[Varyon]

Originally Posted by MWnRNC

Would there be any reasonable, incremental improvements to guns firing cased ammunition from TL8 to TL9?

HUD links of some flavor, projecting the aimpoint of the weapon onto the user's field of view (requiring HUD-compatible cyberware, glasses, helmet, etc), would have an effect comparable to a laser sight. Improvements in technology could yield more resilient/reliable weapons at low cost, yield better recoil compensation, etc. Improvements in manufacturing could result in more consistent bullet performance, potentially enough to render normal-price ammo comparable to purchased (but not hand-loaded) match-grade.

Originally Posted by MWnRNC

Tech

UT electromagnetic weapons can explicitly use the same reduced/boosted velocity options as liquid propellant (see UT141 and UT139). The reduced velocity option for many of the EM weapons probably shouldn't count as subsonic, however, at least not when it's only half damage - the weapons use tiny calibers (3-4mm, typically) and make up for it with incredible velocities, probably well in excess of Mach 2 (playing around a bit with Douglas Cole's ballistic's spreadsheet, it looks like getting 6d+2 out of a 4mm, 42gr projectile - that is, matching the performance of the Gauss Rifle - requires around Mach 3.5; at the sound barrier of 343 m/s, such a projectile would only be dealing around 1d+2).

Now, 2077 EM weapons may well use more traditional calibers and propel them at more traditional velocities; this would result in markedly fewer shots per magazine, as would the space in the magazine taken up by a power cell (UT EM weapons have a separate power cell, rather than one integrated into the magazine - which from your description it sounds like is the scheme used in 2077).

The "charge up" effect in 2077 probably isn't necessary, but likely makes for a fun visual effect (although I'll note I haven't played the game). If firing at max RoF requires the power supply to be discharging at its maximum safe rate, then you'd just see RoF cut in half for shots using twice normal energy (and dealing around +50% damage), but it's unlikely the power supply is at maximum safe rate in normal use. Do note UT only has "boosted" mode using 1.5x energy (and thus only dealing around +30% damage); you'll need to decide if that's sufficient, or if you want weapons to deal even more (but do note that, realistically, higher damage would mean higher felt recoil, and thus would call for higher MinST; +1/die is probably already enough to call for higher MinST, honestly - HT has +10% to damage calling for a full +10% to MinST).

Originally Posted by MWnRNC

Smart

Here it sounds like 2077 is allowing for unrealistically-small gyrocs and ignoring the speed up effect (that would have meant extra programming just to tick players off, honestly). As for weapon skill, I'd be inclined to use the reduced list of Guns specialties from "Alternate Guns Specialties and Techniques" (Pyramid #3/65). Gyrocs would function like normal weapons of the appropriate type (pistol or longarm) when fired from the hip or aimed without activating any special homing/guided/whatever function. Doing the latter would call for a Technique that basically lets you ignore range; honestly, homing weapons really need to use something like "On Target" (Pyramid #3/77), with an Aim roll to actually "lock on" or similar, for the characters skills to matter (by RAW, you basically just designate a target with Aim, the shoot and let the projectile/Advantage's skill take over). If you want it to be able to shoot around corners, that's probably a separate Technique, probably -2 per 45-degrees it would need to turn or similar. Bullet cost is up to you (if you're wanting to match 2077 performance, you may want to go with the same costs used there, unless it simplifies things by having all types of weapon use the same ammo).