Or simply go Jury Rigged equipment on a roll of 3 threat or 1 despair ceases to work until repaired.

Or simply go Jury Rigged equipment on a roll of 3 threat or 1 despair ceases to work until repaired.

Why go so far when 3 advantages or 1 triumph are enough to disarm someone? Especially when threat is neutralized easy by skilled shooters.

The Grapple talent plus Knockdown is definitely the way to stop someone, without the Force or Jump Up there is no escaping that combo.

Ah, thanks. I'll build a Guardian(Warden) around that...

I have simply given Autofire a rating and only allow the attack to hit an additional target up to the rating in autofire. This requires you to adjust those weapons that have autofire but I found it wasn't too much work.

That would be linked.

The Grapple talent plus Knockdown is definitely the way to stop someone, without the Force or Jump Up there is no escaping that combo.

Ah, thanks. I'll build a Guardian(Warden) around that...

Personally I think a sniper taking aim at the guy with the heavy repeating auto-blaster is far more effective. Take him for the head, fire once, do about 20 damage, proc knockdown, swarm the rest of the group with your minions while your nemesis enjoys the show and maybe cripples a few more characters for his enjoyment.

Sorry, I might have said it already once, it is always easy to bring down your player group as GM and as long as your PCs actually enjoy their auto-fire weapons I really don't see the issue if they enjoy their firepower. Usually HP or in this case wounds are supposed to be a backup against lucky shots and not a mechanism to survive if your NPCs are engaging your players like they are dumb game AIs you are imho doing something wrong already. Usually the bad guy engage the players and usually they should know what and why they engage too. Which means the bad guys should use appropriate gear and tactics. This whole premise is one of the reasons why pnp rpgs are so much more engaging on the narrative level, because the GMs can let all his little puppets control like the are real people.

And btw, jetpacks and jump boots will make this grapple combo a lot less effective too, a ~5000c investment. A armed swoop bike will not care about grapple talent either even when knockdown shots might be nasty on that, and you know what a armed swoop will not care for as well? Auto-fire blasters on personal scale, because firing with vehicle guns from beyond extreme range is a rather safe thing to do. And now good luck with stealing a vehicle to case that swoop down to bring that auto-blaster back in range.

If your players enjoy their auto-blasters, let them have them, with all advantages and disadvantages. They are fun after all, and so are lightsabers.

And TWC is hard as it by necessity because anyone can Brawl and try to hit twice, or pick up 2 cheap pistols, it's the most cost effective way to hit more than once in a round. Autofire often brings many other complications, and linked does too.

I agree that the penalty for TWC is balanced with the benefit. However, the same as anyone can pick up two pistols, anyone can pick up a weapon with autofire. Yet while autofire has the same drawback that TWC does, it has none of the limits. This is before you take into account the jury-rig problem.

Don't underestimate the drawback of increasing the Difficulty by 1.

Keep in mind that this is the same drawback for the single-shot application for TWC. This is balanced; you trade the extra difficulty for the potential of another shot (as access to linked is generally rare). However, when you trade in that same difficulty for unlimited damage potential (held back only by how many Advantage you can roll), that is NOT balanced. It gets even more unbalanced as players progress, juryrig their weapons, add attachments/mods, and increase their Agility and skills to the point where they're throwing multiple blues, greens and yellows at what amounts to be two or three difficulty dice.

And TWC is hard as it by necessity because anyone can Brawl and try to hit twice, or pick up 2 cheap pistols, it's the most cost effective way to hit more than once in a round. Autofire often brings many other complications, and linked does too.

And anyone can pick up a weapon with autofire. Yet while autofire provides the same drawback that TWC does, it has none of the limits. This is before you take into account the jury-rig problem.

Don't underestimate the drawback of increasing the Difficulty by 1.

Keep in mind that this is the same drawback for the single-shot application for TWC. This is balanced; you trade the extra difficulty for the potential of another shot (as access to linked is generally rare). However, when you trade in that same difficulty for unlimited damage potential (held back only by how many Advantage you can roll), that is NOT balanced. It gets even more unbalanced as players progress and increase their Agility and skills to the point where they're throwing multiple greens and yellows at what amounts to be two or three difficulty dice.

