[HT] Full-Auto weapons and RoF #!

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

The OP thought that only a few weapons in High Tech have a ! RoF, but about 2/3 the Gunner (MG) and Guns (LMG) weapons are restricted to fully automatic fire.

Sorry, should have clarified I'm mainly looking at assault rifles and SMG. I find it hard to believe one can get precise control on rounds fired with most weapons with RoF in the range of 9 to 15.

As to MG and LMG, the ! disappears in Ultra-Tech, and you even have a rifle with RoF 40 (the Gatling carbine). How does one ensure that when firing the Gauss Minigun (RoF 100), one can fire exactly 47 rounds on one turn, then 86 on the next, then 5 on the next?

Even if you did add ! to the RoF - or as was pointed out used a High-Tech MG that already includes the ! - thereby giving you RoF 100!, all that means is a minimum of 25 rounds when fired. So one could still fire precisely 47 rounds on one turn, then 86 on the next, then 25 to get the exact minimum.

Brought back to the rifles, if you add ! as per the proposed rule provided here (which I do like, btw), than means a minimum of 2 to 3 rounds per turn, but you can still pick any number between 3 to 15, getting it exactly.

Anyway, from a few of the responses, it seems to indicate that skill plays a roll. So the more skilled you are, the more precise you can be, to the point of ensuring exact accuracy? Even with a weapon with RoF 100!?

I know, I'm probably being picky, but I just wanted to understand the realism with being able to get complete control of your exact RoF, which to me sounds impossible (I acknowledge having no gun experience whatsoever).

And yes, I use the "hit MACRO for attack roll button" in my MapTools, which automates all the features I care to add, so it would take care of "actual RoF" very easily for my games. There would be no slowdown whatsoever for my games. That's why I don't mind looking into optional houserules for this.

[Gigermann]

Having fired the M249 quite a bit, and being trained to limit the length of the burst "by ear," I can tell you that it certainly is possible to do so. It's definitely a DX/Weapon-Skill issue. If you know the weapon's "rhythm" well enough, I think you could reliably get close to a 3-round burst without a limiter—getting it down to single-shot would be damned hard, though not impossible. It's easier to get the rhythm with a lower RoF, like the M60.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

As to MG and LMG, the ! disappears in Ultra-Tech, and you even have a rifle with RoF 40 (the Gatling carbine). How does one ensure that when firing the Gauss Minigun (RoF 100), one can fire exactly 47 rounds on one turn, then 86 on the next, then 5 on the next?

Well, for one possibility, nobody would be terribly shocked to find UT had omitted a note it should have had.

On the other hand, all UT weapons are smart guns. They've got the technical capability to delimit their fire any way they please. The only reason the user might not have that capability is lack of a sufficiently quick interface.

[apoc527]

It bothers me less for UT guns, but there is a definite "issue" of players rapid firing to the bonuses. You see semi auto, sure, but in terms of burst sizes, you tend to only see 5, 9, and 13 round bursts, all designed to be the minimum ammo usage to get the next highest RoF bonus.

However, this ultimately doesn't bother me very much. The RoF bonuses are already an abstraction with arbitrary limits. If I'm living in a world where the physics dictate that bursts of 5, 9, and 13 rounds give me the bonus I want, then I suppose I learn to FIRE 5, 9, or 13 round bursts and don't bother wasting ammo. Really, what would requiring players to waste ammo on 6-8, 10-12 or 14+ round bursts really accomplish? Is it going to drastically improve gameplay? For some, I'm sure they are sufficiently bothered to say "yes," but for ME, the answer has to be "no." ESPECIALLY if I need to add another die roll for more precision/realism. One reason I stopped playing GURPS 3rd Edition was the ridiculous number of rolls needed to adjudicate a burst of automatic fire. The new system isn't perfect, but it's playable, and for me, that's what counts.

So I'll keep on ignoring the slight amount of min-maxing inherent in conveniently only firing bursts of 5, 9, and 13 rounds. :-)

EDIT: One thing you could do by way of "remedying" this situation is to say that guns can ONLY fire at 100% RoF, 66% RoF, 50% RoF, 33% RoF, and 25% RoF. This is arbitrary, of course, but it would force some guns to waste ammo on suboptimal burst sizes. It's a double edged sword though, because now any gun that happens to hit those magic numbers above is "better" than guns that "waste" ammo.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by apoc527

It bothers me less for UT guns, but there is a definite "issue" of players rapid firing to the bonuses. You see semi auto, sure, but in terms of burst sizes, you tend to only see 5, 9, and 13 round bursts, all designed to be the minimum ammo usage to get the next highest RoF bonus.

My players are better behaved than this - they use 5, 10, or 'all of them' for their burst sizes. I'm happy with letting even not very skilled players have precise control as long as the players don't use it to game the break points, because 1) it saves on rolling and calculation time, and 2) in the end the ammo consumption is likely to end up the same anyway.

[apoc527]

Originally Posted by Rupert

My players are better behaved than this - they use 5, 10, or 'all of them' for their burst sizes. I'm happy with letting even not very skilled players have precise control as long as the players don't use it to game the break points, because 1) it saves on rolling and calculation time, and 2) in the end the ammo consumption is likely to end up the same anyway.

Which is nice, I suppose, but ultimately just as arbitrary. I guess my perspective is that if 9 is optimal, 10 is nearly so, and do I care if my PCs are saving 1 round per longish burst? Not really! And yes I agree with you--ammo consumption is going to end up the same no matter what.

[Dunadin777]

Since the gunners here are talking about this being easy enough to get a feel/ear for doing reliably, why not make this as some sort of technique/perk that is part of ordinary gun skill? Perhaps say that when you train with a gun, you can select two or three non-limited burst lengths that you can fire reliably. To change it up in combat, however, you have to roll against Guns skill to fire the desired number of rounds.

[apoc527]

Another simpler way would be just to make controllable burst sizes linked to skill:

Default...Must fire either full RoF or semiauto (requires selector switch)
DX...Can fire Full or 50% RoF
DX+1...Can fire Full, 50% or 25% RoF
DX+2...Can fire any burst length reliably.