Shadowrun

Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: CanRay on <03-12-19/1248:47>

Title: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: CanRay on <03-12-19/1248:47>
So, the 'run has gone to drek, or the ork merc has gotten bored and decided to make the 'run more fun, and the big guns come out.

What is your favorite heavy weapon to pull out and make some noise?

Note:  Troll fists and Trollbows don't count, as those are unarmed and archery, not heavy weapons.  Even if they do enough damage to count as a heavy weapon.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: adzling on <03-12-19/1329:57>
miniguns, especially with the German/ Pegasus rule for staging up damage when you reduce the defender's dodge pool below zero and our house rule that miniguns fire 20 rounds be burst.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Jack_Spade on <03-12-19/1429:55>
Semi automatic grenade launcher.
Nothing says "frag you" like a three round burst of HE grenades for a combined AOE damage of 32 AP -4
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Mirikon on <03-12-19/1500:11>
Semi automatic grenade launcher.
Nothing says "frag you" like a three round burst of HE grenades for a combined AOE damage of 32 AP -4
What you meant to say is full auto grenade launcher. Because nothing says "frag you" like a ten round burst with HE grenades. Into an enclosed space.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: fseperent on <03-12-19/1604:46>
Give me the Thunderstruck.
Headshots are fun.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Ajax on <03-12-19/1611:58>
I’m partial to the Aztechnology Striker.

Yeah, it doesn’t have the “rock’n’roll” aspect of a heavy machine gun or assault cannon. But, at ¥1,200 for the launcher and, say, ¥3-4,000 for a missile (depending on sensors) you’re looking at something almost any ‘runner with a dozen runs under their belt can afford to buy and then stash in a smuggler’s compartment. Brings a whole new meaning to the idea of a “truck gun.”

It’s also cheap enough that you can drop it and walk away, if necessary.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: kyoto kid on <03-13-19/0320:43>
...Ruhrmetall SF-20 HMG loaded with a 100 round belt of EXEX handload.

Hmm, wasn't there a person where that pink cloud is now?

Of course Leela just loves her "double barrelled" Onotari Arms Interceptor.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: PiXeL01 on <03-13-19/0331:58>
How can Trolls not count!?!
...
From a more serious stance - Rotary Autocannons from back in Rigger Black Book. Or just the Vindicator minigun.
I’ve been thinking to cook up an Ork using one for ages.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <03-13-19/1259:50>
So, the 'run has gone to drek, or the ork merc has gotten bored and decided to make the 'run more fun, and the big guns come out.

What is your favorite heavy weapon to pull out and make some noise?

Note:  Troll fists and Trollbows don't count, as those are unarmed and archery, not heavy weapons.  Even if they do enough damage to count as a heavy weapon.
My favourite 'heavy' weapon is a Barrett. =P But real heavy weapon I am going to side with kyoto kid. That buys you 5 IPs of Suppressive Fire at a damage level that hurts like hell, or one completely-vaporised target.

Of course the best heavy weapon is a bag with 10 HE grenades inside, preferably made invisible or in a Ruthenium Coating bag. Explode simultanously and vaporise even an Insect Dragon.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <03-13-19/1322:18>
Big #DV is Big #DV, but it is indeed hard to surpass the utility/flexibility in a fully automatic MMG/HMG.

If assault cannons inflicted AoE damage, they'd be a contender.  As is, they're just massively overpriced Sniper Rifles :(
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <03-13-19/1415:03>
I have a thing for the Stoner-Ares M-22A1, it's one of those few gems from the otherwise schwarbage Street Lethal. Yes, it's starts off with a low-ish accuracy of 4(6) and a recoil of +6, which is especially bad for heavy weapons because they suffer double uncompensated recoil. But you can easily fix that with the right accessories and you're supposed to be putting it on a vehicle anyways. It's a small price to pay for what you get: 18P AP -6 (getting shot by this gun is literally equivalent to getting hit by a stock Ares Roadmaster going at top speed), Full Auto, HMG ranges, a built in smartgun system and the option to use special ammunition types.