Uhm, TWC gain that second hit for free as you double your attachments and can take superior twice and use banta scope twice and gain 4 automatically advantages. And dismissing of linked weapons like the HH-50 as rare is ironic in context that you will draw so much more attention with your heavy auto-fire rifle than your two or four small HH-50 will draw.

Your unlimited damage potential, held only back by advantages is btw usually still less or similar than a pair of lightsabers, the laser cannon on my swoop and my soldiers friends pair of HH-50 and my heavy verpine rifle. And I totally admit that the verpine rifle will be noticed as much as a heavy auto-blaster will.

Keep in mind that this is the same drawback for the single-shot application for TWC. This is balanced; you trade the extra difficulty for the potential of another shot (as access to linked is generally rare). However, when you trade in that same difficulty for unlimited damage potential (held back only by how many Advantage you can roll), that is NOT balanced. It gets even more unbalanced as players progress and increase their Agility and skills to the point where they're throwing multiple greens and yellows at what amounts to be two or three difficulty dice.

Uhm, TWC gain that second hit for free as you double your attachments and can take superior twice and use banta scope twice and gain 4 automatically advantages. And dismissing of linked weapons like the HH-50 as rare is ironic in context that you will draw so much more attention with your heavy auto-fire rifle than your two or four small HH-50 will draw.

Your unlimited damage potential, held only back by advantages is btw usually still less or similar than a pair of lightsabers, the laser cannon on my swoop and my soldiers friends pair of HH-50 and my heavy verpine rifle. And I totally admit that the verpine rifle will be noticed as much as a heavy auto-blaster will.

That's not free, that comes at the cost of attachments, both in paying for them, modding them (successfully), and the opportunity cost of not having other attachments you might want. And of course, you could just as easily put those same attachments on something with autofire anyways.

Also, the HH-50 is a somewhat rare (about on par with a bowcaster or light repeating rifle) large frame pistol meant for hunting large game. It's actually got the same encumbrance as a blaster carbine, making it just as difficult to conceal and about as socially acceptable. ("Pardon me sir, but were you expecting many Krayt Dragons in the dining hall?") That puts it around the same size as the ACP Repeater Gun, a nifty little carbine with the same encumbrance, lower rarity and (you guessed it ) autofire. It's also cheaper with better range, just to add insult to injury. The HH-50 DOES have Vicious 1, but the ACP also has a point more damage, so even that's a wash.

Ultimately though, the fact that autofire damage is comparable to lightsabers and vehicular weaponry should be the giveaway, here.

Keep in mind that this is the same drawback for the single-shot application for TWC. This is balanced; you trade the extra difficulty for the potential of another shot (as access to linked is generally rare). However, when you trade in that same difficulty for unlimited damage potential (held back only by how many Advantage you can roll), that is NOT balanced. It gets even more unbalanced as players progress and increase their Agility and skills to the point where they're throwing multiple greens and yellows at what amounts to be two or three difficulty dice.

Uhm, TWC gain that second hit for free as you double your attachments and can take superior twice and use banta scope twice and gain 4 automatically advantages. And dismissing of linked weapons like the HH-50 as rare is ironic in context that you will draw so much more attention with your heavy auto-fire rifle than your two or four small HH-50 will draw.

Your unlimited damage potential, held only back by advantages is btw usually still less or similar than a pair of lightsabers, the laser cannon on my swoop and my soldiers friends pair of HH-50 and my heavy verpine rifle. And I totally admit that the verpine rifle will be noticed as much as a heavy auto-blaster will.

That's not free, that comes at the cost of attachments, both in paying for them, modding them (successfully), and the opportunity cost of not having other attachments you might want. And of course, you could just as easily put those same attachments on something with autofire anyways.

Also, the HH-50 is a somewhat rare (about on par with a bowcaster or light repeating rifle) large frame pistol meant for hunting large game. It's actually got the same encumbrance as a blaster carbine, making it just as difficult to conceal and about as socially acceptable. ("Pardon me sir, but were you expecting many Krayt Dragons in the dining hall?") That puts it around the same size as the ACP Repeater Gun, a nifty little carbine with the same encumbrance, lower rarity and (you guessed it ) autofire. It's also cheaper with better range, just to add insult to injury. The HH-50 DOES have Vicious 1, but the ACP also has a point more damage, so even that's a wash.

Ultimately though, the fact that autofire damage is comparable to lightsabers and vehicular weaponry should be the giveaway, here.

