Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: valavaern on <02-02-13/0300:13>
-
In the spirit of the head-scratching legality/availability of High-powered ammo when compared to the guns that fire them, I've found another odd gun-ammo pairing that I don't think has been errata'd yet either that people might want to watch out for:
Both items are from Arsenal:
Ares Screech Sonic Beam Rifle availability: 16 (pg. 39, 41)
Power Clip to run it: 14F (pg. 36)
...
Don't even need a license for the gun, but you better watch your back if they catch you with the battery for it~
-
Why doesn't it use regular battery packs, or plug in like everything else?
-
Yeah thats gotta be a typo, (obviously).
-
IIRC there are several weapons that come with the 'high powered chambering' mod which are chargen legal and not even forbidden. High powered ammo was 20F though...
-
Yeah friggen right, I dunno who's responsible for these inconsistencies, but I hope they see us pointing them out constantly on the forums.
Just set regular ammo to be 10-20% more expensive than it regularly is in your group (For instance I charge 20% normal for ammo, so it'd be 30%), and call it high powered ammo. As for battery for this thing, just use the regular power packs and set their availability to restricted, or plug it into a car.
-
IIRC there are several weapons that come with the 'high powered chambering' mod which are chargen legal and not even forbidden. High powered ammo was 20F though...
Most hilarious part is that one of them is called a "semi-legal assault cannon" in the shadow talk.
Simplest house rule fix is to just change the guns from R to F.
-
No need to change the availabilities. Afterall, without ammo, a gun is just a fancy club. Make it hard to get ammo outside of legitimate, SIN-tracking methods, and even if the gun is easy enough to get hold of, you won't find people going crazy with the trigger against you. Meanwhile, if you make the ammo, you can always toss in a few clips as part of the deal when working with runners.
-
Make it hard to get ammo outside of legitimate, SIN-tracking methods
You might want to look up what availability "F" means...
-
It means "if the police catch you with it, they shoot first and ask questions later", it doesn't mean "this can't be found". I think Mirikon's point still stands - similar sentiments have been proposed in Europe and NA in relation to gun control, and think tanks have estimated that it would significantly cut down on firearm violence because it would force people to think differently about how they use what they have. Whether reality would bear this up is unknown, because I can't find a place that's actually tried "bullet control", but take it for what you will.
-
Honestly, I hope that in the new edition, they determine the availabilities of the ammunition for special weapons (rocket launchers, lasers, that sonic thing) by taking the weapon availability and subtracting something in the range of 1-3, while using the same 'legality' as the base weapon.
-
I think Mirikon's point still stands
Mirikon's assumption was that such ammo is hard to come by "outside of legitimate, SIN-tracking methods". The reality is that anything with an F rating is illegal for private possession, SIN checks or not.
-
I think Mirikon's point still stands
Mirikon's assumption was that such ammo is hard to come by "outside of legitimate, SIN-tracking methods". The reality is that anything with an F rating is illegal for private possession, SIN checks or not.
Yes, private possession. I never mentioned anything about private, corporate, police, or military possession, did I?
-
I think Mirikon's point still stands
Mirikon's assumption was that such ammo is hard to come by "outside of legitimate, SIN-tracking methods". The reality is that anything with an F rating is illegal for private possession, SIN checks or not.
Yes, private possession. I never mentioned anything about private, corporate, police, or military possession, did I?
That still doesn't explain why the Gun(s) are perfectly legal to own, but the bullets aren't. What are you supposed to do, hang them on your wall?!
Also, as has been stated before, High Powered ammo isn't anything special or unique; they're just magnum rounds, and even in this day and age you can get them out of the same cabinet at Walmart as all the other ammo.
-
That still doesn't explain why the Gun(s) are perfectly legal to own, but the bullets aren't. What are you supposed to do, hang them on your wall?!
Yes.
-
Please, go educate yourselves on how expensive and "Restricted" ammo really is. (http://www.luckygunner.com/handgun/357-magnum-ammo) If you already know this fine, but perspective never killed anyone.
-
Whether reality would bear this up is unknown, because I can't find a place that's actually tried "bullet control", but take it for what you will.