Honestly, it just shits on all the other heavy weapon options. Other machine guns? All virgins compared to the Chad MA Deuce. And before the minigun crowd utters a "but muh Vindicator", stop. My quality beats your quantity. Grenade launchers? More like teamkilling jackasses, am I right?  Rocket Launchers? Half of them are one-use only, the other half are gimmicky and they all spend 2k or more per shot. Assault cannons? Sniper rifles with special ammo are better in every way. Laser weapons? Nice AP, too bad the atmosphere turns them into oversized laser pointers. Ares Thunderstruck Gauss Cannon? Not bad, call me back when it's got FA and a better damage profile.

My other favorite heavy weapon is my Roadmaster's ram plate, but I'm sure you know all about that.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: kyoto kid on <03-13-19/1827:19>
So, the 'run has gone to drek, or the ork merc has gotten bored and decided to make the 'run more fun, and the big guns come out.

What is your favorite heavy weapon to pull out and make some noise?

Note:  Troll fists and Trollbows don't count, as those are unarmed and archery, not heavy weapons.  Even if they do enough damage to count as a heavy weapon.
My favourite 'heavy' weapon is a Barrett. =P But real heavy weapon I am going to side with kyoto kid. That buys you 5 IPs of Suppressive Fire at a damage level that hurts like hell, or one completely-vaporised target.

Of course the best heavy weapon is a bag with 10 HE grenades inside, preferably made invisible or in a Ruthenium Coating bag. Explode simultanously and vaporise even an Insect Dragon.
...a 208 L FAE does a nice job on a bug dragon as well. Just make sure all your chummers and other allies are at least 215 meters from ground zero and definitely not within the 146 metre central blast zone where the damage is a constant 78 DV throughout.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <03-13-19/2002:23>
...a 208 L FAE does a nice job on a bug dragon as well. Just make sure all your chummers and other allies are at least 215 meters from ground zero and definitely not within the 146 metre central blast zone where the damage is a constant 78 DV throughout.
I'm sorry. Are you packing mini-nukes, or just MOABs?
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: kyoto kid on <03-13-19/2054:31>
...no nukes that stuff's toxic and parts of the CZ still have a high rad count.

More like this:

Cinematic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO2-YxWkRxk

Real:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmRASCHJe2Q


Leela had one at the ready to be dropped by a drone but the troops and a couple of her chummers were too close to the target for her to use it.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: CanRay on <03-13-19/2213:06>
An Irish Terrorist NPC had a city transit bus that was effectively an improvised one of those.

The fact that the rest of the Irishmen were scared of the damned thing should have tipped off the group that it wasn't something to play with, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, they had to play with the 'splody-bus.

Luckily, it was "disarmed" by some Lone Star cops with a shotgun.  They shot the windows out.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Tarislar on <03-14-19/0022:54>
Semi automatic grenade launcher.
Nothing says "frag you" like a three round burst of HE grenades for a combined AOE damage of 32 AP -4
I think that is my line.
No, literally, I think someone has me saying that as their sig line from a couple years ago.



What you meant to say is full auto grenade launcher. Because nothing says "frag you" like a ten round burst with HE grenades. Into an enclosed space.
Do we have a FA GL in 5E?

I recall 4E had a BF GL, but I've never seen a FA one yet.

BF gets you a long burst of 6 grenades which is basically a small tac nuke going off.

Something like 56DV & -7 AP ?     Yeah, I'm not sure what survives that.   
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <03-14-19/0124:48>
So, the 'run has gone to drek, or the ork merc has gotten bored and decided to make the 'run more fun, and the big guns come out.

What is your favorite heavy weapon to pull out and make some noise?

Note:  Troll fists and Trollbows don't count, as those are unarmed and archery, not heavy weapons.  Even if they do enough damage to count as a heavy weapon.
My favourite 'heavy' weapon is a Barrett. =P But real heavy weapon I am going to side with kyoto kid. That buys you 5 IPs of Suppressive Fire at a damage level that hurts like hell, or one completely-vaporised target.

