[CLufaS]

Fairly new to the game and I'm running a St. Sam who has a penchant for cleaning rooms with Spray 'n Pray tactics. As such I dropped the Wired Reflexes 2 aug on him for a tasty 3 IP's. I understand the DP splitting but am getting caught up on the math mechanics for recoil after the first initiative pass.

Using Dual Ingram X's that have a recoil reduction of 3 and based off of a starting split DP of 10/10 (for a simple example). Firing short bursts from both means I'm rolling 10 / 8 (-2 from first SA which is absorbed by recoil reduction, then another -3 for it being the second burst) during the 1st initiative pass. Then on second pass I'm rolling 5 / 2 (cumulative -3 to dice pool for recoil)?

I believe I'm short changing myself here. I know that the Wide Burst is going to be my friend especially during the latter passes but it'd be nice to know that I'm going about it properly so I'm not giving away dice unnecessarily.

[Falconer]

Recoil is cumulative across an initiative pass...   so every initiative pass it starts fresh.

If you're using short bursts (3rds)... twice per round... You need 2 points RC to offset the first burst... then 3 points MORE (5 total) to offset the second.

Splitting and firing both at once... *sigh* this is where it gets complicated... SR recoil is easiest to understand if you just follow this basic rule... each gun adds 1 recoil for every bullet after the first that is fired that initiative pass.   Whatever isn't compensated for with recoil comp is then subtracted from your dice pool.  Firing two weapons at once adds another special problem any uncompensated recoil on either, applies to both.  Every bullet after the first adds either +1 damage (narrow) or -1 reaction (wide).  [as a spray and pray kinda guy think you're more the wide burst type]


So lets take your two Ingrams each with 3 points of RC, starting with 10/10 dice on each.
Your first simple action... you fire both... each needs 2 points of RC... each has 3... so first shot is at 10/10 firing on the same target (remember anything like visibility penalties apply equally to both pools AFTER the split).
Your second simple action... you fire both again...   Now it gets rough... the first gun has 5 recoil, the second gun has 5 recoil... -3RC on each... so 2 recoil ON EACH for a -4 penalty to both.    You fire at 6/6

Another problem above is that lets say you shoot one person with one gun... the other gun is at -2 to engage a 2nd target.   If they both go down... you're now at -4 for the 3rd, and -6 for the 4th.  If you fire both at the same guy and he goes down (more likely).. then you toss on an additional -2 when you switch targets for the 2nd simple action split attack.


Another option would be to set both ingrams to fire long bursts (6rd bursts) as simple actions... (each gun is limited to one)
Lets say you had 18 dice without the split (16 skill + attribute, +2 specialization... which works out to a 10/10 split).

You could fire your left hand once with your first simple action.
Then you could fire your right hand next with your second simple action.

First one would be at 18 -2 uncompensated recoil... and you could treat the long burst as 2 short bursts against two adjacent targets.
Second would again be at 18 -2 uncompensated recoil... and you could again treat it as 2 short bursts again against two adjacent targets.

Figured you'd like to know a way to still spray down the room while tossing more dice.

Generally two guns at once is more of a pistol trick, automatics are generally better off firing longer bursts.

[UmaroVI]

Recoil resets per pass, not per turn. See SR4A 152-154.

Second, you only have to split if you are firing both guns as a single simple action. SR4A 150.

Third, are you sure you know how DP splitting works, ie that you are adding modifiers last? SR4A 150.

Assuming you actually should have 10/10 before accounting for recoil:

You start with two short bursts. That is recoil 2 on each Ingram. Each uses up 2 points of recoil compensation from each gun. You roll 10/10. This is one Simple Action on IP 1

Now you do two more short bursts. This is 3 recoil on each Ingram. That uses up the last point of recoil compensation on both Ingrams, and then the penalties apply to both (SR4A 150). So you take -4 on both shots, so you roll 6/6. This is a second Simple Action on IP 1.

On IP 2, everything resets and you are back to full dice pools.

Note that you need more recoil compensation for this to not be a bad plan. Until you get it, you should be doing short burst/short burst followed by single shot/single shot. EDIT: For which you need a different weapon; I forgot the Ingram Smartgun X is BF/FA, as Fringe pointed out.

[Dr. Meatgrinder]

Recoil modifiers don't translate between IPs, only for multiple rounds fired during the same Action Phase (that is, your turn during an IP) (Recoil, p. 152, SR4A).

However, if you're using two weapons, "any uncompensated recoil modifiers applicable to one weapon also apply to the other weapon" (Attacker Using a Second Firearm, p. 150, SR4A).  And you give up any benefit of smartlink or laser sight (ibid).

With a single weapon on burst fire, the first burst is at -2 and the second at an additional -3 (-5 total).  With recoil reduction of 3, that becomes 0/-2 for a single weapon.  If you're using two of these weapons, that becomes 0/-4, since the first simple action is fully compensated but the second simple action takes the uncompensated recoil for both weapons.

