[maddoctor]

I've entered the world of Shadowrun recently and I really like the setting and the system.
I'm confused about some of the rules:

1. If a character has multiple Initiative Passes he can make more attacks per Combat Turn, on each Action Phase. I can understand this with melee weapons but, is there a "rate of fire" setting for the different firearms? I mean, even if you squeeze the trigger there should be a limit to how many bullets it can shoot in a split second. How many bullets can a weapon fire in 3 seconds (each Combat Turn is 3 seconds isn't it?) Also, Single Shot firearms can only be fired once per Combat Turn, no matter how many Initiative Passes a character might have, correct?

2. How does Essence being calculated? Street Samurai, page 110 of SR4A lists 1.08 Essence. I've done countless calculations and can't figure out how that 1.08 is calculated, I always get different numbers, is there an errata for that or I'm doing something wrong?

3. I'm confused about Cyberarms, again on Street Samurai, Agility is listed as 5( 8 ) and Strength as 5(7). The Street Samurai has Enhanced Agility 3 and Enhanced Strength 2 on her customised cyberarms. A customised cyberarm has 3 on all physical attributes by default, so that makes the modified attributes: Strength 5, Agility 6. Do I use 5 (natural), 8 (in parenthesis) or 6 when I make a ranged attack with a firearm? Do I use 5 (natural), 7 (in parenthesis) or 5 (cyberam modified attribute) for melee damage?

4. Again about Cyberlimbs, page 343 SR4A, the text in green (the example), final phrase, "If he gets shot, however, he uses the average of his Body attributes, rounded down-in this case 4. How exactly is that "average" calculated? 3 Body (natural) + 6 (Cybertorso) + 3 (Cyberarm) + 5 (Cyberleg) = 17/4 = 4.25 or we take into account the natural Body for the other non-cyber parts? 6 (Cybertorso) + 3 (Left Cyberarm) + 5 (Left Cyberleg) + 3 (Right Arm) + 3 (Right Leg) + 3 (Head) = 23/6 = 3.8 or something else entirely? What if someone has just a cyberarm with Body 6 and his own Body is 2, would his modified Body be 4 or not?

[Mirikon]

I've entered the world of Shadowrun recently and I really like the setting and the system.

First off, welcome aboard! Ignore the crazy. It's normal.

1. If a character has multiple Initiative Passes he can make more attacks per Combat Turn, on each Action Phase. I can understand this with melee weapons but, is there a "rate of fire" setting for the different firearms? I mean, even if you squeeze the trigger there should be a limit to how many bullets it can shoot in a split second. How many bullets can a weapon fire in 3 seconds (each Combat Turn is 3 seconds isn't it?) Also, Single Shot firearms can only be fired once per Combat Turn, no matter how many Initiative Passes a character might have, correct?

This is where real world physics and game rules diverge. There is no 'rate of fire' setting for firearms in SR, other than SS, SA, BF, or FA. Chalk it up to game balance, and the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle in action. And no, SS weapons can only be fired once per Initiative Pass, not once per combat turn.

2. How does Essence being calculated? Street Samurai, page 110 of SR4A lists 1.08 Essence. I've done countless calculations and can't figure out how that 1.08 is calculated, I always get different numbers, is there an errata for that or I'm doing something wrong?

'Ware falls into two broad categories: cyber and bio (nano-ware goes in with cyber, and geneware goes in with bio). Add up both categories, and then you get a 50% discount on the lesser category. Other modifiers may also come into play, such as 'ware grades, qualities such as Biocompatibility, and the like.

3. I'm confused about Cyberarms, again on Street Samurai, Agility is listed as 5( 8 ) and Strength as 5(7). The Street Samurai has Enhanced Agility 3 and Enhanced Strength 2 on her customised cyberarms. A customised cyberarm has 3 on all physical attributes by default, so that makes the modified attributes: Strength 5, Agility 6. Do I use 5 (natural), 8 (in parenthesis) or 6 when I make a ranged attack with a firearm? Do I use 5 (natural), 7 (in parenthesis) or 5 (cyberam modified attribute) for melee damage?

The Samurai in question had the cyberlimbs customized to bring Agility and Strength at 5. The Enhanced Agility and Enhanced Strength mods are separate mods. See the tables on pg 343, SR4A.

4. Again about Cyberlimbs, page 343 SR4A, the text in green (the example), final phrase, "If he gets shot, however, he uses the average of his Body attributes, rounded down-in this case 4. How exactly is that "average" calculated? 3 Body (natural) + 6 (Cybertorso) + 3 (Cyberarm) + 5 (Cyberleg) = 17/4 = 4.25 or we take into account the natural Body for the other non-cyber parts? 6 (Cybertorso) + 3 (Left Cyberarm) + 5 (Left Cyberleg) + 3 (Right Arm) + 3 (Right Leg) + 3 (Head) = 23/6 = 3.8 or something else entirely? What if someone has just a cyberarm with Body 6 and his own Body is 2, would his modified Body be 4 or not?

