Automatic fire!

[Gorchek]

I'm not sure what you mean horseman. The way I understood it, if a Hero shoots three times, his skill is 1d10-2 for all three. No need to keep track of what dice is the first or second attack.

Since the critical failure is checked by the last attack, and having a different colored dice (or just declaring the dice that ends up the farther to the right) makes it easy to track for the rule.

And while it's true that saving ammo ins't very brikwars, my weapon problem rule include a chance that the weapon (and possibly the vehicule it's mounted on) blows up in the user's face. Just a bit of extra mayhem.

[Almighty Benny]

there are a lot of great ideas getting tossed around, might as well throw my own system in the mix.

The key to my system is that weapons must be declared either automatic fire or single fire. Because both have advantages and disadvantages, you can not switch between the two with the same weapon. Also, I only own 6 sided die so my entire system uses nothing but 6 sided die.

Fire Type ------------- # of targets-------------- Skill ---------------- Damage
automatic ----------------- >1 **------------------ 1d6-x* -------------- 1d6-2
automatic ------------------- 1 --------------------- 1d6-1 --------------- 1d6+2
single ------------------------ 1 --------------------- 1d6 ------------------ 1d6

* where x is the number of targets
** use the Corna Cone to determine radial range

where the UR column represents what you roll and the penalty you suffer when attacking.

Justifications:
Naturally, when firing at more enemies it becomes harder to hit them all. You roll against each of them at a penalty equal to the total. (the more you shoot at the harder it is to hit each), and because you're not taking aim your shots tend to go wild which heightens the chance of limb shots.

When spraying a single unit with lead, however, it becomes harder to keep your gun steady, but if you do it does considerably more damage (getting hit with lots of bullets hurts more than getting hit with one no matter how you look at it)

This system does slightly favor automatic fire, but I tend to agree with IVHorseman that it should! The whole reason automatic fire weapons were invented was to kill with greater efficiency. However, I would suggest that the above rules are written for 2h automatic fire weapons. A trooper can use 1 hand, but then they take an additional -2 UR penalty. And also it might be a good idea to include a damage boost to 2h single fire weapons, in order to justify sniping. (See? I don't hate snipers after all!)

[IVhorseman]

ahh, my bad gorcheck. i mistook it to mean that the first shot is at -1, second at -2, etc. your explanation makes a bit more sense now, but i'm still a little leery of (and frankly not quite sure what you mean by) "increase the critical failure by half the penalty" (i mean i GET it, but do you round up or down in odd numbers, etc. not to mention, this mode ends up doing such incredible massive damage (3 shots at full power is quite a feat) that it very quickly becomes overdone. as i've reminded you several times, when i had a system that exploited this, a single minifig ended up hitting an enemy plane for 22d6 damage).

The key to my system is that weapons must be declared either automatic fire or single fire.

exactly something i want to preserve, but don't see an obvious and fun solution to it. for example, reducing the range of autofire by half that of single fire means that a machinepistol can only fire full burst at a measly 3" away, taking out the fun. subtracting by some other percentage isn't nearly obvious enough to the casual observer (sure, i could say it has 5/6th of the range to get 5", but what the hell kind of a number is 5/6?). then of course INCREASING the range of single shots remove the tactical advantage of non-auto weapons altogether.

also to benny, an increased UR for automatic weapons (your column that says UR should be (+), not (-), unless you're saying it's easier to shoot more than one minifig in a single turn) is reasonable to say when you think about how individual shots aren't hitting, but you're pumping out such a volume of bullets that every shot dosen't need to hit. one or two bullets is enough to drop a minifig, so not EVERY shot has to land.

restating everything though, i prefer the billingsly/horseman coalition edit, and not just out of narcissism. it:

*directly correlates skill into how many shots hit the target

*compensates for damage effectively vs. minifigs without overpowering it's anti-vehicular samage

*can hit other unintentional targets easily

*does all of it's calculations in one simple die roll

*is d6 based

to be honest, unless we can grab a system that either does all of that or brings in some crazy awesome fun AND simple side-effect that is easy to remember/calculate, THEN we're talking. other than that though? i think we just need to polish the current model until it shines golden.

[Almighty Benny]

also to benny, an increased UR for automatic weapons (your column that says UR should be (+), not (-), unless you're saying it's easier to shoot more than one minifig in a single turn) is reasonable to say when you think about how individual shots aren't hitting, but you're pumping out such a volume of bullets that every shot dosen't need to hit. one or two bullets is enough to drop a minifig, so not EVERY shot has to land.

Actually I think I'm just misusing the term usage rating. An example of what I was trying to convey would be as follows:
Automatic Joe and Semi-Automatic Bob each fire at enemy troopers. Automatic Joe rolls a 1d6 and takes a -1 penalty, but still wins with a roll of 5 (-1=4) against a roll of 3, whereas Semi-Automatic Bob just rolls a d6 with no penalty and wins with the same roll of 5 against the same roll of 3.
They both hit their target.
Automatic Joe shot a burst instead of a single shot, and so naturally he hits his target with more bullets thus doing more damage. They each roll a 5 again, but while Semi-Automatic Bob does 5 damage, Automatic Joe does 5+2=7 damage.

You know, I think I meant to write "skill" for the "UR" column. I'll go back and change it to avoid future confusion, but let it be known that it used to say UR. Good catch Horsey.

