Quote:
Originally Posted by MrFix
All this song and dance with Designate An Area of 2 Yards Attack Anyone Who Enters is nonsense that has no application in GURPS combat - the NPCs see some dude shooting into the ground, why pop out that way if they can pop out literally anywhere else and shoot the guy, free of any effects of suppressive fire? Most MGs fire at ROF that gives only +2 to hit, if anything jumping out into suppressive fire as GURPS understands it is beneficial - you KNOW the enemy has reduced accuracy compared to normal shooting/wait, AND you know he has no defenses due to all-out attack, and you know he's not in cover because he's shooting you!
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How do you spot which 2-hex wide line he's shooting down? It's not as if it's marked out with a glowy area-of-effect marker like in some video game. And 6+RoF bonus and you don't have to worry about visibility is going to be a good deal for someone with Guns-10 or 12 in many situations. 8+RoF for a mounted weapon is actually a pretty good chance of nailing someone dumb enough to try and move through your line of fire, too.
Also note that at RoF 10+ you can have two zones side-by-side.
The real reason suppressive fire works relatively poorly in GURPS is that the turns are so short, and thus the area you can reasonably fill with bullets is small - to cover a mounted machinegun's traditional 'beaten zone' takes many turns, and characters generally get to act on better information than people do in Real Life. Being brutal with Per checks to locate fire before you can dodge it, or to even know exactly where suppressive fire is even going, helps a lot when characters have human-normal Perception levels. It's not so good when they have Per 17+, but then characters with those sorts of attribute levels probably should be able to detect zone attacks with firearms, etc.