Shotguns and RoF... is there a better way?

[Anders]

It gets a little silly when the shotgun from Low-Tech did 88d+88 pi- against 88 times the DR. We heavily considered averaging that...

[Gigermann]

Think of the shotgun as firing hydras (that is, the 9-headed dragon-thing); how many heads the individual hydra has doesn't mean anything until it's directed at a particular target, at which point the extra heads makes it easier for at least one of them to bite. Each head is treated as a separate damage-causing entity, even at the 10% of ½D range (at which point it's just assumed that half of them bite, rather than using MoS to determine how many).

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Note: I've never been skeet shooting, so I might get some of this wrong.

You figuring it like covering an area? I haven't done the arithmetic but that wins my vote. I've only used a shotgun once. It was a loaner, old, double-barrelled, not designed for the sport, not loaded for clays but something small. My only other shooting experience* was scoped small-calibre rifle. It was an improvised trap shoot. What's that worth, about -6, worse?
I didn't powder every bird but I didn't miss.
I'd call +9 conservative:D

*no way I'm I gonna count a literal few hours of bolt-action paintball:)

[Jovus]

Originally Posted by Gigermann

Think of the shotgun as firing hydras (that is, the 9-headed dragon-thing); how many heads the individual hydra has doesn't mean anything until it's directed at a particular target, at which point the extra heads makes it easier for at least one of them to bite. Each head is treated as a separate damage-causing entity, even at the 10% of ½D range (at which point it's just assumed that half of them bite, rather than using MoS to determine how many).

I think you just won the thread.

Now to go stat up a hydra-firing shogun for Iuz to use on my PCs...

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

For spraying and suppressive fire, the key thing is that you can't use your gun like a bullet-hose unless it acts like a bullet-hose.

A shotgun firing 3x9 is firing 3 blasts of pellets. There's more than enough independent shot going out to form a stream for spraying or suppressing fire, but the shot actually come in 3 pulses, not one stream. The issue isn't so much lack of lateral separation between shots as an excess of temporal separation.

If you were spraying fire with an automatic shotgun, you'd figure out how many rounds are directed at each target out of the N, then multiply that number by the M for the individual attacks. Similarly to what you'd do if you were using a rapid strike to fire some of your shells at one target and some at another.

(It also might not be appropriate to use the cumulative rcl penalty for subsequent targets, since rcl 1 on shotguns is a bit of a qualitative thing...)

Originally Posted by Mathulhu

Spreading Fire and Auto shotguns firing NxM where N=6 and M=9


Assign shots per target from N.

A gets 2
Square 1 gets 1
Square 2 gets 1
B gets 2

These shots are then multiplied by M.

A gets 2x9 = 18
B gets 2x9 =18


I can't find an explicit mention that you can't split fire from the M portion of the attack but it makes sense.

fair enough so it ends up being a kind of rapid strike but without the hefty negs (and with benefits from the 1-2xM ROF). And to be fair until a Rof 20xM shot gun turns up it is only ever going to be 1 or 2 shells at 1 or 2 targets max.

However why is a shotgun firing at ROF6x9 because its being cycled really fast ala fast firing treated differently from an Full auto one with the same overall ROF?

TBH same goes for SA pistol being fired at ROF9 under the same rules as ROF9 FA guns. Its the same number of shots in the same time.

And equally if its an issue of an excess of temporal separation, what's the difference between a ROF6 SA shot gun being fired with fast fire and a ROF6 FA shotgun, they are pumping out the same number of shots with the same temporal separation surely. In fact using fast fire from TS a SA shotgun can fire at ROF9, even faster then the Daewoo on FA (and thus with even shorter temporal separation between shots)?

Am I looking at this the wrong way is it actually that fast firing (especially in TS with SA shotguns at x3) a bit broken, is is there some intrinsic difference vis a vis what spray represents between doing that with a SA and a FA gun even if the FA gun is actually firing less shots per second?

However leaving all that aside if nothing else if you did allow spray fire at NxM that would mean even a single round could be a spray hitting several people, which isn't very realistic.