Try the United States of America. I can own a blackpowder, muzzle-loading weapon without restriction. Why? The National Firearms Act does not classify that specific class of weapon as a firearm. An example of this would be a cannon. If I were to take that perfectly legal cannon and load it with a shell that explodes now I find myself with a legal problem. The shell is classified as a destructive device and is illegal to own without the appropriate federal license. At $400/item just for the tax stamp the price for the shells are crazy.
-
Yes, private possession. I never mentioned anything about private, corporate, police, or military possession, did I?
Corporations or state actors do not have SINs, so obviously your tidbit about "legitimate, SIN-tracking methods" referred to individual possession. It happens...
-
Please, go educate yourselves on how expensive and "Restricted" ammo really is. (http://www.luckygunner.com/handgun/357-magnum-ammo) If you already know this fine, but perspective never killed anyone.
Yes, because nothing on the Internet skirts local legal issues. </sarcasm>
Corporations or state actors do not have SINs, so obviously your tidbit about "legitimate, SIN-tracking methods" referred to individual possession. It happens...
Um, Sengir, corporations do give SINs to their employees, if they're AA or higher, and if they're lower, then they make sure their employees have SINs from the state. And you certainly need (or will be issued) a SIN to be part of the police or a national military.
-
No need to change the availabilities. Afterall, without ammo, a gun is just a fancy club. Make it hard to get ammo outside of legitimate, SIN-tracking methods, and even if the gun is easy enough to get hold of, you won't find people going crazy with the trigger against you. Meanwhile, if you make the ammo, you can always toss in a few clips as part of the deal when working with runners.
But high power ammo isn't "hard to get ammo outside of legitimate, SIN-tracking methods", it's totally illegal to own, thats massively different think.
And gun that can only fire such ammo, shouldn't be something you can get with a licence, as that doesn't make any sense. Who the heck would sell(and who the heck would hand out licences for) guns that can't be legally used at all.
-
Okay here we go, ammo, high powered or "Milspec" or not, isn't that hard to come across. The ammo shouldn't be F, unless it has no purpose other than military application, like explosive ammo or tungsten flechettes. High powered ammo should just be a modifier to ammo that increases its price by a bit and its availability by +2 or +4. It's not the legal issues I'm trying to point out so much as how stupidly common bullets are, home defense magnum JHP ammo or just regular bullets, some are going to be harder to come across and be marketed towards law enforcement but bullets are cheap and ubiquitous.
-
No need to change the availabilities. Afterall, without ammo, a gun is just a fancy club. Make it hard to get ammo outside of legitimate, SIN-tracking methods, and even if the gun is easy enough to get hold of, you won't find people going crazy with the trigger against you. Meanwhile, if you make the ammo, you can always toss in a few clips as part of the deal when working with runners.
But high power ammo isn't "hard to get ammo outside of legitimate, SIN-tracking methods", it's totally illegal to own, thats massively different think.
And gun that can only fire such ammo, shouldn't be something you can get with a licence, as that doesn't make any sense. Who the heck would sell(and who the heck would hand out licences for) guns that can't be legally used at all.
Why is it different? If it is totally illegal for civilians to own, then would it not be hard to get outside of sources with corporate or military connections? Restricting the flow of ammo, especially for weapons that only take that kind of ammo, means that you can equip people with guns when they work for you, but it is harder for those guns to be used against you in the future, since you are the one who makes the ammo. Meaning that the weapons themselves are less likely to 'fall off the back of a truck' than ones that can take more types of ammo, so these higher end weapons are going to be relatively rare when you're facing off against 'terrorist groups' (read: Shadowrunners, organized crime, and the like). It is a subtle means of control to keep people in line with your interests, much like how transport fees on, say, food that go up and down with the 'instability' of an area may persuade locals to toe the line.
Okay here we go, ammo, high powered or "Milspec" or not, isn't that hard to come across. The ammo shouldn't be F, unless it has no purpose other than military application, like explosive ammo or tungsten flechettes. High powered ammo should just be a modifier to ammo that increases its price by a bit and its availability by +2 or +4. It's not the legal issues I'm trying to point out so much as how stupidly common bullets are, home defense magnum JHP ammo or just regular bullets, some are going to be harder to come across and be marketed towards law enforcement but bullets are cheap and ubiquitous.
