[marfish]

On p. 109, it says,

FA: ...This can be used to attack a slew of targets or even a single target with a series of small dice pools, with each hit doing the full damage of the weapon....

So, every 5s and 6s I get, I do the full damage of the weapon? Or it means if the attacks success, I do the normal amount of damage for each one of them?

[sigfriedmcwild]

My reading of the word hit in that passage is as "...every successful attack..." not "... every dice that rolls a 5 or a 6..."

[Xenon]

If you decide to attack the same target three times then you compare AR-6 vs his DR. Then you split the pool 3 times and roll three times. The defender dodge three times without splitting his pool. Each attack deal base DV of the weapon. This cost 10 bullets and 1 Major action.

If you decide to attack one target twice and another target twice as well then you compare AR-6 with the highest DR of the two targets. Then you split your pool four times and roll four times. The two defenders roll twice each without splitting their pool. Each attack deal base DV of the weapon. This cost 10 bullets and 1 Major action.

If you decide to attack three different targets once then you compare AR-6 with the highest DR of the three targets. Then you split your pool three times and roll three times. The three defenders roll defense each without splitting their pool. Each attack deal base DV of the weapon. This cost 10 bullets and 1 Major action.

If you decide to attack one target only once then you compare AR-6 with the DR of the target. Then you roll once without splitting the pool (or splitting the pool once which is the same thing). The defender roll defense without splitting their pool. The attack deal base DV of the weapon. This cost 10 bullets and 1 Major action.

The theoretical maximum amount of attacks you are allowed to make is 10 (because you are spending 10 bullets), but even if you have a dice pool of 20+ you will only have 2 dice per attack and the risk of glitching or critical glitching is very high.

In SR5 you were limited to a maximum of targets equal to your firearm skill divided by two, this is not a rule in SR6 but it might still be considered a good rule of thumb when deciding how many times you should divide your attacks (with a firearms skill of 6 that would translate into roughly 3 attacks).

[penllawen]

So, every 5s and 6s I get, I do the full damage of the weapon? Or it means if the attacks success, I do the normal amount of damage for each one of them?

Uhh, both. It's resolved as a multiple attacks, each with a fraction of the normal dice pool, but each doing full damage.

Suppose Alan is going H.A.M. at some goons with his SMG in full-auto mode. Alan has 20 dice for Firearms (Automatics). The gun does DV 6P. Let's say he's in a target-rich environment and there are 10 (!) goons to choose from.

Alan could attack two goons with half his dice each. Resolve each attack normally, but Alan only rolls 10 dice to attack. Say Alan rolls 3 hits and the first goon gets 1 hit on his defence test. That goon now soaks 8P damage (6P for the gun plus 2 for Alan's net hit.) Then Alan attacks the second goon, rolling 1 hit; the goon rolls 2 hits, so the second hit misses.

(Aside: a common speedup trick some GMs do here is only make Alan roll his 10 dice once, and use the number of hits from that roll against all the goons in turn. It's just to make resolution go a little faster so Alan isn't spending forever rolling dice and slowing the table down. In that case, Alan's 3 hits on the first roll would have applied to the second goon, who would have been hit. Also note I've ignored comparing Attack Rating and Defence Rating for Edge above, just to make the text shorter, but you would do that for each attack in turn.)

If Alan was feeling lucky, he could go further. Say he shoots at 5 goons, each of them with just 4 dice. Obviously there's a good chance he's going to miss a lot now but if his dice are hot, who knows? Any hit he lands is doing 6P, so even without a lot of net hits from his attack test he's laying down a lot of damage. He might just blow a load of them away. Dakka dakka dakka!

[penllawen]

If you decide to attack one target only once then you compare AR-6 with the DR of the target. Then you roll once without splitting the pool (or splitting the pool once which is the same thing). The defender roll defense without splitting their pool. The attack deal base DV of the weapon. This cost 10 bullets and 1 Major action.

