I offer respectful kudo-flavored props for honesty and clarity of intent.?

Well I can certainly say yes I did like the coded clips to an extend. It's really the reloading of them etc that was such a pain in the ass. (That and oddly the guns themselves if you screwed up the load/unload command set would some times outright create empty clips).

At the same time I think there should be some way of tracking loose ammo. Oh sure you dont usually carry about loose rounds. But some guns like shotguns and some of the sniper rifles dont HAVE clips. But incedentally hey they use the same type of ammo as another gun. So you may want to remoev ammo from a clip or carry loose rounds around to pop a few extra shells into that walther MA or Remington 990. At the same time your buddy might happen to be almost outo f ammo for what ever reason and you happen to have compatible loose ammo to toss em. Sure he has to spend a complex action to put them into the clip of his gun. But it's a possiblity.

+Vsheet inventories can work really well that way. THough I've never seen an automated system for handling ammunition for them. I've found that non coded clips have been alot easier to deal with than coded ones so far. But I'm still willing to put up with the whole coded clip pain in the ass we have now for abit of added realism in a firefight. Cause certainly while sniping there'd been plenty of times I kept switching out clips. LIke I'd have to pop that oncomming armored car or some such so I'd slide out my clip of ammo (partially used). Pop in a clip of AV take it out, pop that clip out pop the other one or a fresh one back in and keep on going.

At the same time though I'd rather see the new seattle come up with SR4 and a much simpler sytem to start (And then add in coded clips later once it's allready up) than have it delayed just so  a coded clip system can be improved uppon or some such.

I don't think coded clips add much realism.  Really they tend to subtract from realism; I don't know any experienced gunfighters who'd go into a job forgetting to load ammo into their clips.  It would be totally unrealistic to say that a seasoned combatant would do such a thing without making them succeed at a threshold 1 INT + LOG memory roll, and that would only make sense if there was some distraction that raised the threshold from its usual 0, ie putting ammo in your guns is an automatic thing if your life depends on them.  For the actual players, though, their lives do not depend on remembering to load their coded clip.  Their lives involve other, much more important things and it's easy to forget small things like that, especially if you're running late to a plot for instance.  Yeah, once in a while you get the added realism of tossing a box of .45 rounds to your buddy so he can load a clip, but more often than not you just have people getting screwed because they forgot about the annoying code thing.

Making people buy and keep track of spare clips? Sure.  There's realism enough there.  Making them +clipload the ammo into those clips?  No thanks.  That would only end up subtracting realism, not adding it.

Tear makes a very valid statement on the matter of what we'd do vs what our char would do.? On the other hand how you've loaded that heaping helping of ammo in your pack can make a significant difference in the heat of battle.? If you've got a Predator IV that's been reduced to parts by an aimed shot, a spell or a technomancer's shenanigans, and you have to pick up a Manhunter off a corper's body, the spare mags in your vest won't (and shouldn't) do you any good.? Unless you're going to handload the clip every time in the heat of battle, you've got to hunt for clips specific to the weapon you're using.? If you're using a capacity modified weapon, clips might not even work between the same type/model/series.?

I've asked to help Erlkonig with the weapon code, and offered him a basic algorithm to look over.? I believe a comprimise can be achieved...you can get a box of ammo from the fixer/vendor/wherever, make a one line command telling it how many clips of what weapon you want it divvied into, and take the clips, rather than bulk ammo, with you in the first place.? The commands would be extra simple, and taking properly filled clips for the weapon you want shouldn't be any harder than typing the command to pick up the unsorted ammo in the first place.? '+fillclip? 2 Hpistol gel= Predator' while standing in the room where your ammo stash is, isn't leagues any more distressing than 'take Hpistol gel', I would think, and the former would place 2 neatly filled Pred clips of gel ammo in your inventory or as an attribute on your person, as is decided.? As far as walking in with an empty gun even when you know you wouldn't...'+check pred' is simple enough to manage as you're forming up on a run, even if you're lagging behind.?

In short (I know, too late)? I truly believe the clip code can be made simple to the point that taking X clips of your ammo is as simple a thing as taking X rounds of said ammo.? Shotgunners and AWP whores will find their pockets full of loose shells too, as that loose ammo will be a portable item in its own right.? Ammo inventory is important, and can be a plot device, a GM tool, and good for RP and storytelling, as well as being an important note of realism.? Give a new vision of the system a chance.

Well it's potentially even a pro at times would forget at some point to fully reload clipX after a fight (Not likely but it is possible)

I do agree with Tear on one thing about the whole coded clip system. As it stands now it's quite possible toa ccidentally drag along empty clips. And.. well frankly thats a very hard thing to do accidentally unless your a total iddiot. If for no other reason than an empty mag is by far lighter than a loaded mag. And you can at least see the first round or two in the mag itself. Though you may happen not to notice that it's missing a few rounds if your in a hurry.

