[Ravensong]

Currently using the Ares Desert Strike with APDS rounds. Looking at Run and Gun's Terracotta AM-47 and Barret Model 122. Are these worth the expense?  Any recommendations?

[8-bit]

I would say the Barret Model 122 is. For raw power*, you just can't beat it. The ability to have -10 AP or more if you use Bulls-Eye/Double Tap is amazing. Granted, you can get away with the Ares Desert Strike for a while, and if you already have it, then you probably shouldn't be in a rush to upgrade to a Barret Model 122. However, as an overall purchase if you are in need of a sniper rifle, it's amazing.



*Not raw DV; it has the highest DV + AP combination outside of launchers or the Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle

[faket15]

They are really expensive, but if you have the money why not? The AM-47 does higher damage against normal opposition, but killing normal targets with any Sniper Rifle is already easy enough. If you are trying to kill targets with heavy armor (especially if it's hardened), the Barret really shines with the higher AP combined with the Bull's Eye called shot. The Barret and the AA-16 are the two things that really make Longarms worthwhile, everything else is only a placeholder.

[faket15]

*Not raw DV; it has the highest DV + AP combination outside of launchers or the Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle

Actually, the Thunderstruck uses Assault Cannon ammo, which means no APDS. A Barret with APDS has a DV + AP of 24 while the Thunderstruck has only 23. The Bull's Eye called shot is also APDS only, which means SR5's Thunderstruck is a joke compared to a real sniper rifle. The AP nerf from SR4 to SR5 was needed but ended up being extremely harsh.

[All4BigGuns]

I'd say go for a Remington 950. Since it's more of a sport rifle, it's easier to carry that one around with you (back window of your vehicle anyone?).

[Namikaze]

I'm a huge fan of the Crockett, personally.  Less power, but more utility.

[faket15]

The Crockett is really nice against weak targets because of the higher hitting chance from bursts. The best way to measure the effectiveness of a Sniper Rifle is, IMO, the chance of dropping the target with only one action. With a dice pool of 20, APDS ammo, smartlink and personalized grip against a police officer or security guard with 7 defense dice, body 4 and armor 12, the chance of dropping the target with only one burst from a Crockett is 94.3% while one shot from an Ares Desert Strike gives 93.6%. In this situation, the Barret is tied with the Crockett, which ends up being better because of lower cost and higher chance of hitting the target with a lower damage than necessary instead of not hitting at all. Using a complex action to shoot SA bursts (or long bursts with the Crockett) instead of Take Aim + shoot increases the chance to 97.8% (Crockett) vs. 96.8% (Barret) showing again how the Crockett can be the better option even when compared with much more expensive guns.

Against a street samurai with 12 defense dice , a 24 dice soaking pool and a condition monitor size of 11, the Barret has a chance of 69.7%, the Desert Strike has 51.6% and the Crockett has only 47.3%. I know that dropping a street sam shouldn't be trivial, but the Crockett is clearly a bad option in this situation. In this situation, Bull's Eye can be good only IF you have Sharpshooter or Strive for Perfection. With Sharpshooter, the chance of dropping the target with Bull's Eye is 80.5% using the Barret, and 69.8% with the Crockett. Against this target, the Barret is slightly better than the AM-47.

Using the Tank archetype from the Core Rulebook as a target we can see why the Barret is worth every nuyen. With a Bull's Eye Burst and the Sharpshooter quality, the chance of dropping the target with the Barret is 56.7% while the AM-47 gives 43.7% and the Crockett has only 12.4%.

[McGuffin]

Outside of military engagements I highly doubt any weapon is worth the immense costs. My runners need to drop their weapons and walk away quite often, I don't want them to cry over lost fortunes too. Put on top the rare and highly illegal nature of the beast, inner city use tends to attract massive investigative power.
Drop a person with a gun and it's just another number on a high-stacked pile of gun-related deaths. Use military equipment and law enforcement suddenly sees a unique opportunity to crack down on terrorism while gaining good PR.

