Rapid Fire bonus and Rcl

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Erling

Sure. That's why I suggest using "effective" Rcl (derived from both weapon and cartridge) in my proposed house rule.

That's kind of my point, Rcl is already that in the system,

Originally Posted by Erling

That's definitely true, but I believe that aiding to hit at least once is among purposes of rapid fire.

Oh I agree absolutely increasing the chance of hitting the target is always valid. It's just different contexts add different things to that.


So say for example the "shoot till down" scenario:

Your shooting at a target that represents an immediate threat and your absolute highest priority is to end all possibility of that threat as quickly as you possibly can. So you keep shooting rounds into your target until they recognisably go "down".

(of course that last is a subjective value judgement involving lots of factors many of which are unknown in a high speed/adrenaline situation. Either way and "down" is not actually the same as "threat has ended" so for many reasons "shoot til down" often becomes "shoot till empty, assess threat while reloading, decide weather or not to keep firing")


But that set up requires it be in particular context i.e. short range where A you can successfully hit with multiple rounds, and B make such instant assessments.




Now take long range supressive fire. Say you are firing an assault rifle in FA at a squad of soldiers at 600 yards. Now in that scenario in most combat situations hitting individual targets is going to be more case of luck than judgement. Your not likely going to know for sure the actual effect you having on individual targets, so forget about making those split second reassessments as per above*. So the tangential effects of keeping them pinned down becomes more important than actual bullets hitting bodies. Because those are the ones you more reliably going to knowingly achieve.

Now obviously in both cases an actual increased likelihood of hitting the individual target with more bullets is a good thing, but see how the different factors in play in each scenario places a different onus on doing so


*which is why I really like the spotting, tracer and walking the burst rules in Tactical shooting, as they play up the difference between shooting at something and knowing what the ongoing result of that is.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Erling

.... Furthermore, this approach would reinforce Shoot Till Down concept (TS16) while shooting pistols, as currently RoF 3 doesn't give any bonus, which often makes shooting at RoF 3 pointless.

....

Just quickly to say, even if there is system to hit bonus for shooting ROF3, there is still a significant bonus in that you can hit more than once if your accurate/good enough.

The best shot in the world will only hit with one round at ROF1, and given the unlikeliness of one shot instantly ending of a threat, more is more.

I may be wrong but I think in real life shoot to down tends to happen when the shorter is reasonable sure of their ability to hit with multiple rounds as that is the intended goal (which with a pistol probably means close range).

I.e I don't think the main point of shoot lots rounds when "shooting til down" is in order to increase their chance to hit at all.


This however raises a point I think in real life rapid fire / FA fire is used in very different ways at different ranges and set ups. e.g shoot till down at close range and supressive fire at long ranges for example.

(but that said I'm sure it's not hard and fast categories that never crossover either!)

[HANS]

Originally Posted by Erling

I don't mean that basic rules are bad or something, but I'm curious if it's possible and playable to reflect full-auto/burst controllability in such way. Opinions invited.

Basically, you don't understand how full-automatic fire works in real-life. You don't start firing a burst and then somehow manage to walk it into the target. Instead, you sight onto the target and then start the burst. Thus, it makes no difference how controllable the weapon is for the first shot of a burst, which in real-life very often is the only shot of a burst that hits anyway (especially in handheld weapons). Instead, the controllability of the weapon matters for all the shots in the burst but the first one. Which is exactly how the GURPS rules work. So, no, your proposed rules don't improve the realism at all. The GURPS Rapid Fire bonus kind of breaks down when very large numbers of rounds are fired (very high RoF). However, that has nothing to do with controllability and very little with the Rcl stat.

Cheers

HANS

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by HANS

Basically, you don't understand how full-automatic fire works in real-life. You don't start firing a burst and then somehow manage to walk it into the target. Instead, you sight onto the target and then start the burst. Thus, it makes no difference how controllable the weapon is for the first shot of a burst, which in real-life very often is the only shot of a burst that hits anyway (especially in handheld weapons). Instead, the controllability of the weapon matters for all the shots in the burst but the first one. Which is exactly how the GURPS rules work. So, no, your proposed rules don't improve the realism at all. The GURPS Rapid Fire bonus kind of breaks down when very large numbers of rounds are fired (very high RoF). However, that has nothing to do with controllability and very little with the Rcl stat.

Cheers

HANS

What you're saying here isn't at all compatible with the GURPS rapid fire rules. Rapid fire in GURPS does serve to increase the chance of producing at least one hit. Indeed, that's the main effect of firing more rounds, once you get beyond semi-automatic fire.

[HANS]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

What you're saying here isn't at all compatible with the GURPS rapid fire rules.

Actually, it is.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Rapid fire in GURPS does serve to increase the chance of producing at least one hit. Indeed, that's the main effect of firing more rounds, once you get beyond semi-automatic fire.

Yes. I never said otherwise. Firing more than one shot increases your chance to hit. This is what automatic fire does, in RL and in GURPS. What I said is that the first shot in a burst has the same chance to hit as a single shot from the same weapon, meaning controllability (the issue raised by Erling) is irrelevant for that.
The increase of the overall hit chance of a burst is because the Rapid Fire rules require only one roll, when it would be more realistic (but way less playable) to roll for each shot in the burst, with increasing penalties. The Rapid Fire bonus to the one to-hit roll in automatic fire thus combines several rolls. Hence, the one roll gets a (small) bonus, rather than to make three or five or ten rolls.

Cheers

HANS

[Ulzgoroth]

Ghostdancer, authority really doesn't work that way. Rules text is what it is and we all can read it, whether or not it's what the author intended it to be. Not that that's relevant here.