Originally Posted by Gigermann

Think of the shotgun as firing hydras (that is, the 9-headed dragon-thing); how many heads the individual hydra has doesn't mean anything until it's directed at a particular target, at which point the extra heads makes it easier for at least one of them to bite. Each head is treated as a separate damage-causing entity, even at the 10% of ½D range (at which point it's just assumed that half of them bite, rather than using MoS to determine how many).

ah hydra metaphors, they make it all easier! ;-0

cheers for the replies guys.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Unfortunately I can't seem to find the rules reference for that last thing.

Found it:

Originally Posted by Tactical Shooting page 6

For more authentic point-blank results, use the Rcl statistic for slugs, not shot, and change the damage type to huge piercing (pi++) due to the large area of the wound.

Originally Posted by Jovus

(It also might not be appropriate to use the cumulative rcl penalty for subsequent targets, since rcl 1 on shotguns is a bit of a qualitative thing...)

I think it's still appropriate to accumulate Rcl as the recoil of the weapon is going to matter when firing shells from a RoF 5+ shotgun in spraying fire. It's still pretty generous compared to the same weapon firing slugs.

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

It gets a little silly when the shotgun from Low-Tech did 88d+88 pi- against 88 times the DR. We heavily considered averaging that...

I'd do it as 8dx11 or 4dx22, personally.

Originally Posted by johndallman

The -6 is a "Ranged Rapid Strike", which you'll find on p18 of Tactical Shooting,

Originally in Martial Arts page 119-120 for Bows and Thrown Weapons and extended in High-Tech to Firearms.

Originally Posted by kdtipa

So in the third situation listed there... 7 pellets hits out of all three shots fired... it looks to me like 7 of the 9 in the first shot actually hit, and none of the following shots had any pellets that hit anything.

Again, there is no privilege in the order of hits in Rapid Fire. There is no direct relationship between the order that the shots are fired, the order that you determine if they hit, and the order you roll damage. If you hit with six bullets of twelve, it could be the first six, the last six, every other bullet or the first, third, fourth, seventh, tenth, and eleventh! The rules do not distinguish. If it matters if the special bullet(s) hit you need to roll randomly.

If I'm firing at three separate targets, that means I only hit one of three targets. Or am I misunderstanding something still?

If you are firing at three separate targets you are either using Ranged Rapid Strike, Spraying Fire with a Rof 5+ weapon (and for a shot-load that almost certainly means the number of shells; not the pellets e.g. a RoF 5x9 shotgun can Spray, but an RoF 1x1200 single-shot with birdshot cannot) or you are using something more exotic like Extra Attack (Multistrike) or Accelerated Time Rate. In each case you will know which shell was fired at which target (this order does matter) but not which pellets from those shells hit. In the case of Spraying Fire, subsequent targets do suffer from increased Rcl but this makes sense, because you are engaging the targets in succession (spraying them with fire) and the actual felt recoil of the weapon is going to be a factor.

I'd like to see a write up of how the rolling happens. Sticking with the pump shotgun from the basic set, and imagining a person with zombies or something closing on them quickly. The person in the scenario fires one shot at each of three zombies in the first round. How do you roll that and figure out how much of each shot hit each zombie?

Firstly you can't attack three targets with that weapon and just the Basic Set rules. The Pump Shotgun has RoF 2 and can't use Spraying Fire.

However with rules from High-Tech and Tactical Shooting:
Assume three zombies, one on the left is at 3 yards, one in the middle is at 25 yards and one on the right is at 52 yards. Otherwise assume good lighting and so on for no extra penalties. The shooter has Guns-24.

The shooter who wants to hit all three (and lacks Extra Attack (Multistrike) or ATR!) must use Rapid Strike/Quick Shooting.

EDIT: He can't use Spraying Fire because it's not a fully automatic shotgun with RoF 5+.

