Revolvers, Semi-Autos, and burst fire

[SpiritInterface]

As a GM do you allow revolvers and semi-autos fire bursts? Or are only fully automatic weapons allowed burst fire.

Do you allow players to double tap, if you do how do you handle a double tap?

[Killer Cyborg]

I'd allow revolvers to burst fire.
If it's single action, I'd require a skill to fan-fire it.
Likewise, I'd require a skill to double-tap.

[Alrik Vas]

because I run things a little different, I allow it, yeah. though the cost is penalties and no movement on their action (I run movement as a part of any action, not gonna explain it all).

basically I let then dump more ammunition into a target, also let them spray fire, but they get the -6 wild penalty, so most don't use it heavily unless they're very experienced, which my guys are getting there.

[Mechghost]

A semi-Auto I would allow but not a revolver. A gunfighter or gunslinger could fan-fire but I`d add wild shot penalties, it's not as easy as it looks.

[Killer Cyborg]

A semi-Auto I would allow but not a revolver. A gunfighter or gunslinger could fan-fire but I`d add wild shot penalties, it's not as easy as it looks.

Fan-firing is only necessary for single-action.
Modern revolvers are double-action as a rule.

Also, this.

[Jefffar]

That's also a trickshooter doing a trick shot under controlled conditions and he still flubbed one of the attempts.

However, most revolvers should count as semiautomatic for determining rate of fire just like most pistols.

[Killer Cyborg]

That's also a trickshooter doing a trick shot under controlled conditions and he still flubbed one of the attempts.

Sometimes you roll a 1.

However, most revolvers should count as semiautomatic for determining rate of fire just like most pistols.

Agreed.

[glitterboy2098]

i'd not allow any semi-auto pistol to burst fire unless modified to allow full auto. revolvers, because of their very different mechanism, could not even gain that.

then again, i define burst fire the way most people in the world do.. where a single trigger pull results in several bullets being fired in succession.

semi-auto's you have to pull the trigger for each shot, resulting in a much slower RoF and a lot more effort.

however, i do think that the loss of the 'double tap' attack option for semi-auto's is a big loss.. a double tap could easily be achieved in a single action.

i suspect it was dropped because the RUE burst rules gave it's x2 damage to the 3 round burst, and under the 3 = x3, 5 or 6 = x3 scheme RUE was using, 2 rounds fired with one attack would not provide a notable damage bonus.

[Killer Cyborg]

i'd not allow any semi-auto pistol to burst fire unless modified to allow full auto. revolvers, because of their very different mechanism, could not even gain that.

then again, i define burst fire the way most people in the world do.. where a single trigger pull results in several bullets being fired in succession.

In game turns, a burst is simply firing more than one round at the same target in 1 attack (about 2-3 seconds).
Heck, back when the RMB came out, 1 attack was more like 7.5 seconds for a LOT of characters, especially starting out.

[Mack]

For simplicity, I would not allow revolvers and semi-auto weapons to burst fire. They fire only one round per attack.

Part of my reason for this is that rapidly pulling the trigger five times, when compared to pulling the trigger once for a 5-round burst, should have different results. The accuracy of the former should be much lower. Ideally, there should be another rule for trying to burst with a semi-auto weapon.

[Killer Cyborg]

Sure, but palladium lumped automatics and semi-automatics all in together.

Come to think of it, though...
I bet that I'd be more accurate firing 5 semi-automatic shots in 2-3 seconds than I would be firing an automatic burst of 5.

[Jefffar]

Well as a burst of 5 is usually accomplished in less than a second in modern automatic weapons, you'd need to squeeze off your five shots in less than a second to make it a valid comparison.

[Killer Cyborg]

Well as a burst of 5 is usually accomplished in less than a second in modern automatic weapons, you'd need to squeeze off your five shots in less than a second to make it a valid comparison.

Not by Palladium standards, where a person starts off with 4 attacks per 15 seconds (1 attack takes up 3.75 seconds).
That's why the burst rules include semi-automatics; you really have a lot of time to shoot each one time you attack.

(Heck, back in the RMB, you only started with 2 attacks per 15 seconds as a rule, so you'd have 7.5 seconds to shoot.)

[Jefffar]

Well as a burst of 5 is usually accomplished in less than a second in modern automatic weapons, you'd need to squeeze off your five shots in less than a second to make it a valid comparison.

Not by Palladium standards, where a person starts off with 4 attacks per 15 seconds (1 attack takes up 3.75 seconds).
That's why the burst rules include semi-automatics; you really have a lot of time to shoot each one time you attack.

(Heck, back in the RMB, you only started with 2 attacks per 15 seconds as a rule, so you'd have 7.5 seconds to shoot.)

In the statement I was responding to you were referencing real life, not the rules.

[Killer Cyborg]

Well as a burst of 5 is usually accomplished in less than a second in modern automatic weapons, you'd need to squeeze off your five shots in less than a second to make it a valid comparison.

Not by Palladium standards, where a person starts off with 4 attacks per 15 seconds (1 attack takes up 3.75 seconds).
That's why the burst rules include semi-automatics; you really have a lot of time to shoot each one time you attack.

(Heck, back in the RMB, you only started with 2 attacks per 15 seconds as a rule, so you'd have 7.5 seconds to shoot.)

In the statement I was responding to you were referencing real life, not the rules.

