On page 152 of the core book (SR4A), there is a passage about recoil and the penalties received due to it. However, the passage is a little ambiguous about whether or not recoil is cumulative when you continue firing your weapon from one Action Phase to the next. So I've got a question about this that I'm hoping I can get an answer to.
The book states that a SS weapon receives no penalty on the first shot, but a -1 penalty on the second shot, where a BF weapon gets -2 on the first shot and -3 on the second (LB is ridiculous). Again, the book states that this is during an Action Phase, but makes no indication one way or the other if this is only during a singular Action Phase or throughout the combat round.
So say I'm firing in burst mode, and I've got 3 passes in a round. In pass 1, I fire in burst mode, receiving the -2 penalty. If I fire in burst mode in pass 2, which penalty do I suffer? It's a new Action Phase, so according to RAW (or, rather, interpreted based on how they are written), it's a -2 penalty. But my thought here is that the second shot, regardless of pass, would be at -3, right?
Now, let's play this out across several passes. I fire burst mode in pass 1 for -2 penalty, then burst mode in pass 2 for -3 penalty (assuming that this is in fact the second shot), and then burst mode in pass 3 for...what penalty? Do I extrapolate that it's another -1 and go with a penalty of -4? Is the penalty cumulative, giving me a -6? Or is it a simple -3 because it's still considering the "second" shot?
Now, what's really going to complicate my question is that burst fire is a Simple Action. Which means I very well could fire in burst mode twice in the same Action Phase, receiving a -2 penalty on the first shot and then a -3 penalty on the second shot. But then what happens when I get to the next pass? Does it reset to -2? Does the penalty go up by 1 to -4 (extrapolating based on penalties for first and second shot)? Do we add the -2 for the first shot in the second pass to the -3 for the second shot in the first pass?
Simply put: Is recoil cumulative so long as you are continuing to fire your weapon? I get that if you stop firing recoil resets immediately. It's just when you are continuously firing your weapon that the question is coming up.