[Headhunter]

One of my players wants to start making his own guns and i am wondering if there are any rules for gun making?

[Imveros]

there are books for it in past edditions, but sadly nothing for 5th ed yet. Maybe you could go back and try to mod them to 5th? or just have the GM/Player work together on something they can both live with. My only advice would be to make it cost boat loads of cash. Most weapons are mass produced in giant factories. The skilled gun smith is few and far between and he knows his time is valuable, assuming of course a corp hasn't already scooped him up.

[Reaver]

to give you an idea:

Cost me $650 to have my trigger pressure retooled by a gunsmith because it was custom work on a part that is no longer made.

Here you are talking about an entire gun!

Hand made, double barrelled shotguns start around $7000 and go up from there.


The first huddle to overcome however, is you need tools (page 443 CRB). And you need the right skills (page 149 CRB under build/repair).
If he is wanting to custom design, craft, and build an operational weapon, that is sounding like a facility ($50,000)

[MijRai]

Provided you have the equipment, it isn't all that expensive.  Of course, you'd need a Facility to properly 'make' your own guns.  That said, a Shop would be plenty for repairs and assembly if you got the more labor-intensive parts like barrels elsewhere.  As far as rules go, it'd probably be an extended test with a difficulty based on the kind of gun. 

It also depends on what you're making.  If you're going for a precision-tooled masterpiece shotgun like the kind Reaver mentions, it'll cost a lot (though a lot of that price is labor and decorative).  If you're putting together an AK knock-off, it'll be a couple hundred (excluding equipment costs). 

Always remember that if you're making it for yourself, you don't need to factor in labor costs; you're putting the time in.  It's materials and tools. 

[Reaver]

Always remember that if you're making it for yourself, you don't need to factor in labor costs; you're putting the time in.  It's materials and tools.

True, but the final cost gives you an idea.

If, they with all their resources and time need to sell if for $7000, (and that's after they have a design to follow and schematic that works) chances are, any shotgun you design and build will cost you just as much. (your time IS money too. If you are working on this, you are not working on your next job! What IS your hourly rate for a shadowrun?)

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Beside costing decent amount of creds and time, be careful that the created weapon is not to good. You don't won't a sniper rifle with full auto ability nor a pistol with assault rifle damage and AP codes. As long as it is comparable to weapons of similar class, than it should be fine.

[Reaver]

The other huge issue you have is that this is an extended test. the rules on page 48 give you the guidelines. But, they are only guidelines.

Here, you have to find out what exactly the player wants.....

If he wants something like: "I just wanna design and build my own gun, you know, like the Predator 4, but not.." would put it in the "average" difficulty (he could use the Predator 4 as a baseline template, then make his changes)

If he wants something like: "Humm, Maybe a light pistol sized heavy pistol that fires full auto, and has a 30 round clip" would probably put it in the "extreme" category.


If he wants something like: "I wanna design a pistol, that fires AC rounds, in full auto with 30 round clip, and can shoot fireballz!!!" you slap him.

Then you have to decide on the interval. Well, you realistic choices a start at an hour and go to a month. An hour is not really realistic at all, so the other options are more likely. A month is probably the best interval if he has to do everything from scratch. (design the schematic, retool the equipment to the specs, fab the parts, assemble the parts, test).


so you are looking at a threshold of 12 to 30+ with an interval of 1 hour/day/week/month VS Logic + Gunsmithing (or whatever skill you feel allows him to design and build his own gun).

Keep in mind that during that interval, they can do nothing else of significance. (so no runs)

Also keep in mind that places like Ares have entire labs filled with engineers who make teamwork tests to do exactly this thing and they still fail (*cough* Excaliber *cough* ). 

[MijRai]

That 7,000 dollar shotgun is that expensive for more than just the effort and materials, though.  It's the luxury.  You could buy a functionally equal or superior shotgun for less than a seventh of the price; you're spending that much for more than just how it works.  It's like furniture, or fancy food; you can get something that's comfortable or tastes great, and you can spend ten times as much for the same thing with some changes or extra bits.  It would not cost that much to build most shotguns. 
Regardless, it isn't going to cost that much to make a single weapon, unless the materials for that weapon are that extraordinary.  Hell, I'd put the materials cost at less than two thousand for one of those beautiful shotguns; it's the expertise and artistry that boost the price the most. 