Originally Posted by HANS

Actually, it is.



Yes. I never said otherwise. Firing more than one shot increases your chance to hit. This is what automatic fire does, in RL and in GURPS. What I said is that the first shot in a burst has the same chance to hit as a single shot from the same weapon, meaning controllability (the issue raised by Erling) is irrelevant for that.
The increase of the overall hit chance of a burst is because the Rapid Fire rules require only one roll, when it would be more realistic (but way less playable) to roll for each shot in the burst, with increasing penalties. The Rapid Fire bonus to the one to-hit roll in automatic fire thus combines several rolls. Hence, the one roll gets a (small) bonus, rather than to make three or five or ten rolls.

Cheers

HANS

Okay, then, I guess I don't understand why you brought it up, since neither GURPS rules nor anything in Erling's post have anything to say about the first shot in particular. (Except the mixed ammunition rules in Tactical Shooting, which don't give extra weight to the first shot, but if they did it would probably invite abuse.)

I'd thought your remark about usually only the first shot hitting meant you were saying subsequent shots shouldn't be effecting the roll to hit, and thus Rcl shouldn't, but clearly that was my mistake.

...What were you getting at?

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

...
I'd thought your remark about usually only the first shot hitting meant you were saying subsequent shots shouldn't be effecting the roll to hit, and thus Rcl shouldn't, but clearly that was my mistake.

...What were you getting at?

Reading HANS post again again I think he's making two points about rounds in a burst and controllability (Rcl)

1). Rcl doesn't effect the chances of the first round hitting, which is correct

2). Rcl does effect the chances of subsequent rounds hitting, which is also correct



But here's the thing, first has two meanings here. It can be the first round that leaves the gun, and the first round that hits from the burst i.e the one that was most likely to hit. And the abstract way GURPS does rapid fires means that can be different rounds, but in real life they tend to be the same round. And for the purposes of rapid fire rules both are correct at the same time

However overall what gets bit more hazy is that you can fire lots of rounds to partially overcome that effects of Rcl*, because the more rounds you fire in GURPS the rapid fire positive mod can partially counteract the negative Rcl mod.

However IMO this is an artefact of the way the Rcl is per round factor, but rapid fire is per burst factor (as pointed out condensing the entire burst into one roll is trade off for the sake of playability, and involves certain amounts do abstraction in overall effect). Conceptually the two factors do interact in an odd way if you look closely, but the rapid fire rules are about giving a overall realistic effect (with out rolling to it for every round, which you could just do by removing the to rapid fire bonus).


*obviously Rcl builds at a faster rate than the Rapid fire bonus, but as again it does so round by round, where as rapid fire applies once to the entire burst.

[Erling]

Originally Posted by HANS

Basically, you don't understand how full-automatic fire works in real-life.

I must admit that.

Originally Posted by HANS

Instead, the controllability of the weapon matters for all the shots in the burst but the first one. Which is exactly how the GURPS rules work. So, no, your proposed rules don't improve the realism at all.

Still Rapid Fire bonus can make the difference between hit and miss. RoF hardly can affect accuracy of the first shot, so it probably affects chance of hitting with other bullets (with at least one of the other bullets). And chance to hit with other bullets in reality seems to be affected by controllability.

Many articles state that US soldiers weren't recommended to shoot M14 in full-auto mode because it was impossible to maintain accuracy and control. How can it be translated into GURPS language? Did generals mean "don't use full-auto, as you won't be able to hit the same enemy more than once anyway"? Or "don't use full-auto, as it won't help you to hit the enemy"? Or that was something related to suppressive fire? But Rcl doesn't even affect Suppressive Fire effective skill as well.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Erling

Many articles state that US soldiers weren't recommended to shoot M14 in full-auto mode because it was impossible to maintain accuracy and control. How can it be translated into GURPS language? Did generals mean "don't use full-auto, as you won't be able to hit the same enemy more than once anyway"? Or that was something related to suppressive fire? But Rcl doesn't even affect Suppressive Fire effective skill as well.

Well, full auto fire is generally not encouraged with any rifle except in very special circumstances. For that matter, machine guns are usually fired in (manually) limited bursts. Continuous fire just doesn't work well for a lot of things, especially in small arms. That's probably part of it, especially since the M-14 was an early weapon, didn't have limited bursts (I think?) and the hope of automatic personal weapons working out well hadn't been dulled yet.

The usual description does suggest that the powerful round did something to make full-auto even less practical though.

Speculatively, if the kick is actually driving your aimpoint off target, what that would do is give you quickly and sharply diminishing returns on rapid fire. To be harsh, arbitrary, and simple, perhaps you simply can't get more than +1 for RoF...beyond that point the extra rounds aren't going anywhere near the target, so they don't help you hit.

[Erling]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Well, full auto fire is generally not encouraged with any rifle except in very special circumstances.

Indeed. Which makes GURPS Rapid Fire rules a simplification, as Rapid Fire bonus is to be applied regardless of the distance. Generally I'm totally OK with that, but in this discussion it's good to mention limited helpfulness of full-auto in reality.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Speculatively, if the kick is actually driving your aimpoint off target, what that would do is give you quickly and sharply diminishing returns on rapid fire. To be harsh, arbitrary, and simple, perhaps you simply can't get more than +1 for RoF...beyond that point the extra rounds aren't going anywhere near the target, so they don't help you hit.

Yes. Which, in the case of M14, effectively equals to reducing Rapid Fire bonus by 1, as it has RoF 12 (-1+2=1).