[Lorebane24]

I saw they had one in-name-only in Run & Gun.  Was wondering if they'd errataed them in or anything like that?  If not, would it be unbalancing to house rule them in, adding the quality to a couple of appropriate weapons, letting them fire a long burst as a simple action?  It seems like it wouldn't be nearly as problematic as it was in SR4 since you can still only take a single attack action per round.

[Marcus Gideon]

Core pg 179, Full-Auto

Weapons that can fire in Full-Auto (FA) mode can throw bullets for as long as the attacker keeps the trigger pulled and the rounds last. Full-Auto weapons can be fired as a Simple Action, firing 6 bullets, or a Complex Action, firing 10 bullets.

There you go... Long Burst is 6 rounds for a -5 defense penalty. If your weapon is only capable of Burst Fire, then it takes a Complex action to manage a Long Burst. Each trigger squeeze shoots 3 rounds, so you have to squeeze twice.

But if your weapon is capable of Full Auto, then it's a Simple action to do the same thing. A short trigger squeeze shoots 6, a long squeeze shoots 10, and holding it down sprays about 20 (Suppressing Fire).

[Lorebane24]

You sure you're not stalking me, Mr. Gideon?  You've always got really quick, albeit helpful, replies to my posts.

In any case, it sounds like I need to brush up on my SR5 rules.

In that case, though, what about adding the ability to fire a 10 round burst as a simple action to a couple select weapons?

[Marcus Gideon]

You sure you're not stalking me, Mr. Gideon?  You've always got really quick, albeit helpful, replies to my posts.

In any case, it sounds like I need to brush up on my SR5 rules.

In that case, though, what about adding the ability to fire a 10 round burst as a simple action to a couple select weapons?

Nope, I just happen to wander the forums a lot. =)

10 round burst imposes a -9 penalty on the target. That's pretty much going to eat up all the defense for most baddies. Which means they're almost guaranteed to die. If you can do that regularly, the GM is going to be hard pressed to make challenging encounters. They have to make baddies tough enough to survive being riddled with 10 bullets at a time, but not so tough that they completely walk over the Mage, Face, and Decker trying to get to the bullet flinging Sam. Remember, you may be an armored killing machine, but the rest of your team is pretty squishy. And what you consider a fun challenge, is going to kill them deader than a door nail.

Also... All these various Burst methods do still include Recoil penalties, which I suspect may be part of why you want to turn the 10 round into a Simple action. This round, you're imposing a -9 penalty on the enemy, but a -10 on yourself. If you don't take a Simple action to calm down and collect yourself, the next 10 round burst will be another -9 to the enemy, but a -20 to yourself. If you were allowed to call it a Simple action, you could hesitate in-between long enough to Take Aim or something, and then keep right on spraying. Which will very quickly mow down the opposition, with little loss on your side.

So yeah... I do think it would be overpowered to allow for Simple death wands. =)

[ScytheKnight]

-9 is a heavy defense penalty, making it a near certain hit, or even completely eliminating defense rolls.

[Herr Brackhaus]

As it stands, the Ares HVAR and the Vindicator minigun are poor alternatives in a market filled with other, more efficient options. The SR4 rules are good examples of what could make these weapons interesting, and highly deadly, choices. Short and sweet; these weapons throw a ton of lead downrange; in SR5 I'd keep the firing modes unchanged, but alter the number of bullets they can fire in each mode.

For high-velocity weapon specific rules, see page 26 of Arsenal. For minigun specific rules, see page 30 of Arsenal.

I've actually replied to a similar thread in the past, and I think it's worth reading if you're considering house ruling these weapons.

For what it's worth, this is what a bunch of us seemed to agree was a fair compromise:

Thank you to all who pitched in. I ended going;

(RG) "Minigun" rate of Fire; some weapons, such as the Ares HVAR rifle and GE Vindicator Minigun fire at an extreme rate of fire. To simulate this any Full Auto mode attack uses 50% extra rounds. A Simple action FA burst becomes 9 rounds and a Complex action uses 15 rounds. Also the Brain Blaster Complex Action uses 9 bullets and gives a +3 DV bonus.

(RG) The GE Vindicator Minigun fires at an insane rate of fire. In addition to using the "minigun rates" above, during Suppression the minigun uses 40 bullets. This enables the weapon to either cover twice the area OR do 1.5 times the damage (round up).

[Lucean]

HV only added two bullets per FA burst in SR4, so the HVAR got to 12 bullets.
The Vindicator needed a Simple Action to reach firing speed and could then only use FA as Complex Action for 15 rounds.

But as per actual rules HV-weapons are subpar, yes.

[PiXeL01]

The above was more inspired by SR2/3 than SR4 I believe.
The Minigun still needs spin-up time, but since you can fire FA as a simple action now it doesn't really matter.

[Lucean]

But shouldn't the vindicator then fire more or less contiuously (read: as Complex Actions) to keep the barrels spinning and the velocity up?

[PiXeL01]

I do not know the real world mechanics of such a weapon but I could imagine two buttons, one for spinning and the other for spewing buttons. The second can't be pressing without the first being held, but you could keep the barrels spinning without firing should you desire ... Or is that too much Quake 2?

[Lucean]

Found something on Dumpshock:

Vindicator: (added to the quote for clarity)
yes , in the German Version (page 42)
IIRC it basically says that a MiniGun fires 15 Bullets instead of 10 as a Fullburst
Recoil Mod and Defense Mod are then -14 respectively.
Suppressive Fire is 30 Bullets instead of 20 and the Base Damage is x1.5 (round Up )
HV Weapons:
shoot 4 instaed of 3 Bullets as a short Burst ( 8 instead of 6 in a Long Burst)
in Full Auto they Fire 8 Bullets in a imple Action and 12 in a complex Action Recoil and Defensive DM is accordingly
Suppressive Fire is unchanged with HV Weapons

with a german Dance
Medicineman

[ScytheKnight]

Grrrr... Seriously why are there SO FRAGGING MANY changes to German version that never see the official light of day in English?

[PeterSmith]

Grrrr... Seriously why are there SO FRAGGING MANY changes to German version that never see the official light of day in English?

Because the German version is not the American version.

[PiXeL01]

What would be nice to have is a thread where all differences between the two versions are listed so you could pick and choose

[Herr Brackhaus]

Found something on Dumpshock:

Vindicator: (added to the quote for clarity)
yes , in the German Version (page 42)
IIRC it basically says that a MiniGun fires 15 Bullets instead of 10 as a Fullburst
Recoil Mod and Defense Mod are then -14 respectively.
Suppressive Fire is 30 Bullets instead of 20 and the Base Damage is x1.5 (round Up )
HV Weapons:
shoot 4 instaed of 3 Bullets as a short Burst ( 8 instead of 6 in a Long Burst)
in Full Auto they Fire 8 Bullets in a imple Action and 12 in a complex Action Recoil and Defensive DM is accordingly
Suppressive Fire is unchanged with HV Weapons

with a german Dance
Medicineman

Nice; so they essentially used the SR4 rules for the respective firing modes that still exist in SR5. That was my gut reaction when I realized these rules weren't in SR5