Rapid Fire Weapons in Range and Cover

One of the obstacles I’ve encountered in planning an “advanced technology” setting is how to deal with (semi)-automatic weapons, or really anything that’s capable of/designed for a high rate of fire: shooting once per volley doesn’t really fit the flavor of an AK-47. The easy fix is to just port the Firefight rules from BE to BWG, but I find that Firefight and R&C are different thematically as well as mechanically; some conflicts feel more like a R&C than a Firefight. As such , I’ve come up with a few simple additions to the R&C rules that make automatic weapons make more sense mechanically. Keep in mind that these rules are untested, and I do not plan on testing them in the near future (i.e., I’m not currently playing or planning a game with automatic weapons). With that in mind, I’ve tried to keep this modification as simple and succinct as possible.

Flavor:
Burst Fire
Burst fire is one of the more effective ways to use a fully automatic weapon; it grants the advantages of the high rate of fire without unduly sacrificing accuracy. The rules (and any weapon stats) assume that such weapons are always fired in burst fire mode. Mechanically, we treat each burst as a single attack for damage purposes and for the purposes of spending successes to attack in Range and Cover.

Rule Changes:
Spending Successes to Shoot:
(Semi)-Automatic weapons can be fired rapidly in succession without reloading. Characters using such weapons are not limited to 1 attack per volley. However, each additional attack costs more successes to use: a character’s first attack costs 1 success, their second, 2 successes, their third, 3, etc.

New Maneuvers:
Suppressing Fire i[/i]:
Suppressing Fire is a maneuver by which one team may assist another team. Only players using fully automatic weapons may script or help with this maneuver. Extra successes on this maneuver can be spent to give an obstacle penalty to opposing teams’ maneuvers. Alternatively, successes may be spent to force individual opponents to make a Steel test. Successes may not be used to directly fire upon the opposing team. This maneuver can affect any and all opposing teams that are in range of the characters. If this maneuver is failed, any characters who helped with this maneuver hesitate (Stand and Drool) in the next volley while they reload.

Allow the semiautomatic weapons to fire once per action (up to load capacity) with a +1 Ob penalty per consecutive action fired, 2 actions to change a clip, 1 action per bullet to reload a clip.
For full auto, either treat it as an area effect attack (the spell rules for Paces works well for a shotgun) or consider the weapon increases the users reflexes up a shade when firing (B4 Reflex gets treated as a G4, allowing two shots per action) with the cumulative shot penalty as listed above.

Or you could just count the extra bullets per action in full auto mode as an aiming bonus (+1 success per 3 rounds auto fired?) Thereby granting a better chance to do increased damage.

Very clever!
One tweak: I’d say (semi-)auto weapons can suppress. Or, really, anything with a high ROF.
[Isn’t there already something for suppressing fire in R&C, when multiple shooters are cycling their sequence to keep a projectile in the air every round? I don’t recall ATM.]

That’s fair. I personally would give semi-auto weapons a +1 Ob penalty to the maneuver, but it really depends on the flavor you’re going for.

I don’t think that’s the case, but I don’t have the rules on me ATM either. But the point of suppressing fire is not to hit your opponent per se, it’s to keep them pinned down while you or your allies make maneuvers. That’s the logic behind adding the obstacle penalty to their maneuvers: if you have two teams positioning against a single team, then one team scripts Suppressing Fire to give the other team an advantage.