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Message no. 1
From: One Ronin <ronin@*******.COM>
Subject: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....)
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 15:39:49 PST
Okay folks, lets forget Shadowrun's screwy (IMHO) autofire rules and
look at the intended PURPOSE for firing a fully automatic weapon.

First, machine guns and their ilk were designed for suppressive fire, an
issue which Shadowrun has addressed. These rules could be a little
better though (again, IMHO).

The second purpose for firing weapons in full auto is a little bit more
complicated. I've had lots of experience with weapons like the M-60
machine gun and the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon. Both are excellent
for suppressive fire....that's a given. The firing method when using
these weapons for a single target, or a small group is a little
different. The idea is to put as many rounds in a small area to
increase the chance of hitting your target with AT LEAST one round. In
this case, a 10 or 15 round burst may only result in 2-3 rounds hitting
their target. This, however, does greatly enhance your ability to
actually hit the target, albeit with fewer rounds. In my games we use a
system based on the greater number of rounds fired = the greater chance
of hitting your target, but only a few rounds from that burst will
actually connect. I won't waste your time and mine by retyping those
rules (although I'd be happy to e-mail them to anyone who wants them),
but, suffice to say, I have been quite pleased with the way these rules
have worked out.

As for the Vindicator Minigun, watch it in use in the movies "Predator"
and "Soldier". In fact, in the movie "Soldier", Kurt Russel actually
got to fire a REAL minigun. The recoil might keep you from putting all
15 rounds in the target's center-mass, but you sure as hell will hit
him, no matter how fast he is moving. Trust me, I know my full autos.





Mai mentsu konna mai kikyo.

-ICQ #:11373195


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Message no. 2
From: Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....)
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 10:07:14 +1000
One Ronin writes:
[snip story about how auto-fire works]

Hmm... you might be interested in the SR1 auto-fire rules. It's been a
while, so bear with me if my memory is rusty.

In SR1, if you fired, say, a burst of three, you rolled three _seperate_
firearms test, one for each bullet. If you fired a burst of 10, you rolled
10 seperate firearms tests. The victim would then roll damage resistance
against each and every bullet (though I think he rolled Dodge once, and
applied it against the entire burst).

This was clearly unworkable. It made firefights drag out forever.

One solution I trialled back then (and haven't done since SR2 came out) was
that you rolled your base dice, and for every bullet after the first, you
rolled an extra die. This seemed to work fairly well, especially for people
lacking much of a skill. Admittedly, it meant you need a huge handful of
dice, but compared to decking, it was still small. :)

The SR system assumes you are trying to hit with all your bullets. Now,
autofire makes this bloody hard, and that's why the target number goes up.
If you're just trying to hit with _any_ bullets, you can use the suppresion
fire rules.

What you might want to do is introduce a variable success chart. Here's an
example:
I blast away at the poor victim with full autofire (10 bullets). My skill is
4, and the base target number is 4. Assume I have 4 points of recoil
reduction from somewhere, which gives me a base recoil of 5. The base damage
is 7M.

This would give a success chart like this: if I make a target number of 4, I
hit with 5 bullets. A target number of 5 gives a hit with 6 bullets, a
target number of 6 gives 7 bullets, 7 gives 8, 8 gives 9, and 9 gives all 10
bullets hitting.

I roll my 4 dice, plus 4 pool dice. I get 3, 3, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6/9. This
means I hit with all 10 bullets, giving a base damage level of D (staged up
once further), and a power of 17.

If my highest roll had been a 7, I would have hit with 8 bullets, giving a
base damage of D, and a power of 15.

If my highest roll had been a 4, I would have hit with 5 bullets, giving a
damage code of 12S.

Under this scheme, I do not stage up the damage code unless I have multiple
successes at the highest code. So, if I had rolled 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1, 2, I
wouldn't be doing 12D, I would still be doing 12S. If I had rolled 2 or more
9's, I would have staged the damage up further.

One advantage of this is that you know exactly how many bullets have gone
wild, and need to be considered for hitting things like innocent bystanders.

