Umbranus said:

right. forgot about that. That actually seems pretty cheap compared to single clip costs (bulk discounts? ), but it does have a cost, both in Req and versatility.

BrotherWill said:

You have to include the id tag in the open quote, like this:

QUOTE efidm=460116

Then put the [ ] brackets around them, then close each one out with the /quote

All tags must have a corresponding open/close partner, and once you post you're cooked and can't fix it. Also, the forums like to eat them from time to time.

Charmander said:

You can edit posts for a short time after you make that post. When a post is messed up by the software, it's best to copy and paste your comments to the clipboard, the entire posts content and start anew.

Alex

BrotherWill said:

I don't see a problem with that, seeing as the target is enormous. Could a guy with a heavy automatic weapon fire what is essentially a very short burst and get everything to hit the side of a truck? Sure. No problem. If your big bad is really that big, then it deserves a full burst!

I think you chose a bad example. Take it down to human-sized and there's a much more valid point.

As for Singulum links and stuff... Yes, but it's all decidedly sci-fi, so it's not really fair to then assess what a guy equipped with targeting systems way beyond our own technology can do. For example; in the Aliens fluff, smartguns were supposed to be capable of putting three rounds through pretty much the same hole in someone's chest.

And if you're taking about *somehow* getting a BS of over 70, then we're well in the realm of being superhumanly good, considering that the 'normal' human default maximum is 40. Why are we trying to state 'you can't hit a truck with 8 shots of a burst if you're a superhumanly great shot', exactly?

Plus, we're not talking full-auto blazing away, here. We're talking ten rounds put down-range in a few seconds of combat. That's a couple of very short, well controlled bursts. It's a fiction to claim otherwise, given that anything worthy of the name fully-automatic puts down at least 10 rounds in a second.

So: Normal human with a bit of training, full auto, short range, versus another human, firing a couple of short bursts... 35+20+10 = 65. That's now a 35% chance of getting 3 rounds on target, or a 5% chance of getting 7 of them in. Sounds a lot more reasonable, eh?

Siranui said:

Yes, when we speak of a -/-/10 RoF we are taking about Full Auto blazing away. That's the fastest RoF generally available in any of the WH40K RPGs. It represents a massive spewing of firepower regardless of what it translates into with a rounds per second calculation comparison to the real world. It may be 'fiction' to make that claim, but since everything here is in terms of that same 'fiction', you have to understand that - in context - the -/-/10 is the lead hose of the WH40K world.

10 shots in 5 seconds is blazing away? It's really not.

Siranui said:

You're being obtuse. I said that in regards to the in-game world it is blazing away. There's really nothing in the game that fires faster. A RoF of -/-/10 is intended to represent a rapid-firing automatic weapon.

I thought it was you being obtuse. If ten bullets are fired, how is that 'blazing away'? We know it's ten, because that's how many you cross off when you do it.

If to your game group, ten rounds multiply into 200 somewhere between the magazine and the muzzle and that 'full auto' is wilfully blazing away with the trigger firmly depressed, I can see how you'd object to every bullet fired hitting the foe. Fair enough.

However, if you consider the opinion of some groups - that Marines are trained to use automatic weapons properly and in a controlled manner - it's really not a stretch for super-humanly good marksmen to get half the burst or more to hit the target.

Siranui said:

A lot of people look at the RoF as a setting switch on the weapon rather than trigger discipline. The belief, I think, is that semi auto is a switch setting to a burst fire mode, instead of two controlled single shots, and that full auto is spray and pray instead of controlled, timed firing.

Siranui said:

This falls apart when a Chaos Cultist or Acolyte Scum can both do the same with an Autogun. The shooting rules are generally the same for everyone barring Talents and Equipment exceptions, so Marines really only average getting an extra round or two on target.

Not really. People only ever trigger-lock automatic weapons once before deciding that it's a dumb idea: Even scum and cultists have common sense.

Sorry if this was already mentioned, I got about halfway through the posts before I gave up on the redundant 'Broken/Not Broken' comments about the Heavy Bolter with everybody hung up on it's damage statistics and number of hits.

I think NEITHER of those issues are the underlying problem. I think the underlying issue is how Semi-Auto and, to a far greater extent, Full-Auto Fire work. As the OP said, look at ALL the bonuses to hit with the weapon. If you have ever fired a fully auto weapon, you realize that hitting anything with it is terribly difficult. Your spread is all over the place and your ability to hit is found in the number of rounds going downrange NOT the accuracy of the shot. So in my opinion the way to properly show this would be to allow the weapon's rate of fire do the hitting and not an applied +20 BS for firing on Full-Auto.

