Today I will make some personal opinion comments on the data from the previous post.
High-Power Chambering
As expected, high-power chambering did not fair well in terms of pure damage. However, with some examples to look at, it seems the niche for HPC is in low recoil reasonably high damage weapons, assuming you fit enough recoil compensation on the weapon.Ammunition Capacity
The Ares Crusader does slightly more (average) damage than the Ceska Black Scorpion, despite having all the same modifications, due solely to it's slightly larger clip.Recoil
The Ares Viper Slivergun edges out the Ruger Thunderbolt by a small margin (about 4%), but I would personally prefer the latter for it's reduced recoil. The greater chance of hitting the target far outweighs the increase in damage output. Additionally, the Ruger is more likely to do lethal damage due to it's better armour piercing (assuming killing is your thing).
This argument can be made for the M-4A1 Carbine versus the HK 229-X as well.
Holdouts in general suffer from too much recoil when attempting to maximize damage output. Don't expect to score many hits. A compromise in damage, accuracy and concealability is the Fichetti Security 600.
Gyro Stabilization
The Boyd & Richards Desperado isn't a great choice (and the gyro mount option option makes it ridiculous), but it is a shotgun, and is a small package to be able to deploy special shotgun rounds from. In reality the magazine makes it a non-starter for use as a full auto weapon.
I can't say enough good things about the Auto-Assault 16. It does considerable damage, even with few modifications (leaving 5 slots for adding non-damage related toys), and since it's a shotgun can fire a great variety of ammuntion. One option I would suggest would be to forgo the gyro stabilization for a personal grip and auto-adjusting underbarrel weight (for a total recoil 0 and slots 0) making it a little bit more subtle but with just as much stopping power.
The HK G12A4m (personal grip alone gives 1 recoil and 2 slots remaining), Ares PLD (auto-adjusting underbarrel weight gives 0 recoil, 0 slots) and Ingram White Knight (personal grip gives 2 recoil, 3 slots left) can likewise be outfitted to not use the gyro stabilization
Machine Guns
Light, medium and heavy MGs are all nearly perfectly configured off the shelf for dealing death. Little can be done to increase their damage output.
Sourcebooks
In general the War, Gun Heaven and State of the Art 2073 supplements do not increase the lethality of the game that significantly. Once your have incorporated Arsenal in you game, and are modifying weapons (especially with high-velocity), you already have a pretty high damage, lethal game.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that you have finished your analysis of the firearms of Shadowrun. (I will admit I only picked up Shadowrun about 3 months ago, and could be completely wrong in some understandings of mechanics) I have not seen any particular errors in the math or logic of your work (aside from the work related to Stick-n-Shock virtual damage bonus). However, I do feel it is that it is only a start. Perhaps there is data effecting numbers you didn't mention, I found the data overall very lacking. Due to the flexible and creative nature of Shadowrun there are a plethora of factors when it comes down to analyzing its weapons. How do all the factors such as armor, body, firing mode, dice pool, recoil reduction, number of weapons used, and weapon type influence effective damage. An AVC-7.62 with its 30.74 average damage seems like a reason weapon to kill attempt to a greater dragon. But, the gun could not even inflict harm because of 20 hardened despite the 30.74 damage average (unless you edged up to 12 hits or so).
ReplyDelete*yeah for no edit button*
Thanks for your interest in my blog.
DeleteI looked at some of the factors you mentioned in older posts such as firing mode, recoil, and armour. I hope I didn't miss anything, those took forever to calculate (not the armour, that's not that thorough).
You may be correct about Stick-n-Shock. I haven't looked at this for a while, and I can't recall how I derived that formula. I'll look at it again and will update as necessary.
For recoil compensation, I simplified my calculations by applying recoil, and then considering RC as a positive damage bonus (at 1/3).
I was looking at the damage of the weapons themselves, which is why I didn't include body or dice pool. I would like to visit this at some future date, if I can find some time. Dice pool would be particularly important with multiple weapons (ie. What is the true value of dual wielding?).
You've been playing 3 months and are considering fighting Great Dragons? O_o
Sorry for any grammatical/structural errors I am dyslexic and typing seems to bring it out the best. Onwards...
