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BATTLESIGHT ZERO

Phil Ward (P.Ward@CM.CF.AC.UK)

(As blatantly stolen from an article in Challenge, but hey, one of the writer’s regular running team was/is on the list, so I’m sure he won’t mind)

For the purpose of the rules any individual with a Firearms/Concentration/ Specialisation skill of 8 or greater qualifies to use the increased ranges that zeroing a weapon gives.

For a technical description of what zeroing a weapon entails, see someone else. The grist of it is moving the sights so that the centre of the cross-hairs are lower down, forcing you to raise the point of your aim. Normally your sight would be set for a ‘regular’ range, say 100m or so for runners in an urban environment, a sniper sets it for, say 1km or so, close enough for guvmint work :-).

A weapon with adjustable sights (100% of ShadowRun weapons as far as I’m concerned), laser sights, or smartlink-capable may be zeroed, a weapon with fixed sights may not (note, hold-outs have no sights of any worth, so maybe zeroing them is not possible :- GMD). You can zero medium and heavy MG’s, but not Rocket launchers, panthers (truly silly), flame-throwers, mortars, etc. It’s GMD (GM’s discretion as to whether a grenade launcher can be zeroed, I believe they probably can. No Narco/DMSO-based weapon can be zeroed :-), or tasers (drek, there are a lot of exceptions, aren’t there), oh, and bows too. If you have a troll sammy with a zeroed bow, he’d be able to fire further than he could see (possible anyway, but at least now he can’t hit anything).

A zeroed weapon increases it’s ranges when used for aimed shots, ie. the operator has spent at least one Simple Action aiming the gun. As far as I’m concerned, the first aim action allows you to use the zeroed ranges (including smart-gun modifiers) and (with my own house rules) the second allows you to include the bonus of any optical sights (truly lethal qv.).

To find the zeroed ranges of your weapon, subtract 6 from your natural skill with the gun (no bio or cyber counts, not chips, not reflex recorders, nada!). take that value and multiply by the upper limit of each range band. As the game has no upper limits on skills, to avoid silly zeroed ranges, the maximum multiplier is x4 (x5 for barrets), leading to a maximum zeroed range for people with firearms 10 (better than the average Bounty Hunter and Company Man!)

WEAPON CLASS           REGULAR RANGES      MAX ZEROED RANGES
Sht Med  Lng  Ext    Sht Med  Lng  Ext
Holdout                5  15   30   50      5  15   30   50  (NA)
Light Pistol           5  15   30   50     20  60  120  200
Heavy Pistol           5  20   40   60     20  80  160  240
Shotgun               10  20   50  100     40  80  200  400
SMG                   10  40   80  150     40 160  320  600
Light MG              10  40   80  150     40 160  320  600
Assault Rifle         15  40  100  250     60 160  400 1000
Sporting Rifle        30  60  150  300    120 240  600 1200
Sniper Rifle          40  80  200  400    160 320  800 1600
Heavy Sniper Rifle    40  80  200  400    200 400 1000 2000  Barret, etc.
Medium MG             40 150  300  500    160 600 1200 2000
Heavy MG              40 150  400  800    160 600 1600 3200
Grenade Launcher    5-50 100  150  300    200 400  600 1200

The original article has anecdotal evidence of M2-HB’s (a .50 cal HMG), being used to hit VC targets at 3km (HMG as above), and now we have a barret with a 2km top range (the US Marine handbook has their effective range out to 1830m approx). The above Grenade Launcher ranges allow them to be used pretty effectively in an indirect-fire mode, as a support weapon (roll on auto-fire tripod mounted grenade launchers, use one on your PC’s today, it’s the only way :-) The above table allows for those ranges.

A weapon zeroed for a specific individual, counts as customised, in that anyone else using it subtracts -1 dice from their firearms skill when using it. Weapons may be both zeroed and customised, and in that case, subtract -2 Dice from any other operator.

To zero a weapon requires access to a firing-range of at least the required range (this makes it hard for the runners, where do you get access to a 2km firing-range?), around ten rounds of ammo and say 20 minutes.

Simply make a firearms (natural, as above, no modifiers) check with a TNo of 6. Divide the time by the number of successes, failure means you can start again. a fumble indicates you’ve sighted it totally wrong, GMD as to effect (-1 dice skill, seems a nice start).

Example

Angel-Heart, the (in)famous mafioso assassin has a IWS-assassin (a sniper rifle) skill of 9, and has zeroed his weapon, subtract -6 from his skill = 3. All his ranges are multiplied by x3, giving :-

                     Sht Med Lng  Ext
Sniper Rifle         120 240 600 1200

Now he can loft shots into FBI-turned Mafia-informers from halfway across Manhattan island, assuming he has a clear line of sight (always a problem in a built-up area).

Suggestions to GM’s

  • If you think any reasonably skilled user should be able to increase the range of their weapon, reduce the subtractor (is that a word?).
  • If you think 2050 firearms should fire further than their modern-day counterparts, increase the maximum multiple by +1.
  • Mag-scopes can be very nasty at these ranges, so when you make the Firearms check to zero a weapon, the number of successes you get indicates the level of optical magnification you may combine with the zeroing.
  • Remember, an external sight, like a smart-adaptor (much more cost-efficient on a sniper-rifle), or telescoping sight can be pretty vulnerable to jarring, etc. Use the rules for ruining the sights on the ranger-arms, as given in the main SR rulebook.
  • At these ranges, double the moving target penalties; after all, at 2km, and roughly 2-3 seconds to arrive, you have to lead a target quite a lot to ensure a hit.
  • REMEMBER, the zeroed ranges can only be used from a sniping position, GMD as to exactly what that means, but it does not mean a sammy running round in the middle of a firefight spending one simple action and chucking lead 1km with his Assault rifle.

Oh yeah, and for the record, what should the range of an LMG be? Surely it has a range at least equivalent to an assault rifle, rather than an SMG?

Phil (Renegade)