[Aryeonos]

I couldn't stand behind the automatics skill being removed, maybe renamed and organized a bit. I can almost see pistols becoming PDWs with one handed MAC/UZI style submachine carbines, and then automatics becoming "Assault Weapons" holding full sized SMGs, Carbines, and Assault Rifles. With Long arms becoming a marksman's skill.

As far as that idea goes, or even current weapons rules going, I think GMs should just rule that an MP firing on single uses the pistol's skill, and a battle rifle on single uses the Longarm's skill, I know I will. The other weapon that I really can't place in heavy weapons is the assault cannon, but I don't like the heavy weapon's skill because of how it tries to quantify "Big Guns".

[WellsIDidIt]

More skills allows for more variety without risking balance.  Splitting Automatics down the middle like that would play havoc with the inter-skill balance, which is of course not good.  Conversely, what would be the purpose of its removal?

Flip it around and look at it again. More skills equals:
-Less Utility per Skill (range of options gets diluted by each additional skill that the options are split between)
-More Optimization Issues (People will usually just spend their points in the skill that allows them to do the most. This is the issue with Automatics currently.)
-More Karma for Generalists (Each additional skill that options are divided into costs a large amount of resources to possess.)

Now take a look at what other attack skills cover:
-Spellcasting covers everything from combat and offensive manipulation spells as well as all others. It certainly isn't split between different categories.
-Blades covers everything from that knife to a claymore.
-Clubs covers everything from a rifle butt to a splitting maul.
-Gunnery cover any mounted weapons.

Yet guns are split into not one, not two, not three, but four different skills. I fail to see how eliminating one is causing a balance issue, because currently it seems like the mass amount of them is the balance issue. Most sammy types just choose one or two and go with it because of the current issues.

Automatics removal would:
-Make weapon skills less arbitrary (rather than pretending that BF/FA modes matter for skill classification).
-Allow the Firearms skill to actually cover all firearms (by folding Heavy Weapons into the skill group in Automatics place).
-Lower the cost of being a firearms generalist, opening up more utility to such characters.
-Cause less optimization issues (since there is no single skill that covers short concealable weapons all the way to long range marksman rifles).

But then you have the issue raised by the post my quote is taken from, if you put a folding stock on a pistol or machine-pistol, do you then have to use Longarms?

Even in those situations, the stance and sighting is a little different. Absorbing the recoil from pistol rounds is a lot easier than absorbing the recoil from rifle rounds. Similarly stances for using pistol gripped long arms are a lot different than stances for using pistols and the like. The Pistols and Longarms skills would cover using those stances in the right circumstances no matter which stance you're using for the appropriate weapon.

[Anarkitty]

The problem being discussed here is more a game issue than a simulation issue.  So, really, there's not much relevance to differences or similarities in the real life use of the weapon.

More skills allows for more variety without risking balance.  Splitting Automatics down the middle like that would play havoc with the inter-skill balance, which is of course not good.  Conversely, what would be the purpose of its removal?

In light of these very important points, I have to say that I agree with a renaming and possibly rearranging of the firearms skills, but game balance is more important than realism in this case, and decreasing the number of skils would affect the balance of the game.  Shadowrun is an abstraction of reality, like all roleplaying games.  The game is more important than perfectly modeling reality.

[Mirikon]

Agreed, Anarkitty. While a certain level of fidelity to the real world is nice, game balance and having workable mechanics is far more important than being a reality simulator.

[The_Gun_Nut]

The nebulous "game balance" is one touted loudly in several circles.  It's biggest proponent, of course is 4th edition D&D.  Incredible balance, and incredibly milquetoast.

While I agree one must strive to balance simulation with playability, going to either extreme is bad.  Shadowrun does well with playability, and also does well with simulation.  For normal humans (read: no augmentations, magical or technological), it simulates reality very well.

Given that we don't have mystic troll adepts or elven cyberzombies IRL, it is a bit harder to judge on that end of the scale.  This is where playability comes to the fore, but I do not believe that simulation should be ignored.

[RHat]

The nebulous "game balance" is one touted loudly in several circles.  It's biggest proponent, of course is 4th edition D&D.  Incredible balance, and incredibly milquetoast.

