[Aryeonos]

So are we back to, put battle rifles in longarms and it's all fixed then? Not that that's a bad thing.

[RHat]

So are we back to, put battle rifles in longarms and it's all fixed then? Not that that's a bad thing.

Pretty much.  The only other thing is adding more shotgun-specific rounds to help them fill their niche.  Maybe do something to limit how much you can silence a Machine Pistol.

I'd like to see them add something to have different weapons benefit from Take Aim differently, too, which would also help in some ways.

[Aryeonos]

Wait, why limit the silenced factor of MPs? Though I would like to see shotguns having harder hitting special purpose rounds (S&S's and Explosives), and a better range.

[RHat]

Wait, why limit the silenced factor of MPs? Though I would like to see shotguns having harder hitting special purpose rounds (S&S's and Explosives), and a better range.

They may or may not be too good for silent work - they can't be as good as regular pistols for that, otherwise they're starting to tread into the domain where pistols are supposed to be king.  This is one of those things I'd need to test out to be certain of (the superior Concealability of Pistols may or may not be sufficient), but still.

[Aryeonos]

This is where I think MPs could go over to pistols, I mean, they're a concealed option for automatics sure. But what are they really? Automatic pistols. I dunno, I think pistols deserve a high capacity fire arm that can suppress, either that or enable pistols the ability to fire in 3 round bursts if they have the SA Quality, or suppress, but with a highly reduced range and coverage area.

[RHat]

This is where I think MPs could go over to pistols, I mean, they're a concealed option for automatics sure. But what are they really? Automatic pistols. I dunno, I think pistols deserve a high capacity fire arm that can suppress, either that or enable pistols the ability to fire in 3 round bursts if they have the SA Quality, or suppress, but with a highly reduced range and coverage area.

There's a couple of specific pistols with higher capacities.  But by default, suppression fire belongs outside of their purview.  The balance here is that they're very good for certain things, which means being bad at other things.

[Aryeonos]

Yeah, and MPs aren't great automatics, at best they're suppression weapons or you can use them to bring down your opponent's defense, so I dunno, they feel like they should go with pistols. I'd say it's something that could be play tested, but I'm not standing by it as the end all solution.

[valavaern]

This is where I think MPs could go over to pistols, I mean, they're a concealed option for automatics sure. But what are they really? Automatic pistols. I dunno, I think pistols deserve a high capacity fire arm that can suppress, either that or enable pistols the ability to fire in 3 round bursts if they have the SA Quality, or suppress, but with a highly reduced range and coverage area.

Machine pistol become an especial awkward category when you realize there's a few light & heavy pistols that are BF/FA capable.  :x

[RHat]

This is where I think MPs could go over to pistols, I mean, they're a concealed option for automatics sure. But what are they really? Automatic pistols. I dunno, I think pistols deserve a high capacity fire arm that can suppress, either that or enable pistols the ability to fire in 3 round bursts if they have the SA Quality, or suppress, but with a highly reduced range and coverage area.

Machine pistol become an especial awkward category when you realize there's a few light & heavy pistols that are BF/FA capable.  :x

Which typically have some other balancing factor.

The Fubuki changes its loading style to a muzzle-load, requiring 4 complex actions to reload (assuming that the complex action for loading a muzzle-tube isn't for inserting a single round) and loses wide bursts, the Slivergun is flechettes only, the Palm Pistol doesn't count because it only fires two rounds, and then it's empty, the 200ST requires a Complex Action to fire bursts which "strain the weapon" (so you better hope you never get a critical glitch), and the Savalette Guardian requires a Complex Action for Burst Fire as well.

The only real offender is the Fichetti Executive Action, and even then they seem to think its lack of RC is a balancer (as given the lack of RC options available for a pistol, you won't be able to deal with all the recoil of 2 bursts).

