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Combining two weapon into one

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mcv

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« on: <09-16-19/1123:04> »
Is it possible to take two broken weapons and combine their parts into a single functioning weapon?

Last session, our street sam had her Ares Alpha shot out of her hands with a APDS round, which I figure would make a nice round hole in the side of the gun. The opponent also had an Ares Alpha, but with a couple of nice upgrades (gas vent, supressor). But belongs to someone else and thus needs hardware hacking to take ownership. So now the street samurai wants to take both guns and replace the working gun's electronics with the hopefully still working electronics of her own gun.

I like the idea, so I'm inclined to allow it, but I'm wondering if it's actually legal, if I'm opening some can of worms by allowing it, and if it might encourage looting (which is a no-no, from what I understand).

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #1 on: <09-16-19/1145:45> »
Well.. looting isn't so much a "no-no" as it's not supposed to be a way of fundamentally advancing your character's power.  Yeah you CAN loot, but it's adding a trouble to your life all for just a little extra nuyen. Remember you don't get book price when fencing stolen loot...  A) Some characters are willing to face trouble for a little extra nuyen, and B) trouble = adventure hooks.  So looting shouldn't be disallowed per se.  All SR does is prevent looting from having the importance it does in D&D.

But going into the actual meat of your question:
Repairing damaged/broken gear has a very simple approach in 5e/6we: it's however hard the GM wants it to be.  The exact skills in question will vary between the two editions, but the general idea is the same.  GM picks a threshold based on the circumstance (You have a broken gun, but multiple captured copies of the same model? sounds like you have an easy-ish time with all the spare parts to pick from) and the GM assigns what tier of tools are required for the job (kit, shop, facility).  GM can call it an extended test, or make it more "all or nothing-y" by leaving it a pass/fail success test.


Some examples of how a GM might adjudicate your example:
Fixing a broken gun sounds like an "Average" level difficulty. Going by the suggested guidelines, that'd be a threshold of about a 2 or 3 for a success test, or an extended test threshold of 10-12 with an interval of say 10 minutes. Sounds like an appropriate tool kit is all that'd be necessary given the availability of replacement parts.
« Last Edit: <09-16-19/1148:08> by Stainless Steel Devil Rat »
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Antique

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« Reply #2 on: <09-16-19/1220:15> »
A bullet through a gun means its toast, there is no way you can repair that kind of damage without pretty much replacing all but the barrel and the stock. So need to hack the enemy gun to change registration on the electronic parts... so at that point might as well just use the hacked gun.

mcv

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« Reply #3 on: <09-17-19/0559:57> »
Opposing views are always interesting. But since I'm already willing to allow it, I think I'll rule that most of the electronics of the damaged gun survived, and are fairly easy to swap into the looted gun. That gives me more freedom to decide otherwise if they ever try to take too much advantage of this than when they simply hack and own the looted gun; once you go there, they may end up hacking everything they come across.

I've also been thinking about what to do with the looted ammo; from the other discussion about stealing, I gathered that about half of all bullets tend to be RFID tagged, but considering the previous owner was a highly trained serial killer, I think using untraceable bullets was probably pretty high on his priority list. So they get a limited supply of really fancy ammo.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #4 on: <09-17-19/0628:48> »
Yeah, I'm guessing the previous owner would use caseless, or completely stripped cased ammo without any tags left in them.
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CanRay

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« Reply #5 on: <09-20-19/2149:23> »
I still want a Panther Assault Cannon with an underbelly Panther Assault Cannon.   ;D
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Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #6 on: <09-20-19/2221:15> »
I still want a Panther Assault Cannon with an underbelly Panther Assault Cannon.   ;D

How about a Gatling Assault Cannon with an underbellly Assault Cannon?
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

CanRay

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« Reply #7 on: <09-20-19/2229:22> »
I still want a Panther Assault Cannon with an underbelly Panther Assault Cannon.   ;D
How about a Gatling Assault Cannon with an underbellly Assault Cannon?
Gatling Assault Cannon with Underbarrel Gatling Assault Cannon!!!
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #8 on: <09-21-19/0352:17> »
Say hello to my little friend!
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BeCareful

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« Reply #9 on: <09-21-19/2143:14> »
Just don't put an underbarrel grenade launcher on your Vindicator. You don't want the hail of bullets accidentally hitting the grenade in mid-air.
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