From:	C J Tipton arkades@****.com
Subject:	Tracer Rounds
Date:	Sat, 17 Jun 2000 18:26:44 -0500

From: "Phil Smith" <phil_urbanhell@*******.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 16:46:17 GMT

>I have been meaning to ask this for a while but have been scared that
you
guys are going to beat me with sticks for asking such a dumb question.
But
I have just been delaying the inevitable, it has to be asked...

>Tracer rounds give -1TN to hit, yet the recoil from firing the tracer
bullet
gives +1TN - hey street sams, I have come up with a revolutionary idea:
save
your money and ammo; don't fire that extra bullet!

>I know that they still count for staging but come on; these cost more
money
and are so effective in markinging the way to the target that they negate

the difficulty they cause in being fired...and nothing else. I guess
there
is also the arguement that if the recoil from the shot is compensated
they
do give -1TN to hit, but still...

>Phil

The whole point of the round in real life is to:
A:Designate a field of fire by marking its wake. Lets your boys know
where they are(and are not)supposed toshoot.
B:Help maintain accuracy from sustained automatic fire by marking the
path your ammo is currently taking,
thus allowing you to correct aim accordingly.

Shadowrun rules do not deal well with B, and I have yet to see a
shadowrunner try A.

You are quite correct in thinking that, as the rules stand, you would
have to compensate recoil to get any real
benefit from a tracer.

There is a simple fix for this though. Simply assume that the tracer
benefits accumulate over rounds of
sustained autofire(which recoil doesn't in game).

Example: Fred hates Bob. Fred has Minigun. Fred Fires minigun full auto
at Bob.
On his first phase, Fred fires 15 rounds at Bob,every third round being a
tracer. Fred only has a skill of 5 and
is using a gyromount for recoil comp of 5.
+15(recoil)-5(comp)-5(tracers)+4(base) yields a T# of 9.
I don't envy Freds chances. Bob dodges and pulls a grenade, winging it at
Fred. On Freds next phase,
he fires again at Bob. Having maintained his full auto fire over
consecutive phases, Fred is considered to be
sustaining autofire for the purposes of our little house rule. So from
our previous T# of 9, we subtract an
additional 5 for last phases tracers. With a T# of 4, Bob becomes a fine
red mist under the awesome
17D damage. 'Course on Bobs next phase, Fred gets vaporized by the
grenade Bob threw.

But the truth is I never liked either one of those bastards anyway.

You might also reference CC106(Supressive Fire)and CC103(Searching Fire)
for more uses for this particular
pearl of wisdom. Again, the Shadowrun rules have never been entirely
adequate for Auto fire.

But their getting better.

Cowboy(loots Fred and Bobs still smoking corpses."I gotta
Minigun.NA-NA_NA-NA_NA-NA")
CJ
Arkades@****.com



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