Of course the best heavy weapon is a bag with 10 HE grenades inside, preferably made invisible or in a Ruthenium Coating bag. Explode simultanously and vaporise even an Insect Dragon.
...a 208 L FAE does a nice job on a bug dragon as well. Just make sure all your chummers and other allies are at least 215 meters from ground zero and definitely not within the 146 metre central blast zone where the damage is a constant 78 DV throughout.
Now I want to know where the stats are for that. O_O

My absolute favourite heavy weapon would be from SR4, by the way: The Freya Missile. Boosted to SR5 stats it'd be what, 40P, -7/10m? And anything within 20m dies.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: kyoto kid on <03-14-19/0233:57>
...extrapolated the damage value from both Shadowrun Denver and RL formulae.

In 3e, the version of Leela I was playing then made one that took out our junkyard hideout and roughly a 12 square block area of the barrens area surrounding it vaporising the Yakuza hit squad that was sent after us.  Made the UCAS National news.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Ajax on <03-14-19/0236:20>
Thor Shot™️.

When you absolutely, positively want to kill every mother-lover in the post code. Accept no substitutes.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: kyoto kid on <03-14-19/0315:33>
...yeah but you need a contact with top government and/or corporate clearance for access, and better be ready to offer him or her very a huge favour.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Ajax on <03-14-19/0319:59>
Hey, the subject line said “favorite” not “practical”! And the Rods from God is my favorite.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <03-14-19/0323:12>
Thor Shot™️.

When you absolutely, positively want to kill every mother-lover in the post code. Accept no substitutes.
A Freya Missile is cheaper and a tad more precise. =P When you want to just demolish the city block.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Ajax on <03-14-19/0349:00>
The only expensive part of the Thor Shot is getting the platform(s) into orbit in the first place... after that’s overcome, they’re pretty inexpensive. Plus, once the platform(s) are in place, you can easily supplement the “tungsten telephone poles” with a few score “tungsten crowbars.”

An object impacting at 7 km/sec delivers kinetic energy equal to its approximately half its mass in TNT; So a cubic meter of “tungsten crowbar” would be (doing some rough “back of a napkin” math) roughly equivalent to ten-ish tons of TNT.

It’s possible to do the orbital mathematics, using no tools more advanced than a slide rule and a chalk board, to plot an targeting solution for these rods from god that is accurate to within a few meters. With the processing power available to Sixth World computers, you could probably get it down to sub MOA accuracy.

They do have troubles with moving targets if you cannot predict accurately where the target will be in ten-twelve minutes after you “pull the trigger,” you’re going to have problems. But, if you know where the target will be or you send more than one, this becomes less of a problem.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <03-14-19/0443:52>
They're 'only' 1.2m nuyen per shot. =) Or 150k for a Freya. Only the 1.2b satellite pricetag is a nuisance. You can also use a Loki, which automatically hits larger targets in its area while people can dodge. 30P/-20 in SR4 so 40P~45P/-20 in SR5 for a mere 20k.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Spooky on <03-14-19/1519:48>
The only expensive part of the Thor Shot is getting the platform(s) into orbit in the first place... after that’s overcome, they’re pretty inexpensive. Plus, once the platform(s) are in place, you can easily supplement the “tungsten telephone poles” with a few score “tungsten crowbars.”

An object impacting at 7 km/sec delivers kinetic energy equal to its approximately half its mass in TNT; So a cubic meter of “tungsten crowbar” would be (doing some rough “back of a napkin” math) roughly equivalent to ten-ish tons of TNT.

It’s possible to do the orbital mathematics, using no tools more advanced than a slide rule and a chalk board, to plot an targeting solution for these rods from god that is accurate to within a few meters. With the processing power available to Sixth World computers, you could probably get it down to sub MOA accuracy.

They do have troubles with moving targets if you cannot predict accurately where the target will be in ten-twelve minutes after you “pull the trigger,” you’re going to have problems. But, if you know where the target will be or you send more than one, this becomes less of a problem.

Why bother trying to get one of these, when your decker/techno can simply hack a nearby satellite and degrade it's orbit? Works just as well, and no favors due afterwards....
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: kyoto kid on <03-14-19/1547:57>
The only expensive part of the Thor Shot is getting the platform(s) into orbit in the first place... after that’s overcome, they’re pretty inexpensive. Plus, once the platform(s) are in place, you can easily supplement the “tungsten telephone poles” with a few score “tungsten crowbars.”