Or less, or less my friend. And that the HH-50 can come with the same downsides as an auto-fire weapon should come with little surprise too, after all you can land 4 hits with those, or 8 if you happen to be a naughty little besalisk. BTW, the ACP comes with one lousy hardpoint, while a pair of HH-50 has 4. Not a good comparison when the pistols are downright better. ;-)

So much for doing the same thing on a rifle. You should have mentioned the classical "Intimidator" Blaster Pistol, comes with autofire, 2 hp and damage 5. It is quite an awesome weapon, unfortunately it comes with ® and suffers from issues against heavy armor (soak).

And the comparable was mainly there because dead is dead afterall. If you can oneshot someone with a weapon than it is clearly comparable in damage to another one.

Again, the fact that it's even in the same ballpark is what's the issue. When you can achieve lightsaber (sorry, DUAL lightsaber) or laser CANNON damage with a simple rifle or carbine, you know you've got an issue. I'd think a player should pretty much be having to lug around a hip-slung heavy repeater cannon to get into that range. But then when you look at the fact that THAT has autofire, things get REAAAALLLY nuts. You can argue that it's hardly subtle, but neither is lighting up with your lightsaber or bringing in the air cavalry, either.

Regarding the pistols, you'll need all those hardpoints if you want to hit at the same damage and range as the carbines. Plus you have to pay more, succeed at all those mechanics checks...much simpler to just jury-rig autofire and let rip.

I didn't really worry too much about the Intimidator for exactly the reason you described: at that lower level of damage autofire actually gets a lot less overpowering. Sadly, most autofire weapons are 9+, and thus can go upwards of 40 damage to a single target.

Again you guys are imagining wandering around carrying a bloody chain fed MACHINE GUN!!!! The dam thing usually requires 3 people to move and operate, comes with its own tripod and reins death down on the beaches of Gallipoli

Pretend Star Wars is Space Texas for a minute. In Texas dam near anyone can buy a pistol, heck occasionally 5 year olds get an air rifle for Christmas! Now many people can also get a license to openly carry that pistol most places. Some people, not near as many, can get a license to carry that pistol concealed. But you know what no one has a license to walk down Mian street with? A bloody MACHINE GUN.

If your playing a game where that Heavy just walks around Rambo style, ducking into bars for a cheeky pint, then my friend the problem is definitely not the mechanical stats written on a table in the equipment chapter of your favourite role playing game. The problem is your players perception of what that gun is.

I definitely think that Auto-Fire is a completely well designed aspect of this game, it's not supposed to be something that people can just shrug off, it is DEATH. I would start by designing a couple of encounters where Rambo gets stopped at the door, gets pestered by innocent cops for his "licence to carry". Just have NPC's flat refuse to talk with the party until the manic with the giant gun leaves. Basically these should be revered and respected by the character, but carry a side arm and leave the thing in the ship when its talking time. Then when appropriate line up 5 minion groups of 10 B1's each and let the PC have fun, what's fifty outdated droids to anyone?

Again, the fact that it's even in the same ballpark is what's the issue. When you can achieve lightsaber (sorry, DUAL lightsaber) or laser CANNON damage with a simple rifle or carbine, you know you've got an issue. I'd think a player should pretty much be having to lug around a hip-slung heavy repeater cannon to get into that range. But then when you look at the fact that THAT has autofire, things get REAAAALLLY nuts. You can argue that it's hardly subtle, but neither is lighting up with your lightsaber or bringing in the air cavalry, either.

Regarding the pistols, you'll need all those hardpoints if you want to hit at the same damage and range as the carbines. Plus you have to pay more, succeed at all those mechanics checks...much simpler to just jury-rig autofire and let rip.

I didn't really worry too much about the Intimidator for exactly the reason you described: at that lower level of damage autofire actually gets a lot less overpowering. Sadly, most autofire weapons are 9+, and thus can go upwards of 40 damage to a single target.

You need to spend tons of xp just to be able to jury rig and if jurry rigging an option and I take my 15 damage, 6 pierce, knockdown rifle with a dash of jury rigging and a crit rating of 1. As I said, dead is dead, it is rather irrelevant if you are dead by 80 points of damage from my starship cannon or by 8 hits from that autofire rifles dealing each 5 damage or by 120+D100 critical from my heavy rifle from extreme range. Dead is dead. Though only one of those option gets easily countered by the reflect talent. ;-)

edit: And to be honest, a retractable blaster cannon on my T-47 is most likely catching a lot less attention than a heavy repeating auto-blaster with a tripod mount.