[IVhorseman]

ah ok, but what about when Joe aims at a dungan warrior and rolls a 3 (-1=2) and MISSES all of his shots, whereas Bob fired a single shot, rolled the same 3, and popped him in the head. but Joe fired several bullets without taking any more time to aim than bob did, yet every one of them missed. doubleyou tee eff?

[Rayhawk]

In BrikWars, there's always a certain tension between realism and action-move realism, and the fact is that in most action movies the point of automatic weapons fire is to cause a lot of scenery damage while missing the target completely. So I don't mind if Joe misses the dungan (apart from the obvious reasons).

[Almighty Benny]

Exactly, minifigs want to look as cool as possible. Give a minifig an automatic BFG and he's just going to close his eyes and scream every time he fires it, assuming he'll hit whatever it was he most wanted to hit on the battlefield at that particular moment. Let's not forget why we call it spray 'n' pray.

[Sir Billingsly]

Hi,

to be honest, I must admit that I have played WHFB for al long time, as a result I am a bit tired about complecated but completely unrealistic rules. When I try to write down a house rule, it has to be easy, make things less complicated and should be (at least a little bit) realistic.
We arediscussing several rules for autofire in this thread. All have their Pro's and all have Contras (even mine ) but the first thing we should discuss is, are we trying to find a Automatic Fire Rule fore the 2005-Rules or to we just Talk about different House rules?

Greetings Billingsly

[Rayhawk]

That's a good point. Personally, I'm of course looking for a set of rules I can feel good about putting into a 2005 supplement, but I also like the house rules going by and don't mean to discourage any of them.

One more thing I'd like to kick out there:

In a spray-and-pray situation, the volume of bullets spreads out over a wider area as they get further from the firing gun. As a result, would damage decrease with distance? If so, then the system could also be extended to other weapons like shotguns and flamethrowers. But is there any way to do it without it being a total pain in the butt?

[Rody]

Maybe a simple -1 damage for every uhm 5 inches?
(other numbers could also be used though)


but if you want to be more accurate you will probably want to halve the damage every time the distance doubles
becouse if the bullet spread over an area of 1 meter squared(1x1) at a distance of 1 meter.
then at a distance of 2 meters it is spread over an area of 4 meters(2x2)
and at 4 meter it is 16 (4x4)

hmm might be more like devide by four every time the distance doubles..
but that would be rather much.
the opposite could also be true though, that the damage quadruples/doubles every time the distance is halved


these are just things i just came up with, and they may be WAY too complicated.

[IVhorseman]

In a spray-and-pray situation, the volume of bullets spreads out over a wider area as they get further from the firing gun. As a result, would damage decrease with distance? If so, then the system could also be extended to other weapons like shotguns and flamethrowers. But is there any way to do it without it being a total pain in the butt?

something i briefly considered, then immediately decided that dumping my head in a box full of angry crabs would be less painful. yes it's true that this is how it SHOULD work, but effing SCREW IT.

and this started out on the frappr forum as something discussing personal house rules, but even THERE i saw potential for polishing this concept until it's worthy to join the official '05 rules. but i still want to encourage everyone to keep testing their personal ideas.

[Sir Billingsly]

Hi,
in fact it is not the damage that decreases but the accuracy. Since you haven't put in Things like short or long distance till today, which I apreaciate very much, you should not start now.
For Flamethrowers and Shotguns, I am a fan of templates.
Take a cone Template of 2'' * 5'' or any range you find apropriate and everything under it gets damage.

A supplement for specialized Weapon Types and optional combat rules
would be a great thing..
I miss a reasonable Artillery up to now.

Greetings Billingsly.

[Tzan]

Part of rules you are adjusting is trying to give a reason to still do single fire vs auto, so you are trying to penalize auto fire.

Different types of guns can do more damage, like vehicle guns, so autofire guns should also be able to do more damage. The extra damage from a vehicle is covered in the CP.

AutoFire: Perhaps it requires a Skill to be able to use it. So you give a CP cost for the AutoFire Skill and for the MachineGun. There can still be a small lesser chance to hit per bullet, so that single fire has a normal chance to hit. But on average its better to autofire. No need for out of ammo since you have already paid a higher cost up front to get the unit.

Real world guns have a 3 round burst mode. So instead of having rules to cover 1,2,3,4,5... shots, make a rule that just uses a 3 shot burst.

This is like Snipers vs normal guns. There is no selector switch, a normal minifig cannot fire like a Sniper. The extra damage/capability is built into the cp cost.

For those folks who don't use CP, a balanced game wasnt important to them in the first place.

[IVhorseman]

so what, like making a seperate class for a machinegunner unit? like an assault soldier or something? maybe, but just like a minifig can pick up a sniper rifle and attempt to use it, i think that they should be able to pick up an AK-47 and use it. so making a full on class just for the machineguns seems a bit much.

and sure, REAL guns have automatic, 3 round, and single shot modes. but i'm from the generation that was raised on Duke Nukem and the Nintendo 64. The machine gun was made for fully automatic fire! to use it otherwise would be either extremely situationally specific, or simply the wimp's way out.

[Tzan]

so making a full on class just for the machineguns seems a bit much.

Yup thats the idea. That way the MachineGun can do as much damage as people want and bury that cost into the CP.

The machine gun was made for fully automatic fire! to use it otherwise would be either extremely situationally specific, or simply the wimp's way out.

Its a way of simplifying things. Rather than have a rule that covers 10 ways to fire, there is just one way. You don't have to call it 3, call it 100. Then roll 3 dice to hit, where each die represents 33 1/3 bullets