Just an Idea...

[pmulcahy11b]

If an automatic weapon has a ROF of 800 RPM, should it have a game ROF of 8?
It it has a ROF of 550-600, maybe a game ROF of 6?
450 RPM, game ROF of 5?

?

Pros and Cons.

[Legbreaker]

Seems reasonable at first glance. Obviously burst limiters and recoil would be factors, but you already know that.
Without me having to dredge up the formula myself, what's the current way of calculating burst size?
How would you model reduction of dice for the non-standard burst sizes?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I believe someone actually used that idea for their own house rules although I can't recall where I saw it.
I have a recollection that part of the reason for adopting the idea was the difference that it made to the various small arms (i.e. most select-fire rifles in the vanilla rules have almost the same stats but this idea showed the difference between various weapons).

[Legbreaker]

One point sticking in my mind is you've got high cyclic rate of fire with many lighter weapons. Like I touched on before though, recoil will likely deal with any players wanting to use assault rifles for example as automatic support weapons, so that's probably a bit of a non-issue.

[Legbreaker]

Another semi-related point which just popped into my head is heat build up. I can't recall any rule system that adequately, or even vaguely touches on the need for barrel changes, water cooling, etc. They all just assume you can simply squeeze off a few thousand rounds in a couple of minutes and not have the barrel melt.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Another semi-related point which just popped into my head is heat build up. I can't recall any rule system that adequately, or even vaguely touches on the need for barrel changes, water cooling, etc. They all just assume you can simply squeeze off a few thousand rounds in a couple of minutes and not have the barrel melt.

I believe Palladium's Recon or Advanced Recon paid some attention to heat build-up on machine guns. I haven't played either of those two or even seen the rules so I can only go on what some old gaming mates told me in the 1990s and I believe they had interpreted the rules far too literally - like, "you have to change the barrel on the M60 every 200 rounds or the barrel will melt" literally.

They were straight up civvies so they had no idea about how rate of fire effects heat build up and how the 200-rd limit is a procedure to prolong the life span & accuracy of the barrel and not a limitation of the barrels abilities etc. etc.

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Seems reasonable at first glance. Obviously burst limiters and recoil would be factors, but you already know that.
Without me having to dredge up the formula myself, what's the current way of calculating burst size?

According to IWotW, anything under 700 RPM cyclic is ROF 5 (or 3 if it has a limiter), between 701 and 1000 is ROF 10, 1001 to 5000 is 50, and 5001+ is 100.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

If an automatic weapon has a ROF of 800 RPM, should it have a game ROF of 8?
It it has a ROF of 550-600, maybe a game ROF of 6?
450 RPM, game ROF of 5?

?

Pros and Cons.

That's my houserule. I adopted it because it was the easiest way to do bursts around one-half of a second in duration (it's actually 6/10ths of a second for such a burst rate in reality). The half-second burst rate is the most accurate rate of fire in NFA/Class III matches and produces reasonable accuracy at short range. I always round cyclic rates DOWN to take into account dirty weapons, poor quality ammo, and more time spent in target acquisition and trigger control.

In Twilight2000, it also allows the GM to manage autofire at ONE BURST per one-second Initiative Step. This reduces the lethality of 6 Initiative characters by interspersing their bursts/shots (at one per Initiative Step) among the slower combatants. It also makes the number of D20s the Player must roll a more reasonable number (per burst/second).
I do change RECOIL to that calculated by burst or shot in a one-second round. Thus, a MAC-10 (ROF12, RCL 2?... I don't have my book handy) would be generating a Recoil of 12 per one-second burst. I use excess recoil to reduce the number of rounds on target (dice rolled) these days.

RCL and ROF can interact in unique ways. Let's look at battle rifles. A G3 will have an average Cyclic rate of 550rpm. If RCL is 3 (roller-locking is smooth) you get a RCL of 8 (rounding up as I do) for a full burst. The FAL is also fairly smooth with a RCL of 3 but has a 600rpm ROF. This gives the FAL a RCL of 9 and a ROF of 6. The M14 is notoriously hard to handle in recoil even in single fire mode. It's 700rpm was nearly uncontrollable even in "experienced hands." The rifle will "climb like a monkey" and the sights will bounce all over the place (unlike the FAL or G3). The lack of a pistol grip doesn't help but is more problematic than in older designs like the BAR (which is actually more controllable than the M14 in autofire). This gives the M14 a RCL of 4 with a ROF of 7. The RCL of a burst becomes 14, essentially uncontrollable for a STR of 5 or less. I find that the interaction between Recoil and Rate of Fire produce unique characteristics that help "define" how a given weapon will be used during play. I have NEVER had any real issues with the variable ROF system. It works quite well.

[pmulcahy11b]

As a side note, with the M60s low ROF (about 550 RPM), I found out when I was in the ARNG and when we were using MILES than you can use the M60 as a sniper rifle, if a somewhat inaccurate one, because it is easy to squeeze off single shots with one without having to jerk the trigger.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

As a side note, with the M60s low ROF (about 550 RPM), I found out when I was in the ARNG and when we were using MILES than you can use the M60 as a sniper rifle, if a somewhat inaccurate one, because it is easy to squeeze off single shots with one without having to jerk the trigger.

I always found it hard to fire off the required 5-10 round bursts from the '60. Just felt like I was burning through too much ammo at a time. Personally I MUCH preferred 3-5 round bursts at a more rapid rate even though that's not what the official policy was at the time.
Interesting to see that a few years later the Minimi bursts were supposed to be the smaller 2-3 rounds I believe....

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I always found it hard to fire off the required 5-10 round bursts from the '60.

We were taught in Basic that when firing the M60, you say in your head, "fire a burst of six" and you end up with the required burst of 6-9. Remember, you're supposed to be firing somewhat long bursts -- it's a support weapon, not a rifle (regardless of the way I tended to use it).

[Legbreaker]

Speaking of machineguns as rifles, it's uncanny how closely an M60 resembles a rifle when you remove the bipod. Even at relatively close range most people mistake it for a lighter weapon.

The other issue with burst size is I almost always operated without a No2 that was any use, so I ended up carrying all the ammo.
ALL the ammo.
Could never rely on getting a new belt when and where I needed it.

[Rockwolf66]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I always found it hard to fire off the required 5-10 round bursts from the '60. Just felt like I was burning through too much ammo at a time. Personally I MUCH preferred 3-5 round bursts at a more rapid rate even though that's not what the official policy was at the time.
Interesting to see that a few years later the Minimi bursts were supposed to be the smaller 2-3 rounds I believe....

I know a couple places where I can rent a M60 in a couple different variants. I find myself double tapping the target and having to think about longer bursts.

Mind you that I was used to much faster firing guns.

[Tegyrius]

Getting back to Paul's original question:

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

If an automatic weapon has a ROF of 800 RPM, should it have a game ROF of 8?
It it has a ROF of 550-600, maybe a game ROF of 6?
450 RPM, game ROF of 5?

If I recall, I used cyclic rate divided by 150 to derive the ROF ratings for 2013. For machine guns' long bursts, they also got cyclic rate divided by 75.

- C.