DeleteStick-n-Shock are 6S(e) which means that always deal 6dv no matter the gun they are fired from. Really awesome for light pistols and submachine guns, it increase their base dv 2-1. However, they deal stun damage so they don't damage cover or machines. If they don't get stunned the target they take -2 to dice pool for a few combat turns. Loading them into magazines as the second or third shot in the burst is great option.
For recoil compensation what I was getting as was this, some weapons firing in particular fire modes can fire without recoil modifiers. From your recoil table the max you could get a machinegun was 10, a gatling machinegun have has a minim of 4 coil is then doubled for it being a heavy weapon. (With optional rules you can recoil reduction with a high strength, 18+ str for a -4, but not everyone uses that rule) I don't think that was accounted for on your table, I could be wrong. Gatling guns can also hit five targets a combat phase, the value of that is questionable. Weapons that can be fully compensated would be more effective.
To me the damage of weapons is arbitrary. The real lethally of weapons is have the right one for the situation. Not that are not one that partially better for some tasks. A submachine would be better than a sniper rifle for a room full guys. Unless that is, they are all heavy combat armor. And anti-tank rounds give no bonus damage against unarmored targets. I feel Shadowrun's combat is to dynamic to simply look at a derived average damage value.
There is little in dual firing weapons, unless you have a massive dice pool and the targets are weak. I was thinking about a trick someone else mentioned. You hold a small firearm in hand, pistol or smg. You only use a single action to fire each one, allowing you to fire two long bursts, one for each gun, with no recoil, each gun only generates 5. Light pistol can be burst fired for similar results. You can also do with this rifles, using Shiva Arms positive quality you have 4 four arms allowing for the dual wielding of larger firearms.
Smartguns are better. Why? Well if you load an agent into your smartgun system he make team assist check to help you gun it. From what I understood he should roll 10 dice to help you, 3.33 bonus damage. Now if you have multiple agents in the gun you could get bonus dice equal to your skill rank easily (max of 6 agents). Meaning that the smartgun with a lot of money will let you gun at double your skill ranks. Technomancer sprites can do the same for free.
I joined a high karma campaign, they have 280ish I got to start with 150, that some other guys had been playing. I had been playing DnD with this GM off and on for about 2 years. He likes to pull out with crazy stuff from time to time so given the amount of karma around I figured it would be best to be ready for the worst.
I completely agree with you comments regarding having "the right tool for the job". Stun rounds aren't effective against hard targets, nor are light arms. However, some tools are better than others, even when both are correct for that job.
DeleteI looked at how I came up with the formula for the virtual damage bonus on stun rounds, and I'm going to stand by it.
The rules do expressly prohibit mixing rounds in a clip (with the exception of tracer rounds). If your GM is comfortable with the added complexity, mixing rounds shouldn't be a big deal as long as you use the same rounds in each group (1 bullet for SS/SA, 3 for BF, etc).
You are correct that i didn't include strength based recoil compensation in my calculations. As with body and dice pool, I neglected strength because I was focusing on the weapon.
However, several of the smaller weapons I presented have excess recoil that a strong character could apply their modifier to. For larger weapons I found that there were often no other (extra) damaging modifications that could be applied while still negating all the recoil. In other words, the damage maxed out with extra room for recoil compensation.
You are correct that flechette ammo is better against unarmoured targets, but I'm still of the opinion (and this is just an opinion, not backed up by any evidence) that if I'm shooting at a target without armour it doesn't much matter what ammo I use.
Your trick about firing two weapons is pretty neat. Unfortunately I think my GM will disallow it, since it feels like a loophole in the rules.
Please point me to the rules regarding having an expert system in your smartgun, if it's not too much trouble. I think I understand what you mean, but I would like to read the full rundown.
The campaign I am in is more tactical (as opposed to cinematic), which perhaps I should have declared as a bias. We use a lot of the optional rules that cause extra lethality. As a result, we tend to play combat pretty conservatively and prefer to find non-combat solutions. It's more of a spy game.
Stick n Shock rounds, the formula don't know what you are doing there. When I looked up stick n shock rounds in the table in the back of arsenal it showed them as 6S(e). What is the power stuff about? I am wondering what rules you are looking or type of stick n shock rounds you are looking at- their rule book?
