[psycho835]

OK, let's face it - EVERYONE wears SOME sort of armor. Thus, flechette rounds really, REALLY suck in both 4E and 5E.

But what were they like in 1E, 2E and/or 3E. Were just as bad as today, or were they actually useful?

[Tarislar]

Oh, oh, oh.  I so disagree.
Last weekend it was great to see the Troll get convinced into using Shot ammo for his shotgun & thinking as you do.
Then 2 rounds later after he's blown the hell out of several guys, some 2 at the same time w/ wide-choke setting.
He was like, Okay, now I can't use these because they are too painful. 
I want to say the GM mentioned 9 armor?  vest or coats? IIRC.  But not 100% sure.

The base odds of 2 DV v/s 5 AP should come out ahead for the DV on the "average" case.
What weapon are you using them in?  I'd imagine some pistol w/ a really low DV might get penalized w/ that armor bonus more so than APDS.

Because taking a 12 DV shotgun, adding 2 DV then adding 3 net hits after they didn't dodge crap from open Choke+Burst Fire leaves you with a 16 DV hit.   *2 targets.  There wasn't much left for us to interrogate.

Honestly it terms of raw effectiveness, APDS & Gel are your only 2 options.  But really most the rest of the ammo isn't that far behind those 2 and is often not illegal like APDS.

[psycho835]

I was thinking Viper.

[Mirikon]

I think they're fine. Depends on what your focus is. If your goal is suppressing your enemy, then you can't go wrong with flechettes. If your goal is to kill, then APDS is your friend. If you need to take them alive, SnS or gel becomes important.

[Namikaze]

The main thing about flechette ammunition is that it's commonly used for home defense.  Frangible gets used a lot too.  So even if a group of shadowrunners is unlikely to use flechette or frangible ammunition, their opposition might.

[8-bit]

The main thing about flechette ammunition is that it's commonly used for home defense.  Frangible gets used a lot too.  So even if a group of shadowrunners is unlikely to use flechette or frangible ammunition, their opposition might.

It's also for those niche times where you don't want your bullets ever accidentally going through walls. In fact, they even recommend Frangible rounds in The Assassin's Primer, as you don't want to kill innocents if you don't have to. So, basically, most of the time PCs are unlikely to use them. However, NPCs, law enforcement (their opposition, as you have pointed out) and normal people might use those types of rounds. You need to have stats even if PCs don't use them, and in the off chance they do, then all good.

I'm still annoyed that Hollow Point rounds are Forbidden though. While it's true that Flechette has probably replaced them, I know that in my home defense, you use hollow points because you want to put people down if you have to use a gun. You don't want to shoot a shot at someone and have them keep coming at you with an axe, or still standing to shoot you back.

Just so you know, I'm agreeing with you; just wanted to elaborate my thoughts since they were similar to yours.

[Mr. Black]

Well, in1st/2nd Edition, if you did not have Subdermal Armor, flechette ammo raped you, even in armor. Subdermal 1 was taken by every Street Sam for that reason alone.
Shotgun flechette on wide choke rating also is -5 to defense tests, so even more useful than i thought. +2D, +4armor and -5 defense looks pretty good to me.

[Lucean]

Flechette can also be used instead of Gel to cause Stun Damage rather than Physical against well armored targets while at the same time improving the overall damage output. Remember that for most street sams the Stun track can be filled easier.
While you never should try something like that against hardened armor it can be worthwile, from time to time.

But the real value lies with shotguns, as has been pointed out already. You can damage multiple targets without splitting your dice pool.

[Beaumis]

OK, let's face it - EVERYONE wears SOME sort of armor. Thus, flechette rounds really, REALLY suck in both 4E and 5E.

But what were they like in 1E, 2E and/or 3E. Were just as bad as today, or were they actually useful?

In 2nd Edition, the Ares Viper Slivergun was known as "The Shapeshifter Killer". In burstfire mode the damage code startet at 12D without any of my hits staging it up. For comparissons's sake, a Sniper Rifle had 14D. So yeah, flechete used to be fraggin awesome but was always situational.

[Kincaid]

I have to say, I've never been disappointed when the sam in our group opens up with his AA-16.  When I'm running security guards, there's almost always an on-site gun locker with shotguns so, given time, security can set up at choke points and lay down semi-auto bursts of medium spread burst.  Firearms are tools--there's no single gun that will work for every job.

[psycho835]

OK, let's face it - EVERYONE wears SOME sort of armor. Thus, flechette rounds really, REALLY suck in both 4E and 5E.

But what were they like in 1E, 2E and/or 3E. Were just as bad as today, or were they actually useful?

In 2nd Edition, the Ares Viper Slivergun was known as "The Shapeshifter Killer". In burstfire mode the damage code startet at 12D without any of my hits staging it up. For comparissons's sake, a Sniper Rifle had 14D. So yeah, flechete used to be fraggin awesome but was always situational.

I'm assuming Shapeshifters in question didn't use armor, item, spell or power?

[Beaumis]

Shapeshifters in human form were armored just as everyone else was, but once shifted they had no armor because they were a naked animal. A selected few were adepts that had the mystic armor power, but even fewer had levels that were worth mentioning. The system and ammo worked very different back then though. Basically sliver guns were often considered a deterrent to keep the shifter from shifting.

I'm not exactly sure why you think Flechette is that bad though. Assuming equal weapons, net hits and all that you basically get 2 hits while the defender gets 5 soak dice. Mathematically that gives the defender a ~21% chance to have more than three hits and come out on top. Your damage will likely be stun but in my experience that is the norm in SR5 because everyone has a truckload of armor. The only real Issue is hardened armor but if you're shooting with flechette against hardened targets you're in trouble anyway.

Flechette is  certainly inferior to APDS against armored targets and explosive is better at physical damage but both of those are forbidden items. Flechette may be a bit of a gamble, but it is the only legal ammo that increases your DV directly albeit at a cost.

[Sterling]

Back in 2nd Ed and 3rd Ed when armour was split between ballistic and impact flechette ammo was devastating, since it was designed to cut through ballistic armour.  In 3rd Ed, for example, I had a character that used an Enfield AS-7 loaded with flechette that delivered a base damage of Deadly against enemies in either ballistic or no armour.

Even today in 5th Ed flechette can prove devastating.  When our team was being chased down by feral ghouls I was able to negate the threat by use of an Auto Assault 16 shotgun set to medium choke at medium range using flechette ammo in a Suppressive Fire attack.

[Mirikon]

Yeah, before 5th, you had two types of armor: Ballistic and Impact. Pretty much all guns and ammo went against Ballistic, so there were far more options for boosting that. However, if you skimped on your Impact armor, that left you vulnerable to melee, projectile weapons, flechettes, and so on. That, combined with the armor and encumbrance rules, made you have to make strategic choices about the benefits of different types of armor.

[Tarislar]

I was thinking Viper. 

So your starting with a base 7P/-1 gun, not a ton of power there.
Ammo gives you 9P/+4.
Assuming minimal 1 net hit is 10P/+4.
Typical Vest/Lined Coats of 9 Armor gives you 13 dice, average 3 Bod boosts to 16 or roughly 5 hits resisted.
Leaving you with 5 Stun DV.  A 2nd Shot likely leaves them out cold.
Not horrible damage on a "typical grunt" for a concealed+silent side arm.

Want more damage, don't take a weapon with a 30 round clip & burst fire.