(no subject)

"Mark Power"  [email removed] writes:
>
> I've been working on my combat system, and I need to make a decision about
> automatic weapons.  There are several ways to handle auto fire weapons.
>
> 1) Increase the chance to hit.
>      This is how Azhanti High Lightning and Striker handled them. Since
>      these form the basis of ranged combat in my system, I'd been planning
>      to use this.

Striker does two things.  You get a bonus on the to-hit roll, and for every
2 by which the roll exceeds the required number, you get an extra hit.  For
example, to hit with an ACR at effective range requires a roll of 8+.  If you
fire on full automatic, you get a +2.  I roll the dice and get a 9; with the
bonus, that's 11.  This is 3 above the required number of 8, so I score two
hits.

> 3) Allow multiple hits on the target, rolling seperately for each one.

As I say, Striker allows multiple hits without separate rolls.  What I would
then do is roll again for any shots that missed, to see if they hit the next
nearest character in the field of fire.  In the above example, the ACR fires
a burst of 4 rounds, of which 2 have been accounted for; the other 2 roll
again if there's anyone standing near the main target.  This is effectively
a burst of 2 rounds, not 4, so I'd give it a +1 DM instead of the +2.  Striker
has a table listing the bonus for a given number of rounds in a burst; it's
normally used to find the auto-fire bonus for a user-designed auto-cannon,
but can equally well be used here.

Striker also allows you to specify a group as a target, rather than a single
individual.  In this case, you roll once to hit the group; any hits are
divided as evenly as possible between the members of the group.  I don't
recall any bonus for aiming for a cluster of people rather than a single
person, unless you allow the one for target size - in which case a large,
spread out group makes an easier target than the same number of people in
a tight cluster.

>      This is perhaps the most accurate way, but you pay a cost in playing
>      time.  It can also unbalance the game -- if you allow a player to roll
>      10 seperate attacks for a burst from a gauss rifle, the target is
>      almost always going to be chopped into hamburger.

That's the whole point of using a gauss rifle!  >:-)

- - --
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]

>
> Striker does two things.  You get a bonus on the to-hit roll, and for every
> 2 by which the roll exceeds the required number, you get an extra hit.  For
> example, to hit with an ACR at effective range requires a roll of 8+.  If you
> fire on full automatic, you get a +2.  I roll the dice and get a 9; with the
> bonus, that's 11.  This is 3 above the required number of 8, so I score two
> hits.
>

Adrian is, of course, correct.  I've obviously spent too much time re-
reading the AHL rules and not enough time with Stiker.

> > 3) Allow multiple hits on the target, rolling seperately for each one.
>
> As I say, Striker allows multiple hits without separate rolls.  What I would
> then do is roll again for any shots that missed, to see if they hit the next
> nearest character in the field of fire.
>
Absolutely.  I don't have Striker here at work, but in AHL, after rolling at
the target, any attacks that miss the target attack everyone along the line
of sight, until it hits someone, or misses everyone.

> Striker also allows you to specify a group as a target, rather than a single
> individual.  In this case, you roll once to hit the group; any hits are
> divided as evenly as possible between the members of the group.  I don't
> recall any bonus for aiming for a cluster of people rather than a single
> person, unless you allow the one for target size - in which case a large,
> spread out group makes an easier target than the same number of people in
> a tight cluster.
>

I had forgotten this as well.  How well does it work in practice?  Some
Striker rules work better for full-scale battles than for the sort of small-
scale gun play most commonly seen in Traveller games.

Mark

> From: "Mark Power"  [email removed]
> Subject: (2621)
>
> I've been working on my combat system, and I need to make a decision about
> automatic weapons.  There are several ways to handle auto fire weapons.
>
> 1) Increase the chance to hit.

> 2) Increase the damage.

> 3) Allow multiple hits on the target, rolling seperately for each one.

> 4) Determine to hit normally, and then determine a percentage of shots that
>      hit the target.

> Does anyone have any suggestions or strong feelings on this?

  My *current* (there has been many:) favourite is the way Twilight2000 handles
it: Roll a d6 for every shot fired on full auto, every 6 is a hit on the target
for that burst, halv the remaining dice and roll, every new 6 is a hit on a
secondary target, roll the remaining non-6 dice from this last roll, every
6 in this roll is a hit on someone *moving*. Range is treaded as decreasing
the number of rounds.
  (Twilight allows for multiple bursts in the same phase, but at penalties.)

  All in all, except for the way it handles the to hit rolls for single shot
fire and the unearthly amounts of damage everyone can absorb (The average Joe
can take *a number* of average 9mmP rounds in the head before dying...) it
would be really nice...

> Mark

- - -bertil-
- - --
"Some people almost never think. They just reshuffle their prejudices."