Ranged Rapid Strike:
In this case the shooter is carefully firing one shell at each target.
He still must increase the RoF to 3 for a -3 Fast-Firing penalty.
Additionally he takes a -12 for Ranged Rapid Strike (3 attacks at -12/-12/-12).
When done he will still have two shells loaded.

Zombie 1:
This zombie is within 1/10 of 1/2D range. Therefore the special rules for this situation apply.
Range penalty is -1
Fast-Firing is -3
Quick Shooting is -12
Because this is treated like a slug, he just gets the Rapid Fire bonus for RoF 2 which is +0.
Effective skill is 8.

Rcl is also increased to 4 (3 for close range +1 for Fast-Firing). This doesn't really matter since he's just firing the one shell.

If he hits he does 4d+4 pi++ (1d+1 pi x (1/2)9 and changed to pi++) against DR 1 (DR 0 is treated as DR 1 against attacks with fractional armor divisors).


Zombie 2:
Range penalty is -7
Fast Firing is -3
Quick-Shooting is -12
Rapid Fire bonus for RoF 9 is +2
Effective Skill is 4
Rcl is only 2 however (Rcl 1 +1 for Fast-Firing).
Damage is 1d+1 pi

Zombie 3:
This one is past 1/2D range.
Range penalty is -9
Fast Firing is -3
Quick Shooting is -12
Effective Skill is 2. He can only hit this one accidentally.
Damage is (1d+1)/2 pi

As you can see it's probably a bad idea to try this unless you are using a weapon with a higher RoF, have a very high level of skill, or heavily invested in the Fast-Firing and Quick-Shooting techniques!

It's also a lot easier if you are a Gunslinger, which halves the penalties for both Fast-Firing and Rapid Strike. It also lets you add Acc without Aiming! The same guy as Gunslinger could Rapid Strike at effective skill of 18, 14, and 12, respectively!

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

You figuring it like covering an area?

My (possible erroneous) understanding is that Skeet targets always follow the same path, and that shooters are waiting to fire when the target appears. In that case it makes sense to me to take an Aim and Wait (B390) and shoot when the target crosses your aimpoint. I have no idea if this is at all accurate.

[SolemnGolem]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

DRx4 (so DR 2 for human skin)

I missed this (apparently fairly important) bit in the rules. Do you happen to have a cite on that?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by SolemnGolem

I missed this (apparently fairly important) bit in the rules. Do you happen to have a cite on that?

Oops! By RAW it's only DR 1:

Originally Posted by B379

In addition, treat DR 0 (e.g., bare
skin) as if it were DR 1 against any
fractional armor divisor!

I somehow remembered it as being treated as DR 0.5, for some reason. My apologies.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Jovus

I think you just won the thread.

Now to go stat up a hydra-firing shogun for Iuz to use on my PCs...

They'd better be fire-breathing cyborg hydras, for good measure.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Spraying Fire:...snip example...

Ok, are we saying you can do spray with non FA weapons so long as you fast fire at ROF5+ (or ROF5+xM for shot shells)?

I'm thinking of the following house rules for multi loads

You can do spray fire with shotguns but you use the N in NxM to lose shots between targets and each shot you lose will be 1xM, but in all other ways you would treat is a ROF(NxM) for determining effect of the shot.

so set up is three chaps standing with a yard gap between each one effective skill (leaving out ROF bonus is 12, and I roll 10 each time)

example one a Daewoo firing FA ROF(6x9):

Ist target is 12 + 6 (ROF54), 8 pellets hit leaving 48 in play

One yard gap removes 1x9 pellets leaving 37

2nd target is 12 + 5 (ROF37) but recoil is 2, so he's hit by 1+3 = 4 pellets leaving 33 in play

One yard gap removes 1x9 pellets leaving 24 in play

3rd target is 12 + 4 but recoil is 3, so he's hit by 1+2 = 3 pellets


example two SA shot gun firing ROF(3x9)

1st Target is 12 + 5 (ROF27), 7 pellets hit leaving 20 in play

One yard gap removes 1x9 pellets leaving 11

2nd target 12 + 2 (ROF11) but recoil is 2, so he's hit by 1+2 = 3 pellets leaving 8 in play