As for Nevermore's suggestion I'd be all for that. Though I'd also like to see a system that can handle loose ammo straight to the gun for non mag weapons. Thats one thing I find horribly annoying about the clip system Seattle has now. Non clip fed weapons (Like the SPAS-22) which have an internal mag vs a clip mag. Still require coded 'clips'. And it's of great annoyance to me at least to allways have to 'swap clips' in combat with a gun you just keep popping shells into to reload. And makes for a great deal of hassel when your breaking up your shooting into burst and single shots. So that say you want to burst fire your next attack but your running short on shells in the gun. You cant just quickly pop a few extra in then fire. You have to pop the 'clip' out load a whole new 'clip' and probably eventually consolidate a bunch of partially empty clips at the end or some such.

The pain in the ass makes sense where it's actually a clip fed weapon. But not when it's your standard internal mag.

I would venture, in my noob way, that perhaps we should just not even bother with this coded clip bit?

We are all ... we are mostly grown-ups  The less work we can put into coding this game the better. I mean I've survived eight years of table top withouit a +clipload function. When people are telling a story, it's usually about enjoyment first then the nity gritty mechanics second. People and the GM can keep in mind the ammo situation themselves. As a gm it's fairly easy to keep track of how many bursts someone's used because we're generally talking about 12-30 rounds of ammo.

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to code it, you could just assign a flag ammo and have it filled with a number. Then each combat round a BF useage would remove three from the total in flag ammo, and so forth, but... it seems the complexity of doing all that work, and the serious amount of beta time you'd put into it would be.... serious.

While it's great to have the option of someone running dry in ammo.... the amount of over head... I mean if you add in different load systems, different clip sizes, multiple ammos. .... My head hurts I am going to go get a beer.

I just don't see a need for this ambitious a plan, we should be capable of handling this ourselves.

The problem Paavo is that TT and a MUSH are two wholly seperate entities when it comes to micromanagement. If their is no clip load function, for example, then the GM has to try and keep track of all the seperate types of ammunition fired, from which weapons (And shadowrunners are known to carry quite a plethora of weapons) and how often for how much. This doesn't take much in a TT setting because you are all sitting around and a momentary delay doesn't mean much. However when everyone is staring at a computer screen, delays mean people can lose the feel of the scene, the GM can miss stuff as it scrolls as people turn to OOC chatter, have to take veen more time to answer questions that cropped up while marking down on paper...

It may seem pointless, but those delays can add up real fast and create even bigger delays. I'm all for putting it in the players hand to ease the job of the staff who are needing to deal with code, rather than dice and a sheet of paper. Just my personal opinion. That and it'd be even more work on the staffer to sit there and go "Okay how much ammo are you carrying for which weapons." wait for players to respond, then have to get in 'discussions' about not being able to carry AV rounds in their latex mini-skirt, etc.

I like ammunition code and think it's needed.

Well I suppose my table top is alot more leeway then others, ammo isn't really considered except for special types. Or for long periods, everyone generally has three or four clips just in their characters written description.....

But you're suggesting they even add size/clothing restrictions to the ammo code? So diffrernt ammo, diffrent clips, size restriction, concealablity, plus keeping a count? Well I will be glad I am not coding the mu* if this is something one wants to do, more power to them. I will be quiet now.

Just a suggestion of course before I go quiet on it, this is not priority for beta. :-)

Nah they havent ever put in different concealabilities etc. But you CAN. And if done properly it can be kept as something fairly simple.

Worst case scenario they just temporarily use SR:Seattles current clip system untill they have time to code up something better.

Complexity is bad!  It's a barrier to new players and it impedes game play.  Plots already tend to be slow as hell, especially combat.  A coded way to keep track of clips and ammo is fine if and only if it speeds up play.  If it slows down play, it's gotta go.  Let the GM track it the old fashioned way on a piece of scratch paper.

As for making new rules about concealability and such, that too gets a big hell no from me.  Realism is not in any way shape or form the point of an RPG system.  The point of an RPG system is fun.  Realism can add to fun, but too much can destroy it as well.

Complexity is only bad if it's impeding the GM or players in doing what are the base procedures involved in the game.  There are rules for the care and feeding of ammunition in the rulebook.  Rules for short bursts, rules for buying ammo and the clips to put it in.  Omission of rules from the book counts as a 'house rule' just like adding to them, and I was under the impression we were trying to stay true to the base game until we could find what things just wouldn't do in a mu* setting.