Please note that I haven't playtested this system (I just came up with it as
I typed), but if anyone does wish to test it, I'd like to be told the
results. One modification I thought of was that the base target number
should be modified by the recoil in some way, indicating the chance that the
recoil throws all the bullets off. For example, half the recoil (rounded
down) could be used to increase the base target number, whilst the
remaineder is used to work out the variable success table. For the above
example, this would have given a variable table of:
9 = all 10 bullets, 8 = 9 bullets, 7 = 8 bullets, and 6 = 7 bullets. Rolls
of 5 or less would be considered clean misses.

--
Duct tape is like the Force: There's a Light side, a Dark side, and it
binds the Universe together.
Robert Watkins -- robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 3
From: Hatchetman <hatchet@*********.BC.CA>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....)
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 18:45:10 -0800
snip
> actually connect. I won't waste your time and mine by retyping those
> rules (although I'd be happy to e-mail them to anyone who wants them),
> but, suffice to say, I have been quite pleased with the way these rules
> have worked out.
>
> As for the Vindicator Minigun, watch it in use in the movies "Predator"
> and "Soldier". In fact, in the movie "Soldier", Kurt Russel
actually
> got to fire a REAL minigun. The recoil might keep you from putting all
> 15 rounds in the target's center-mass, but you sure as hell will hit
> him, no matter how fast he is moving. Trust me, I know my full autos.

I've GOT to go see that movie then. The minigun in that is real? It looks
so short in the trailers.
In Predator (been years since I seen it) you get to see what a minigun is
for, just sweeping.
I'd be much obliged if you can mail me those rules.
hatchet@*********.bc.ca
Message no. 4
From: Wolfchild <nathan.olsen@*******.MSUS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....) (fwd)
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 13:08:09 -0600
*I'm a bit late in replying to this so bear with me*

[snip sr1 autofire stuff]

> One solution I trialled back then (and haven't done since SR2 came out) was
> that you rolled your base dice, and for every bullet after the first, you
> rolled an extra die. This seemed to work fairly well, especially for people
> lacking much of a skill. Admittedly, it meant you need a huge handful of
> dice, but compared to decking, it was still small. :)
>
> The SR system assumes you are trying to hit with all your bullets. Now,
> autofire makes this bloody hard, and that's why the target number goes up.
> If you're just trying to hit with _any_ bullets, you can use the suppresion
> fire rules.

[snip new system]

> Please note that I haven't playtested this system (I just came up with it as
> I typed), but if anyone does wish to test it, I'd like to be told the
> results.
[snip]

I don't own FoF so I don't know how well the suppression fire rules work
(or don't work), but one idea I came up with seems to work nicely for
full auto in SR2 (maybe SR3). Borrowing the concept of extra bullet=extra
attack die from above, I would add that the attacker would make the
success test normally, but that staging the damage would depend on how
much uncompensated recoil is left. If there's 5 points recoil, then every
5 successes stages the damage up by one level (min 2). This makes it
pretty easy to hit a target when spraying the area with bullets, but lack
of control makes it almost impossible to make precision shots.

For example, someone wants to fire a vindicator (15 rounds) at a target
at short range without modifying recoil. The user gets to roll 14 extra
dice for the attack against a target of 4 but needs at least 15 successes
to stage the damage up to Serious.
OTOH, using the same gun but this time fully compensated for recoil, the
user gets all 14 extra dice beyond skill dice and combat pool and gets to
stage the damage up every 2 successes.

The major problem I see with this system is that there's no room for
random one-shot kills, but then again what's the character doing firing a
vindicator full auto without recoil comp in the first place?

As to how this system would fit into existing SS, SA, or BF rules I dunno.