ReplyDeleteAs for factoring the other stuff I was hoping that maybe you had done it to the full extent. That being accounting the most all the variables in attempting the damage someone. From my time constructing my DnD damage per round table I learned that weapons effectiveness drastically changed based on the target(s) toughness and health. Health in Shadowrun isn’t near the factor that is in DnD but still a factor in weapon effectiveness. In Shadowrun the key to killing is the damage threshold which is determined by the body and armor. I also learned that the DV added from bursting isn’t applied for armor penetration. Which causes stun or no damage to inflicted by small arms on moderately armored targets.
I think that the Ares Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle is the most lethal firearm. In the arsenal errata it states that the gun has the normal railgun armor penetration. So it does 1/2 -4ap against all but smart armor. AP flechette puts the gun at 11dv and full-auto for +9dv. However, using the gun in full-auto would require a reload after every time, which you can work round -autoloading minidrones, and it uses power. Not very practical I admit, but should kill or disable the target in the first pass.
It can never hurt to ask. To me it doesn't seem like that much of loop hole. You still have to have two guns and your only take 2 shots around instead of 4 if you were to dual fire the guns. Cyberlimbs use the their agility not the rest of body’s agility to fire a weapon, so why would the recoil not be localized also? Not to mention two guns cost more and are harder to hide.
Unwired p. 48 gives the specs of a smartgun system. Get a new OS of rating 4 (330 SR4e) and upgrade the response to 4 (4 is max for non custom smartgun)(222 SR4e). If you have the skills and time write the OS of rating 6 or better and build a smartgun with 6 or better response rating (228 SR4e). The smartgun is a node, you can hack them. Load the agents into the smartgun when you use the firearm have the agents set to make a Teamwork Test (65 SR4e) to aid you. This has more grounding with the sprite power Diagnostics (242 SR4e). Sprite and agents are not completely dissimilar if a sprite can do it cannot agent be programed to do so? Now they may need to an autosoft to be allowed to attempt to aid you. They make gunning checks with pilot + autosoft rating (246 SR4e) the best on the market is a 6 pilot and 4 autosoft so 10 dice. With 10 dice a third should be hits so about 3 bonus dice from each agent. This means that agent would use one process and another for its autosoft allowing for a max of 2 agents in a market system. More if you custom build. They only get 3 passes, so if you have four you may choose not to roll both on one of the first three attacks to save dice for the fourth attack. For the normal user that is 8 (2 the smartgun system itself and a 6th ranked skill) more dice on 3 attacks.
For the most part we do our best to talk and hack (in the matrix that is) our way through the issues at hand. Just that the jobs we run do not usually allow for a combat free run. One guy has 26 dice to tell you what to think. He does a good job of keeping the guns and swords put away, however that doesn’t help against the non-sapient nor do the two technomancers.
Just wanted to say that this is an amazing resource. Good job. It doesn't exactly have the volume of information that I would like but it has saved me several hours trying to optimize a rifle for myself.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the positive comment.
DeleteI made a decision early on to not post excerpts from the books, only my derived values. My methods for finding those values I tried to explain as best I could, but ultimately I wrote a small program to calculate, compare and find the best possible combinations. If you are a programmer and interested, I can share that, but it isn't very useful without the underlying data.
If there is other information you would like me to share, feel free to ask, and I will do my best.
I had an insparation and spent some time in matlab writing this program. If you have access to matlab, just copy/paste the code over to run it. It should be fairly self explanatory as to what it does. It gives you the x percent chance you have to do n damage, for both non lethal and lethal damage types based on the attack Pool, Gun Damage, burst type, off hand penalty, armor value, etc.