As far as the Excalibur is concerned, that's a very different beast; that's a failed manatech weapon retro-fitted to function as a normal weapon, not a plain old shitty gun.  Manatech goes wrong, in horrible fashions.  Even poorly made guns don't detonate in your hands or have the problems that rifle had. 

[Reaver]

That 7,000 dollar shotgun is that expensive for more than just the effort and materials, though.  It's the luxury.  You could buy a functionally equal or superior shotgun for less than a seventh of the price; you're spending that much for more than just how it works.  It's like furniture, or fancy food; you can get something that's comfortable or tastes great, and you can spend ten times as much for the same thing with some changes or extra bits.  It would not cost that much to build most shotguns. 
Regardless, it isn't going to cost that much to make a single weapon, unless the materials for that weapon are that extraordinary.  Hell, I'd put the materials cost at less than two thousand for one of those beautiful shotguns; it's the expertise and artistry that boost the price the most. 

As far as the Excalibur is concerned, that's a very different beast; that's a failed manatech weapon retro-fitted to function as a normal weapon, not a plain old shitty gun.  Manatech goes wrong, in horrible fashions.  Even poorly made guns don't detonate in your hands or have the problems that rifle had.

your right about the shotgun, I put the material costs under $500, from there it's all labour. Wrong about the quality of  the handcraft shotguns. H&W has won awards for the precision and quality of their craftsmanship. the Lock of their weapons is so well crafted, that standard factory machined assembly can't hold a candle to them. Of course, it also takes over a year to make and assemble each weapon, while the factory can spit out hundreds an hour.


The Excalibur bit was an example of wanting too much in one gun, and how even a giant corp can fail.

[Shaidar]

If I were to contemplate allowing a PC to do this (and from the RL perspective of a mechanical designer) the PC would need both the Firearms(Design) Knowledge skill and the Armorer Active skill. Each would require extended tests alternating between them where the PC doesn't know the Thresholds. This is to model the testing procedures.

As in Firearms(Design) test, Armorer test to manufacture and assemble parts. If Thresholds aren't met start another round of Firearms(Design) test, Armorer test until first the Firearms(Design) Threshold is met then the Armorer test Threshold.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

3rd Edition Cannon Companion.  If it's a personal-design gun, use the amounts figured there, maybe jack it up by 10-30%.

[firebug]

Keep in mind that he's not going to be able to just find blueprints for anything; the corps want their designs not so easily reproduced.  So he wouldn't be able to just make a gun to save trying to find someone to buy it from.

He'd have to likely spend a lot of time designing a gun from scratch (not completely, the basics of how a gun works are easy enough to find) or else likely try making an old model that's been around for so long that you can just look up how it's made.  I dunno, maybe you can just take a decent gun apart and look at the pieces.  Blueprints you didn't design yourself (like ones taken from a data haven or something) are also liable to be crappy or flawed...

I imagine designing something is a complex and time consuming task not intended to be within the scope of a roleplaying game.  It's like how D&D has purposefully bad crafting rules--  You're runners, not gunsmiths.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Essentially, yeah.  Remember that smithing of any sort takes time - both to learn, to practice (and thus get good), and to innovate and even just do a halfway-decent job.  Tell him to take the idea to an actual gunsmith and let the pro do it.  Otherwise he'd might as well retire the character - at least, if he wants the character to get really good at it, and do it as a 'day job' sort of thing.  He'd make a great contact for the other PCs, though.

[Ryo]

I've made my own gun making rules, using a combination of my own ideas and some influence from how past editions handled it. You're free to use them yourself, and I'd appreciate any feedback from how this plays in game. Very much a work in progress that I'm still tweaking the balance in.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wxkzRNV-F-sk7ZfHmXgcAjRxS--HT522lwl0ZXfPiFs/edit?usp=sharing

[mjack]

I've made my own gun making rules, using a combination of my own ideas and some influence from how past editions handled it. You're free to use them yourself, and I'd appreciate any feedback from how this plays in game. Very much a work in progress that I'm still tweaking the balance in.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wxkzRNV-F-sk7ZfHmXgcAjRxS--HT522lwl0ZXfPiFs/edit?usp=sharing

That is a solid approach. Thanks for sharing, Ryo! I will investigate it a bit and see how it works for my game.