Wolfchild - "Discinctaque in otia natus."
--
_,-/ "Desperanda tibi salva concordia socru." \-,_
,-~ / -Juvenal, Satire 6 \ ~-,
/' | /(_ "Quin tu istanc orationem hinc _)\ | `\
/' / \,_/ .\ veterem atque antiquam amoves?" /. \_,/ \ `\
| | /, ,-' -Plautus, Miles Gloriosus `-, ,\ | |
| | ,-, \ \,?| There are nights when the wolves are |@,/ / ,-, | |
| ,-|/ / ,_\,_/_ silent, and only the moon howls. _\_,/_ \ \|-, |
|/' | __, _) ZOMBIE@****.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU (_ ,__` | `\|
| `;-~_.--~ ZOMBIE@****.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU ~--._~-;' |
\ \__ http://krypton.mankato.msus.edu __/ /
`,-,`` /~zombie/lynx.htm '',-,'
((|))____/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\____((|))
Message no. 5
From: Sean McCrohan <mccrohan@*****.OIT.GATECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....) (fwd)
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 17:19:08 -0500
Quoting Wolfchild (nathan.olsen@*******.MSUS.EDU):
> I don't own FoF so I don't know how well the suppression fire rules work
> (or don't work), but one idea I came up with seems to work nicely for
> full auto in SR2 (maybe SR3).

My problem with the suppressing-fire rules from FoF is that they
seem to say that you roll 1 die for every round that went into the area,
TN 4 + wounds + cover, and score 1 'hit' for every 2 successes, up to
a maximum of the number of rounds fired. Now, that doesn't include skill
anywhere, and is redundant to boot (and makes areas covered by just 1 round
100% safe, since you can't get 2 successes on 1 die). I'm wondering if there
was supposed to be some mention of skill dice in there somewhere.
Additionally, it doesn't say how to resolve those hits. Are they
resisted at base damage with no attacker successes?

--Sean

--
Sean McCrohan (mccrohan@**.gatech.edu) | "He uses his folly as a stalking
Grad Student, Human-Computer Interaction | horse, and under the presentation
Georgia Institute of Technology | of that he shoots his wit."
http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~smccrohan | _As You Like It_, Act 5 Sc 4
Message no. 6
From: Anders Swenson <anders@**********.COM>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....)
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 23:26:02 -0800
Ok, I'll bite. Please do send me your write-up on SR autofire.
Thanks
--Anders

One Ronin wrote:

> Okay folks, lets forget Shadowrun's screwy (IMHO) autofire rules and
> look at the intended PURPOSE for firing a fully automatic weapon.
>
> First, machine guns and their ilk were designed for suppressive fire, an
> issue which Shadowrun has addressed. These rules could be a little
> better though (again, IMHO).
>
> The second purpose for firing weapons in full auto is a little bit more
> complicated. I've had lots of experience with weapons like the M-60
> machine gun and the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon. Both are excellent
> for suppressive fire....that's a given. The firing method when using
> these weapons for a single target, or a small group is a little
> different. The idea is to put as many rounds in a small area to
> increase the chance of hitting your target with AT LEAST one round. In
> this case, a 10 or 15 round burst may only result in 2-3 rounds hitting
> their target. This, however, does greatly enhance your ability to
> actually hit the target, albeit with fewer rounds. In my games we use a
> system based on the greater number of rounds fired = the greater chance
> of hitting your target, but only a few rounds from that burst will
> actually connect. I won't waste your time and mine by retyping those
> rules (although I'd be happy to e-mail them to anyone who wants them),
> but, suffice to say, I have been quite pleased with the way these rules
> have worked out.
>
> As for the Vindicator Minigun, watch it in use in the movies "Predator"
> and "Soldier". In fact, in the movie "Soldier", Kurt Russel
actually
> got to fire a REAL minigun. The recoil might keep you from putting all
> 15 rounds in the target's center-mass, but you sure as hell will hit
> him, no matter how fast he is moving. Trust me, I know my full autos.
>
> Mai mentsu konna mai kikyo.
>
> -ICQ #:11373195
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Message no. 7
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....) (fwd)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 13:08:37 +0100
According to Sean McCrohan, at 17:19 on 10 Nov 98, the word on the street was...

> My problem with the suppressing-fire rules from FoF is that they
> seem to say that you roll 1 die for every round that went into the area,
> TN 4 + wounds + cover, and score 1 'hit' for every 2 successes, up to
> a maximum of the number of rounds fired. Now, that doesn't include skill
> anywhere, and is redundant to boot (and makes areas covered by just 1 round
> 100% safe, since you can't get 2 successes on 1 die).

True, and I also found 1 bullet per 2 successes to be not lethal enough,
so I upped it to one bullet per success. Takes care of two snags at once.

