Some Thoughts on Blaster Weapons

[Whill]

[garhkal]

Even in the outer rims, you will still encounter planets with stringent weapon restrictions..

One of the planets i made for one of my modules, has the Following for ITS weapon (and droid) restrictions..

Melee weapons are limited to stun batons, unless in possession of a CDC-221 permit.
Blasters: Limited to 1 pistol. Heavy pistols are allowed with permit BCX-998.
Firearms: Limited to 1 bolt action rifle and 1 pistol. Anything else is prohibited. Other: Other than bows, crossbows, and licensed law enforcement agents, all other types of weapons are prohibited.
Violations of weapons restrictions, result in a 1-8 year imprisonment.
Permits can be purchased at a cost of 300 credits for melee weaponry and 500 credits for a heavy blaster pistol, and requires bureaucracy rolls of 18 to acquire.
Droid Restrictions:
Droids are allowed in the 2 following cases
1) The person has a medically verifiable handicap that requires the assistance of a droid to help the person in his day to day life. ALL medical helper droids will have a restraining bolt, with the controller in the hands of a local sheriff.
2) Protocol droids and business droids for those who’s jobs require one. This requires a yearly permit, N-8ICC5. These droids also will have a restraining bolt, and will get a quarterly memory wipe supervised by local government licensed technicians.


Another planet has
Laws of the planet:
1) BLASTERS VERBOTEN!!!
2) Melee weapons of a non-powered nature are allowed in plain view
3) 1 other weapon of the person’s choice can be openly displayed (eg bows, firearms, archaic guns)


Two planets i have also used, have some very strict rules.
ONE even disallows weaponry for BOUNTY Hunters, especially GUILD bounty hunters, due to the planet's Governor loosing his wife and kid to a bounty hunter firing indiscriminately several years back.
And the last actually REQUIRES all people on planet to carry ONE melee weapon (Swords preferred), and has special 'dueling' circles every 3-4 city blocks, as their planetary laws not only allow but ENCOURAGES one on one duals to settle any disputes.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[lurker]

[Naaman]

crmcneill: I just grazed the first post for now, but I love what you're doing here. As you know, I have a totally different approach to the same issue, but I'd be happy to contribute anything you may find useful to your particular solution. I'll be back tomorrow to fully read through the thread.

[CRMcNeill]

[Naaman]

I'm not seeing anything I don't like. This is all really well developed.

But here's what I love:
I
The way you handled auto fire is excellent (or is that RAW?). Question: I'm not seeing how to track ammo consumption on the full autos--did I miss it?

The carbine-rifle distinction is right on the money, too. Now, does the RAW retractible stock add a bonus to hit when extended (I can't remember). If so, Id say just let it omit the one-handed penalty, rather than provide a bonus. Also, adding an option for two-handed shooting off-shoulder, perhaps at a -2 penalty or something, as the "tight spaces" philosophy of use for a carbine sometimes prevents stock-to-shoulder firing. Although, that last bit could be universal for all guns, if you like it at all.

Spoerting weapons are well handled. Though I'm wondering what type of "spoerting" they are meant to cover.

IRL, sporting weapons are insanely accurate, but the tight tolerances and methods of care male them prone to malfunction... perhaps with the exception of pump guns, which don't actuall get any more accurate.

For a competition type weapon, the accuracy is tremendous, and the rate of fire would also be faster. The ammo used would be ill suited to combat, but still deadly: reduced damage is appropriate, I think. Are you allowing sporting blasters to be used with "self-defense" or law enforcement ammo? If so, consider allowing sporting weapons to up the damage to the appropriate battle-ready counterpart, but with a trade ocf such as a risk of malfunction (tie it to the wild die, maybe).


That's basically what I wanted to cover: my phone battery is about to die, so Ill be nack later when I get some more juice.

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

For competition-level sporting weapons, I'd probably use either the RAW for increasing Fire Control and Range, or use your Gunsmithing rules from the Tactical Combat thread to maximize accuracy at Medium and Long Range.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Naaman]

Now that you mention the hip-shooting thing being the norm in Star Wars, I feel a bit better about a stock providing a bonus when used.

A little history:
Back in the Vietnam era (and pre "modern" urban warfare, when battles were fought in the wilderness, as opposed to cities and neighborhoods), the "machine gun" was the staple of combat. The M16 and AK47 were the next "hot item" in personal armament for warfare.