So if you're starting with a split DP of 10/10, you're rolling 10/8 (-2 for the off-hand weapon, unless you have Ambidexterity) on the first simple action (first short burst from each weapon), and then 6/4 (-4 recoil for both weapons because each has -2 uncompensated, plus -2 for the off-hand weapon) on the second simple action (second short burst from each weapon).  When your turn comes back around in the second IP, you're back to the starting DP.

You would not want to go long burst with a pair of these weapons:  uncompensated recoil -6 for each weapon means -12 for each, plus -2 for the off-hand weapon, or no dice remaining in your split DPs.  Have fun spending Edge for Long Shot Tests, unless you like using Suppressive Fire.

Incidentally, you can't do single shots on an Ingram X--it's BF/FA only.

[UmaroVI]

I should note that it's totally possible to be an effective two-weapon automatics user, you just aren't doing it. What you need are:

Lots of recoil compensation. 3 is not nearly enough. You want 8 per gun for regular FA weapons, or 11 for HV weapons.

SMGs or Machine Pistols. You can't DW anything larger.

FA weapons. This is key because you want to be using Tracer Rounds (unlike Smartguns, they do work while dual-wielding).

If you can't or don't want to hit that, consecutive-wielding (one simple-action burst from one weapon followed by a second simple-action burst from another) as suggested by Falconer is the way to go, since this lets you double up on recoil compensation.

[Falconer]

Umaro:
Switching fire modes wastes a free action.  Going BF/SA doesn't work well at all.
Further you can only switch fire mode on one of the guns using the free action.


Also if you're looking for recoil comp... 5 is really all you need.    8 is only needed if you're doing fire mode switches which are inefficient and wasteful of actions.

If you are tossing out a second long burst... then 5 is still plenty... you'll hit the other guy with a -5 while only taking a -3 yourself for uncompensated if it's on the second shot.

[UmaroVI]

Huh, my bad. Forget the narrow burst/single shot. Just get more RC.

You do, however, want 8 RC for FA weapons (or 11 if it is HV). You can do Long/Short with FA weapons (or Long/Long with HV weapons), without switching fire mode, which requires 8(11) recoil comp for full compensation. Yeah, you could wide burst, but it's better to have that recoil compensation; it's generally much easier to get +1 RC than +1 dice.

[Falconer]

I've never really needed more than 5RC on any gun to be honest... (excepting heavy weapons with the stupid double recoil penalty!  on say a MG... then you really want a drone mount or gyromount/tripod).

It's a complex action to fire a full burst... (9 recoil).   That's good for +9 damage.


But if you have Hyper... yeah... you need a lot more, because the entire point of the gun is to fire 6rd bursts early and often without needing to switch off to a second gun, or waste your free actions.  I guess I've never found a need for anything more than short bursts typically.   Because normally it takes 2 shots anyhow with armor involved they rarely go down with just one.  And the delta from 3rd to 6rd isn't big enough to change that... so I generally find 6rd bursts are only a faster way to waste an ammo budget.

[Thrass]

first things first... do you really know how to split dice pools on dual wield?

I know this is a highly discussed topic but afair state of the rules is:
you split agility+skill because it's the dice pool (annd thus for not likely 20) and then you add and substract everything else because it's a modifier

so for example: SMGs 6 + agility 8 is 14 which you can split from 1/13 to 7/7 to 13/1
and then you add: off hand penalty, spezialisation, tacnet, situational boni, recoil, sight modifiers, tracer ammo, ... and the like

the way would go is:
get 2 fully recoil compensated weapons (you are short on dices anyway compared to a non dual wielder) and use them in full burst
that means you need 8 RC which is possible... it's a shame though that one can't use 2 ares alpha for this

things that add nicely to this concept:
ambidextrous (effectively 2 more dice)
adept centering:(effectively more dice which can replace ambidex, sight mods,RC, if initiate rating is high enough)
tracer ammo: (+3 dice on dice pools with full auto and with gas vent you can't silence anyway)

I got a fun char concept (that is not mission compatible because it's a possession tradition) with 6 SMGs which are fully recoil compensated here:
http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=7011.msg124547#msg124547
my SMGs look like the following
FN P93 Praetor w/ Electronic Firing
   +Gas-Vent 3 System
   +Stock
   +Underbarrel Weight
   +Electronic Firing
   +Flashlight, Standard
   +Heavy Barrel
   +Sling
   DV: 5P   AP: -   RC: 8
I actually can't remember if the Sling is usefoll for RC or just a don't get disarmed precaution but it adds up to 8RC and you can easily get the last 1 RC by strength 6

then go fire 9 full autos at once and devide if you want to have 2 times a +9 damage attack or like 6 short bursts with -2 to dodge or +2 damage each...
if you fire 6 short bursts at one enemy he gehts -1 for each subsequent hit so the last could come in at -7 to dodge

imho you cannot long burst two weapons at once but you can full burst two weapons at once and gain 2long and 2 short bursts

if you want to play this character for a long time you can go for adept or latent adept (and save 1  to 1.99 essence)  and later on when you have the adept centering high enough go for a high velocity mod and compensate RC with adept centering

edit:

this clearly dosn't work with full auto bursts
you can do a long burst with all your weapons and then a hort burst with all your weapons getting to 8 recoil and therefore you need one less recoil compensation
mea culpa

[CLufaS]

Thank you for the assistance.