While I agree one must strive to balance simulation with playability, going to either extreme is bad.  Shadowrun does well with playability, and also does well with simulation.  For normal humans (read: no augmentations, magical or technological), it simulates reality very well.

Given that we don't have mystic troll adepts or elven cyberzombies IRL, it is a bit harder to judge on that end of the scale.  This is where playability comes to the fore, but I do not believe that simulation should be ignored.

"Balance" isn't a thing that some people favour, and some people don't.  All games have either good balance or bad balance, and it dramatically impacts game quality.  it is possible to do good balance badly, sure, but that is not remotely a reason to not put priority on balance.

And noone's saying to ignore simulation, but it takes a back seat, full stop.

[All4BigGuns]

The thing is that 9 times out of 10, the most vocal ones touting "balance" claim that things are "out of balance" because their idea of it is "all things equal". This is NOT the way to go unless you want a flavorless "tofu" version of a game like what happened with D&D 4e, or you're just that damn used to MMOs that you think all games should work in just that same way.

[RHat]

The thing is that 9 times out of 10, the most vocal ones touting "balance" claim that things are "out of balance" because their idea of it is "all things equal". This is NOT the way to go unless you want a flavorless "tofu" version of a game like what happened with D&D 4e, or you're just that damn used to MMOs that you think all games should work in just that same way.

That would be what's called a bad way to do balance.

Good balance is about tradeoffs - the concealability and legality of pistols versus the broad applicability of automatics versus the range and special uses of longarms.  They don't need to be equal for the same use, but rather equally useful overall.  That's why part of the correction I'd suggest is to move Battle Rifles into Longarms, and to provide more specialized shotgun rounds.  Machine Pistols are probably best were they are because it creates a circumstance where there's an Automatics weapon for almost any situation, but they're never the best in any but a rare few.  Heavy weapons are specially restricted because of how hard it is to get away with packing them and the Strength and Body scores involved, allowing them to be more powerful.

[WellsIDidIt]

No one has shown any evidence at all that reducing the number of skills for firearms, by one, would in any way hurt the game balance. It is perfectly possible to maintain game balance and simulation at the same time. If Simulation is taking the back seat, that means things need to be reworked so that both are able to be a priority. Even SR3's system with a skill for every gun class worked better in this regard than SR4's magical Automatics skill that covers every contingency and the couple others that are only taken by specialists and non-combatants or as fluff.

Moving Battlerifles doesn't change that much really. I mean, Automatics was still the go to choice before they were even introduced to the game.

[All4BigGuns]

No one has shown any evidence at all that reducing the number of skills for firearms, by one, would in any way hurt the game balance. It is perfectly possible to maintain game balance and simulation at the same time. If Simulation is taking the back seat, that means things need to be reworked so that both are able to be a priority. Even SR3's system with a skill for every gun class worked better in this regard than SR4's magical Automatics skill that covers every contingency and the couple others that are only taken by specialists and non-combatants or as fluff.

Moving Battlerifles doesn't change that much really. I mean, Automatics was still the go to choice before they were even introduced to the game.

Probably best to just get rid of the Firearms skill group (and all of the skills in it) and just make Firearms the skill. That way no one can complain about how one of them is better than the others (though they'd just find something else to complain about).

[Aryeonos]

If we did that then we'd only be able to specialise in one type of fire arm, instead of saying "I'm good with revolvers in a pinch, but I favour the shotgun for mid ranged engagements, I can also use battle rifles for long range if needed."

Now it's "I'm really good with the SMG, and every other gun at Rating 6."

I mean, the Clubs skill covers things like bats and stun batons, and blades covers swords and knives, because they are actually similar, neither covers pole arms because it isn't the same, similar but still a different method of attack and strategy.

Why not break the firearms skills into categories that cover the range and roll they generally operate in, make it so the skill used depends on the situation and less on the gun?

[Mirikon]

Wells, the reason it would negatively influence game balance is because of the nature of a BP-based (or karma-based, if you do that) resource allocation system. When you have finite resources to spread amongst the various skills, abilities, qualities, and resources, more skills means that one must either devote more points in order to excel at all weapon types, either buying the skills separately, or the group as a whole. Either way, it is certainly a game balance construct that admittedly does not lend itself to a simulation environment, because the point of it is to limit players, so that one must devote significant resources to their skills (thereby denying those resources to abilities, qualities, contacts, and gear) in order to be effective at using multiple types of weapons.

