Hehe sorry am having a little knee jerk responses there Riev. I've played characters who pack around machine guns on gyro mounts and whatnot, and you're right they can be hella fun. It's mostly my most prominent idea is a stealth based character is all So her/his personality is slipping through a bit.

Hehe, I still think it's a good idea to keep a tight control on ammo though. Just because it can be hard at times to differentiate what you have on you, and what you own alltogether. Having an armory -should- be a problem for most runners IMHO. Managing locations, having items get robbed, etc, these are all integral parts of SR to me.

Here's my argument:
1)  It would require an intuition/logic of 0 for someone to carry bullets around in a box when their weapon requires a clip.  And 0 is not achievable in this system.

2)  Spare clips are a negligable expense.  Requests for clips would clog queues, and commands to put ammo into clips, and clips into guns, would just bog down combat.  And while no shadowrunner with a functioning brain would forget to load up their clips, players have real lives that can sometimes distract them and make them forget about certain important aspects of MUXing.

The point of a gun object code should be to speed up combat.  If it slows down combat, it's out.  I don't give a shit how interactive it is, combat is already damned slow.  We should keep it as simple and streamlined as possible, and to me this says that there need not be any commands dealing with extra clips and putting ammo into them.  It subtracts from realism, yes, but then again it compensates for unrealistic player absentmindedness, so it balances out IMO.

But yeah. I don't have anything constructive to put here, so I'll just say that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles own my soul.

Another factor to look at when considering an argument for all this is that some characters carry multiple clips of multiple types of ammuniton, and that can just get damn annoying.

But the main point I have... how much ammo do you folks usually use during any action scene. I mean, excluding the machine gunners who have belts of ammo and are burning clips and clips of ammo, I've never really used more then two magazines of ammunition in a run. Even with pistols or shotguns, I've never had a need for more then one or two clips, and with Assualt Rifles, I /never/ had the need for the 300 rounds my character was carrying on him in that Combat Vest. Generally, such a grand need for keeping track of clips and ammo and expended ammo is all unnecessary simply because of the lack of fire in the average op, unless your in a serious battle. In which case, as a runner, or anyone else without a platoon of support, your main objective should be to take cover and make an exit, because things have gone awry.

In my oponion, anyway. My poorly spelled one.

Your oponion brings tears to my eyes, Rheiv. 

Well not all of us are perfect spellers Mr. ROBOT!

Oh, I'm sorry, have I revealed your horrible secret? I do apologize.

Damn robots. With their perfect spelling and ways of wooing our women.

EDIT: *paranoid eyeshifts*

Domo Arigato, mR. rOBOTo.,

Well on the subject of how many clips one can go through on a run and the like. And coded clips vs uncoded etc. Personaly I found SR:S's clip system a bit tedious. Because yes. I was one of those guys with an armory. SMGs, Pistols, 2 different sniper rifles, and the assorted specialty ammo (Generally Gel, Regular, APDS and AV), grenades and all that other fun stuff. I didnt even buy half my armory either. But salvaged guns on runs. That way I had a ready pool of disposable weaponry that I could use on a run and if I thought there was a need for it. I could just toss/destroy said weapon without qualms since.. well I didnt pay for it to begin with.

On most runs I usually found myself carrying alot more ammo than was really needed. But at the same time I found the finite ammounts sort of useful since I'd have to plan out what exactly my payload was. For example one run where I was sniping I figgured 4 clips of regular and 2 clips of AV would do me just fine for my rifle and 4 clips of APDS for my pistol. Only to find out that well I never did use the pistol. Ran out of regular ammo and almost ran out of AV rounds. Which in the end equates to the fact that I miscalculated on how much ammo I'd need. And it -almost- became a serious problem. With the whole 'unlimited regular ammo' deal. You dont ever have that.

So even if you do make regular ammo and clips 'free'. I think there should be some way of specifically stating how much of what kind of ammo your carrying with you on  any given run. As well as a manner of the person running the game ensuring that said ammunition is actually 'spent' by the player. Which is the one thign  found handy about the coded weaponry.

On the Vitem side of things when it comes to weapon storage I've seen plenty of places that used this system and you had a seperate line you could put in with any V-item to explain where it's stored (Apparetment, car etc) And overall I found such systems abit easier to manage. And certainly not so horribly tedious as having to go through all that twisted code to reload empty clips etc. And I've had such things applied to specialty ammo. One just has to keep in mind the actual weapon clipsize. Of course this is open to abuse. But it doesnt take much for a GM to keep track of a players ammo. Hell I generally just do it via notation in notepad or some such. IE Jimmie fired 4 single shots and 2 3 shot bursts for a total of 10 rounds out of his 30 round clip. ANd I generally make a notation of how many rounds out of the clip capacity have been fired (rather than rounds remaining) so i'd have 10/30 down for the clip. Meaning he'd fired 10 of the 30 rounds available.

When we mentioned a Virtual System, we did not mean Vouchers.

A Virtual System is basically tossing 'attributes' back and forth without using objects.  The way I understand the Virtual System, it simply puts or removes a set of information upon your character.  It keeps track of where you 'drop' your gun, how many bullets it had in it, its accessories and all that good stuff. It keeps track of what you 'pick up', what you are holding, if it is concealed/loaded/broken/colored pink, etc.

In a less confusing statement: It is just like having an object, only its not an object. Ya dig?

I agree that the current code on the old grid is one hell of a confusing system.  Hopefully, whatever we do will be simplified, yet still retain a level of realistic complexity. Both Virtual and Coded Objects can be just as confusing. Mux code is only as user friendly as you make it after all.

And I still think you should have to buy Regular Ammo/Extra clips. You bloody cheap-skates.

