[UmaroVI]

Also, going back to the B&Ps... why bother with High Velocity, since you can use a Long Burst from each hand with the different weapons anyway?

You actually can't: SR4A 154 limits you to one long burst per Action Phase, not per gun per Action Phase. HV removes this limitation. Debatably, you can do this with one HV gun and one non-HV gun but I'm not sure about that one.

[Crash_00]

Arsenal removes that limitation when dual wielding. You can fire a long burst with each gun. Anything short of a full burst can be done with each gun (basically anything that is a simple action, but the guns must be SMG size or smaller).

As to the tear gas, depends on where you use it and who you use it on. I've seen some crazy responses to things nowhere near as potent.

[UmaroVI]

Crash, are you looking at Arsenal 163? That's for firing two weapons at the same time, ie, pool splitting. I was talking about alternating fire, ie, long with one as the first simple action, long with the other as the second simple action.

[Cass100199]

Something to chew on; I have a house rule for former military characters: the military skill group. It involves Physical Fitness, proficiency in one AR and pistol (the issue weapons of your military) and a skill of your choice that was your specialty (MOS). The physical fitness is generally used in situations resembling ruck-marching, pulling up onto things, etc. and the MOS stuff is commo, first aid, infantry, etc. Just a thought.

[Crash_00]

Following those rules, you can do the following (assuming a character using a FA weapon in each hand):
1st Simple Action: Fire a Long Burst with gun A and short burst with gun B.
2nd Simple Action: Fire a short burst with gun A and Long Burst with gun B.

The implication is heavily there that the restriction is per gun rather than character.

On another note, shotguns can't take High Velocity modification (it's limited to SMGs and ARs).

[UmaroVI]

Right, but that still results in you splitting your pool. Which you may want to do, but if you did want to do it, you'd be better off doing long/long+long/long with HV weapons.

You can't construct weapons as HV other than SMGs and ARs, ie, there shouldn't be base weapons that have inherent HV other than that, but the mod has different requirements (full auto capable only).

If HV is houseruled to also only be moddable onto SMGs and ARs, then I recommend Ares Executive Protectors (which are, sadly, 9F and thus unavailable to start) for the HV dual-wielding, so that you can murder people with briefcases. It's still probably worth owning non-HV B&Ps so that you can shove them up your anus, though, for times when people are actually going to check that your briefcase contains papers and not bullets. It does make the shotgun go back to shitty and you should just use a HVBR for those kinds of problems.

[Crash_00]

You can't construct weapons as HV other than SMGs and ARs, ie, there shouldn't be base weapons that have inherent HV other than that, but the mod has different requirements (full auto capable only).

There are no construction rules in SR4/SR4A. The modification specifically references the sidebar that states it's AR and SMG only. Yes it has to be Full Auto, but it also has to be an SMG or AR (or BR since they can accept whatever ARs can). It's not a house rule, it's a basic interpretation of what the rules state. Constructed is fairly blatantly a reference to the modification unless there are some official construction rules hidden somewhere.

Right, but that still results in you splitting your pool. Which you may want to do, but if you did want to do it, you'd be better off doing long/long+long/long with HV weapons.

The point is that it blatantly puts the precedent that long burst isn't per character per weapon. Trying to claim you can only do it while firing a weapon in the other hand is literally akin to saying: You can only hold trigger A if you hold trigger B too, which is quite silly when you think about it.

As for splitting pool. Under the worst interpretation possible (that you have to fire both), you can just split one die into the non-long burst hand and keep the rest in your main pool, and not have to worry about spending slots on HV.

[UmaroVI]

You're saying the firearm rules are odd and incomplete? Well I never! There are rules for miniguns saying only certain weapons can be constructed as miniguns, but no rules for modding minigun on. What does that refer to? Presumably, there were high hopes of a system for making your own gun from scratch that never materialized.

Splitting your fire like that also costs you your smartgun bonus, so that's another 2 dice. You should definitely not do that, because you're essentially trading long/short for long/long with -3 to hit on both, which is bad.

Under those house interpretations, don't bother with SMGs. Or B&Ps, actually, since there's no need to use a F weapon to eke out a bit more RC when you don't need slots for HV. Use Ares Crusaders (more ammo, cheaper, and R), slap on Underbarrel Weight, Firing Selection Change (Full Auto), Rigid Stock accessory, Personalized Grip, and Barrel Reduction, then get Chameleon Coating later.

That also makes shotguns go from "niche" to "fuck it," if you need to kill multiple people, just use HV fire from your battle rifle.

[JustADude]

Oh, for all those people who say that Karmagen is somehow inherently worse than BPgen, I'd just like to put up a little tidbit I discovered:

I was converting the character from Chummer over to Hero Lab after I'd finished all the last little tweaks, since Hero Lab doesn't yet have functional Karmagen, and, using BPgen pricing, Shade's build would take well over 500 BP... and that's not even counting the 28 extra Karma I had to pay for my contacts because of Crash's custom pricing.

Yeah he's not rolling an obscene amount of dice in any one thing, but he's got his fingers in a lot of pies to the tune of 10 dice or so.

[Crash_00]

Well to be fair, I did hand out 18 karma free for contacts and knowledge skills like the BP system. The gripe most people have is that completely optimized characters (as in specialized to roll twenty dice in one thing) cost more resources in karma gen to a degree.

[All4BigGuns]

Oh, for all those people who say that Karmagen is somehow inherently worse than BPgen, I'd just like to put up a little tidbit I discovered:

I was converting the character from Chummer over to Hero Lab after I'd finished all the last little tweaks, since Hero Lab doesn't yet have functional Karmagen, and, using BPgen pricing, Shade's build would take well over 500 BP... and that's not even counting the 28 extra Karma I had to pay for my contacts because of Crash's custom pricing.

Yeah he's not rolling an obscene amount of dice in any one thing, but he's got his fingers in a lot of pies to the tune of 10 dice or so.

As was said, you were under a LOT of house rules. With no house rules, then it is an inferior system. The only thing that wouldn't actually be a house rule outside or Europe would be the attribute costs being x5 since that is standard in the most recent core rule book, however without other changes being in there (such as the free knowledge skills which would probably equate in the hundreds of karma and removing Edge and Magic from the half-point cap--also house rule) it remains utterly worthless and garbage.

[Crash_00]

As was said, you were under a LOT of house rules. With no house rules, then it is an inferior system. The only thing that wouldn't actually be a house rule outside or Europe would be the attribute costs being x5 since that is standard in the most recent core rule book, however without other changes being in there (such as the free knowledge skills which would probably equate in the hundreds of karma and removing Edge and Magic from the half-point cap--also house rule) it remains utterly worthless and garbage.

Disbelief of the German Version aside, the Karma skills are roughly 52 karma and his attributes do fall under the half + 2xMeta cost limit. In addition, the metavariant cost was paid for in karma (part of the german rule that makes it worse). A general understanding of what resources are worth is all that is needed for a simple deduction of the Karma System. In the end, the extra points given and the extra points cost from my house rules and german version roughly equaled out. A poorly optimized 500 point character under the karma system.

Of course, it's because generalists are penalized by the BP system. Horribly so.

In the end, the two systems are basically like carrying around dollars or quarters. Sure dollars are easier. You're going to get out the door faster, but if no change is offered, you're going to be wasting some money. Quarters, there is a lot less waste and you can buy the same things. It just takes longer and you have to wait for people to count (and recount if they can't get it).