From: kzin@terminus.gatech.edu (John Rudd)
Subject: Silencers and Laser Sights in Shadowrun 2.0
Keywords: mistakes, silencers, laser sights, SR2.0
Organization: Georgia Tech College of Computing
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 00:41:49 GMT



(originally I posted this to rec.games.cyber in addition to
rec.games.frp and rec.games.frp.misc.  If Joshua reads this,
apparently our site had a problem reaching veritas..I dunno
why, when I was on the cyberrpg mailing list, we never had a
problem.  Feel free to re-post this to r.g.cyber)


I've been doing a character for SR2.0, and I noticed a mistake
on their silencer rules, and actually a minor mistake due to over
simplification on their laser sight rules.

1)  "Silencers only work with single action and semi-automatic
  weapons".  wrong.  Many automatic weapons have the ability
  to make use of a silencer.  They just don't work as well with
  automatic weapons.  Basically, any action gun *can* be made
  to work with a silencer, which leads to two:

2)  "Silencers don't work with revolvers".  Not only wrong, but
  widely mistaken as the truth.  In fact, a properly modified
  revolver makes better use of a silencer than an automatic type
  weapon.  The thing that a revolver requires is a gasket be added
  to the front of the cylender housing.  When this is added, the
  gasses wont escape from the gap between the cyleder and the barrel
  (a silencer works by slowing the expansion of the gases from the
  explosion of the gun powder/cotton/etc)
    The reason this is better than an automatic type weapon, is that
  an automatic type weapon uses these gases to push the receiever/extractor/
  slide mechanism back, to eject the spent casing.  When it is back,
  the gases have a chance to escape the firing chamber without going
  through the silencer.  Thus, an automatic type weapon always makes
  atleast SOME noise (I think the H&K MP-5SD does something about this,
  but I'm not sure what.  and, btw, it has an integrated silencer, and
  is a sub-machine gun.. [one of hte shadowrun guns is a follow on to
  this real gun]).  The revolver, on the other hand, never breaks the
  gasket connection once the bullet has been fired, until the trigger
  is pulled again.  Thus, all of the escaping gasses must pass through
  the silencer (unless you're pulling that trigger REALLY fast..not
  likely).


What does this mean?  well, I'd say, if someone wants to modify their
revolver for a silencer.. make it cost $100 (has to be a good job) or
maybe more (maybe $100 in material, and a very good firearms B/R job).
Then, if they're sucessful, the silence bonus is +5.  A single action
or semi-automatic shot gets a +4, burst fire gets +3, and full auto gets
+2.
(after writing this, I noticed that they have "sound suppressors" for
automatic weapons.  "sound suppressor" is a synonym for "silencer".
Suppressors/silencers come in many different forms (the method by which
they slow the expanding gasses to sub-sonic levels varries), but their
effect is the same reguardless.  My suggestion would be you only play
with 1 piece of equipment...since the separation of the two is pretty
silly.  If you want to deal with equipment fatigue (are you really going
to sit there and count up til your player uses 3000 rounds on his gun?)
then keep in mind that ALL silencers deteriorate over time.. it's just
that auto-bursts will make it deteriorate faster.  And if you're going
to play with this type of thing, you need to add rules for the requirement
of weapon maintenance and penalties for lack of maintenance (see twilight
2000) So, I'd also suggest you ignore the deterioration of silencers and
suppressors)


Now..about lasers.  The laser has more ability to penetrate fog/smoke/etc
than most of the light that your eyes are trying to view.  More likely
than not, if you can see the target, the laser sight will be able to paint
the dot on it.  There is one other penalty though..normally, other 
observers (other than the shooter and the target) can't see the beam..but
if there is smoke or something, the beam is hitting the smoke, and you get
a nice trace through teh smoke to the source of the beam (assuming they
can see through the smoke TO the beam).

What I'd say is that in smoke/mist/etc, a laser sight is visible by
bystanders (it's visible by the target and shooter normally) as they
can see the beam's trace through the medium.  But other than that,
the laser sight still gets a bonus (not, that the target modifier
for the mist/smoke/etc still applies.. which may be as bad as +6 or so..
which means with a laser sight, you've got a +5).

as for range.. 50 meters is pretty arbitrary it sounds like.  If you
can see a 1cm detail on the target, you can see the laser dot (ie. at
100 meters, with a telescopic site, you can see the laser dot, and thus
get the laser bonus.. but the laser sight will need to be mounted under
the barrel, more likely than not, to avoid causing prolems with the
scope).  It may be that w/o any visual aids, a human can only see a 1cm
detail at 50 meters or less.. but that doesn't mean an elf can't do better,
or something similar.  Also, visual capapbilities of humans varries from
person to person... (also, keep in mind that this is a bright red dot,
which means you see it from further away than a dark blue dot of the same
size).

Also, the laser sight isn't mentioned under the rules for called shots.
Completely silly. This is EXACTLY what laser sights are for.  The dot
shows where the bullet will hit.  To get an exact target hit that you
want, you move the gun til the dot is where you want.  I'd say cut the
called shot penalty to +1 or +2 if the shooter has a laser sight, and
is within the visibility constraints in the previous paragraph (ie. can
see a 1cm detail on the target).


That about handles those two rules.  I'll forward more if I find them :-)

John
John Rudd  --  kzin@cc.gatech.edu         ex- kzin@ucscb.ucsc.edu
All opinions expressed here are my own, and no one elses.
--If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, leave the area immediately,
  seek shelter, and cover your head.  Do NOT Taunt Happy Fun Ball.
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