Huh. I just realised that, mathematically, putting a 10-round burst into a person is worse than putting a single shot into them in SS mode. Both have the same attack dice pool, the same DV, but the full auto burst has -6 to the Attack Rating and runs out of ammo 10x faster.

Edit - I forgot the AR penalty and messed up the originally post entirely

[sigfriedmcwild]

If you are using full auto on a single target, you'll want to split your pool (which will let you do multiple instances of damage), otherwise yeah there is no point

[Xenon]

In a way this also reflect real life...
Full auto mode is generally a waste of ammo (which is one of the reasons why the Americans completely removed the Full auto mode in favor of the Semi Automatic and Burst firing mode on the M16 they used during the Vietnam war).

If you use say an AK-47 in full auto mode and spray ~10 bullets in one single burst at a single target some 100-150 meters away you will be very lucky if you manage to land more than 2 bullets. However, by switching to semi automatic firing mode you can basically double tap the target how many times you want without any issues at all.

In SR6 you basically only use full auto because you plan on saving action economy while attacking multiple targets (attacking two targets in a wide burst in BF mode cost a major action and a minor action), when you plan on attacking more than two targets in the same attack action (such as mowing down multiple grunts or other targets with limited defense pools) or you plan on attacking the same target more than once. FA mode is basically only for character that have huge dice pools and are skilled enough to take advantage of it since you will almost always split the pool two or three times (and in some cases even more).

[penllawen]

Oh, I know real life full auto isn't like the movies.

But it's so iconic, it seems a shame to lose it - similarly to how it was a shame to lose the iconic value of street sams using katanas in previous versions of SR where the damage code meant they didn't work very well unless you had really high strength.

As for your points about the action economy, note that that might be a reason to use FA against a single target - if you previously used FA to, say, lay down suppressing fire [1], and now you really need to shoot someone but you can't spare a Minor Action to change fire modes. If you don't have a big dice pool, you're now in a bit of a bind; you can't afford to split the pool but the -6 AR is a stiff penalty.

[1] which I've found to be a nice way for non-combat-monsters to help out while the murder machines do their thing.

[Finstersang]

Yeah, it´s a bit tricky to use the current FA firing option reasonably. It´s worth noting that there´s a still lot of Recoil-compensating gear that helps offsetting the AR Penalty, so you hopefully won´t draw lose (or grant) Edge to your opposition. With a Weapon with a high enough Base Damage and against targets with lower defense pools, it´s worth a try [1]. With small-caliber Weapons, FA surely is a trap unless you really need the spread. You will reliably deal more damage with other Firing modes.

I surely miss other Firing Options, I hope they add some more in the Combat supplement. I´m currently thinking about a "Spray and Pay"-Option that adds a Wild Die to each individuall attack, as a replacement for the supposedly soon-to-be-errata´d interaction with Anticipation.

Or when the GM decides to use some of the cinematic combat rules for the scene, but that´s a bit meta 

[penllawen]

If you decide to attack one target twice and another target twice as well then you compare AR-6 with the highest DR of the two targets.

(Emphasis mine.) I can't find this rule in the SR6 CRB. Is it your houserule? A misunderstanding? An as-yet unpublished errata leaking out from behind the NDA?

pg 109

"FA: This mode allows multiple attacks without using the Multiple Attack Minor Action. The shooter chooses to split their dice pool among any valid targets in range. This can be used to attack a slew of targets or even a single target with a series of small dice pools, with each hit doing the full damage of the weapon. This mode uses ten rounds and decreases the Attack Rating by 6."

pg 42:
"Multiple Attacks (I)

"A character can attack more than one opponent, assuming ammunition, reach, and enemy placement allow it. Split your dice pool evenly among all targets, or if you are using two different forms of attack, use half the dice pool for each, rounded down. This action must be used in conjunction with an Attack Major Action."

pg 105 (Distribute Edge) makes no mention of special mechanics for Edge when Multiple Attacks are being used.

pg 109:
"BF: You’ve got a fancy gun that pumps out multiple rounds with a single trigger pull. You can fire four rounds in an attack. You can shoot a narrow burst, which decreases the Attack Rating by 4 and increases damage by 2, or make a wide burst and split your dice pool between two targets and count each as a SA-mode shot."