-Hades

I agree, especially in the differences between Shadowrun 3rd economics versus Shadowrun 4th edition economics.  Previously you could just afford it.  It didn't matter what kind it was, and you could get as much ammo you wanted for your big time LMG AV rabbit shoots any 'ol time as long as you knew a PC fixer.  However, in SR4, although suddenly ANYONE can get APDS rounds (just takes longer) you no longer have the loose money you once did.  Counting nuyen becomes much more important in the new system, so at least for the beta we ought to start out having to buy everything the book requires from us.

My personal opinion is a mix of what's been posted here.

I think that speciality ammo should be tracked permanently through means of an object, VO, queue or whatever.

I think that REGULAR ammo shouldn't be tracked permanently. I think that it should be tracked for a specific run. A person can have a max of X rounds on them -- this can be split through whatever weapons. Say 10 clips or something. Much more than that would be a pain to carry around, increase load significantly, and otherwise be irrational. That way you don't have to buy regular ammo, it doesn't have to be items or what not, but you still have the restrictions of how many rounds you can fire in a specific Shadowrun.

- X

My reasoning chain:

• Special ammo needs to be tracked, as it's "special" due to the additional game effects, extra expense, and differing Availability.
• If there's going to be code to track special ammo, it's an extremely minor thing to use it to track normal ammo as well.

• Swapping clips, tossing spares to friendlies, and waiting for the enemy to reload are realistic and dramatic elements of extended gunfights.
• Shadowrun doesn't have many extended gunfights due to the emphasis on stealth, speed and frontloaded damage.
• Clips are a pain the rear to administrate, but if ammo is being tracked at all then clips have to be tracked as well.

Perhaps clips should be tracked, and perhaps one should need to have vouchers for extra clips that one owns.  Regular ammo should probably be paid for since money is a much bigger deal in SR4, it isn't the toilet paper that it was in SR3 muxes.

HOWEVER, there shouldn't be code for actually putting the ammo in the clips.  Everyone who's posted who's dealt with that sort of system says it sucks, and I'm inclined to believe them.  At the start of a run a GM should ask (or players should volunteer) the number of clips loaded with what ammo they are bringing, and this should be tracked and deducted from a sheet at the end of the session.  This does require honesty from players and competence from GMs, but those things are a necessity for muxing, not a luxury.  It's not unreasonable that they will be present at the level where abuse is largely prevented.  Bogging people down with extra coded commands to learn to make sure that they have the decency and honesty of any normal human being is just plain paranoid.

We aren't using a voucher system. That much I know. The virtual objects system is not a voucher system. One of our coders assures us it is possible to track ammo automatically using this system; we're currently discussing that as an option.

We're aware of the problems with loading clips, ammo, etc. And I think we've got a pretty good picture of what you guys would like to see. Chances are you -will- have to purchase clips and ammo, since that's what's in the book and we're sticking to the book as closely as possible. Once I find somebody who's willing to code the system for it, we can revisit some of these topics.

Though I'm not exactly verbose on these boards as of yet, I'd like to offer my opinions on this, with the following caveat:

I am a codewhore.? I love objects and code and bloat be damned.? I don't mind +tie'ing my +shoes one bit.? I wanna type +flush in my bathroom and have something happen.

That said, I personally enjoyed the coded weaponry of SRSv3.? I thought it was inspired, if imperfect, and began tinkering with my own version of the object after seeing it in action.? It can be utilized to have more function and ease for players and GM's involved, in addition to being a meaty chunk of 'virtual tangibility' that feels so goooood in your inventory.?

They can be coded to read the attribs of the user and produce anything from a summary of the modified skills and attack dice based on skill ratings and specializations, to producing a full attack +roll complete with manually inputted modifiers.? The simplified +rolling in v4 makes this part relatively simple, since you don't need to modify the rolls themselves, merely the number of dice.?

The ammo problem can be worked into a hybrid of what the SRSv3 system did, atributes on your gun, but a function can be made to automatically take whatever amount of ammo you designate to 'carry' and divvy it into clips according to the capacity of the weapon you intend it to go into.? That number can be set on the gun, keeping things neat for those of us who like to go akimbo, or one total mag pool on the person itself, more closely imitating carrying the mags on your body, allowing the Predator clips you loaded back home to go to the one in your right or left hand, and saving a couple steps when you wanna switch out ammo.? '+reload PredA Gel' grabs a Predator-sized clip of gel ammo from your on-body cache and jams it in, if you have any.? This particular solution might run into trouble in the future though, as future released options to customize weapons and increase capacity would make specifying which mag is for which gun more necessary.? Either of these can even be used on other objects such as bandoleers and tac vests, and we could tweak those objects to have a finite capacity for a certain type of mag.? (No stuffing MMG belts into your fanny pack).

This would work in reverse too if you wanted it to.? A command could turn one of the coded clips into an object to toss around, or you could dump one or all of your clips into one object as your 'box' of ammo back home.? Simple commands that wouldn't really be an absolute do or die requirement in the heat of battle.

I do think that clips should be divided by weapons (Predator, L36) and rounds divided by weapon class (pistol, longarm):? compatibility between weapons can be a huge factor in some situations.? When the technomancer tears up your AK97 from the inside and you relieve the nearest guard of his Smartgun, you shouldn't be able to slide a clip from your vest into it and go skipping along.

I think a system like this would satisfy those who hate the +load/+unload/reload micromanagement of counting out rounds to load into a clip, and those who enjoy the virtual locking and loading of objects. Everything I've mentioned, I've seen work...back before I became one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children I was quite the tinkerer.? I believe strong code eases the burden of the player and the GM both, and this has the potential to be as useful as we really want it to be.


Please excuse any reference of 'mags' in the preceeding mess, as I'm military and it's instinctive.  We get in a lot of trouble calling removable box magazines 'clips' and you never know who's watching. 

....pie.? I like pie.