I'm staring in my other window at two full typed pages worth of my old Pennmush code.  Code that tracked about 12 attributes, generated several variables every time it was run, had miles of ascii formatting rules, and more nested switches than any debugger should have to deal with.  To the average player, however, it consisted of six commands that took a lot of bookkeeping off their hands.  Complexity is something of a misnomer when talking of code...just because something seems ponderous in creation and placement can by its nature lift the burden of a great deal of cataloguing and calculation from the backs of the community.

I think 'realism' is also a misnomer...in playing a certain game system we assume the parameters of that game's level of 'reality'.  Shadowrun doesn't want us to be leaping tall buildings in a single bound, it doesn't want us stopping tanks with our bare hands...and it doesn't want us making like a John Woo movie by putting out 57 rounds from your Streetline Special.  There's a place on the printed character sheet to track ammunition.  Coded ammo would be just as simple, if not moreso.  Don't let the list of possible functions make it seem ovewhelming.  If you could check precisely how much ammo you have for each weapon by looking at +sheet/combat and +check gun, why would you make it the GM's responsibility to keep track of your ammo stock, usage, the mods on your gun and any odd thing you did?

As an aside, I think 'let the GM do it' is a poor solution to any issue.  GMs are handling a spectacular amount of work long before you ever show up to the appointed place and time with a bag full of tricks to blow their carefully scripted run to hell.  When I was a hardcore coder I prided myself on slimplifying the life of GMs as much as possible, even moreso than easing the burden on PCs.  Really, with the responsibilities of char sheets and inventories and weapon tracking all taken out out of the player's hands, is it really so hard to type a command thats puts the info all in a neat pile for you and read the results?

The 'complex' bit is on the shoulders of those of us who take on the creation of code.  If we're doing our job, the shiny facade everyone else sees should be a source of relief, not tension.  And anyone who thinks the old fashioned pen and paper way is easier should see me rooting through my desk for something.   

I wholly agree with Nevermore. As it is they are tracking every npc's ammo, all their movements, everything. Throwing more into their lap is not going to 'speed up gameplay' or 'plots' any. It's your character, your ammunition, your problem. *shrug*.

Personally it's not about how 'cool' they are or what commands are built in. It's about making it easier for the GM to run a plot/run in an online environment. This isn't TT, the rules for how a game proceeds in TT are wholly different in many many ways. There's -already- tons of stuff the GM has to keep track of, why throw something you, as a player, can control into their lap.

It makes little sense for me, having been Staff on SRS once upon a time I admit -that- code was pretty wonky at times and I don't think -anyone- is wanting a direct port. It is important however to note that with all the crazy stuff you have to keep track of, keeping up with pages, poses, questions and other stuff that one less thing in the GM's lap is one thing to make a run go smoother overall.

Find a good mix, like those virtual items or something. Or hell maybe like the character sheet where you track ammo on that. Still it's not -supposed- to be something the GM keeps control of. It's something the players are supposed to keep control of, track of, and manage on their own.

If Mr. Jimmy fired off a burst to quick, then it's a lot easier to have the GM note that said burst can be used later. It's a lot harder for said GM to keep track of EVERYONE's ammunition expenditure.

Good for you. It's not how I've seen TT ran in the past, and it's not that everyone has the same capabilities. People have different strengths and weaknesses. -You- might not need a coded ammunition code, other people apparently do, and rather like having them around. As it is something that is integral to the system (Ammunition) seems pretty strange to me to just ad lib it all because then you'll have different staffers handling it different ways and that will cause some amount of confusion and mistakes as people forget, or just don't mesh well with the way that staffer is handling it.

If you want to run a plot where you keep track of ammunition, that's cool, great, you can do that. Tell people to fire off so many rounds at the end of it or whatever. Other people will want them fired off at that moment and it should be an option as that's the way the book handles it.

Speaking as someone who has been an admin running scenes, this idealism about 'just let the admin track it' is absolutely wonderful... but it _is_ idealism. And if we're talking about just dealing with regular ammo then, yeah, if the admin forgets to actually subtract that bullets from what you have available, no big deal. But if we're talking about those nice, expensive, Ex-Ex or APDS ammo... well, there's a big problem.

Further to this - okay, assuming that the GM is doing the tracking of the ammunition, after the run that same admin still has to go through and subtract it from every player. If we don't actually have a clip system, that means flipping through god knows how many vouchers and, under the old, ugly voucher system, might mean three commands _just_ to subtract one bullet from the listing on the voucher.

And, you know - I never had a problem with an overzealous player. They were overzealous on making their rolls, yes. But - you see, the roll happens. They get results. _Then_ I had them +fire the gun. Ammo tracking and accuracy, no problem. I never once saw a player go: "I shoot!";+roll;+fire Pistol