Simple logic if you ask me. Full-Auto is -10 or -20 BS but more shots.

That would be true if we were dealing with genuine fully or semi-automatic fire, or marines trigger-locking their boltguns.

However, the game defines 'semi auto' as about 3 shots in a round, and 'full auto' as 10 at most (or four whole shots in a combat round with a bolter!). This is clearly not blazing away with fully automatic, but one or more short, controlled bursts, or even just rapid single shots. Put like that, it makes perfect sense that *a superhumanly good soldier* [which makes real world comparisons about what can and cannot be done with automatic weapons rather moot] can put ten rounds on-target in 5 seconds. Even moreso when we consider that these 'super space guns' may feature all manner of stabilisation to counter muzzle-climb.

An even better solution -if you want to nerf 'full auto' (and I use the term with reluctance) is to retain the to-hit bonuses (because more bullets in controlled bursts are statistically more likely to hit with at least one of them) amd simply switch around the DoS modifiers: One bullet hits for every DoS on semi-auto, and one hots for every two DoS for fully auto.

Siranui said:

I see where you went with this, but the logic is still a bit off. Yes, they will be better than an average GI holding the trigger on something like a SAW. But STILL they will not be more accurate than if they took their time with a single accurate shot. So the +BS modifier doesn't make any sense. The statistical advantage to hitting with full auto fire is represented in the number of bullets not the fact that it is easier to hit. So your statitistical approach to leaving the +BS doesn't make sense with the situation. The increase in chance to hit comes with the multiple applications of the given probability, not a change in the probability, that's how real life autofire works in probability and statistics.

In addition, I do not see anything to support that the full auto function certainly does mean letting loose a 6-second barrage of fire. As a basic trooper can let loose a burst of full-auto while on the move in real life, but our played space marines must take a talent to be able to move and fire a full auto burst...it lends me to believe that is in fact a long term trigger grab.

4 shots in 6 seconds is hardly a long-term trigger grab. Heck, *any* trained soldier knows not to trigger-lock, so the default position should surely be to assume that this is a short controlled burst (as mechanically backed up by the to-hit bonus, low rate of ammunition consumption and no decrease in accurate range), rather than our super-soldier suddenly turning into an idiot with a gun. This is a real application of Occam's razor. What requires the largest leap of faith: That our trained soldier fires solidly for 6 seconds (against every principle of marksmanship), has an increased chance of hitting at every range (against all logic), and yet consumes only 4 rounds (against sheer reality!)... or that our trained soldier fires off 4 rapid (but still aimed) shots?

You are correct that a single aimed shot will -bullet for bullet- be more accurate. But more less accurate rounds accrue a greater chance of hitting over time. 4 rounds with a 25% hit chance are more accurate and will provide more hits than a single shot with a 80% hit chance. Given that, the BS modifier makes perfect sense, and works statistically. Put enough rounds down and some will hit, even in situations where you'd be enormously unlikely to hit on purpose. Kinda like me with a camera: If I take four times as many photos as a pro would take, I'm just as likely to get something worth keeping!

The inability to fire on full-auto while moving is part of the game simulation. It's clearly not physically impossible to either hold down the trigger or to deliver a short burst or two while moving (foolish, but not impossible). What the talent purchase signifies is the ability to do so and to have any statistical chance of hitting anything.

Siranui said:

This argument again. You need to realize tht the RoF is an abstraction, just as the idea of a "Lighting Attack' that rains down a mere 3 blows in 6 seconds is an abstraction (any chump should be able to strike with a knife at a higher rate than that on day one of training). Both are intended to represent much quicker attacks than they do, but both are trying to stay manageable within the game system. Your use of Occam's Razor fails to see that the easiest answer is that it's ALL an abstraction.

Siranui, I respect your opinion and you're generally very well spoken and argued but I have to disagree with you here. I think you're not suspending your disbelief the way you may need to.

Realism always need to take a backseat when you're playing an RPG, don't try to apply real word to fictional system abstraction and look for some sort of overlap. It will end poorly no matter how many times you try to do this, because they simply do not jive with each other. In order to represent something which resembles real life to us, or we can at least relate to, things are simplified to the extent that they become wholly fiction.

The only thing you can do is examine everything from within the logical frame of the game itself. Matters of game balance and enjoyment always have to take precedence over anything else. How many bullets, whether a "hit" represents a single bullet, how quickly and in what manner a character can fire, all of these things are effectively unimportant.

Therefore, the only question is whether the game artifice performs well in and of itself, not as a representation of reality. If FA burst doesn't work in-system, it needs changin'.