And here's the thing, no pen and paper RPG has ever claimed to be a true simulation. There are always constructs designed for game balance. Even such things as 'damage codes', 'armor penetration', and 'wound modifiers' are simply constructs designed more for game balance reasons than any kind of simulation effect. If you're looking for a simulator, then I'd suggest LARPing or Laser Tag, or video games such as Call of Duty. But within the context of an RPG, the primary focus of the game designers will always be game balance, followed closely by fun. Any simulator-like effects are merely byproducts of the game design process, because the designers thought they'd be fun.

[Csjarrat]

tbh, i entirely understand the argument against the automatics group. when building a character, it is incredibly tempting just to go for the automatics skill rather than any other as you still can use suppressed MP's in SA for quiet concealable work, SMGs and AR's for bigger engagements and battlerifles for sniping with. it covers everything, so its a bit of a no-brainer. you can cover all situations with one skill!

i think the long-arms skill is a bit funky as well tbh, firing shotguns and sniper rifles with the same skill seems a bit odd, one is an assault weapon for close up use and the other is a medium/long weapon for precision fire.
pistols skill is about right for me tbh.

what i would like to see is more of a tweak than a re-do of all the groups.
i'd like to see:
machine pistols moved to pistols skill, would give the group more flexibility but i think you'd need to consider how it affected light pistols as an in-game choice. MP's should be more expensive than LP's.

automatics renamed to "Assault weapons". group uses SMG's, AR's, shotguns and potentially thrown grenades (assault weapon users would have received some kind of formal assault training by police/military/corpsec, which would include grenades)

longarms is sniper rifles, hunting rifles and battle rifles. as far as i'm aware, these all require different stances, breathing techniques and calculations for elevation/windage etc and suit a precision/marksmen group better than one lumped in with shotguns.

heavy weapons is a bit funky at the moment. a minigun is just a bit different to a mortar!
i think MG's/GL's/LAW could be fine in one heavy weaps group (would represent common military weapons training, even regular infantry have access to gpmg's). The more esoteric choices like miniguns, mortars and assault cannons should be exotic weapon skills to represent how rare and unwieldy the skills are in the real world and how that relates to the shadow community at large.

this is all of course, totally my opinion, feel free to disagree :-)

[Aryeonos]

well, to be fair, shotguns aren't inaccurate blunderbusses. A combat shotgun only has about 8 inches of spread over 100 meters, which is their maximum effective range, and slugs have quite a severe drop, and that's with modern common ammo. In 2070, they have aerodynamic flechette, and saboted tungsten slugs, so I can imagine that they SHOULD have quite precision and range advantage. But then again, SR's range tables are at less than half of most modern weapon's effective ranges in most cases.

[RHat]

Shotguns should not be put in with Automatics, no matter what you name it.  Shotguns are a utility weapon, and should be made more so - and one of the balancing points of Automatics needs to be that it lacks that level of direct utility.

In any case:  Having too many weapon skills means that the balancing method inevitably shifts towards everything being the same, because there's only so many ways you can differentiate.  It's a delicate trade-off, and the weapon system as it stands can only support a fairly small number of skills.  Just making Firearms the skill, frankly, has a bit of the same problem - along with the loss of character customization; this would also be a bad thing.

Moving Machine Pistols out of Automatics, however, risks taking away the idea of Automatics having an option for every situation - the skill should have broad uses, but lack deep utility to contrast against the more specialized Pistols and Longarms skills.

And no, you simply cannot have game design and simulationism share top priority - there are differing concerns at play and many times that the right choice for one is the wrong choice for the other.  Game design is all about trade-offs, and in some cases that trade-off will be "option A is more realistic, but option B (increases agency/improves balance/offers more customization/<insert any other of the myriad game-focused concerns here>)".

Splitting based on range would have...  Issues.  Many of them.  Including the fact that it would just feel wrong to some players that they have to use a different skill to fire the same weapon.  And, frankly, this seems like a case of harming realism for a very dubious gain, especially when there are other, better ways to deal with it.

In truth, the existing weapon skills that far off being balanced - a major overhaul is not needed.