One yard gap removes 1x9 pellets leaving none for the last chap


example three SA shot gun firing ROF(6x9) using FF+3

1st Target is 12 + 6 (ROF54) - 6 for FF, recoil is 1+1 = 2 due to FF though, so he's hit by 1+1=2 pellets leaving 52 in play

One yard gap removes 1x9 pellets leaving 43

2nd Target is 12 + 5 (ROF43) - 6 for FF, recoil is now 1+1+1= 3, so he's hit by 1 pellet leaving 42

One yard gap removes 1x9 pellets leaving 33

3rd Target is 12 + 5 (ROF33) - 6 for FF recoil is 1+1+2 = 4 so he's hit by one pellet



I think I'm reasonably happy with that, using 3xM (i.e no fancy super fast trigger pulling) you still can only hit two targets only if there's one yard separation*, or three targets if they are standing directly next to each other. This seams reasonably justified with shot shells past 1/10th range as per the rules in TS regarding the chances of other being hit by missed pellets. However I wouldn't allow it with non shot shells.

Using fast trigger pulling does allow you to spread shot about but its pretty ineffective on all targets, I think I'm happy with that and it seems to match with the results of doing the same with normal rounds.

Actual FA weapons are still much better at doing it effectively.


let me just check with multi flechette Nx20 shells

example two SA shot gun firing ROF(3x20)

1st Target is 12 + 6 (ROF60), 8 flechettes hit leaving 52 in play

One yard gap removes 1x20 pellets leaving 32

2nd target 12 + 5 (ROF32) but recoil is 2, so he's hit by 1+3 = 4 flechettes leaving 28 in play

One yard gap removes 1x20 flechettes leaving 8 in play

3rd target is 12 + 1 (ROF8) but recoil is 3, so he's hit by 1+1 = 2 flechettes


example three SA shot gun firing ROF(6x20) using FF+3

1st Target is 12 + 7 (ROF120) - 6 for FF, recoil is 1+1 = 2 due to FF though, so he's hit by 1+1=2 flechettes leaving 118 in play

One yard gap removes 1x20 flechettes leaving 98

2nd Target is 12 + 6 (ROF98) - 6 for FF, recoil is now 1+1+1= 3, so he's hit by 1 flechette leaving 97

One yard gap removes 1x20 pellets leaving 77

3rd Target is 12 + 6 (ROF77) - 6 for FF recoil is 1+1+2 = 4 so he's hit by one flechette


Hmm OK, the ROF(3x20) can now reach the third target, and the ROF(6x20) could keep going past that. However I think I'm still OK with this because to get a 5 yard+ target area within the angle required by spray fire they are going to be reasonably far way, which means that shot (or flechette) will spread a bit, and its actually going to be quite a tough shot for a shotgun anyway. In fact it might well be over 1/2 range so half damage as well? EDIT: may well not be that far away you could get 5 yds in a 30 degree angle at a 10 yard range

Slight artefact is that the less good you are (or the less good your early shots are) has a slight positive effect on your chances effecting wider areas, but I think losing 1xM per yard overwhelms that effect IMO (and its true for ordinary spray as well). and well teh less you good you are, the less effective shots will be anyway.

*lets check two targets two yards apart

example two SA shot gun firing ROF(3x9)

1st Target is 12 + 5 (ROF27), 7 pellets hit leaving 20 in play

Two yard gap removes 2x9 pellets leaving 0 in play

Ok that's a bit of a fringe result (exactly none left)! But even If I hit the first guy with a couple less its only going to leave 1-2 for the 2nd guy so no bonus to hit and recoil 3.


example two SA shot gun firing ROF(3x20)

1st Target is 12 + 6 (ROF60), 8 flechettes hit leaving 52 in play

Two yard gap removes 2x20 pellets leaving 12

2nd target 12 + 2 (ROF12) but recoil is 3, so he's hit by 1+1 = 2 flechettes.

A bit more effective but still reasonable I reckon.