[snip]

You need to spend tons of xp just to be able to jury rig and if jurry rigging an option and I take my 15 damage, 6 pierce, knockdown rifle with a dash of jury rigging and a crit rating of 1. As I said, dead is dead, it is rather irrelevant if you are dead by 80 points of damage from my starship cannon or by 8 hits from that autofire rifles dealing each 5 damage or by 120+D100 critical from my heavy rifle from extreme range. Dead is dead. Though only one of those option gets easily countered by the reflect talent. ;-)

edit: And to be honest, a retractable blaster cannon on my T-47 is most likely catching a lot less attention than a heavy repeating auto-blaster with a tripod mount.

15 XP for a Bounty Hunter/Gadgeteer to access Jury Rigged. A heavy blaster rifle is only 1500 credits, which a starting level character can purchase.

[snip]

You need to spend tons of xp just to be able to jury rig and if jurry rigging an option and I take my 15 damage, 6 pierce, knockdown rifle with a dash of jury rigging and a crit rating of 1. As I said, dead is dead, it is rather irrelevant if you are dead by 80 points of damage from my starship cannon or by 8 hits from that autofire rifles dealing each 5 damage or by 120+D100 critical from my heavy rifle from extreme range. Dead is dead. Though only one of those option gets easily countered by the reflect talent. ;-)

edit: And to be honest, a retractable blaster cannon on my T-47 is most likely catching a lot less attention than a heavy repeating auto-blaster with a tripod mount.

15 XP for a Bounty Hunter/Gadgeteer to access Jury Rigged. A heavy blaster rifle is only 1500 credits, which a starting level character can purchase.

Zero XP, and AoR characters can start with a several Y-Wings, proton torpedoes are rather cheap as well. And can be used without spending hardpoints or starting xp on that cumbersome 3 problem.

A few ranks in lethal blows from Bounty Hunter/Assassin are for sure more expensive, especially when you want to combine them with jury rigged and a verpine heavy rifle. At the same time that is actually more deadly. I admit it, I was simplifying when I said dead is dead. Once you reach 150+ crits some characters are more dead than others. ;-)

Though you happily ignore this point all together and imply that auto-fire is some real problem for the game, because it makes people twice as dead as other weapons. Apparently while using the one and only jurry rigged talent in the whole bounty hunter talent tree and only as long as you are too poor to buy stronger weapons or to restricted to use those stronger weapons, but not restricted enough to allow to use for heavy auto-blaster rifles.

Are you here just arguing against me, because it certainly looks to me like you have lost perspective on the gametable ?!

So now it starting characters that are to problem, starting characters who spend 1500c on a jury rigged rifle without any attachments nor mods , which made them take 5 extra obligation and requires them to spend xp on brawn or even more obligation for a sling or pick a species with 3 brawn as start. And they can be completely deadly until they can not bring that rifle with them, because than they are basically naked with a build which absolutely relies on that rifle. Not a rifle like it, but exactly that rifle as the jury rigging is the main reason for the strength of the rifle. That is a lot investment for a rather one dimensional character. "This is my rifle."

It takes btw 3 advantages or two aim maneuvers to disarm someone. Trivial to achieve with any random blaster grabbed from a 5 agility space rocket jockey who happens to have spend enough points into cool to shoot first. ;-)

I don't think Blackbird was having that much of a go at you buddy, he only made a single post, I think he was just highlighting a common complaint that a Jury Rigged Auto-Fire weapon is the cheapest lawn mower in the galaxy.

I like your point about the Y-Wings too by the way.

I don't think Blackbird was having that much of a go at you buddy, he only made a single post, I think he was just highlighting a common complaint that a Jury Rigged Auto-Fire weapon is the cheapest lawn mower in the galaxy.

I like your point about the Y-Wings too by the way.

Yeah, I noticed too late that it was not the same guy. Fair point to make.

