Modern/Futuristic ROS

[Caz]

I guess I was kinda going off a 9mm and 5.56 mm round.
That's just my first guess, and they're more generic than anything.  
For the high damage of the rifle, I was taking armour penetration into account, as not much in the way of (practical) modern armour will stop a high powered rifle round.
   And, I was supposing it should be able to average around 10 pts of damage actually applied to a persons TO and wound lvl after a certain amount of protection.  (if medieval armour can reach AV 6, modern is probably at least that much)If they aren't wearing armour, standing behind cover, whatever, that much is lost and doesn't matter anyway.

   How would you guys suggest handling automatic fire?  
Reuse your same MP for every round fired in a burst, at -1 CP (depending on the weapon) for each successive shot sound alright?

[Jasper the Mimbo]

I'd handle auto fire and three round bursts as manuvers. For automatic,  pay activation cost, representing greater difficulty in aiming a bucking rifle and get a massive damage bonus. Should only be effective at short ranges. Spraying rounds en-mass at greater distance or in wide fire arcs is called "cover fire" and should be a different manuver.
For three round bursts the rules should be similar but not as penalizing at distance. Perhapse it would allow for three seperate attack rolls to the same taget area, take the best roll and use it to apply damage. If the others were sucessful as attacks as well we could use the "worrying the wound" rules from the book or just bump up the DR by 1 per round. This allows armor to absorb each individual round before damage.

Armor should deteriorate. Im thinking, reduce armor value by one for each round taken. Standard kevlar vests are made to absorb 1-2 small calibur bullets fired from small arms, after that they have much less ability to absorb impact. Also, modern armor is made to stop bullets, not swords. Medievil armor is made to stop swords, not bullets. Bullet proof vests work off of the ability to transfer blunt trauma over a larger surface area, thus reducing point damage, but not impact. It still feels like taking a shot to the chest from Tyson. A sharp knife will berely notice a flack vest. New types of modern armor are experimenting with layering materials. Flak style padding on the surface for shrapnel, hard ceramic or plastic under that for punctures and slashes, and then the kevlar.

Modern weapons could simply be given base DR's based on size and type of firearm, and similar to rules for hammers and picks, have a substantial bonus against hard armors. The firearms rules in Cyberpunk 2020 are the best i've seen, good referance material.

I see small arms not having DR's greater than 10 or 12. People suvive gunshot wounds all the time. Not just soldiers, regular people. Two weeks ago there was a drive-by shooting in my town. A 16 year old girl stuck her head out the door when she heard the shots and got hit by a stray bullet. In the face. The .22 calibur round lodged in her nasal cavity. She was released from the hospital less than 12 hours later. Bullets are bad news, for sure, but the facts are that 80 percent of bullet wounds are non-fatal as long as the victem can recieve medical treatment.

[Sir Mathodius Black]

Actually, kevlar vests these days can survive multiple small arms shots over and over and still be fully functional.  These things can even take multiple shots in the same place and still be ok.  But anyway, im not sure about haveing automatic weapons be like maneuvers.  Im not even sure about only being able to fire a single round from, say , a semi automatic every round.  Basically, i think that there should be two modes of shooting: aiming and wild volleys (for the lack of a better name).  Its easy to let off multiple rounds from a semiautomatic round in 1-2 seconds, but to aim effectively you wuld probably only get one.  therefore you should probably have the option of shooting one bullet a round at a low ATN or multiple ones for a higher ATN.  

......Ionno i just woke up maybe this makes no sense....

[Caz]

There are a few things wrong with some of your points (I'm not trashing on you though).  
   Armour deterioration is extremely unrealistic, unless you're planning on getting the guy through the hole 9mm wide you just put in his armour.  Though it should be kept in mind to make your pcs pay for repairs occasionally, medieval or modern.
   
   you're right about loose kevlar not being made to withstand blades.  Resin bonded kevlar, though, can very well.  (such as in helmets)
   
   Good point on people suriving gunshot wounds.  I haven't figured an ideal way around that in tros.  Seems all or nothing.
 
    Adding automatic fire up to one big DR is very unrealistic.  That means that say, 3 individual bullets can hit armour on exactly the same spot and punch through it.  Or 3 rounds strike a person, not in exactly the same spot, but just close enough together to make a really big hole.  Automatic fire can be, and is taught to be, in civilized countries, very accurate, unless you're firing on an area target.  Then it's suppressive fire, often used to "cover".  The method I stated so far best reflects the effects of aimed auto fire and recoil.  Every round has the chance to damage individually.  
   And, in a standing unsupported firing position, most often several of your rounds will miss in a burst, even as close as 15 meters.
   But I've put entire 6 round bursts through a bowling pin target at 600 meters with a light machine gun, in a good firing position.

[Kaare_Berg]

Nice shooting Caz, what LMG? What kind of mounting?

Anyhow:

Why such a high DR?