	Although many TMLer's do seem to have military experience for those that
don't there seems to be some misunderstanding of autofire.  When a weapon is
fired on auto many people believe that only a percentage of the bullets will hit
the target.  This is true but probably only a percentage of the FIRST few bullets will hit.  I will give the basis for this below:

	When a weapon is put on auto and fired at a target the weapon will tend
to "junp" (for lack of a better word).  Once it has started to jump in one
direction it will tend to continue to go in this direction as long as it
continues to fire.  This is why most rifles made for armed forces around the
world now have a "burst" selection instead of "auto".  Case in point the M16A2
has a 3-round burst setting.  This is because after the first 3 shots the weapon
is usually so far off its intended target as to make the following shots "useless".  Although in the future gyrostabalization will probably compensate somewhat
for this, it will still continue to be a problem in projectile weapons.  So I
will show you the rules I give for this particular situation.

	First: Determine the number of rounds fired on auto-fire during the
combat round.  For those that wish to truly represent realism, if a player
wishes to stop before all the ammo is used up add some randomness.  For any
amount of shots over 10 if the player wishes to stop have them roll 2d6.  One
to determine whether they stopped before or after they wanted to, and one to
determine the number of shots high or low.

	Next:  For very shot over the first the to-hit roll is at -1 cumulative.
for stabalized weapons, or -2 cumulative for non stabalized.  This really
represents how hard it is to keep an auto-firing weapon on target (known from
3 years of experience).  Continue to roll until there is NO chance for a hit.
Occasionally they won't hit until the first or second time but this can easily
be explained as poor aim at first.  Example:  Bob fires at Jim but shoots a bit
to the right, however the weapon travels left and hit him on the 2nd and 3rd
shot.
	Now we get into those nasty missed shots.  These can be discarded in an
open field but not a crowded area.  Although some players might think of this as
simply gore and boredom added to the scenario, in campaigns, players who are too
messy with their "hit" jobs will get a lot more heat.  Not only will the players
be in trouble for the murder (or maybe assault) or the target but also of the
people standing around them.  Killing a known pirate will probably get the
players a little sympathy but not if they also accidently killed 7 by-standers
and wounded 12 others.  Oops, sorry about that, back to the rules.  Roll for the
missed shots against another target normally.  If it hits go back to the auto
fire rules but after a miss don't roll again.  After all it is unlikey the
player is trying to bring his aim back on them.  As for missed shots, when an
area is pretty empty simply roll once any more than that and roll more times up
to 5 or 6 rolls for a really crowded area.

	I added these rules simply because a lot of times players think it is
easier than it is to shoot at a crowd and only hit one person than it is.
Firing into a crowd, even to hit only one target, will 90% of the time will
bring multiple deaths.  This works the same with grenades.  Although these rules
may seem tiresome they tend to make the players much more careful about wielding
weapons with such zeal.  And make enemies who do use them as such seem much more
villainous, making them much more important to hunt down.  Thank you.
Matt Teets

> From: [email removed]
> Subject: (2651) RE:(2621) Autofire
>
> 	When a weapon is put on auto and fired at a target the weapon will tend
> to "junp" (for lack of a better word).  Once it has started to jump in one
> direction it will tend to continue to go in this direction as long as it
> continues to fire.

  How much it jumps depends on the weapon and the cartridge. I'd expect that
a 3.5kg assault rifle firing 5.56N ammo will jump noticably more than a 4.5kg
SMG firing 9mmP. (There are of course other factors that influence this too,
such as the method the weapon use for cycling, wether the weapon is hand-
held or emplaced and so on.)

> 	Next:  For very shot over the first the to-hit roll is at -1 cumulative.
> for stabalized weapons, or -2 cumulative for non stabalized.  This really
> represents how hard it is to keep an auto-firing weapon on target (known from
> 3 years of experience).

  I think that -2 per shot across the board really much. It all depends on the
weapon and the firer and what the firer is doing.

  (This is an addition to my mention of the Twilight autofire rules. In Twilight
every weapon has recoil figure. If the total recoil of all bursts fired in a
phase is higher that the strength of the firer, the difference is the number
of dice will be subtracted from *each* burst in that round.
  Say that someone with strenght 5 (about average) wants to fire 3 bursts of
3 rounds each at a target using a M16A2. The recoil for the M16A2 is 2 per
burst, so the total recoil is 6, which is one over the firers strength, so one
die will be subtracted from each of the three bursts. The result is that only
two dice per burst will be rolled for a total of six d6 (and every '6' is a hit)
  If the firer had fired only two bursts, each burst had been counted in full,
giving six die in this case too, so the third burst was just a waste of ammo.
  And if the firer want to fire more bursts in the same phase the number of
dice rolled will decrease, and so will the chances of hitting anything.)

> 	Now we get into those nasty missed shots.  These can be discarded in an
> open field but not a crowded area.

  All open fields might not be so safe those either. There is a case right now
here in Sweden where a passing driver were hit in the head by a 7.62N and
killed when driving on a road about 3km from a military target range. It's
still unknown if the shot had been fired at high elevation (totally against all
regulations) or if it had richochetted upwards somehow, but IMHO a richochette
that goes 3km sounds unlikely.

> Matt Teets
> ------------------------------

- - -bertil-
- - --
"Oops!" - PC after managing to accidentaly discharge a borrowed rapid pulse
 fusion gun inside the ship, leading to a hull breach, a electrical fire in one
 air-lock, total power failure, and various other interesting happenings.
 Fortunately for him, the first thing destroyed was the power-feed for the gun:)