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Message no. 1
From: Dark Elf <VESPOSIT@****.SUNYSB.EDU>
Subject: Shadowrun: Mages,autofire etc
Date: Thu, 14 May 92 19:21:50 EDT
If you feel that autofire isn't acuurate enough, there is an alternate
method that seems to make sense. (First off, while you get a recoil penalty,
you get more shots or chances to do damage, in a probablistic model, I'd gues
that the two just about balance each other out)
An alternative to assigning a straight recoil penalty to all shots,
is to assign an increasing penalty to each shot. Ie Firing a burst of 5 shots
gives a penalty of +0 for the first shot, +1 for the second, +2 for the
third, +4 for the fourth, and +5 for the fifth. This reflects the idea that
your aim may be right on at first, but will be increasingly disrupted by
recoil as you fire. This tends to make combat very dangerous. The rules
taken verbatim tend to restrict autofire to bursts of two or three shots.
this is usually considered the optimum for most modern autofire weapons, the
optimum point in the tradoff between extra shots and recoil disrupting aim.
This also keeps any razorboy on the streets with an SMG from burning his
clip into a PC and immediately scragging him.
As for supressing fire, I would treat this as "Walking fire" see
SR rulebook. Since supressing fire is firing into an area with a chance of
hitting anyone in the area, this works out nicely. When you walk fire, you
essentially do this. You fire across an area with a burst towards a group
of enemies. The next shot in the burst can either be directed at the same
target as the previous burst, or at the next 1m space (weather it is occupied
or not) If there is distance between targets, 1 bullet goes to the each
empty 1m spce between them. If a friend is caught in a walking fire, he
can get hit by a bullet fired at his 1m space, just like an enemy. The
attacker rolls for each shot that is on an occupied space (friend or foe)
and damage is determined normally. If the attacker has a smartgun link, that
little piece of tech will let him intentionally miss a friend that is caught
in a walking fire. I believe that this is a sufficient model for supressing
fire, it does send autofire into an area, with each occupant of the area
having a chance to get hit. Without the aid of tech, this form of attack
does not discriminate between friend or foe (with the above exception).

I personally feel that the existing rules on autofire/recoil are
the ones that should be played.

The Dark Elf

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