> I'm wondering if there was supposed to be some mention of skill dice in
> there somewhere.

I don't think so. The idea behind suppressive fire in FoF is that any
idiot can do it -- just point the gun and pull the trigger. This does not
involve a whole lot of skill, IMHO. You could use the complimentary skill
rules from SR3, though, if you insist of adding the firer's skill into
area fire.

> Additionally, it doesn't say how to resolve those hits. Are they
> resisted at base damage with no attacker successes?

That's the way I play it.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
He likes to sleep. Sometimes he has good dreams.
-> NERPS Project Leader * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ U P L E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 8
From: Sean McCrohan <mccrohan@*****.OIT.GATECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....) (fwd)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 08:35:32 -0500
Quoting Gurth (gurth@******.NL):
> > I'm wondering if there was supposed to be some mention of skill dice in
> > there somewhere.
>
> I don't think so. The idea behind suppressive fire in FoF is that any
> idiot can do it -- just point the gun and pull the trigger. This does not
> involve a whole lot of skill, IMHO. You could use the complimentary skill
> rules from SR3, though, if you insist of adding the firer's skill into
> area fire.

I don't know. At long range, just getting all of the rounds into,
say, the 1-meter-wide area where you wanted them would be a skill-dependant
sort of thing. At short range, no big deal, but the target number doesn't
seem to be linked to range.

--Sean
--
Sean McCrohan (mccrohan@**.gatech.edu) | "He uses his folly as a stalking
Grad Student, Human-Computer Interaction | horse, and under the presentation
Georgia Institute of Technology | of that he shoots his wit."
http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~smccrohan | _As You Like It_, Act 5 Sc 4
Message no. 9
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....) (fwd)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 07:59:48 -0700
For the mere cost of a Thaum, Sean McCrohan wrote:
/
/ My problem with the suppressing-fire rules from FoF is that they
/ seem to say that you roll 1 die for every round that went into the area,
/ TN 4 + wounds + cover, and score 1 'hit' for every 2 successes, up to
/ a maximum of the number of rounds fired. Now, that doesn't include skill
/ anywhere, and is redundant to boot (and makes areas covered by just 1 round
/ 100% safe, since you can't get 2 successes on 1 die). I'm wondering if there
/ was supposed to be some mention of skill dice in there somewhere.

Like Gurth, I changed it in my game so that each success results in one
hit. I don't add any skill dice.

/ Additionally, it doesn't say how to resolve those hits. Are they
/ resisted at base damage with no attacker successes?

I stage the damage based on the autofire rules. For multiple successes
I stage the Power of the attack by +1 per success, and increase the damage
level by one for every three successes.

And where the suppression fire rules rock is that the fire is sustained
until the beginning of the firer's next action. This makes several slow
guards very effective.

The team sets off an alarm somehow. The guards set their Uzis for full
auto. The team enters a hallway watched by the guards. The PCs go
first and take down a couple of the guards. The rest of the guards
spray lead into the hallway. Now that fast Sam has a chance of getting
hit on each of his subsequent actions while he's in the hallway.

Suppression fire is a great equalizer for the non-wired.

-David B.
--
"Earn what you have been given."
--
email: dbuehrer@******.carl.org
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
Message no. 10
From: Micheal Feeney <Starrngr@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....) (fwd)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 12:22:38 EST
In a message dated 98-11-11 09:59:35 EST, you write:

> The team sets off an alarm somehow. The guards set their Uzis for full
> auto. The team enters a hallway watched by the guards. The PCs go
> first and take down a couple of the guards. The rest of the guards
> spray lead into the hallway. Now that fast Sam has a chance of getting
> hit on each of his subsequent actions while he's in the hallway.
>
> Suppression fire is a great equalizer for the non-wired.
>
> -David B.

this is good and bad... I never saw FoF, but I personally would limit the
number of possible hits to the number of rounds fired. The way you described
it, david, makes it sound like I could blast off 10 rounds at that sammie and
get more than 10 hits, which defies the laws of physics.... unless your
shooting L.H Oswald's rifle......
Message no. 11
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....) (fwd)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 19:40:37 +0100
According to Sean McCrohan, at 8:35 on 11 Nov 98, the word on the street was...