Bullets may be, Aryeonos, especially in the real world. However, we're talking about a game world, where there are controls in place to keep people from doing stupid things like modding an assault cannon to FA and making it belt-fed. As for why the ammunition is controlled, read above. Perfectly legit, in-game reason for ammo to be restricted more heavily than weapons. It is another level of the corps trying to control the criminal element. If you accept that criminals are going to get guns, regardless, then by making certain types of ammunition more difficult to obtain, you can coerce people into getting less threatening ammo for their weapons, or force them to be more particular with how they use their ammo. It isn't about the ammo itself, but about trying to control behavior.
-
I understand that concept, but you have to understand that putting laws in place on anything isn't going to stop people from getting their hands on it, and something as easy to manufacture like ammo is going to have a thriving underground economy. Just like regular business on common items like soda or popcorn, they will undercut eachother and still make a killing on items that cost relatively little to produce. Now that goes for simple things like FMJ, JHP, Gel Rounds, Capsule Rounds, Magnum ammo, and probably to some extent armour piercing rounds and flechette. Complex ammo that requires delicate chemistry or electronics like EX (Don't know why the whole bullet is explosive and not just cored.) Stick'n'Shock, sensor rounds, and the like are obviously going to stay expensive no matter what. But I don't buy for a second that an FMJ bullet of normal load will( Or should ) cost more than a nuyen for anything but special large rifle ammo, or slugs.
-
California, of all places, has a pretty effective ammo control system. Law requires people to get fingerprinted when buying ammo. It's not illegal to buy ammo, but investigators can see "hey, this felon bought ammo" and start to look into if he illegally has a weapon. Because ammo is legal, a black market for ammo hasn't evolved (yet). So it is easier to get a black market gun than black market ammo.
This is recent. We will see if the black market responds like I think it probably will, which is just to have a legal citizen buy ammo and just sell it to a felon on the DL. Kinda like people that buy cigarettes for minors.
-
Why is it different? If it is totally illegal for civilians to own, then would it not be hard to get outside of sources with corporate or military connections? Restricting the flow of ammo, especially for weapons that only take that kind of ammo, means that you can equip people with guns when they work for you, but it is harder for those guns to be used against you in the future, since you are the one who makes the ammo. Meaning that the weapons themselves are less likely to 'fall off the back of a truck' than ones that can take more types of ammo, so these higher end weapons are going to be relatively rare when you're facing off against 'terrorist groups' (read: Shadowrunners, organized crime, and the like). It is a subtle means of control to keep people in line with your interests, much like how transport fees on, say, food that go up and down with the 'instability' of an area may persuade locals to toe the line.
But it's not hard to get for criminals, they just buy from black market, same as they buy the guns.
Where as a civilian can get a permit for the gun no problem, but he can't legally posses ammo for it at all, how in the world can you claim that makes anykind of sense what so ever..
-
Also, although it is possible, I can't build my own gun from scratch. I can, however, make my own ammo (and do). Custom loaded ammo is a pretty big hobby here in Texas. So I would have to agree with Max, ammo shouldn't be forbidden if you can own the gun. I can make .50 caliber ammo. I cant own a Browning M2.
-
So I would have to agree with Max, ammo shouldn't be forbidden if you can own the gun.
One little think, my position was that the gun shouldn't be R when it can only fire F rated ammo.
But really everything would have been so much better if it would have been something like this:
"High-Power Chambering: This modification reinforces the chamber of a gun so it can handle higher pressures generated by High-Power ammo(also know as magnum loads)"
"High-Power ammo: High.Power ammo uses a more powerful(and expensive) propellant that normal ammo, this add +1 to DV, +4 availebility and +50% to price of the ammo, high-power ammo is available in all the same variants as normal ammo(except S&S and capsule rounds), if High-Power ammo is fired from a gun without High-Power chambering there is a chance it might break the gun, roll one dice on a result of 1 the gun breaks."
-
Corporations or state actors do not have SINs, so obviously your tidbit about "legitimate, SIN-tracking methods" referred to individual possession. It happens...
Um, Sengir, corporations do give SINs to their employees, if they're AA or higher, and if they're lower, then they make sure their employees have SINs from the state. And you certainly need (or will be issued) a SIN to be part of the police or a national military.