HappyDaze said:

And yet a single shot uses '1' ammunition, and a magazine specifically holds 28. RoF is an abstraction to you, but it's not to me, because I don't need it to be. I don't see anywhere in the rules where it says that ammunition use is abstract, in the way that most abstracted rules do, so I assume that it's not abstract. The game system works in a non-abstract way to me without a problem, and I don't really need to suspend my disbelief at all, which I like. Let's break it down:

To me:

'full auto' isn't 'full auto'. Rather it's taking 6 seconds to put down some rapid fire, or a couple of short controlled bursts, in exactly the way that soldiers are trained to do. There's a hit bonus because you're firing several hastily aimed shots which means that you've got a greater overall chance of hitting, and are quite likely to get a few shots in. This logical way of doing things simply requires that I mentally change 'full auto' to 'short burst/snap shots', and I don't need to make any other changes or abstractions. Nothing is particularly abstract because it doesn't need to be.

To you:

The guy blazes away for 6 seconds and fires dozens of rounds of ammunition in exactly the way that soldiers are trained NOT to do. Somehow this gives him a 'to hit' bonus, even at 300m, when in reality a long burst at that range isn't even going to hit once, let alone 10 times. This doesn't make particular sense, but we brush over that and say it's abstract (somehow!). This long burst should use half a magazine but it only uses 4 shots because we have to abstract ammunition use in order to fit the imagery. We might have to abstract a .75 explosive warhead's 2d10+5 damage (which on average should nicely take down a normal human... just!) as being several hits on the target and brush over the fact that a low roll might indicate being hit by 3 explosive shells didn't kill the unarmoured target outright somehow. And now because it doesn't make sense for a burst to hit with loads of bullets, we have to change the rules a bit.

I like the way that my version fits my imagery of how weapons are used and doesn't require me to really abstract anything at all. I don't like the massive abstractions required to force your imagery to work. And because my imagery is internally consistent and 'works' for me, I don't feel the need to change the full-auto rules. Whereas you're having to change the rules in order to make them better fit your imagery: You like your image of marines blazing away, spraying ammunition everywhere and have to assume abstraction in order for that to fit.

Also: Trained fighters do not rain blows down on foes or hit them 3 times in 6 seconds. Especially not in knife fighting, where you are massively exposing yourself with every attack. The RPG concept that 'better warrior = hits someone more times in 5 seconds' is another old lie that games tell us. A trained fighter hits his foe ONCE. Because every attack that you launch is an opening to be attacked in return, and landing one good blow is enough.

Siranui said:

If nothing else, this tells me you don't know what you're talking about. I've seen a fellow correctional officer stabbed seven times in less than 6 seconds. I've drilled with trained knife fighters that can attack at blistering speeds, and I myself can easily exceed the rate of a "Lighting Attack" so I'm just going to assume that you talk out of your ass at every opportunity.

HappyDaze said:

Well that sucks.

I've gotta go with Happy here, people that attack with edged weapons can be blindingly fast, especially ones that are trained at it. Just like someone skilled with a handgun can put way more than one aimed shot down range in six seconds.

Look at a video on self defense, fencing, boxing, ufc, or the like and you'll see that these people are attacking more than one time. They may not hit that rapidly or that often but they're attacking. That attack rate, from the folks I know, is often though of to mean that the PC get's X number of quality attacks, spending the rest of the round genrally dancing about and sizing their opponent up before landing an actual blow. Basically, an abstraction.

Charmander said:

Well, I've got to sort of defend Siranui here. This thread reminds me a bit of Rashomon. For those who know the movie - you probably know what I am alluding to.

Also I doubt that realistically speaking trained fighters do 3 attacks in 6 seconds every 6 seconds. There is jumping back and looking for an opening and all kinds of stuff. Professional boxers certainly can go faster than 3 attacks in 6 seconds. Do they do so consecutively for the whole fight? Not really. Only when their opponent shows an opening that they can exploit they go for it. And even then usually after the other fighter has already been worn down.

But does it really matter what realistic is? Well, not in my game. If I want realistic fire rates, I use Cyberpunk RPG. :-)

Alex

Charmander said:

Comparison with sport forms is not really relevant. In fencing, it doesn't matter if the other guy hits you a tenth of a second after you hit him because you still get the touch, so there's no harm in going on a strong offence in the hope of landing a blow. Indeed, the rules for right of way are kinda there to prevent just that. In reality, wading in with multiple rapid attacks often results in two dead people. Give fencers live blades and you'll notice quite a difference in the way things play out: If the attack seems less than likely to hit home, and will leave an opening for reposte or reply, the attack will probably not be launched. Every time that you wave a weapon at a foe within their reach, you are opening yourself up for potentially fatal attack. Indeed: This was the very essence of what Musashi kept stressing: Wait for attack and counter decisively with a single blow. Conversations between blades do of course occur, but they are typically a lot less prolonged than Hollywood has taught us.