If you keep in mind that you cannot defend against shots you're not aware of, a lot of sports rifles become quite deadly without the need to spend 40K. Just pick a spot, aim and shoot.

[faket15]

If you are going for longarms you really need to go all-in. If you have longarms but only uses restricted guns you have selected the wrong skill. An AK-97 is smaller, does higher average damage against most targets when you factor in the chance of hitting, can be used for suppressive fire and is covered by a skill that also gives you acess to good sidearms, freeing some skill points.

[Ursus Maior]

While I see the worth of a true sniper rifle, I fency a pimped Crockett over most of them for characters that are not extremely specialised snipers. Of course "sharpshooter" is a good quality and maxing skills and specilisations will give you immense offensive capabilites with a sniper rifle, but as the military found out: A good designated marksman rifle (like the Crockett resembles) will do the job in 80% of the cases for just over 20% of the price if you max out both (the Barret needs a scope, the EBR a smartgun system etc.). If you need to knock out really up-armored streetsamurais or a target behind armored glas, then you'll need a true sniper rifle and shouldn't spare the costs. Otherwise you might not earn your money. But the flexibility of a designated marksman rifle with semi-auto firing capabilites is just immense. It can easily double as assault rifle and sniper rifles for characters that are neither maxed out streetsamurai or snipers themselves, but have a high Longarms skill. As you can undermount a grenade launcher, any character with this setup can give support to the group in most isntances.

I run my face in a similiar way, though he has a Ares Alpha and an AS-7 for support. But he deals massive damage in the first round of combat. And we all know, the first should be the last.

[8-bit]

While I see the worth of a true sniper rifle, I fency a pimped Crockett over most of them for characters that are not extremely specialised snipers. Of course "sharpshooter" is a good quality and maxing skills and specilisations will give you immense offensive capabilites with a sniper rifle, but as the military found out: A good designated marksman rifle (like the Crockett resembles) will do the job in 80% of the cases for just over 20% of the price if you max out both (the Barret needs a scope, the EBR a smartgun system etc.). If you need to knock out really up-armored streetsamurais or a target behind armored glas, then you'll need a true sniper rifle and shouldn't spare the costs. Otherwise you might not earn your money. But the flexibility of a designated marksman rifle with semi-auto firing capabilites is just immense. It can easily double as assault rifle and sniper rifles for characters that are neither maxed out streetsamurai or snipers themselves, but have a high Longarms skill. As you can undermount a grenade launcher, any character with this setup can give support to the group in most isntances.

I run my face in a similiar way, though he has a Ares Alpha and an AS-7 for support. But he deals massive damage in the first round of combat. And we all know, the first should be the last.

The Barret has no need for a scope; Vision Magnification in eyes, glasses, or contacts will do the trick. An EBR can take an External Smartgun for a mere 200 nuyen. The main problem with the cost is not the accessories, but the base weapon itself. Some of them have base values at 20,000+ nuyen, while things like the Remington have it at 950, IIRC.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Ursus Maior
Technically, if you're using the modern term "designated marksman", any assault rifle in the Shadowrun setting will really do.

Modern day usage of the term DM (at least as far as the US Marine Corps is concerned) requires the designated marksman to be accurate out to 600 yards or so, and designated marksmen are meant to supplement a fireteam and do not in any way, shape, or form replace scout snipers. Last I heard ( 2006-2007) US Marines still carried the DMR (a variant of the M14 semi-automatic rifle chambered for 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition accurate to 800 yards or so), though I've heard that this was (recently?) replaced by something called an EMR (which I believe is a more modern version of the M14).

My point is that if you're going for a designated marksman role in Shadowrun setting, you could just as easily carry an assault rifle and perform quite well. The Crockett EBR straddles the line between the needs of a modern-day rifleman and a sniper, mostly because of the ranges it is accurate to. A modern day designated marksman would not be expected to engage targets at ranges greater than 1000 yards.