The stated dice pool is meant to easily illustrate to me the penalties I'm recieving per action per round. 10 is a nice round number. I understand that the dice pool is generated and split before additional modifiers are added into the mix. This means Agility (+WR bonus), 6 automatic ranks, +2 SMG spec. I was however unaware you could choose how to split the pool I was under the impression it was a flat 50/50 split before mods.

That said I must have missed the bit on recoil 'refreshing' at the start of each Pass. To clarify - I'm not an Adept so there's no magic assistance through my own means. I do have the Ambidexterous quality and am also using tracers. When I need to take 'long shots' I'd either swap to a different automatic with better range increments or suppress the area so my mage buddy can use his wicca. I'm not about to snipe with my SMG's, nor will I really be going full auto.

So firing a short burst on Simple action 1 from one gun (instead of both) and then using the other hand during second Simple is ultimately a better statistical approach to this, correct? I'm effectively dropping down to 2 'attacks' instead of four but it's much more likely to hit so I can Narrow Burst instead and rip some holes in MFers.

[Walks Through Walls]

Yes to fire one gun then the other from a statistical point of view this is most effective. This doesn't allow you any more shots than someone firing one weapon twice, but still does give some advantages. These include longer between reloads, and using different ammo types for the situation (load each gun with a different type of ammo)

If you truly want to go spray and pray you could switch to full auto and use suppressive fire from one gun then the next pass the other to increase your ammo supply while keeping everyone's head down.

[TheNarrator]

This means Agility (+WR bonus)

Just checking something: by WR do you mean Wired Reflexes? Because Wired Reflexes doesn't add to Agility, it adds to Reaction. To increase Agility you'll want Muscle Toner bioware.

[Falconer]

Thrass seemed to ignore every single rule he didn't care for in making that post.  (you can't fire multiple weapons at once as a complex action(only can fire multiple at once as a simple), conditional RC you only get when you shoulder a weapon tossed into totals, non-stacking RC... too high of a tacnet rating...).   Why is it people think they have to bend/break tons of rules to make a unique character?!


Clufas:
As others have pointed out you don't seem to realize how to split a dice pool properly.  And also pointed out wired reflexes doesn't add to agility but reaction instead.

Take your attribute(augmented)... your skill (augmented by skill mods)  add them together then split them.   To each individual pool apply other situational modifiers plus or minus... there's a lot more minuses than pluses at this point generally.  (+2 specialization is a modifier, everything from -2 for each new target after the first... to -2 for running... range penalty, vision penalty, uncompensated recoil, off-hand penalty...).

So if you have Agility 6, Skill 6...   that's 12 dice... split to 6 dice each (it doesn't have to be an even split).   Then apply +2 specialization and other modifiers...  So that's 8 dice.

Tracers are your friend though as others pointed out... +1 on a short, or +2 on a long burst, +3 on full burst.  (3rd, 6rd, 10rd bursts).  They also work while firing two guns at once.

You don't need to do short bursts... with 5 RC you don't even need 2 different guns to fire 2 short bursts per pass.  With one it's pretty easy to pull off.  Long bursts (6rds instead of 3) also only require a simple action to fire.   Against lightly or almost unarmored targets... a long burst with a SMG is just enough to take someone down... but with a good soak or armor it's borderline.  (5 base on the gun, +5 narrow burst,

Another option to you is to fire a full burst (10rds) as a complex action.  That will allow you to attack up to 3 targets close together at once with a short burst each.  (I had that slightly wrong... long bursts can't attack multiple targets... full bursts can though).  Another thing I just double checked... *YOU* are limited to 1 long burst per action phase (not 1 per gun).  So you can set one of your SMG's to short bursts and the other to long bursts.  Hypervelocity weapons allow you to fire 2 long bursts per pass (though you need a lot more RC to compensate... or one in each hand!).

If you fire one long wide burst... followed by a short one... you're pretty much guaranteed to hit each time (first time -5 to their dodge pool... second shot -1 second attack... -2 more 3rd burst wide... -wound penalty from first attack).

[CLufaS]

Sorry about my delay in replying, been off the matrix. Thank you Falconer, you've been wicked helpful. I'm going to print up a little table card so that I'm more able to commit this to memory and have a handy 'refresher' available for when I next crack into my brick of d6's.

[Eye Eternal]

If both guns have smartgun systems (such as ingram smartgun smg) and a street sam is dual wielding, it said cant use smartgun when firing two guns. Is that as simultanupious or during same Ip? If for example he fired 1 smg right handed on one simple action, does the smartgun not count on the other simple action for left hand? Is it possible to buy two monacles, load a smartlink into each one linked to the gun of that side and (considering ar is what you set it as) have each retticle be a different color and make it work as such? Like close left eye fire right gun, close right eye fire left gun? Or is that just out of the question?