Gloved unarmed combat is also a little aside the point. Additionally, landing a frenzy of blows on someone who does not have a weapon in hand, or who has effectively already been taken out by a blow in order to try to finish them before being dragged off is not really relevant on the topic of armed combat. The last time I saw someone knifed to death there were three blows in about 5 seconds too [all which would have been fatal within a few seconds]; but it was all pretty moot, and just a simple expression of rage after the first blow.

But yes: It's an abstraction. Three chances in 6 seconds to potentially land a blow, where skilled combatants can see safe openings in which to attack without reply. Those don't even need to be swings. They could spend two of those 'misses' not even moving within reach of their foe, waiting for the opening. Heck: The most likely result is that the blow was landed when the other guy took their attack, and it was defended against and countered in either single or double-time. And obviously the whole idea of combatants taking it in turns to have their attacks is further abstraction.

Happy: Leaving aside your offensive tone, read anything on the subject from Mushashi, to Fairbairn to Capofero and it will back me up on the matter, unless you consider such authors to also be talking out of their ass. I've been practicing armed martial arts for about 20 years on-and-off, and hurling yourself at an armed foe, stabbing them as fast as you can is no way to win a fight and stay alive.

Simply: If you do it right the first time, there is no need for five more swings. What are these expert knife fighters that you know hoping to achieve by repeatedly slashing at people and lingering within their reach in order to be stabbed in return? If it's a decisive attack, why do they need another?

Place two combatants together with sharp weapons and no armour and you won't see a prolonged flurry of failed attacks. A knife is very much a close in weapon that is lousy for defence, and once you step in to use it, you are terribly exposed. If the other person has a blade and you don't disable or control their knife arm, then you're going to get hurt just as badly as they are. Every time you stand within reach to repeatedly slash or stab them, they will be doing the same to you unless you've either controlled or disarmed their blade or delivered an immediately decisive attack. Knife fighting is partly about keeping the blade moving, in order to stop the blade being controlled, but those aren't attacks, and nor is this deceptive movement carried out within reach of the other guy. Not if you want to keep your kidney in one piece.

Siranui said:

Your authors are fine - within the context they are comfortable with - it's just you that I consider to be a pompous fool. You try to extend their views where they have far less relevance, and I can tell you firsthand that sometimes the best way to survive a lethal/potentially lethal h-t-h encounter is to assault with speed and overwhelming force. This doesn't mean you don't use defense - including disengagement - that assumption is just you reframing what others say to best fit your warped views.

Fairbairn's context is specifically knife-fighting, and in a limited way; Capofero's, too. If you are actually well experienced in the field you'd be aware of just how difficult knife defence is, the particularly massive dangers of knife-on-knife combat, the inordinate risks involved in staying within reach for any period of time in order to deliver multiple wounds, as well as the lethality of a single strong blow. That there is a time and a place for shock and assault in close combat is a long way from the idea that someone who states that combat is not about stabbing people as fast as possible deserves abuse.

You are basically stating that you had previously established that you don't like my manner, thought you saw a chance to launch a verbal attack in order to some way vent this, and so did so. Whatever gets you off, I guess.

If you find my posts or manner objectionable, scroll past them and don't address me in future.

Get your real life considerations out of my game.

The only questions that matter are "Can you suspend your disbelief? Is it fun? Is it balanced?" And the last one only even matters because lack of balance ruins fun in a game revolving around combat.

Can you hit in a precise flurry? Yeah. I'm on the national champion college fencing team (club, but still), and especially once someone has closed into range their attacks can be blindingly fast. But usually it's preceded by a whole lot of movement, feinting, testing, and generally less exciting stuff performed mostly out of distance (also, props to Siranui for knowing about right of way, but I fence epee so I don't have to worry about that =D ).

And that's in a sport, where the only real consideration is that "I don't want to get hit, because I don't want to lose." I'm sure that if I picked up an actual weapon, and the person across from me had one too, I'd be even more cautious and take longer to prepare and set up. Though the rule of "don't stay in too long" is a bit different with a weapon so lengthy that close-in attacks are awkward. You're actually more exposed whilst in the process of pulling yourself away than you are if you stay in very close. Prime for the win I suppose.

But ultimately, no one wants to spend the first three to ten turns dancing around and sizing up your opponent like that in an RPG... we want to hit things!