As for the OPs question about longarms in Shadowrun; I'm not really sure sniper rifles, or more accurately long-range precision rifles, are warranted much at all. How often does one engage ones targets at ranges beyond 550m, the extreme range for the Assault Rifle category? If you are frequently engaging such targets then sniper rifles are for you; otherwise, I'd posit that assault rifles can be just as effective.

[MijRai]

Ursus Maior
Technically, if you're using the modern term "designated marksman", any assault rifle in the Shadowrun setting will really do.

Modern day usage of the term DM (at least as far as the US Marine Corps is concerned) requires the designated marksman to be accurate out to 600 yards or so, and designated marksmen are meant to supplement a fireteam and do not in any way, shape, or form replace scout snipers. Last I heard ( 2006-2007) US Marines still carried the DMR (a variant of the M14 semi-automatic rifle chambered for 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition accurate to 800 yards or so), though I've heard that this was (recently?) replaced by something called an EMR (which I believe is a more modern version of the M14).

My point is that if you're going for a designated marksman role in Shadowrun setting, you could just as easily carry an assault rifle and perform quite well. The Crockett EBR straddles the line between the needs of a modern-day rifleman and a sniper, mostly because of the ranges it is accurate to. A modern day designated marksman would not be expected to engage targets at ranges greater than 1000 yards.


As for the OPs question about longarms in Shadowrun; I'm not really sure sniper rifles, or more accurately long-range precision rifles, are warranted much at all. How often does one engage ones targets at ranges beyond 550m, the extreme range for the Assault Rifle category? If you are frequently engaging such targets then sniper rifles are for you; otherwise, I'd posit that assault rifles can be just as effective.

Unless you don't want to take a larger penalty at shooting for that range.  For a Sniper rifle, 351m to 800m is a -3, instead of a -6 for 351-550.  An assault rifle does not actually fill the DMR role, mechanically or thematically.  For that, you should be taking a 'sniper rifle', even if it's the EBR or a SVD (which you can find in the Assassin's Primer). 

[Ravensong]

Great contributions. Most deeply appreciated.

My current character is Dwarf Mercenary. Primary weapon is the AA-16 with under-barrel grenade launcher. The Ares Desert Strike was a backup weapon. Our team's primary sniper just got "forcibly retired" and my character is stepping up to take on that role as needed. Have had to drop weapons on a run before. And already KE has been a major pain in the ass. Running around with military grade weapons in Seattle is not fun, as this Ex-Merc is coming to realize.

Really like the Barret, but cringe at the cost, and am concerned about having to leave such a prime weapon behind.
The Onotari JP-K50, very similar to Crocket EBR, is a possible purchase, as is the Remington 950.

Remington: Hard to beat a 2,000 nuyen base price weapon that can have a valid license, and still reliably take down targets from long/extra long range, even if it ends up taking more than one shot to do it.

JP-K50: Can double as an assault rifle, mount a grenade launcher, and slightly cheaper that the Desert Strike. Could almost replace the AA-16 as a primary weapon, except that the auto-shot gun's base cost is only 1,600 nuyen, making it painless to replace if lost on a run.

Thanks again for the guidance. Rock on and good running, Omae.

[Herr Brackhaus]

MijRai
I disagree with that assessment as both types of rifles can mount vision magnification scopes, reducing said penalties to -1 and -3 (assuming no other environmental modifiers, of course). Designated marksman to my mind is not a defined role in Shadowrun because the range categories are too absolute; there's no place for a mid-range rifle on it's own when both assault rifles and sniper rifles can fire accurately to 550m (~600 yards), the range at which modern designated marksmen are expected to be able to engage an enemy.

My opinion only, of course, but if my choice as a "designated marksman" was between the Automatics and Longarms skill, my choice would be Automatics for the higher versatility.

As for the OPs question, I'd say that the answer to your question depends on the type of opposition frequently faced and the ranges you engage your targets at. If the Barret can accomplish something that is currently lacking in your arsenal, the choice should be clear. If not, then it may not be a cost effective choice.


Ravensong
I love the idea of a dwarf carrying a JP-K50. That'd be my choice for sure!