An object impacting at 7 km/sec delivers kinetic energy equal to its approximately half its mass in TNT; So a cubic meter of “tungsten crowbar” would be (doing some rough “back of a napkin” math) roughly equivalent to ten-ish tons of TNT.

It’s possible to do the orbital mathematics, using no tools more advanced than a slide rule and a chalk board, to plot an targeting solution for these rods from god that is accurate to within a few meters. With the processing power available to Sixth World computers, you could probably get it down to sub MOA accuracy.

They do have troubles with moving targets if you cannot predict accurately where the target will be in ten-twelve minutes after you “pull the trigger,” you’re going to have problems. But, if you know where the target will be or you send more than one, this becomes less of a problem.

Why bother trying to get one of these, when your decker/techno can simply hack a nearby satellite and degrade it's orbit? Works just as well, and no favors due afterwards....
...the only issue with this is someone (usually the company/corp that owns the satellite as well as any government space agency) is bound to notice the anomaly and will likely issue an alert or even possibly intervene to destroy it before it becomes a threat tp anyone on the ground. We already have the ability to track all the satellites and even space junk that is in orbit today.  Now add another 50 years of technical development.

BTW I had a covert ops character who was a "fallen angel" back in 3e.  She had the Friends in High places edge one of whom was a high ranking CIA official who was able to get her access to spy sats.  However even that usually came at the cost like a hefty "anonymous donation" to some dark money PAC or a favour (usually a job where "deniable assets" were important).
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Ajax on <03-14-19/1555:53>
It’s also a war crime and/or terrorist act to use a weapon of mass destruction, which a satellite drop most certainly would be considering they don’t have nearly the precision of a Thor Shot... A satellite drop is also going to be radioactively “dirty,” compared to a nice “clean” god rod.

You’ll also have GOD coming after you, hard, since the ability to hack on that scale means you might also be a threat to Zurich-Orbital.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Mirikon on <03-15-19/1156:19>
Semi automatic grenade launcher.
Nothing says "frag you" like a three round burst of HE grenades for a combined AOE damage of 32 AP -4
I think that is my line.
No, literally, I think someone has me saying that as their sig line from a couple years ago.



What you meant to say is full auto grenade launcher. Because nothing says "frag you" like a ten round burst with HE grenades. Into an enclosed space.
Do we have a FA GL in 5E?

I recall 4E had a BF GL, but I've never seen a FA one yet.

BF gets you a long burst of 6 grenades which is basically a small tac nuke going off.

Something like 56DV & -7 AP ?     Yeah, I'm not sure what survives that.
I'll have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure there was a belt-fed grenade launcher in 4e, which you could mod to FA. Wouldn't be too hard to convert to 5E.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: PiXeL01 on <03-15-19/1854:14>
How about the rail gun on the Stonewall MBT? If I cannot choose the vehicle itself, I just want to turret
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <03-16-19/0118:12>
I'm pretty happy with a under barrel grenade launcher, it comes with a rifle of some kind as a bonus.  It's not SA or burst fire grenade launcher which from what I've read in this thread is just a broken rule.  But grenades are pretty boss on their own and hey, pew pew with your gun as well.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: kyoto kid on <03-16-19/1706:40>
...but they can be easily "dodged" if the oppos have at least 5 initiative left with a "run for your life" interrupt action.  Best time to lob one at them is near the end of the combat turn.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Mirikon on <03-17-19/2037:46>
...but they can be easily "dodged" if the oppos have at least 5 initiative left with a "run for your life" interrupt action.  Best time to lob one at them is near the end of the combat turn.
That's when you mod a grenade launcher to be belt-fed and FA, and kindly tell the GM that you're using Suppressive Fire rules with the launcher.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: PiXeL01 on <03-18-19/0007:41>
Would that be improved suppression, Flechette suppression or what?
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Mirikon on <03-18-19/1556:42>
Would that be improved suppression, Flechette suppression or what?
Who knows? Either way, that hallway would never be the same again!
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: kyoto kid on <03-20-19/0416:34>
...but they can be easily "dodged" if the oppos have at least 5 initiative left with a "run for your life" interrupt action.  Best time to lob one at them is near the end of the combat turn.
That's when you mod a grenade launcher to be belt-fed and FA, and kindly tell the GM that you're using Suppressive Fire rules with the launcher.
..well Leela considered doing that as a one shot jury rig to lay down a spread of 12 grenades from an MPGL 12 Would have toasted the weapon though, and there was an outside risk of it simply blowing up.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Michael Chandra on <03-20-19/0832:49>
Also, this is when Frag Grenades are better than HE: Higher spread. At a distance of 12m you still have 6P/+5 left, so that means with 3 grenades 12P/+3. If they already walked, they might be out of movement range before they exit the blast-range.

