what I saw in the video it doesn't look like a muzzle flash to me, more like the vent gases from compression. Also, on the G11 I thought the gas vent on the barrell was in place specifically to eliminate flash and act as a recoil suppressor. What are your thoughts on it? Also in the SR concept I could see chemical improvements to caseless ammo significantly reducing muzzle flash. Thoughts?

Having fired my fair share of assault weapons and heavy weapons you can see the muzzle flash pretty clearly in daylight. And most flash suppressors are more for recoil comspensation than anything, as they cause the waste gas to disperse over a wider area instead of straight out of the barrel. But anyway, thanks for the info, I appreciate it.

It can be harder for the flash to get captured on camera than with the naked eye.