It is still a very one-dimensional build to go straight for that and pick that spec specifically for that, especially when other specs offter a lot of tools besides of jury rigging, which then again makes the whole "pick gadgeteer, take jurry rigging" quite the large xp investment in the long-run, because it will increase XP costs of each and every other spec you choose as well by 10 points, each time you take another spec you will get taxed for that gadgeteer spec. I really hope people do not pick it up just for that as there are plenty of other powerful tools and combinations in the game.

I think the Gunner is another great spec for Auto-Fire, it may be an extra 15xp for the first Jury rigged talent, but those True Aim talents are really quite awesome. you also get to be a great Dogfighter and ship gunner instead of Intimidating and brawling.

All recommendations how it could be avoided story wise are fair game but I still would wish for a solution that focused more on the mechanics to fix, but that is officially probably not going to happen!

All recommendations how it could be avoided story wise are fair game but I still would wish for a solution that focused more on the mechanics to fix, but that is officially probably not going to happen!

If you want a mechanical fix, remove autofire from the game. Say hello to dual-wielding HH-50 gunslingers and micro-torpedo tube wielding soldiers and hired guns. I am honestly still failing to see the problem of having weapons which are clearly better than others. Scared of auto-blasters? Try planetary scale mounted blasters on speederbikes. Sure, it cost a single hardpoint for a quad-blaster, but having a torpedo launcher mounted as well to such a bike compensates for both hardpoints. ^-^

My longtime fix for Auto-fire has been to treat it like the Sarlacc Sweep talent (but for ranged weapons rather than lightsabers, obviously). This means no more than one hit per target per attack. Auto-fire is still useful for spreading damage around, but not for totally annihilating a single target.

Every time I hear anyone say "Autofire is too powerful" all I hear is "Autofire is too realistic". I know it's powerful, but it's a Machine Gun! I know people want ways for their players to use it and I know people will soften them to let their PC's use them, I get it. But why does everyone keep pretending like these things are not representative of an actual Machine Gun?

I would have thought the nicest thing to do for Players would be reduce the damage the Autofire weapons do, that doesn't mess with the dice mechanics, and it's basically the reverse of increasing the number of enemies.

Every time I hear anyone say "Autofire is too powerful" all I hear is "Autofire is too realistic". I know it's powerful, but it's a Machine Gun! I know people want ways for their players to use it and I know people will soften them to let their PC's use them, I get it. But why does everyone keep pretending like these things are not representative of an actual Machine Gun?

I would have thought the nicest thing to do for Players would be reduce the damage the Autofire weapons do, that doesn't mess with the dice mechanics, and it's basically the reverse of increasing the number of enemies.

The thing I say about this is...

It's fine for real life to have game breakers. It's not fine for a game to have game breakers.

Fair call. I have often said every group needs a different approach to each situation, and I get that some need these changes otherwise players will 'optimise'.

I still stand by my belief that AF only breaks a game when it's looked at in isolation though, I firmly believe that there are many other factors to owning a massive rifle, same as owning a Lightsaber, except it's much harder to hide!

Every time I hear anyone say "Autofire is too powerful" all I hear is "Autofire is too realistic". I know it's powerful, but it's a Machine Gun! I know people want ways for their players to use it and I know people will soften them to let their PC's use them, I get it. But why does everyone keep pretending like these things are not representative of an actual Machine Gun?

I would have thought the nicest thing to do for Players would be reduce the damage the Autofire weapons do, that doesn't mess with the dice mechanics, and it's basically the reverse of increasing the number of enemies.

The thing I say about this is...

It's fine for real life to have game breakers. It's not fine for a game to have game breakers.

But we are playing not a 5 vs 5 capture the flag, but trying to roleplay in a space fantasy universe. So I am not sure what is breaking the game here. It a freaking machine gun, yes it does tons of damage, still it is on the weaker side of weapon systems overall.

edit:

If autofire is breaking your game than should lightsabers on ataru strikers or a simple pair of HH-50 not do so as well? Or Jury Rigged crit monster guns, grenades, missile tubes, turbolasers …

I'm assuming you're talking about Saber Swarm. If so, it's only Linked (Force Rating) and that means it's pretty hard to get above Linked 2 or 3 with < 500 XP (note that there's no Force Rating talent in Ataru Striker itself). Then there's the fact that each hit requires two Advantages (or a Triumph), and there's no way to apply Jury Rigged to this since it's from a talent, not from the gear. Because of these two factors, I haven't really had a problem with Saber Swarm.