...all of which is totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand. If something can only be possessed by the military, then the military owns it and not the personnel (or do you believe pilots own their jets?). Therefore it is clear as day that your claim of "F" items being available through "legitimate, SIN-tracking methods" referred to individual possession, which does not happen, end of discussion.
As a hint for the future, if you are wrong either admit it or let the issue rest. Protesting you were right after all depending "on what the meaning of the words 'is' is" for days only makes you like foolish and brings far more attention to your mistake than it could possibly have gained otherwise.
-
But it's not hard to get for criminals, they just buy from black market, same as they buy the guns.
Where as a civilian can get a permit for the gun no problem, but he can't legally posses ammo for it at all, how in the world can you claim that makes anykind of sense what so ever..
Yes, they have the gun. But without ammo, it is a fancy club, and therefore not dangerous. As far as criminals go, the more restrictive the supply, the greater the cost, and the harder it is to acquire. That's basic economics. So yes, for specialty weapons like were being discussed earlier, it makes a lot of sense. Because unlike the what the people who are going on and on about how they can make their own bullets, the original post is talking about high tech, highly specialized ammo.
...all of which is totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand. If something can only be possessed by the military, then the military owns it and not the personnel (or do you believe pilots own their jets?). Therefore it is clear as day that your claim of "F" items being available through "legitimate, SIN-tracking methods" referred to individual possession, which does not happen, end of discussion.
As a hint for the future, if you are wrong either admit it or let the issue rest. Protesting you were right after all depending "on what the meaning of the words 'is' is" for days only makes you like foolish and brings far more attention to your mistake than it could possibly have gained otherwise.
<SNL>
Jane you ignorant slut.
</SNL>
Sorry, but are you just deliberately misreading my words? I never said anything about the individuals owning the weapons, or the ammo. I never said anything about private possession. I was referring to police, corporate security, military forces, and others who are ISSUED the weapons and ammo. So please sit down and shut up. Thank you.
-
But it's not hard to get for criminals, they just buy from black market, same as they buy the guns.
Where as a civilian can get a permit for the gun no problem, but he can't legally posses ammo for it at all, how in the world can you claim that makes anykind of sense what so ever..
Yes, they have the gun. But without ammo, it is a fancy club, and therefore not dangerous. As far as criminals go, the more restrictive the supply, the greater the cost, and the harder it is to acquire. That's basic economics. So yes, for specialty weapons like were being discussed earlier, it makes a lot of sense. Because unlike the what the people who are going on and on about how they can make their own bullets, the original post is talking about high tech, highly specialized ammo.
<SNL>
Jane you ignorant slut.
</SNL>
So your honestly claiming that you see a police(ir who ever does it in any given part of SR world) handing out permits for guns that can't be legally used as making sense.
Thats so utterly ridiculous i can't even think of words to describe it accurately.
-
Again, why wouldn't it make sense? The local government gets to sell permits for things, which gives them a record of who (legally) has these weapons. If the ammo is also harder to come by, then when one of these weapons is used in a bad way, you send cops to the people registered as having the gun, just to make sure it hasn't been 'misplaced', and send them around to the few arms dealers who can handle specialized ammo like that. Even if they can't get enough to make an arrest, simply having a surveillance van tailing them is going to make the arms dealers twitchy enough that they either will get out of selling that kind of ammo, or will be making it much tougher on their customers to cover the cost of avoiding the scrutiny. Either way, it acts as an active deterrent to keep the weapons from being misused.
-
Again, why wouldn't it make sense? The local government gets to sell permits for things, which gives them a record of who (legally) has these weapons. If the ammo is also harder to come by, then when one of these weapons is used in a bad way, you send cops to the people registered as having the gun, just to make sure it hasn't been 'misplaced', and send them around to the few arms dealers who can handle specialized ammo like that. Even if they can't get enough to make an arrest, simply having a surveillance van tailing them is going to make the arms dealers twitchy enough that they either will get out of selling that kind of ammo, or will be making it much tougher on their customers to cover the cost of avoiding the scrutiny. Either way, it acts as an active deterrent to keep the weapons from being misused.
It makes absolutely no sense as there is no right way to use these guns, just owning ammo to them gets you thrown in prison.
Thats kinda like making comlink operating systems illegal while keeping the commlinks them self as somethink anyone can buy, how exactly are people supposed to use them.