I was referencing real life... In the context of how accurately/inaccurately the rules simulate real life.

[Jefffar]

Yes, but you need to make the comparison valid and, if you managed to approach modern cyclic rates of fire using a semi-auto you'd probably be no more accurate than (and likely worse off) than a full auto weapon.

[Killer Cyborg]

Yes, but you need to make the comparison valid and, if you managed to approach modern cyclic rates of fire using a semi-auto you'd probably be no more accurate than (and likely worse off) than a full auto weapon.

I don't see how cyclic rates would be a valid comparison to Palladium's rules.

The burst/spray rules were designed to cover the fact that many weapons can fire multiple times in one attack.
Semi-auto can do that, and full auto can do that.
They don't do it exactly the SAME way, but either way you're fully capable of firing off the number of rounds that Palladium lists.
An AR-15 that is fully automatic can fire off a 3-round burst in 7.5 seconds (or, in later rules, 2.5 seconds, etc.).
An AR-15 that is semi-automatic can fire off a 3-round burst in 7.5 seconds (etc.).
Same with a 6-round burst. Again, with either semi-automatic or with fully automatic, there is PLENTY of time.
And either way, a 30-round magazine could be emptied at a target in 15 seconds (or 5-6 seconds). Again, plenty of time.

Same with pistols, including double-action revolvers: there is plenty of time to fire off multiple rounds in one attack's worth of time.
So I don't see any logic in making a ruling that a trigger can only be pulled ONCE per attack (once per 7.5 seconds under the original rules, and once per 2-3.75 seconds under RUE).
At least, not in the interest of realism.
And cyclic rates don't change that. They're not the issue.

[Jefffar]

Again, you used real life metrics, and I was pointing out that if you did manage to fire off 5 rounds from a semi auto at the same rate a cyclic weapon would (ie under a second), you'd find your accuracy no better than the cyclic weapons and likely much worse.

[Killer Cyborg]

Again, you used real life metrics, and I was pointing out that if you did manage to fire off 5 rounds from a semi auto at the same rate a cyclic weapon would (ie under a second), you'd find your accuracy no better than the cyclic weapons and likely much worse.

Fine, but I don't see how that has any bearing on the conversation.

[Jefffar]

Well, to bring it back on topic, real world rate of fire is irrelevant to Palladium's rate of fire rules as they aren't based on how fast the weapon really fires. There is no difference in the rules for the effects of a burst from a minigun or a machingun even though the former fires 5 to 10 times faster than the other.

The reason for this is that the Palladium rate of fire rules cover more than just the attack itself. It covers selecting the target, bringing the weapon to bear (I won't say aiming as the most recent versions of the rules have moved the action of aiming to another action), preparing the weapon to fire, firing, suffering any effects from the recoil of the weapon and observing the fall of the shot(s).

So the attack is a process, not just pulling the trigger, and, depending on game edition, the character can typically perform this process somewhere between 8 and 20 times a minute.

[Killer Cyborg]

Right.
Including pulling the trigger multiple times in one attack with semi-automatic weapons.

[Killer Cyborg]

And overall, the rules are there to simulate reality to an extent.
And ruling that a person can only fire one shot per 3.75 seconds is NOT realistic for modern firearms.

[Jefffar]

Back in Recon, the actual number of shots fired were not counted, but instead it was the number of rounds that might actually hit that you rolled dice for. This applied for all weapons firing on semi-automatic or full auto (Semi Auto also got you 3 chances to hit in a 5 second span, full Auto gave you 5, but had a penalty to hit).

The rate of fire rules used to talk about % of magazine fired rather than the actual number of rounds, which, in addition to leading to the occasional brain breaking situation when a weapon with a 6 shot magazine fired 20% of its shots and scored 2 hits, it created far more abstract attacks.

I think there was an intent behind the rules to be vague about the number of shots fired and instead focus on the number of chances to hit.

[eliakon]

Back in Recon, the actual number of shots fired were not counted, but instead it was the number of rounds that might actually hit that you rolled dice for. This applied for all weapons firing on semi-automatic or full auto (Semi Auto also got you 3 chances to hit in a 5 second span, full Auto gave you 5, but had a penalty to hit).

The rate of fire rules used to talk about % of magazine fired rather than the actual number of rounds, which, in addition to leading to the occasional brain breaking situation when a weapon with a 6 shot magazine fired 20% of its shots and scored 2 hits, it created far more abstract attacks.

I think there was an intent behind the rules to be vague about the number of shots fired and instead focus on the number of chances to hit.

Which explains the whole burst rules actually...
in the first games weren't they just that fire a percent of the clip to get so many hits...
sounds like the Recon rules were grafted onto palladium, and have been slowly tweeked to fit.

[SpiritInterface]

Is a double tap (2 rounds fired in rapid succession) a burst?

A combat training course I took for work ages ago pushed the "double tap, Pause, Double tap" and the Mombasa Drill (double tap to the chest and one to the head) for pistols (both revolvers and semi-autos). And a target check after a burst from the M16a1 (3 rounds only).

[Killer Cyborg]

Is a double tap (2 rounds fired in rapid succession) a burst?

Yes.

I think that it should be its own special thing, though.

[filo_clarke]

Heroes Unlimited 2nd ed, p.75 covers firing bursts from Semi-Automatic and Double Action weapons.