[Csjarrat]

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.

yeah what i actually said in my post was "rename automatics to ASSAULT WEAPONS"
shotguns=close range assault weapons and therefore suit that group better than the sniper rifle group imo.

that way, pistols becomes more of a sidearms/pdw group (ideal for concealibility/stealth) + has a broad range of weapons from tasers through to machine pistols (which is probably where the majority of shadowrunners/gangers are going to find their niche)

assault weapons are the guns you bring for a serious showdown, you're taking in an SMG for a high rate of fire over a short/medium range, an AR for greater range, and a shotgun for the real close up stuff. utility comes from shock locks, and full auto flechette suppression etc

precision/marksman group gets the battle rifles for marksman type roles, sniper rifles for the 3 mile kill, and hunting rifles for those who cant afford one of the other two types of gun :-)

as it is now, you can just take automatics. battle rifles for long range, AR'/SMG for medium, MP for close/concealable work. aside from taser/hand cannons you're not really missing out on much by just chucking your skill points into it, which is bad game design in my opinion.
as many of the other posters have said, the other groups should be equally useful within their role, there shouldn't necessarily be an "auto-include" that is good in every situation

[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.

yeah what i actually said in my post was "rename automatics to ASSAULT WEAPONS"
shotguns=close range assault weapons and therefore suit that group better than the sniper rifle group imo.

that way, pistols becomes more of a sidearms/pdw group (ideal for concealibility/stealth) + has a broad range of weapons from tasers through to machine pistols (which is probably where the majority of shadowrunners/gangers are going to find their niche)

assault weapons are the guns you bring for a serious showdown, you're taking in an SMG for a high rate of fire over a short/medium range, an AR for greater range, and a shotgun for the real close up stuff. utility comes from shock locks, and full auto flechette suppression etc

precision/marksman group gets the battle rifles for marksman type roles, sniper rifles for the 3 mile kill, and hunting rifles for those who cant afford one of the other two types of gun :-)

as it is now, you can just take automatics. battle rifles for long range, AR'/SMG for medium, MP for close/concealable work. aside from taser/hand cannons you're not really missing out on much by just chucking your skill points into it, which is bad game design in my opinion.
as many of the other posters have said, the other groups should be equally useful within their role, there shouldn't necessarily be an "auto-include" that is good in every situation

The name is not a consideration.

As a game design and balance point, it is a bad idea - you shift battle rifles off to Longarms, add more specialized shotgun rounds as a boost to Longarms.  The role of pistols is to have easily concealed weapons that don't take much to be good with, the role of Automatics should be one of general utility without being the perfect choice for almost any, and Longarms is for long range or certain specialized uses.  A small boost to Pistols and Longarms may yet be needed at that point (if so, adding a stat that determines the bonus gained from Take Aim, and perhaps making Take Aim incompatible with FA fire), but a dramatic rearrangement is wholly unnecessary making large wholly unnecessary change to fix an issue that could easily be fixed by a smaller change is a very bad thing to do and is simply asking for new problems.

And Automatics cannot be made the "serious showdown" skill.  Heavy Weapons gets that role.

[Csjarrat]

lol, yeah, nothing says "hello" like a gyro mounted assault cannon :-)
i dunno, i mean it makes sense to me to change the groups up. like one of the previous posters had said, if "automatics" covers weapons that arent automatic and other weapons have automatic modes that dont use the automatics skill, it seems a bit odd.
i think classifying weapons by purpose/role rather than firing mode would be common sense but thats just my opinion.
have to say i really like the idea of changing the "take aim" bonuses for different weapon classes, that could be a really nice way to give lighter/smaller/accurate weapons more of a boost. a +2 for light pistols would be a nice way to give them a lift

[RHat]

I'm actually thinking by weapon - becomes another means of inter-weapon differentiation - with each weapon class having a certain baseline.  Seems like a good add, and since it feeds off of what already exists, not much complication.  Could even use it to give mods like Firing Selection Change a downside.

And Automatics could well be renamed.  I just am not all that concerned with the name of the skill as much as I am the game effects of it.  And the game benefits of changing up the groups dramatically when they're *this* close to being good are...  Dubious at best.  In the abstract, there could be good divisions like that, but we're not dealing with the abstract.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Believe it or not, I like the groups and the weapon assignments just the way they are.  One can argue both sides of the equation until one is blue in the face, but the Firearms group wraps things up the way it should be, and the individual skills hold sufficient and specific uses so that one is not sufficiently all-around for everything - no, not even Automatics.

[RHat]

Believe it or not, I like the groups and the weapon assignments just the way they are.  One can argue both sides of the equation until one is blue in the face, but the Firearms group wraps things up the way it should be, and the individual skills hold sufficient and specific uses so that one is not sufficiently all-around for everything - no, not even Automatics.

For the most part, Pistols and Longarms are specialized, rather than generalized.  The problem is that Automatics dips too far into the specialties of others, and becomes the one true option unless a character has a specific reason not to take it.