Realistic rates of fire, and Extremely high ROF weaponry

[Ulmageist]

How would you build a weapon that's autofire capabilities scaled with the users SPD?

 

For example, a MP5 has an average ROF of about 800 rounds per minute. This would mean a maximum of 200 shots fired in one full turn (17-18 shots per second). So a character with a SPD of 4 would need autofire 50 in order to be able to fire 200 rounds per turn, but a character with a SPD of 5 would need autofire 40. Regardless that the fact that the autofire would be absolutely ludicrous, what would the AP cost of such a weapon be and how would it be built?

 

On that topic of ridiculous autofire numbers, how would you build an extremely high rate of fire weapon? It seems as though any weapon with an autofire above 5 just seems almost useless, as you'll more than likely never roll high enough to hit with any more shots than that. After a certain amount of round per second, would you then just up the damage, or give it other bonuses such as AOE one hex or PSL's for overcoming the penalties for autofire and suppressive fire?

 

By comparison, an autofire 5 weapon in HERO only has a ROF of 80 with a SPD 4 character (which is chump in today's technology for automatic weaponry), not to mention what the ROF capabilities would be in the future!!?

 

How would you approach this situation?

 

 

p.s. - a minigun would need an autofire of insanity to accommodate the 100 rounds per second the top of the line ones the military has.

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Realistic rates of fire, and Extremely high ROF weaponry

 

200 shots in 1 turn of sustained fire = AF16.67, or let's just say AF15. The only way you are going to fire that many rounds is using the Suppression Fire rules (6E2 89). This means you will expend AF15 every segment. Anything that enters the area that you cover will be subject to attack.

 

If you chose to pick three 2m wide lines of fire, that would give you a total penalty of -5 (-1 per line of fire, -2 for Suppression Fire).

 

However, you would get to make an attack roll per "step" (per 1m radius area) moved through. If the target did not move perpendicular, which would result in 3 attack rolls, they may suffer even more attacks. The maximum number of hits per segment is equal to the number of rounds fired.

 

So, you are correct to a point, but your calculation for AF needs to be based upon sustained CONSTANT fire which is not reflected in simply making an attack roll based on speed.

 

RoF 600/min = 120/turn = AF10 (M60)

RoF 900/min = 180/turn = AF15 (M249 "SAW")

RoF 225/min = 45/turn = AF3-ish (M242 "Bushmaster" - yeah man, but its 25mm!)

RoF 3000/min = 600/turn = AF50 (M134 "Minigun")

 

That all seems to jive. Theoretically each weapon could be built with some PSLs to offset the penalties associated with Autofire. The Minigun, for example, might grant a +6 bonus to offset Autofire Penalties due to the number of barrels (i.e. 6). This would allow it to cover a larger area of fire than the standard penalties would allow: you could then cover with the Suppression Fire maneuver 6 2m wide lanes of fire at only a -2 penalty. It would be foolish to enter those areas, which is appropriate. It is highly unlikely that you would be able to cross all 6 lanes and not sustain a single hit.

 

Alternatively, you could make the Minigun AF10 (roughly 1/6 of the actual RoF) and make it AE: Line.

 

I hope this helps.

[Ulmageist]

Re: Realistic rates of fire, and Extremely high ROF weaponry

 

Ahh yes, making more sense now!

 

So the what is the advantage of using suppressive fire with an autofire 15 weapon over an autofire 5 one? And say that an opponent stops in one of the hexes covered by suppression fire, since he only can get hit for each step he makes would I be correct in assuming that he can stand in the line of fire and not take hits?

 

And yes I agree, the constant fire would be better I definitely like the idea of building higher ROF weapons with PSL's to offset the penalties of suppressive fire. But even so, you can not hit a person more than once for getting 2 or more higher to hit as with normal autofire right?

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Realistic rates of fire, and Extremely high ROF weaponry

 

The advantage is that there are more targets that can be hit. So, imagine the survivors are holed up in a conference room at the end of a hall (2m wide). The guy with the SAW (AF15) fills the hallway with lead, as does the chick with the submachinegun (AF5). A zombie hoard makes it way into the hall 6m from the conference room door.

 

Every 2m step they take (1m radius "zone") EACH zombie can be attacked once, so a total of 6 times (3 times from the SAW and 3 times from the sub) per zombie. Since the max number of hits in a segment is equal to the AF value, and the zombies are likely to cover that distance in a single segment, that's all the chance these survivors are going to get. If there are 10 zombies, the sub can at most hit 5 of them (AF5) while the SAW can hit all of them, possibly multiple times (an attack per 2m step). It's also possible that the first few zombies take multiple hits from the SAW before they go down.

 

Since it is one line of fire (-1 OCV) and Suppression Fire (-2 OCV), the survivor manning the SAW is a vet (OCV 6) the chance of hitting a zombie (DCV 2 - shamblers) is going to be 11 +6 -3 -2 =12-; let's say the sub user is OCV 4 so the prob there is a cool 50% (10-). Doing the hard maths, the likelihood that a zombie will make it to the door without taking at least 1 hit from the SAW is about 1.5%, and 42% of them will take 3 hits. So, using that as a base, 4 of them are hit 3 times = 12 hits. 12% of them are hit 3 times from the sub, or 1. That leave 3 rounds from the SAW and 2 rounds from the sub with only 5 dead zombies. That's of course one possibility from the rolling - it could be more evenly distributed, but either way the SAW is far more effective at suppressing the hallway than the sub.

[Ulmageist]

Re: Realistic rates of fire, and Extremely high ROF weaponry

 

ahha! now I get it!

 

Thank you for your assistance sir!

[Christopher]

Re: Realistic rates of fire, and Extremely high ROF weaponry

 

p.s. - a minigun would need an autofire of insanity to accommodate the 100 rounds per second the top of the line ones the military has.

One way to do it is:

Say the Mini Gun can Only Fire in "10-shoot bursts". Give it Charges equal Real Shots/10. Apply reduced penetartion (to simulate that each attack consist of multiple bullets) to the "10-shoot burst" attack.

Maybe add autofire to fire multiple bursts per round (so you can hit multiple targets per round/use autofire with it).

 

Or as above, use cone/line AOE effects.

In APG is the "Cage" advanantage for AOE, a AOE that hits you when you cross the area of the effect (walking into fire).