> I don't know. At long range, just getting all of the rounds into,
> say, the 1-meter-wide area where you wanted them would be a skill-dependant
> sort of thing. At short range, no big deal, but the target number doesn't
> seem to be linked to range.

Well, you could always use the base TN for the range rather than a flat 4
at all ranges. This makes it more difficult to put rounds onto a target at
longer ranges even when using suppressive fire.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
He likes to sleep. Sometimes he has good dreams.
-> NERPS Project Leader * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ U P L E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 12
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....) (fwd)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 11:53:26 -0700
For the mere cost of a Thaum, Gurth wrote:
/
/ According to Sean McCrohan, the word on the street was...
/
/ > I don't know. At long range, just getting all of the rounds into,
/ > say, the 1-meter-wide area where you wanted them would be a skill-dependant
/ > sort of thing. At short range, no big deal, but the target number doesn't
/ > seem to be linked to range.
/
/ Well, you could always use the base TN for the range rather than a flat 4
/ at all ranges. This makes it more difficult to put rounds onto a target at
/ longer ranges even when using suppressive fire.

But, the TN is for the bullets to hit anything within the area.
Whether the area saturated is at short range or long range shouldn't
change this.

What you could do is to subtract one die from the suppression dice per
range category beyond short range. This could be countered by a
successful firearms test for which each success rolled adds one die to
the suppression dice (increasing the suppression dice up to a maximum
equal to the number or rounds fired divided by the number of square
meters being saturated).

-David B.
--
"Earn what you have been given."
--
email: dbuehrer@******.carl.org
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
Message no. 13
From: Sean McCrohan <mccrohan@*****.OIT.GATECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....) (fwd)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 21:28:29 -0500
Quoting David Buehrer (dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG):
> / According to Sean McCrohan, the word on the street was...
> /
> / > I don't know. At long range, just getting all of the rounds into,
> / > say, the 1-meter-wide area where you wanted them would be a skill-dependant
> / > sort of thing. At short range, no big deal, but the target number doesn't
> / > seem to be linked to range.

> But, the TN is for the bullets to hit anything within the area.
> Whether the area saturated is at short range or long range shouldn't
> change this.

Sure. But in order to hit anything in the area, you have to get bullets
INTO the area. Think about what your TN would be to hit a stationary,
two-meter-high, one-meter-wide object would be at extreme range (ought to
be an 8: 9, -1 for Stationary Target). Suppressing fire can't possibly
be easier than that at that range, because that's the target to just get
bullets into the area you want them in, regardless of whether or not you
hit anything.
For an assault weapon, extreme range is like 300 meters or so. Just
firing down a straight, empty hallway 300 meters long and not hitting any
of the walls could be pretty tough.

--Sean

--
Sean McCrohan (mccrohan@**.gatech.edu) | "He uses his folly as a stalking
Grad Student, Human-Computer Interaction | horse, and under the presentation
Georgia Institute of Technology | of that he shoots his wit."
http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~smccrohan | _As You Like It_, Act 5 Sc 4
Message no. 14
From: Hatchetman <hatchet@*********.BC.CA>
Subject: Re: Common sense (was Vindicator Miniguns.....) (fwd)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 18:54:12 -0800
> Sure. But in order to hit anything in the area, you have to get
bullets
> INTO the area. Think about what your TN would be to hit a stationary,
> two-meter-high, one-meter-wide object would be at extreme range (ought to
> be an 8: 9, -1 for Stationary Target). Suppressing fire can't possibly
> be easier than that at that range, because that's the target to just get
> bullets into the area you want them in, regardless of whether or not you
> hit anything.
> For an assault weapon, extreme range is like 300 meters or so.
Just
> firing down a straight, empty hallway 300 meters long and not hitting any
> of the walls could be pretty tough.

Get a smartlink or a laser, TN 6/7, and cybered mag eyes.
I can vouch for that last part. First time I used one, I got about 20 out
of 30 rounds of 5.56 into a 20 gallon oil drum at about 30 yards or so. I'm
getting better controlling it, but I much prefer semi.

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