-
Again, why wouldn't it make sense? The local government gets to sell permits for things, which gives them a record of who (legally) has these weapons. If the ammo is also harder to come by, then when one of these weapons is used in a bad way, you send cops to the people registered as having the gun, just to make sure it hasn't been 'misplaced', and send them around to the few arms dealers who can handle specialized ammo like that. Even if they can't get enough to make an arrest, simply having a surveillance van tailing them is going to make the arms dealers twitchy enough that they either will get out of selling that kind of ammo, or will be making it much tougher on their customers to cover the cost of avoiding the scrutiny. Either way, it acts as an active deterrent to keep the weapons from being misused.
It makes absolutely no sense as there is no right way to use these guns, just owning ammo to them gets you thrown in prison.
Thats kinda like making comlink operating systems illegal while keeping the commlinks them self as somethink anyone can buy, how exactly are people supposed to use them.
There is a right way to use the guns, Max. Namely: police, corporate security, military, security contractors, licensed mercenaries, and hanging it on a wall/displaying it on your desk.
-
There is a right way to use the guns, Max. Namely: police, corporate security, military, security contractors, licensed mercenaries
None of who have trouble getting F rated guns if they can get F rated ammo, so once again please tell me whats the point of the gun(s) being R rated.
Also none of them own the guns themself except maybe the merc(even in his case the good stuff most likely belongs to the merc company)
-
I never said anything about the individuals owning the weapons, or the ammo.
OK, let's take your backpedaling at face value: You said this ammunition can be owned with a SIN, yet this was only referring to cases where the ammo is owned by some legal entity.
Therefore you obviously claim that corps or nations have a SIN. Given that a SIN includes biometrics, genetic information, and a nationality, you therefore just told us that the UCAS has genes and is citizen of some corp/nation.
You really would have been better off just saying "oops, I confused two letters". Si tacuisses...
-
Those two things, geen'yoos.
And again, making something illegal to own (Not slap on the wrist you don't have a permit illegal. You're violating a convention of war by being an illegitimate combatant by holding on to this, illegal.) Is not, ever, going to stop people from getting it, whatever it is. You probably won't see jimmy cruising around in his Gaz Willies with a CIWS gun bolted into it every day. But Mr. and Ms. Doe (or Mr. UCAS) live in a bad neighborhood and understand that regular 9mm's aren't going to save their lives in a pinch, but they know the top shelf magnum load +P rounds that are forbidden that go in their registered guns WILL. People, criminal or otherwise, will get what they believe they need, outlawing it makes it so that NOW the item in question is being produced by underground sources and isn't traceable with nice RFID tags and being filed under their SIN. So now, you think that everyone is being good with their gun licenses and collecting pistols, completely unaware that that collectors item is actually in Ms. Doe's purse and loaded.
-
Max, the fact is that even in the military, someone's name is on the purchase order. It is probably a general at the fighter jet level, but the point is valid. I have personally driven in my own vehicle with 6 M240B machine guns in the back. (They were secure BTW) I still had to show ID and paperwork to get onto the base. An engineer for Lockheed may have Top Secret documents to transport. Gotta have ID for that (and a slew of other restrictions). The point is, they don't own the weapons (or documents, etc.) but they (I) dang sure had possession if them. All those cases still require a SIN.
-
Honestly, while I consider it stupid that the guns are legal and the ammo is not, that's not the biggest problem for a shadowrunner (Who the setting revolves around and, lets face it, who we're primarily interested in. It's not called Wageslave: 6th world edition after all!).
The big problem for a shadowrunner is that many of the guns that come with high powered chambering as standard (Which are almost universally better than just grabbing a gun from the same category and adding the upgrade after market) are available at character generation, but to buy ammunition for them you need to take the restricted gear quality. Gameplay wise this makes no sense to me.
-
Max, the fact is that even in the military, someone's name is on the purchase order. It is probably a general at the fighter jet level, but the point is valid. I have personally driven in my own vehicle with 6 M240B machine guns in the back. (They were secure BTW) I still had to show ID and paperwork to get onto the base. An engineer for Lockheed may have Top Secret documents to transport. Gotta have ID for that (and a slew of other restrictions). The point is, they don't own the weapons (or documents, etc.) but they (I) dang sure had possession if them. All those cases still require a SIN.