ReplyDeleteclear all
format short g
format compact
clc
a=20; %attack Pool
b=6; %Gun Damage
c=0; %Recoil Controll
d=6; %Burst Count(semi=1, short=3, long=6)
e=1; %Narrow burst(1=yes, 0=no)
f=0; %Off hand(1=yes, 0=no)
g=0; %called shot(1=yes, 0=no)
h=0; %range penalty
j=6; %Defense pool
l=20; %Armor
m=1; %Health
i=(a-4*g-2*f-(d-1-c));%total attack pool;
k=j-(1-e)*(d-1);%total defense pool
m=zeros(50,1);
m(1,1)=2/3;
m(2,1)=1/3;
if i>1
for x=[2:i]
for n=[2:50]
m(1,x)=m(1,x-1)*2/3;
m(n,x)=(m(n,x-1)*2/3)+(m(n-1,x-1)/3);
end
end
m=m(1:50,i);
end
if k>1
for x=[2:k+1]
for n=[1:49]
m(n,x)=m(n,x-1)*2/3+(m(n+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
m=m(1:50,k+1);
end
for x=[1:50]
m1(b+e*(d-1)+x,1)=m(x,1);
end
m=m1;
%shock=non-lethal
%lethal=lethal
shock=zeros(50,2);
lethal=zeros(50,2);
for x=[1:50]
if x>l
lethal(x,1)=m(x,1);
else
shock(x,1)=m(x,1);
end
end
if l>0
for x=[2:l+1]
for n=[1:49]
shock(n,x)=shock(n,x-1)*2/3+(shock(n+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
shock=shock(1:50,l+1);
end
if l>0
for x=[2:l+1]
for n=[1:49]
lethal(n,x)=lethal(n,x-1)*2/3+(lethal(n+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
lethal=lethal(1:50,l+1);
end
x=[0:49]';
plot(x,shock,x,lethal)
xlabel('damage')
ylabel('chance')
legend('shock damage','Lethal damage')
...aaaaannnd i forgot to account for AP values from guns. Ill flush out the code a bit more and make it simpler to use, maybe even with a gui. I'll post the rest of it in a day or two.
DeleteHere is the fixed code:
Deleteclear all
format short g
format compact
clc
a=19; %attack Pool
b=6; %Gun Damage
c=10; %Recoil Controll
d=6; %Burst Count(semi=1, short=3, long=6)
e=1; %Narrow burst(1=yes, 0=no)
f=0; %Off hand(1=yes, 0=no)
g=0; %called shot(1=yes, 0=no)
h=0; %range penalty
j=6; %Defense pool
l=17; %Armor
m=1; %Health
n=1; %armor piercing value
o=7; %body value
if c>b
c=b-1
end
i=(a-4*g-2*f-(d-1-c));%total attack pool;
k=j-(1-e)*(d-1)-n;%total soak pool
m=zeros(50,1);
m(1,1)=2/3;
m(2,1)=1/3;
if i>1
for x=[2:i]
for n=[2:50]
m(1,x)=m(1,x-1)*2/3;
m(n,x)=(m(n,x-1)*2/3)+(m(n-1,x-1)/3);
end
end
m=m(1:50,i);
end
if k>1
for x=[2:k+1]
for n=[1:49]
m(n,x)=m(n,x-1)*2/3+(m(n+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
m=m(1:50,k+1);
end
for x=[1:50]
m1(b+e*(d-1)+x,1)=m(x,1);
end
m=m1;
m
%shock=non-lethal
%lethal=lethal
shock=zeros(50,2);
lethal=zeros(50,2);
for x=[1:50]
if x>l
lethal(x,1)=m(x,1);
else
shock(x,1)=m(x,1);
end
end
if l+o>0
for x=[2:l+o+1]
for n=[1:49]
shock(n,x)=shock(n,x-1)*2/3+(shock(n+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
shock=shock(1:50,l+o+1);
end
if l+o>0
for x=[2:l+o+1]
for n=[1:49]
lethal(n,x)=lethal(n,x-1)*2/3+(lethal(n+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
lethal=lethal(1:50,l+o+1);
end
for y=[1:50]
lethal1(y,1)=sum(lethal(y:50,1))
shock1(y,1)=sum(shock(y:50,1))
end
x=[0:49]';
plot(x(1:20),shock1(1:20).*100,x(1:20),lethal1(1:20).*100)
grid minor
xlabel('damage')
ylabel('chance')
legend('shock damage','Lethal damage')
I really need a way to edit posts...anyways, found another error. Ill just wait until all of the errors in this code make itself apparent before I post another copy
DeleteAwesome. Let me know when you rattle the bugs out. I don't have Matlab, but I would like to try running it through Octave (a Free, open source alternative to Matlab) and see if it's compatible (much code is supposed to be).
