Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by lexington

It takes about 0.45 seconds to drop one meter (say we're shooting at center of mass) at RoF 100 that means 45 of the rounds will hit the body.

Actually, no. Once the damage gets to 10*HP, he is destroyed.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I thought Hitting the Wrong Target was meant to be rolled for each individual missile which misses. Which means that you'll hit the first target with X number of missiles depending on margin of success and the RoF rules and then further targets will be hit by each individual missile which misses on the lower of 9 or what you'd have had to deliberately aim at them (I'd ignore concealment from intervening targets, though).

Basically, it means that the first few men of the file you're shooting at will absorb the vast majority of the attacks, with the rest being hit only with fire that blows-through them. Which seems realistic enough.

Well, except for the fact that the soldier you're targeting gets hit at most once, and is usually missed, while the one right behind them reliably gets hit ~30 times. This leads to weirdness like deliberately targeting the bodyguard so that the majority of rounds will a 9 or less to hit the high value target bodyguard is standing in front of.

Any patch that allows you to shoot through a hex and get one roll at min(9, hit chance) per projectile will radically revamp the expected hits from high ROF weapons.

Dealing with high ROF is hard.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Actually, no. Once the damage gets to 10*HP, he is destroyed.

11*HP, surely?

In any case, when exactly someone drops is an interesting question.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Actually, no. Once the damage gets to 10*HP, he is destroyed.

With a 20d weapon, yes perhaps, but most guns will leave a lot of Fredrickburger in the way.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by martinl

Well, except for the fact that the soldier you're targeting gets hit at most once, and is usually missed, while the one right behind them reliably gets hit ~30 times. This leads to weirdness like deliberately targeting the bodyguard so that the majority of rounds will a 9 or less to hit the high value target bodyguard is standing in front of.

Any patch that allows you to shoot through a hex and get one roll at min(9, hit chance) per projectile will radically revamp the expected hits from high ROF weapons.

Dealing with high ROF is hard.

Note that you roll at 9 or whatever you'd have to roll to hit if you'd deliberately targeted him.

Which I'd read to rule that no more bullets are likely to hit than would have hit on a deliberate attack.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Note that you roll at 9 or whatever you'd have to roll to hit if you'd deliberately targeted him.

Which I'd read to rule that no more bullets are likely to hit than would have hit on a deliberate attack.

This seems inconsistent with your comment above. If you make that ruling, you go back to 2/3 of the guys in the line of fire being missed completely in the original scenario (they get hit with no more bullets than they would have been hit with if they were targeted deliberately). Would you please clarify?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by martinl

This seems inconsistent with your comment above. If you make that ruling, you go back to 2/3 of the guys in the line of fire being missed completely in the original scenario (they get hit with no more bullets than they would have been hit with if they were targeted deliberately). Would you please clarify?

They are hit by approximately one third of the bullets (roll 9-) which still haven't been stopped by the DR of previous targets acting as cover, up to the number of bullets they could have been hit by if they were the primary target.

In practice, first few targets get hit by 10+ bullets each (skill 9 + ROF bonus), progressingly fewer bullets strike each target as the DR of the human cover in between stops more bullets.

If skill 9 is after ROF bonus, note that you're probably firing from so far away that you are lucky to hit the whole formation. In that case, it doesn't matter who you aim for, you won't have more than a slight chance of hitting anything. Remember, when resolving individual bullets, you'd have to roll 4- to hit.

You probably do hit a lot of people, but there's no guarantee that they'll be even close to the guy you were 'aiming' for.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Icelander

They are hit by approximately one third of the bullets (roll 9-) which still haven't been stopped by the DR of previous targets acting as cover, up to the number of bullets they could have been hit by if they were the primary target.

In practise, first few targets get hit by 10+ bullets each, progressingly fewer bullets strike each target as the DR of the human cover in between stops more bullets.

While I can't go look at the book and get a word for word, I'm pretty sure you're torturing the text past any plausible interpretation there.

To do what you're saying, you'd have to make N+1 rolls for N stray bullets, one for each bullet individually and one for the whole attack as if it were meant to be on target. No way. Whether you're rolling per bullet (I do not think so) or per volley, you're not doing both.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

While I can't go look at the book and get a word for word, I'm pretty sure you're torturing the text past any plausible interpretation there.

To do what you're saying, you'd have to make N+1 rolls for N stray bullets, one for each bullet individually and one for the whole attack as if it were meant to be on target. No way. Whether you're rolling per bullet (I do not think so) or per volley, you're not doing both.

Oh, I wouldn't roll for both. I'd just note that there was no chance that the target was hit by more of the individual bullets which missed than could have been the case if he was the primary target and a 1-1-1 was rolled. Once he'd have been hit by that many bullets, I'd stop rolling.

Not that I was likely to be rolling in the first place. As I said, I'd be using averages, slightly adjusted according to a random roll.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Oh, I wouldn't roll for both. I'd just note that there was no chance that the target was hit by more of the individual bullets which missed than could have been the case if he was the primary target and a 1-1-1 was rolled. Once he'd have been hit by that many bullets, I'd stop rolling.

Not that I was likely to be rolling in the first place. As I said, I'd be using averages, slightly adjusted according to a random roll.

...Okay, I'm not saying you can't do that, of course, but I'm confident that that is not actually anything like RAW.