ROF hits question.

[Kfireblade]

Alright, so in real life take a man on a stationary position firing say a minigun using tracer ammo at a car sized target. He may miss at first but once he gets on target it would seem he puts basically his entire ROF into the target, and continues to do so for as long as he continues to fire. In GURPS you can never actually hit more then your skill at best, and can't keep firing holding your weapon on a point of aim after you find it. So it seems it is a bit unrealistic. any way to handle it better?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kfireblade

Alright, so in real life take a man on a stationary position firing say a minigun using tracer ammo at a car sized target. He may miss at first but once he gets on target it would seem he puts basically his entire ROF into the target, and continues to do so for as long as he continues to fire.

That isn't really how fully automatic fire actually works, and certainly not how electric gatlings are designed to work (these weapons deliberately have a lot of spread because they are designed to be fired from moving aircraft).

and can't keep firing holding your weapon on a point of aim after you find it.

Tactical Shooting has a rule for this. The Pyramid article "On Target" has an even more realistic take on aiming.

This said there probably are some problems with how GURPS treats attacks from high ROF weapons on large area targets like vehicles.

[trooper6]

Did you check the section "Rapid-Fiare vs. Close Stationary Targets" on B408? It notes that in those situations if you make your roll, half your bullets his, if you make it by the recoil number all of them hit.

[Kfireblade]

Another question. So laser weapons. Lasers move literally at the speed of light, so it seems to me that if you fire full ROF in one second, every hit should land at very nearly the same point, so should one hit with a laser not usually mean they all hit?

[trooper6]

Not hitting all of the shots can represent you as shooter jerking the weapon, breathing weird...I mean there is a person who is firing the weapon who may not control the weapon well, may not be as competent.

[Tomsdad]

Ultimately the rapid fire rules are system abstraction to avoid having to roll for each projectile, as such it has some odd results (v.close range is one, long range is another).

This compounds when you move away from people firing man portable FA weapons and move towards vehicle mounted weapons with high Rof (what the Rcl stat represents and how it applies)

Originally Posted by Kfireblade

Alright, so in real life take a man on a stationary position firing say a minigun using tracer ammo at a car sized target. He may miss at first but once he gets on target it would seem he puts basically his entire ROF into the target, and continues to do so for as long as he continues to fire. In GURPS you can never actually hit more then your skill at best, and can't keep firing holding your weapon on a point of aim after you find it. So it seems it is a bit unrealistic. any way to handle it better?

Originally Posted by trooper6

Did you check the section "Rapid-Fiare vs. Close Stationary Targets" on B408? It notes that in those situations if you make your roll, half your bullets his, if you make it by the recoil number all of them hit.

What trooper6 said (and Sir_pudding) said

Originally Posted by Kfireblade

Another question. So laser weapons. Lasers move literally at the speed of light, so it seems to me that if you fire full ROF in one second, every hit should land at very nearly the same point, so should one hit with a laser not usually mean they all hit?

It depends it looks like your assuming the firing mechanism cycles at the speed of light as well as the shot travelling at it as well. If there is the same kind of delay as there is with guns than your aim or target may shift in the meantime

However the lack of physical recoil and very high travel speed of the shots partly gives you the very high Acc and Rcl 1 of laser weapons. Which tends to mean you get more hits in Rapid fire

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Kfireblade

Another question. So laser weapons. Lasers move literally at the speed of light, so it seems to me that if you fire full ROF in one second, every hit should land at very nearly the same point, so should one hit with a laser not usually mean they all hit?

The connection you're proposing between 'projectile' speed and hit pattern is totally non-existent. You could fire lasers in a fan that makes a fictionalized sawed-off shotgun envious and launch spitballs with extreme collimation.

It is true that lasers have no reason to scatter their shots much unless doing so is a deliberately added feature. For a handheld laser the shooter themselves is probably the largest source of imprecision. On the other hand, keeping any weapon perfectly on target over the course of a whole second (to get off the full RoF) isn't a trivial exercise.

In any case, GURPS lasers get Rcl 1 and very high Acc values due to their natural high precision. It's nowhere near a perfect model, but it's very powerful. (Due in part to other system issues...)

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by Kfireblade

Alright, so in real life take a man on a stationary position firing say a minigun using tracer ammo at a car sized target. He may miss at first but once he gets on target it would seem he puts basically his entire ROF into the target, and continues to do so for as long as he continues to fire. In GURPS you can never actually hit more then your skill at best, and can't keep firing holding your weapon on a point of aim after you find it. So it seems it is a bit unrealistic. any way to handle it better?

You're assuming the bullets that hit are in order just because the math is in order. If you look at the rules for rapid fire gaining a bonus to hit (B.373) you will realize that the more shots you take at a target the higher probability one will hit. This suggests if you fire 10 bullets and 2 hit, it may not be the first two bullets you fired out of the chamber.

[sir_pudding]

Keeping a laser on target means both having the target at the point of aim and the laser focused there. Also each pulse that hits is causing effects that interfere with subsequent pulses.

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Keeping a laser on target means both having the target at the point of aim and the laser focused there. Also each pulse that hits is causing effects that interfere with subsequent pulses.

Lasers in Ultratech are considered beam lasers by default. See UT.118 under "Pulse Lasers".