From: jtd@world.std.com (Jonathan T Drummey)
Subject: Modified Shadowrun Combat System - Part 1: 3gshadow notes
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 01:23:50 GMT

This post details the uuencoded spreadsheet that is
in the next posting.  The third and fourth parts
of these posts are my Shadowrun combat system which
is partly based on the spreadsheet.

jonathan
jtd@world.std.com

***************************************************************

Notes on the 3GShadow Spreadsheet for Guns, Guns, Guns
  firearm design and conversion to Shadowrun
Jonathan Drummey and Jim White
July 23, 1992

Permission is granted to freely export and import the
spreadsheet and to edit it as well.  If you come up
with a novel way to figure Shadowrun damage let us know!

HISTORY

Thhe spreadsheet is in Lotus 1-2-3 v1A format.  It was created
by Jim White (jwhite@wpi.wpi.edu) and Jonathan Drummey 
(jtd@world.std.com) in the spring of 1990 using Guns, Guns, Guns
2nd edition, Friday Night Firefight from Cyberpunk 1st edition
and the Shadowrun rulebook 1st edition, 2nd printing.  Owning
a copy of 3G is pretty much necessary to use the spreadsheet.


GETTING AROUND

Entries you make are in column B.  Two asterisks (**) next to
a cell indicate that you shouldn't edit it.  In any case, you
should check to see if there's a formula in the cell before
making an entry.  The spreadsheet is designed in such a way
that you only have to page up and page down to see everything
you need.  There are record-keeping cells off to the right in
no-man's land if you want to take a look or to edit it.


ORGANIZATION

First you design the ammunition, then design the weapon.  The
ammunition section only requires a dozen or so entries, the
weapon design a few more (than a dozen, that is).  The numbers
that come out of each design (ammo or weapon) are placed at
the end of the section.  Note that the particular ammunition
you've designed is responsible for the base numbers for your
weapon design.  (The stats used for standard ammo sizes can
be found at the end of 3G).

At the bottom of the spreadsheet is a third section.  This is
composed of conversions of your weapon and ammo design to
Shadowrun numbers.  See below for more information.


THE NUMBERS

The calculations are mostly straight out of the 3G formulas
and tables, with some modifications.  For instance, the formula
for barrel weight seems to end up on the heavy side so we
lowered it by about 25%.  In addition, in many areas where 3G 2nd
edition did not account for technology advancement we introduced
a modifier of ((20 - Tech Level) * .1) where Tech Level is 10
for today.  It's been over a year since we looked at it, so
we don't know where we changed formulas and tables to suit our
expectations.


CONVERSION TO SHADOWRUN

When I (Jonathan) first began to attempt to convert the numbers
to Shadowrun, I found that converting them to Cyberpunk FNFF
works beautifully.  Conversion to Shadowrun is a pain.

The weapon damage is sort of a mess.  It's all based on
the weapon DV, though while going through the spreadsheet
I came up with a quick and dirty solution of giving everthing
using Pistol ammo a Staging of 2, Rifle ammo a Staging of 3,
and Vehicle Weapons a Staging of 8 (this would conform to
vanilla SR with the exception of hold-out pistols and the
sniper rifle and avoid the problem of high-caliber pistol
rounds getting a 3 staging).  However, the Wound
Category still gets up to Serious for assault rifles.  Some
GM's might like this, but when you use the RBB autofire rules
things can get really nasty.

Anyways, here's what everything's based on:

Concealability is based on the Bulk and Number of items of
  the weapon.

Accuracy is based on the weapon's inherent accuracy.  I don't
  use this modifier in my campaign, though might for really
  accurate weapons.  The calculated modifier is adjusted for
  SR.

The Power Level is calculated as follows:
    Weapon DV     Power Level
      <=10             1
      <=20             2
      <=30             3
  Each 30 more        +1

The Wound Category is calculated as follows:
    Weapon DV     Wound Category
      <=20             L
      <=30             M
      <=90             S
  Each 90 more        +1 (to D, D+1, etc.)

The Staging is calculated as follows:
    Weapon DV       Staging
      <=20             1
      <=50             2
      <=100            3
      <=200            4
      <=400            5
      <=800            6
      <=1600           7
      >1600            8 
    
Recoil is based on the calculated Recoil and doesn't always
  work for powerful assault rifles.

Reliability is based on the Misfire percentage.


USING ALL THIS STUFF

A combat system I've created using 3G and other sources is
presented in the following two posts.  It's converted from
Word for Windows so not all the formatting is present.