(When in Dragon Song an enemy threw a time-based grenade at me, I just walked past it while blasting the guy with my Crockett.)
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Shinobi Killfist on <03-20-19/1904:26>
...but they can be easily "dodged" if the oppos have at least 5 initiative left with a "run for your life" interrupt action.  Best time to lob one at them is near the end of the combat turn.

So worst case I dropped your initiative by 5 and got you out of cover. And depending on the grenade it might not make a bit of difference.  I prefer gas grenades and flashbangs.  Not as devastating but they don't get weaker due to range from the center point of the explosion and not killing everyone has advantages. The versatility of the payload is one of the big value adds from grenades.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: kyoto kid on <03-28-19/0159:17>
...this is why I'd love to lay down a spread of 6 - 10 grenades.

Agreed, flashbangs are so useful, anything that reduces the Oppos chance to shoot your team is a good thing.  Leela has several concealed in softballs and plush toys.

Ultralube grenades can be fun as well (and Ultralube, as we discovered in one mission, is flammable so if someone on the team has a flame thrower....).
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Cabral on <04-16-19/2246:16>
Give me the Thunderstruck.
Headshots are fun.
This.
Involuntary acupuncture.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Hephaestus on <06-04-19/2330:32>
I am in the Thunderstruck camp as well. Because frag that guy, and the three guys behind him... and the security door behind them.

I also like Ajax's idea for the devine crowbars, but I wonder if the smaller projectiles would lose too much mass on the descent through the atmosphere to be as effective as he thinks.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Mirikon on <06-10-19/1317:34>
I also like Ajax's idea for the devine crowbars, but I wonder if the smaller projectiles would lose too much mass on the descent through the atmosphere to be as effective as he thinks.
The problem is twofold. First, you're going to lose mass due to friction from reentry. That's unavoidable, but something you can plan for. The real problem is accuracy. When you're dropping something from orbit, a variance of 0.001% is still missing the target point by over 2 miles! (Geosynchronous orbit is 22236 miles or so up.) This isn't a problem with Loki (where you say fuck this neighborhood and everyone in it) or his big brother Thor (where you say fuck this entire zip code and everyone around it), but for most situations it is... suboptimal. Which is why you only see the rods from god dropped on static targets, for the most part, because otherwise you have to rely on being close enough to get them in the AoE.

Going with orbital weapons used tactically, I'd say that, rather than the rods from god, you'd do better with orbital lasers or the like. You lose some energy to attenuation, but it causes far less collateral damage than kinetics. You could also do what is essentially a heat ray, hyperfocusing sunlight using orbital collectors to, essentially do the 'kid with a magnifying glass' trick. Because it is a DoT effect rather than instant, it would be a lot less problematic if you needed to adjust the coordinates. Plus, the fires it would cause would be secondary methods of corralling an enemy into a kill zone.
Title: Re: Fave Heavy Weapon?
Post by: Hephaestus on <07-27-19/1437:22>
Quote
a variance of 0.001% is still missing the target point by over 2 miles!

True, but you would hope the people smart enough to build a space station, and an orbital strike launcher, would be able to make a payload shell for their rods from god. Kind of like an atmospheric sabot that gets the tungsten core up to speed with the extra mass, but once the shell breaks away the core would have an internal guidance system.

Or you do what the US Navy is trying to do IRL, and load up a cluster munition that breaks apart into dozens of smaller spikes a before impact to blanket a wide area (i.e. motor pools or airstrips) in giant spikes.