Edit - I am a complete moron and was banging on about BF mode when the topic at hand is FA mode. Sorry. I've spent too much time this weekend micro-optimising SR characters and it's clearly all muddled up in my head now!

[Finstersang]

One idea would be to add a "Narrow burst" for FA as well, i.e. 10 Bullets, -6 AR and +3 Damage. While I do like the fact that they didn´t just followed the progression of SA and BF bursts to its end and used a totally different effect for FA, it wouldn´t hurt if this option was available as well, maybe with some additional prerequisite added (Strength? Special Training?). The Combat supplement might turn out quite interesting in this regard. I hope they take some notes from the current feedback, criticism and houserule threads.

(BTW: In a similar fashion, Xenon already suggested a Split Attack option for SA in the houserules thread. Would be more consistent all three firing modes besides Single Shots would have both a Single-Target and a Multi-target option.)

[Michael Chandra]

If you decide to attack one target twice and another target twice as well then you compare AR-6 with the highest DR of the two targets.

Note for the readers: This counts for both AoE attacks and any attacking against multiple targets. See gaining Edge (p45), start of second column:

At the beginning of
an Attack or hack action, compare the Attack Rating
and Defense Rating of the opponents (or, if there are
multiple targets, the highest of the combatants). If either
is 4 or more greater than the other, that player
gets a point of Edge. If the attack is area-effect or attacking
multiple targets, compare to the highest Defense
Rating among them.

[penllawen]

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

That's a tiny bit buried, though. It'd be clearer if there were a reminder either under the Multiple Attacks action ("Remember to use the highest DR of the targets, see page 45...") and/or the wide burst/FA rules.

Edit to add -- there's also no mention of it under Step 2: Distribute Edge on page 105, which was the third place I checked when I was looking for it. I think for it to not be mentioned in any of those three places isn't great.

[Finstersang]

If you decide to attack one target twice and another target twice as well then you compare AR-6 with the highest DR of the two targets.

Note for the readers: This counts for both AoE attacks and any attacking against multiple targets. See gaining Edge (p45), start of second column:

At the beginning of
an Attack or hack action, compare the Attack Rating
and Defense Rating of the opponents (or, if there are
multiple targets, the highest of the combatants). If either
is 4 or more greater than the other, that player
gets a point of Edge. If the attack is area-effect or attacking
multiple targets, compare to the highest Defense
Rating among them.

Side note: The rules are a bit amgigous here on who (else) gets that Edge if the Defending Faction has 4 or more Edge on their side. Is it only their chosen "DR Champion" or the rest as well?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

If you decide to attack one target twice and another target twice as well then you compare AR-6 with the highest DR of the two targets.

Note for the readers: This counts for both AoE attacks and any attacking against multiple targets. See gaining Edge (p45), start of second column:

At the beginning of
an Attack or hack action, compare the Attack Rating
and Defense Rating of the opponents (or, if there are
multiple targets, the highest of the combatants). If either
is 4 or more greater than the other, that player
gets a point of Edge. If the attack is area-effect or attacking
multiple targets, compare to the highest Defense
Rating among them.

Side note: The rules are a bit amgigous here on who (else) gets that Edge if the Defending Faction has 4 or more Edge on their side. Is it only their chosen "DR Champion" or the rest as well?

If the PCs are doing the shooting, odds are better than good that the NPCs are sharing a single Edge pool anyways.

If it's an NPC shooting at two PCs, yeah that's a bit of a conundrum.  Since only one DR is being evaluated, I'd be saying the one who's DR is being evaluated is the one eligible for edge gain.