Back then, it was all about full auto fire. The primary technique is something we now jokingly call "spray and pray." Essentially, hip shooting. It was all the rage; and the movie--Rambo, Predator, Delta Force... even Star Wars--portray faithfully the techiques used back then.

Nowadays, even the three-round burst is widely regarded as a waste of ammo unless very, very close or far from the target. Shooting has evolved to be faster and more accurate, amd the weaponry has been adapted to more effective techiques employed today. Full auto still has its place, but for skirmishes and indoor fighting, etc, semi-auto is king.

Anyway, for continuity's sake, it makes sense to go with the low slung hip shooting as the standard method. For what its worth, TFA stormtroopers shoulder fire their weapons, IIRC, if that is worth anything in this discussion.

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

I've come up with a couple ideas that I'd like to discuss before I alter the stats, specifically the barrel lengths on the Sporting Blaster Pistol and Hold-Out Blasters and how that length affects quick draws. As shown in ANH (Leia shooting the stormtrooper before she gets stunned), the Sporting Blaster Pistol has a much longer barrel than other Blaster types. Conversely, the Hold-Out has a much shorter barrel. As such, I'm thinking of giving the Hold-Out a +1D to Quick-Draw rolls (similar to the Initiative bonus I originally suggested, but focused specifically on reaction time when drawing the blaster from its holster). I'd also give the Sporting Pistol a -1D to Quick-Draw rolls, due to the barrel length causing a longer Draw from standard holsters. A cut-down quick draw holster could compensate for this, but the longer Pistol would always be at a slight Disadvantage against shorter barreled pistols.

Thoughts?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[CRMcNeill]

[Naaman]

Your rules for quick draw look like the CRNcNiell version of my rules. Its like you are saying the exact same thing but in your own language.

The way I do it is with a static bonus/penalty and I have a speed draw holster that provides a bonus as well.

For whatever its worth, here are the things that I feel affect the speed of the draw:

Holster location and orientation: the higher, the faster. Also, if the pistol is holstered parallel to the body (as opposed to across the body) it is faster, too.

Other than the barrel length, the remaining factors that I find affecting the speed of the draw are the weight and the balance of the gun. Those things may not be enough of a factor for you to bother with, though. Or, you could just make it a custom thing: "this blaster is perfectly balanced and is cut down to save weight so you get a +2 pips on the speed draw roll." Or something like that.

As for the automatic fire, is there some rason that there are no weapons with a 2D value?

Also, what do you mean when you say the individual shots must be capable of penetrating on their own? I'm thinking that a couple of 6s on a wild die might be able to overcome a 2D scale difference... perhaps you could allow the damage to be rolled, but then apply a penalty according to the scale difference? Maybe something like the dice caps from first edition?

I do like the exponential scaling, but I also feel like you need that 2D option to represent weapons that can fire really quickly and steadily. For example, the difference between an AK and an M249 which can unleash 850 rounds per minute. The M240 is capable of 950 rounds per minute. But the standard burst is 6-9 rounds (more or less a 1-second burst).

Then you have the type of guns mounted on helecopters that can fire quite quickly or else are just huge calibers. These would be well represented by the 100-level, and, then your constant stream could include things like the gatling gun found on the A10.

Anyway, I just feel like that 2D ought to be there.

Hope that helps.

[CRMcNeill]

[Naaman]

I see what you are saying with the 5 seconds thing.

If you want to replicate some kind of military comat doctrine, cyclic fire is not really applicable to an actual gunfight. When you have a target and are exchanging fire, both you and the target willbe moving. The purpose of shooting at something is to destroy it. Even when suppressing, you should be taking well aimed shots, with the intent to hit as close to the target as possible and if possible, hit and destroy the target itself.

So even though cyclic fire is possible, it puts a lotof wear and tear on the gun (particularly overheating the barrel) and wastes ammo. Not to mention a lack of target dicrimiation if fighting in a populated area.

So, as a benchmark for what is possible, the 100 rounds per round makes sense from a rate of fire perspective, but not really from a dynamic combat perspective. In other words, even though a round is 5 seconds, that doesn't mean that a single action takes 5 seconds, hence, characters can declare as many actions as they want each round. So "a shot" with a repeater at +3D should take much longer than one action to finish.