Topic: Burst Fire Firearms Rate of Fire?/Autofire? etc.

[Master Tugun]

I've been re-reading HARp Sci Fi after putting it down for ages and it only now struck me that something appears to be missing.

(Unless I somehow missed it)

You have all these cool Burst fire type Combat Actions, and Burst Bonuses for those that are Burst Capable weapons... but...

...Where's the Rate of Fire for them? Do the Combat Actions have their own non-specific amount of bullets flung (unlikely, right?) or does each weapon with a Burst Capability have a Rate of Fire (or, indeed, several different rates of fire, for the different Burst Action types)?

I'd have thought these would be found in the weapons stats section or something.

Pistols are relatively easy enough to guess (3rd bursts being a good guide) but then you get into things like machine guns, automatic blasters, autoshotguns and so forth.

Or have I just somehow missed some obscure paragraph that calculates it off of the Burst Bonus itself or something?

Just want to know how many shots get thrown out the business end of a burst fire weapon when I burst, so I know how many shots are left after, and/or how many opponents I can fire on gamewise before I "max" out or run out of ammunition.

Umm... Help?

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Nope, I can't find it either. For pistols, etc., it should be 2 to 3 shots (effectively burst is double-tap for these sorts of weapons). For blasters, machine guns, etc., it should be a minimum of 5 shots and quite possibly as many as 10.

There are people with a lot more real gun expertise who can chime in here with plausible numbers for today's weapons.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Marc R]

I'd say that you could look up weapons and check for either a controlled burst setting (like many assault rifles go 1 shot, 3 shot, full auto).

For fully automatic weapons firing bursts, I guess you could check real life weapon ROF vs 2 second rounds. . .that's the maximum possible bullets fired.

For Example:

M-60 light machine gun has a ROF of 600/min. . .or 10/sec, or 20/round.

f your character is manning a belt fed M-60, and hosing down an area for 10 rounds. . .they will fire 20 bullets/round, or 200 bullets in 20 seconds (10 rounds).

I'd assume most bursts would be partial rounds, rather than full 2 second streams of autofire. . .if you autofire a weapon for a full 2 sec, odds are you'll dump close to a full clip and run out of ammo before the 2 sec transpire. (Unless you have a large clip over 20 rounds, or a 50-100 round drum magazine.)

I'd probably call quick bursts 3-6 rounds depending on the gun, but anyone holding the trigger down for 2 seconds on a hand held weapons is likely just spraying, not really properly aiming.

[docem]

the rules I came up with for my SLA Industries conversion are as follows
3 Round Burst Weapons These weapons make Aimed bursts using 3 rounds per attack. They may not make Spread Burst or Suppressing Fire. At the SysOps discretion other attack options may be used in conjunction with the Aimed Burst; for example a Well Aimed Shot may be deemed possible when using a 3 round burst capable weapon.
Full Automatic Fire Weapons These weapons firing in full auto in Aimed Burst & in Spread Burst uses 1d5+5 rounds per target. For Suppression the weapon uses 1d10+10 rounds.

[Right Wing Wacko]

Yes.
Staying with the "future" feel of the game, and having military experience, I agree that 3 round burst mode be the "norm". However, futuristic SMG's and light and heavy MG's could/should have capability beyond the 3 rd-burst.
Also, I could see there being futuristic ballistic ammo that could be smaller but has the same stopping power as larger calibers, possibly leading to SMG's having 50 round clips...

I don't have HARP Sci-Fi and only know about it through what I read here, but I do play in modern to future genre games.