But militaries and what not have absolutely no bearing on the legal codes in the books, those are for civilians only(if you really havent noticed, the military gear is pretty universally F rated, barring few oddities)
-
Yes, meaning that civilians can have the new shiny as a wallhanger, but actually being able to use it means you're either breaking laws or are part of a military, corpsec, or whatever.
-
Those two things, geen'yoos.
And again, making something illegal to own (Not slap on the wrist you don't have a permit illegal. You're violating a convention of war by being an illegitimate combatant by holding on to this, illegal.) Is not, ever, going to stop people from getting it, whatever it is. You probably won't see jimmy cruising around in his Gaz Willies with a CIWS gun bolted into it every day. But Mr. and Ms. Doe (or Mr. UCAS) live in a bad neighborhood and understand that regular 9mm's aren't going to save their lives in a pinch, but they know the top shelf magnum load +P rounds that are forbidden that go in their registered guns WILL. People, criminal or otherwise, will get what they believe they need, outlawing it makes it so that NOW the item in question is being produced by underground sources and isn't traceable with nice RFID tags and being filed under their SIN. So now, you think that everyone is being good with their gun licenses and collecting pistols, completely unaware that that collectors item is actually in Ms. Doe's purse and loaded.
Which has to do what with the topic and hand? Oh nevermind, you just wanted to rant about gun control a bit...
-
No, I'm pointing out how Mirikon's point doesn't make sense. But, glad you were there to notice that.
Yes, meaning that civilians can have the new shiny as a wallhanger, but actually being able to use it means you're either breaking laws or are part of a military, corpsec, or whatever.
Did you miss the point? Making something illegal isn't going to stop anyone who feels they have reason to own it, it just makes it untaxable, and untraceable. That is not in corp interest.
-
No, I'm pointing out how Mirikon's point doesn't make sense. But, glad you were there to notice that.
Yes, meaning that civilians can have the new shiny as a wallhanger, but actually being able to use it means you're either breaking laws or are part of a military, corpsec, or whatever.
Did you miss the point? Making something illegal isn't going to stop anyone who feels they have reason to own it, it just makes it untaxable, and untraceable. That is not in corp interest.
1) Corps don't collect taxes on things off corporate property.
2) Just because it is illegal, doesn't mean it is untraceable. Two words: Stealth RFIDs. I could go on into the various other ways specialty ammo could be traced, but that'll do for now.
3) Whether the ammo is sold at Weapons World or at the Crime Mall, the corp that made the ammo still profits. Or did you think that corps don't arrange for items to 'find' their way into the black market?
4) A controlled supply of ammo makes troublesome weapons less likely to be used wantonly against you.
5) If you limit the supply of ammo, that means anyone wanting to use that ammo needs to come to you. That same philosophy can be seen in Gun Heaven 2, with the discussion on S-K's new bullets. Control the supply, and you are able to control how it is used against you.
-
5) If you limit the supply of ammo, that means anyone wanting to use that ammo needs to come to you. That same philosophy can be seen in Gun Heaven 2, with the discussion on S-K's new bullets. Control the supply, and you are able to control how it is used against you.
That is the only ammo type in the setting that is pretty well controlled by someone and considering it suck SK can keep it.
-
It might not be that great, yet. But Mk. 1 means they plan to make improvements...
-
Because no one has the technology to make their own guns and ammo, and making it harder to get something will increase their profits.
-
Because no one has the technology to make their own guns and ammo, and making it harder to get something will increase their profits.
There's an ENORMOUS difference between 'hard' and 'impossible to do legally'.
-
I'm not sure if my sarcasm was evident. But, to recap my points
*Illegal doesn't mean it's off the market, just under the radar, forbidden or not it will continue to exist on the black market
*People will break copyrights and shamelessly reproduce something for a profit if they can, proprietary anything doesn't mean jack squat to the black market.
*You can't trace something you didn't make, law enforcement could trace black market activity, but you can't put your RFID chips into it.
*If it is legal, there will be a grey market on it, but at that point the corps can then still trace things.
It was a bad bad discrepancy in the books, that's it, it needs to be retconned there isn't a special corp strategy logic to it, get off it.