Being whacked with a sword or shot makes no difference. You are still going to end up badly hurt or in the deadbook.

Why are then guns used, and not medival weapons?
Well less training and damage at range makes a gun preferrable to waving a spear around. Not higher damage. Amputated and bleeding is amputated and bleeding.

Higher DR may make up for such things as tumbling, but if you want to go there you might end up in a world of hurt (no pun intended, really).
As you might end up having to deal with multiple locations and such.

[Jasper the Mimbo]

I dont think I was as clear as I should've been. When I was talking about where rounds were impacting I didn't mean to make it seem like they were hitting in the exact same spot, that's just silly. How I ment it was that using the ROS damage tables, being hit in the same area of the chart multipul times simply means you take the most damaging result, Being shot in the leg sucks, but the difference between being shot in the leg once or three times isn't that extreem. You're still screwed.

I've never seen rigid kevlar body armor before. If it's the same stuff as the helmets I really would not want to wear it. Cumbersome. Of course it's probably less cumbersome than a bullet in the lung. Given the choice I'd take something with some flexibility. Each shot taken by a regular protective vest does weaken it's structural integrity and make it less effective against successive shots. I'm sure there are armor types out there that are better, I'm just not familiar with them.

Sir Mathodius brings up a good point about rates of fire. ROF does not represent actual speed of firing. It's a good idea to aim first, say using missle pool refresh rules without preparation time. Unless of course it's close quarters with multipul targets and autofire weapons. In that case screw aiming. Snag some cover and severely upset the open air vs. lead ratio. Really folks, watch Equilibrium. The principle of the "Gun Kata" is really cool.

I'm really not very good at the mechanics aspect of this discussion, but it seems to me that the basics of it already exist within the rules. The stuff I cant make work within the rules as they stand are area effect things, like grenades, flame throwers and machine guns. (I know, I know. Machine guns are quite accurate and capable of point targeting. Come on though. Happyness is a 300 round belt and one solid trigger squeeze.) The idea of a TROS flamethrower is scary.

Kaare, you are so right. Guns are weapons of choice now not because they do greatly more damage than other weapons but because they do it at longer range with less training.

[Caz]

My LMG of choice is the M-249.  On its bipod.  Though I've seen the same accuracy with M-60s and M-240 Bs.
   This is getting to much for me, I'm not trying to write a supplement here.  Anyway, my concept of high DR was simply to allow for proper materiel penetration, be it certain body armour or car doors, whatever.
   Here's another idea I'll throw out off the top of my head.  Rolling random wound levels for bullet wounds.  Use the DR only for armor penetration. ?
   I dunno.

[deltadave]

I would treat firearms the same as other missile weapons with a bit higher of an ST. The big difference between shooting someone with a bow or with a bullet is the training required. Any goon off of the street can pick up a pistol and have a reasonable expectation of hitting a dinner plate at 10 yards whereas with a bow you do not have that expectation.  

Semiautomatic weapons have a reload/refresh time of 0 unless it is time to change magazines in which case refresh doesn't start for at least 2 rounds and possibly more. Multiple shots could be taken in one round, each successive shot with a pistol lowering the MP by 1 in addition to the MP spent for each shot.

Semiauto rifles lower MP by 2 for each successive shot in a round.

Automatic rifles have a higher TN if fired full auto. 1 die in the roll per round fired. Maximum rate of fire is the cyclic rate of the weapon divided by 60. (800RPM = 13 rounds per round). Refresh after a full auto burst, 1 unless you want to continue un aimed fire (raise TN by 2).  This is obviously modified by the mount of the weapon (bipod, pintel mound, etc)

Bolt action rifles have a refresh time of between 1 and 5 rounds depending on the weapon.

Does any of this sound useful?

[Caz]

I think that the refresh time accurately reflects the time it takes to assess and take aim.  I thought that was what it was for with bow and everything else.
   The reason soldiers move under fire in 3 second rushes is that's an average time it takes to draw a bead on a target of opportunity like that.  Instant MP refresh would be too quick unless firing randomly.

[Kaare_Berg]

Caz Wrote

Anyway, my concept of high DR was simply to allow for proper materiel penetration, be it certain body armour or car doors, whatever

Why not have armour multipliers depending on the caliber of the bullets and such. Thus a 7.62N might punch trough the brick wall you are hiding behind while the 9mm will not.

This will at the same time let people survive the odd bullet.

Keep up the good work Caz, Can't wait to see your results.

[Jasper the Mimbo]

Dave,

I really like your suggestions, but I've got some questions.

Semiauto rifles lower MP by 2 for each successive shot in a round.

Does this mean that you could pay a cp cost for each additional round you want to fire, then devide the remainder of your pool by the number of attacks you're making?