DeleteHere it is with all of the bugs ironed out. If you remove the % on lines 21, 22, 97 and 98 it will give you several graphs so you can compare them. I am having a large problem with finding ways of calculating a two hit kill curve. The complications are that 9 lethal damage and 9 shock damage mean you are still alive if you have 10 physical and stun health, and that the recoil modifier may be different for the second shot in the turn. Ive banged my head aginst that problem for about two hours now and might be close to giving up.
DeleteThis calculator has made it very apparent that the "2 shot problem"(kiling someone in one shot is almost impossible, two shots is almost easy)it valid, and that there is no "damage is better than dicepool" general cases where it is always better to optimize for one value over the next.
clear all
format short g
format compact
clc
a=18; %attack Pool
b=7; %Gun Damage
c=20; %Recoil Controll
d=6; %Burst Count(semi=1, short=3, long=6)
e=1; %Narrow burst(1=yes, 0=no)
f=0; %Off hand(1=yes, 0=no)
g=1; %called shot(1=yes, 0=no)
h=0; %range penalty
j=9; %Defense pool
l=20; %Armor
m=1; %Health
n=1; %armor piercing value
o=10; %body value
%for b=[4:1:7]
%for a=[15:5:20]
if c>b
c=b-1;
end
info=sprintf('Attack Pool: %1.0f, Gun Damage: %1.0f, Defense Pool %1.0f, Armor %1.0f, Body %1.0f',a,b,j,l,o);
i=(a-4*g-2*f-(d-1-c));%total attack pool;
k=j-(1-e)*(d-1)-n;%total soak pool
m=zeros(50,1);
m(1,1)=2/3;
m(2,1)=1/3;
if i>1
for x=[2:i]
for p=[2:50]
m(1,x)=m(1,x-1)*2/3;
m(p,x)=(m(p,x-1)*2/3)+(m(p-1,x-1)/3);
end
end
m=m(1:50,i);
end
if k>1
for x=[2:k+1]
m(1,x)=m(1,x-1)+(m(1+1,x-1)/3);
for p=[2:49]
m(p,x)=m(p,x-1)*2/3+(m(p+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
m=m(1:50,k+1);
end
for x=[1:50]
m1(b+e*(d-1)+g*4+x,1)=m(x,1);
end
m=m1;
%shock=non-lethal
%lethal=lethal
shock=zeros(50,2);
lethal=zeros(50,2);
oneHkill=zeros(50,1);
twoHkill=zeros(50,1);
for x=[1:50]
if x>l
lethal(x,1)=m(x,1);
else
shock(x,1)=m(x,1);
end
end
if l+o>0
for x=[2:l+o+1]
for p=[1:49]
shock(p,x)=shock(p,x-1)*2/3+(shock(p+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
shock=shock(1:50,l+o+1);
end
if l+o>0
for x=[2:l+o+1]
for p=[1:49]
lethal(p,x)=lethal(p,x-1)*2/3+(lethal(p+1,x-1)/3);
end
end
lethal=lethal(1:50,l+o+1);
end
oneHkill=lethal+shock;
for y=[1:50]
lethal1(y,1)=sum(lethal(y:50,1));
shock1(y,1)=sum(shock(y:50,1));
oneHkill1(y,1)=sum(oneHkill(y:50,1));
twoHkill1(y,1)=sum(twoHkill(y:50,1));
end
x=[0:49]';
figure
plot(x(1:20),shock1(1:20).*100,x(1:20),lethal1(1:20).*100,x(1:20),oneHkill1(1:20).*100);
grid minor
xlabel('Damge Done')
ylabel('% Chance')
legend('shock damage','Lethal damage','One Hit Kill')
title(info)
%end
%end
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=37949&st=0&gopid=1186014&#entry1186014
DeleteThis is me posting the program in the Shadowrun fourms, it would probably be easier for you to make an account there(and send a email to the admin to get posting rights) than for us to use this un-editpostable comment fourm
I would love to try this program but I do not have Matlab. Few questions, when you say it's almost impossible to kill in one shot do you mean dead or incapacitated? I think a character is only dies once the over flow damage on the health track is greater than their body. Also is a single shot: a single bullet or can it be a burst or even full-auto? And are you including assault cannons in firearms?
Delete