The average would be Natural 3 + Cybertorso 6 + Cyberarm 3 + Cyberlimb 5 = 17/4 = 4.25 (Round down). For someone with a cyberarm with Body 6 and natural Body 2, the average would be 4.

[TheNarrator]

1. Single Shot mode weapons can actually fire once per Initiative Pass, rather than per Combat Turn. The idea with them is that they require the shooter to do something physical to chamber the next round (bolt action, pump action, single action revolver , etc.), so the shooter having superhuman speed would apply.

Semi-automatic weapons can pretty much fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. Even the fastest street sam isn't going to have so many actions that his finger will be faster than the cyclic rate of the gun. Even with five initiative passes (which is nigh-impossible to achieve) in a three-second Combat Turn, firing two shots per pass, it would only come out to 200 rounds per minute.

2. Something first time players often miss regarding Essence is that you total up the essence loss due to Cyberware and the essence loss due to Bioware seperately, then halve whichever one is less before adding them together. So if you have 4 points worth of Cyberware and 3 points of Bioware, then the total Esssence loss is 5.5 so the remaining Essence is 0.5.

[All4BigGuns]

Five Initiative Passes in the meat-world is impossible, utterly. The only way to achieve five is in the Matrix in Hot Sim with the Simsense Accelerator and Simsense Booster.

[TheNarrator]

And you could then issue orders to a drone to fire its weapons with a Complex Action each Initiative Pass, correct?

[_Pax_]

1. If a character has multiple Initiative Passes he can make more attacks per Combat Turn, on each Action Phase. I can understand this with melee weapons but, is there a "rate of fire" setting for the different firearms? I mean, even if you squeeze the trigger there should be a limit to how many bullets it can shoot in a split second. How many bullets can a weapon fire in 3 seconds (each Combat Turn is 3 seconds isn't it?) Also, Single Shot firearms can only be fired once per Combat Turn, no matter how many Initiative Passes a character might have, correct?

  The real world rate of fire limitations on guns, is much higher than the Shadowrun rules allow for.

  First off, a Combat Turn is not a single second; I believe it's a flexible length of time, averaging about three seconds.  But ... even if it was one second exactly, there's still no problem.

  See: if you have four initiative passes, and fire off a full-auto long burst (10 rounds) in each pass, that's still only 40 rounds per second.  Modern automatic weapons can manage plenty more than that.  Even the M-16 can, depending on which variant you look at, achieve a cyclic rate of between 700 and 950 rounds per minute.  That's 116 to 150 rounds per second.

2. How does Essence being calculated? Street Samurai, page 110 of SR4A lists 1.08 Essence. I've done countless calculations and can't figure out how that 1.08 is calculated, I always get different numbers, is there an errata for that or I'm doing something wrong?

  Essence always starts at 6.  From that, you subtract the essence cost of each Cybernetic or Bioware implant.  So a Street Samurai who has an Essence of 1.08 ... also has implants that cost him 4.92 Essence.

  And as others have observed: add up Cyberware and Bioware separately, halve the lower of the two, then subtract from Essence.

3. I'm confused about Cyberarms, again on Street Samurai, Agility is listed as 5( 8 ) and Strength as 5(7). The Street Samurai has Enhanced Agility 3 and Enhanced Strength 2 on her customised cyberarms. A customised cyberarm has 3 on all physical attributes by default, so that makes the modified attributes: Strength 5, Agility 6. Do I use 5 (natural), 8 (in parenthesis) or 6 when I make a ranged attack with a firearm? Do I use 5 (natural), 7 (in parenthesis) or 5 (cyberam modified attribute) for melee damage?

  Yes, a cyberlimb has 3 by defaults, but is then customized ... typically to match the character's natural attributes.  Whenever the books talk about a "customised cyberlimb", it's safe to assume that the cyberlimb's base attributes match the character's own.

4. Again about Cyberlimbs, page 343 SR4A, the text in green (the example), final phrase, "If he gets shot, however, he uses the average of his Body attributes, rounded down-in this case 4. How exactly is that "average" calculated? 3 Body (natural) + 6 (Cybertorso) + 3 (Cyberarm) + 5 (Cyberleg) = 17/4 = 4.25 or we take into account the natural Body for the other non-cyber parts? 6 (Cybertorso) + 3 (Left Cyberarm) + 5 (Left Cyberleg) + 3 (Right Arm) + 3 (Right Leg) + 3 (Head) = 23/6 = 3.8 or something else entirely? What if someone has just a cyberarm with Body 6 and his own Body is 2, would his modified Body be 4 or not?