Automatic rifles have a higher TN if fired full auto. 1 die in the roll per round fired. Maximum rate of fire is the cyclic rate of the weapon divided by 60. (800RPM = 13 rounds per round). Refresh after a full auto burst, 1 unless you want to continue un aimed fire (raise TN by 2). This is obviously modified by the mount of the weapon (bipod, pintel mound, etc)

I follow you here exept for "1 die in the roll per round fired." I don't understand what you mean. It might be easier just to assign weapons with multipul fire modes a differant TN for each mode. Say 6 for semi, 7 for burst and 8 for auto, or something like that.
I'm a big fan of keeping things as simple as possible.
Sorry that I can't follow your points. It's been a long day.

Kaare,
About armor multipliers.

Why not have armour multipliers depending on the caliber of the bullets and such. Thus a 7.62N might punch trough the brick wall you are hiding behind while the 9mm will not.

Would it work to simply give armor penatration values to different calibur rounds. What I mean in game terms is to treat them like warhammers, Say giving larger bullets damage bonuses verses armor. If a 7.62 round has a +4 damage bonus vs. armor It'll do the same amount of damage to a guy in a light vest as it will to a guy in a t-shirt. Sounds about right to me. You just have to make sure to only subtract the damage bonus from the armor value so that the guy in the 2 armor value flak vest dosen't end up taking more damage than he would without any armor at all. This serves to make high calibur bullets simply ignore light armor without making them so damaging as to make surviving a hit impossible.

[Kaare_Berg]

Like your comment Wolfsong, makes sense.

You just have to make sure to only subtract the damage bonus from the armor value so that the guy in the 2 armor value flak vest dosen't end up taking more damage than he would without any armor at all.

If you do not want to account for the fact that being shot with a light vest by a 7.62N makes the wound worse as it may tumble instead of going cleanly through. Thus you may be justified with the higher DR.

Semiauto rifles lower MP by 2 for each successive shot in a round.

Does this mean that you could pay a cp cost for each additional round you want to fire, then devide the remainder of your pool by the number of attacks you're making?

Sounds logical to me. It would account for recoil.

[deltadave]

My thinking was to divide the MP by the number of rounds fired, the number of rounds being declared ahead of time (if you have to stop and think about whether to shoot again it is the next round anyways).   Let the player divide the dice up into any number of shots, up to the ROF of the weapon,  The first shot being the most accurate (the most dice) and every shot after that being a little less accurate (number of dice in decending order) with a minimum of 1 die per round. The usable number of dice in the MP is what is left after paying the 1 or 2 MP per shot cost.  Firing with 1 die per shot is unaimed fire, hitting anything with that is basically pure luck.

Auto fire is a little different, especially since it is mostly used as supressive fire and generally unaimed.  My thought was the higher TN reflects the difficulty of hitting a specific target, but 1 round per die reflects the chance of hitting something with each one.  You are likely to hit something, but not quite sure what it will be.  Obviously this needs a bit of massaging to reflect aimed autofire.  maybe the player could designate an arc of fire and each die that passes the TN has an equal chance at anything inside that arc.  I don't have an MP cost for each round of auto fire since it is really unaimed.  

Some stuff that I haven't really had time to work out:  Weapons with a burst mode. firing from prone or vehicle mounted weapons. Large caliber weapons.

From my experience in the military and playing lots of paintball, by the time you see a target and take aim at it, the target is already gone.  To increase the odds of a hit, you have to lay down fire into likely areas and hope that someone sticks their head out or runs across your firing arc.  3 seconds is about the most that I would care to run, some guys can target, lead and drop you within 1-2 seconds of exposure. It's just a matter of practice.

[Caz]

2 more suggestions.....
   The size of the round shouldn't effect the armour penetration, only the power of the cartridge and the weapon design.  Example- A .45 caliber pistol round is much larger than a 5.56mm rifle round, but far less likely to penetrate armour, etc.

   Bullet tumbling is an old wives tale, like smashing someones nose into their brain or dropping pennies off the empire state building to have them drive through concrete.  It doesn't happen.

[Lebo77]

2 more suggestions.....
   The size of the round shouldn't effect the armour penetration, only the power of the cartridge and the weapon design.  Example- A .45 caliber pistol round is much larger than a 5.56mm rifle round, but far less likely to penetrate armour, etc.

   Bullet tumbling is an old wives tale, like smashing someones nose into their brain or dropping pennies off the empire state building to have them drive through concrete.  It doesn't happen.

With all due respect, tests with balistic gel have shown bullet tumble to be a real and observible event.  The diagram linked to below is a drawing of the wound track of a 7.62mm NATO round fired into balistic gel.  You can see that the bullet makes one complete flip, and winds up backwards.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/M80.jpg

The following image shows similar behavior with a 7.62mm Russian round, fired from an AK-47 into balistic gel. In this case the bullet makes A complete flip and once again winds up backwards in the target.  

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/AK-47%20762x39mm.jpg

Now, bullet tumble only happens with any regularity when the round is a high-velocity type (most often from a rifle).  Handgun ammo, even large types such as a .45 JHP do not usualy express this behavior.