Arguments about this have raged since the book was published.

[All4BigGuns]

And you could then issue orders to a drone to fire its weapons with a Complex Action each Initiative Pass, correct?

You would need a Control Rig to jump in to the drone to make use of all five passes.

[Mirikon]

  See: if you have four initiative passes, and fire off a full-auto long burst (10 rounds) in each pass, that's still only 40 rounds per second.  Modern automatic weapons can manage plenty more than that.  Even the M-16 can, depending on which variant you look at, achieve a cyclic rate of between 700 and 950 rounds per minute.  That's 116 to 150 rounds per second.

Um, Pax? You may want to check your math again, or recheck those figures. 700/60=11.67, and 950/60=15.83. Just sayin'.

[_Pax_]

Bugger.  Forgot to shift the decimal place.  O_o  And shot my own point right in the foot, in the process.

[TheNarrator]

And you could then issue orders to a drone to fire its weapons with a Complex Action each Initiative Pass, correct?

You would need a Control Rig to jump in to the drone to make use of all five passes.

And you would then be able to fire a weapon with those five passes, so if you're trying to calculate the fastest rate of fire possible in the game to determine whether it exceeds the cyclic rate of the weapon, then just to be sure to cover all possibilities you should use five passes as an example, yes?

The real world rate of fire limitations on guns, is much higher than the Shadowrun rules allow for.

Actually, when it comes to weapons firing full auto, then you can actually hit a weird thing where the rules are allowing you fire more rounds than the weapon probably should be physically capable of (1,600 or 2,000 rpm), or at least more than would probably be practical to have on a man-portable, single-barrelled non-support weapon that isn't belt fed due to things like recoil, heat and blowing through all your ammo in less than a second. It pretty much only happens when you're doing suppressing fire (which fires 20 rounds a pass) and have a particularly high number of initiative passes (4 or 5), so it occurs very rarely, if ever. Other than that extreme outlier, however, it shouldn't be a problem. In _Pax_'s example of firing full bursts (10 rounds) four times a turn, it would only come out to 800 rpm, which is a pretty typical cyclic rate. And having four passes is actually not that common in my experience, so it will usually only be 600 rpm. Shouldn't be a problem, most of the time.

[All4BigGuns]

I rarely (if ever) build with more than two passes, but it's generally more that I want other things, and the Essence cost to get that third pass turns me away. I just wish a game would last long enough to be able to get a higher grade (beta or delta) of an upgraded reflex implant--our group is somewhat notorious for short games with a long running game being a couple months of that game.

[TheNarrator]

Three passes has pretty much been the norm in most of the games I've played in. Getting the fourth pass (from Wired Reflexes 3 or Improved Reflexes 3) is generally felt to be too expensive in Essence/Power Points to be practical--it would have to be pretty much the only power/cyber the character had. The only time I ever had four passes was in a high-level all-Awakened game in which everyone started with 200 Karma.

So if something works when everyone has three passes, then I figure it'll work most of the time.

[Teknodragon]

Hm, note to self-- roleplay my gunbunny characters as being _very_ careful of hot weapon barrels after a few rounds of shooting in 3 passes of combat. Those holsters, they'll be a-smokin' if the guns are put away right off. And if I'm GM, it gives a great idea for something on a glitch-- the gun barrel being hot enough to be knocked slightly crooked with a solid bump. Permanent penalty when using that particular weapon 'til it has its barrel replaced.

Thanks for the ideas!

[JustADude]

  See: if you have four initiative passes, and fire off a full-auto long burst (10 rounds) in each pass, that's still only 40 rounds per second.  Modern automatic weapons can manage plenty more than that.  Even the M-16 can, depending on which variant you look at, achieve a cyclic rate of between 700 and 950 rounds per minute.  That's 116 to 150 rounds per second.

Um, Pax? You may want to check your math again, or recheck those figures. 700/60=11.67, and 950/60=15.83. Just sayin'.

And don't forget, that there's Suppression option, which is 20 rounds per IP, and a Rigger could theoretically get 5 passes. It works out to something like 20 rounds per IP * 5 IPs per CR * 20 CR per Minute = 2000 RPM.

It's more than a bit high from a single-barrel weapon, given modern technology, mostly due to heat buildup... but I'm willing to put it down to Applied Phlebotinum, in the form of stuff like dikoted barrels, etc.

[_Pax_]

Not to mention, possible use of advanced ceramics.  Level 3 Ceramic/Plastic Materials makes a firearm completely undetectible by MAD scanners, after all ...