Rate of Fire

[Neon]

Hi guys, first post here. Just wanted to say that I think it's awesome that there are so many people still obsessed with this old game as much as me and my friends are.

Anyways, my question to you is about the rate of fire of the weapons in this game. This has always been something that we could just never really get past. If I remember correctly there is a rule in the core book that states something to the effect of "if a weapon is listed with a rate of fire then that is the maximum number of shots that can be fired from it in one round; if there is no ROF listed then there is no limit"

Now, I assumed after reading that, that practically every weapon in the game would have a ROF listed except for something that is practically fully automatic. This is obviously not the case.

In reality it seems to me that it's more of a type-o and that when ROF isn't listed on most of the weapons I assume they meant 1.

Let's take the weapons in the core book for example:

A: Standard blaster pistol model DL-18 - Fire rate 1
B: Standard heavy blaster pistol model DL-44 fire rate infinite

A: Sporting blaster pistol model Drerian - Fire rate 1
B: Slugthrower model "dagger" - fire rate infinite

A: Stormtrooper one blaster rifle - fire rate 1
B: almost every other blaster rifle i've ever seen - fire rate infinite

These are just some examples but am I to believe that there is such an extraordinary difference in these models and that they are so drastically different that some of them i can fire but once a round and the others I can fire as fast as I can pull the trigger?

In my personal opinion it seems that the lack of fire rate on most of these weapons was meant to be "1" not "limitless".

If some of these weapons were meant to be so much faster then why not have the fire rate as 2 or 3? It seems that it's either capped at one or not at all and that just doesn't make any sense to me. The only weapons that should have unlimited fire rates are machinegun-like things like E-webs and the like.

Anyways tell me what you guys think cause this has been driving my group crazy for a decade now.

[Jedi Schrute]

Well, for one, you're incurring -1D penalties everytime you squeeze the trigger. You could probably easily squeeze out 10 shots with a regular pistol in real life in 5 seconds or less.
But the -1D is like firing an AK-47, you fire repeatedly and the recoil kicks your aim upward and upward, causing you to miss your target, same with most any semi-auto or fully automatic weapon. Secondly, I don't have my rulebooks in front of me but I always figured that guns that are supposed to be "automatic" like say, the E-Web or the IR-5 Intimidator were meant to be fired repeatedly without each -1D penalty, because that's their specific design. The IR-5's built for suppression fire, and thus has low damage dice, and the E-web's on a stabilized tripod that I'm sure adjusts for recoil.

[Neon]

True, I am aware of the -1D penalty.

The main thing is why am I able to shoot half the guns once a round and half of them as many times as I want with a "recoil penalty" every shot.

Thinking about just tossing out the "fire rate" rule altogether. Come to think of it I don't think we ever really used it...

[Doomhead]

Do laser guns have recoil? Just food for thought... and what I've noticed from the movies is that you can shoot all you want... in the game you would incur a -1D each time you squeezed off a shot...!
_________________
"Well hello Mister Fancypants. Well, I've got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things, right now: Jack and s**t... and Jack left town." - ASH

http://www.box.net/shared/cn6f7sdkog

[Jedi Schrute]

The fire rate on every gun was probably something that got left by the wayside, that or the editors at WEG didn't catch those mistakes, which they were prone to do. And I have no idea if blasters have recoil, but firing all you want still doesn't make sense to me in 1 combat round. There's a limit to how many times you can pull a trigger in 5 seconds.

[garhkal]

i thought the pistol and heavy were reversed.. with the heavy having the ROF of 1.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[DarthMortis]

[hisham]

If we go by the screen evidence, then blasters do have recoil. The discharge of their bolts do produce a backwards reaction, some even as far as causing Leia to flinch during the retreat from Cloud City scenes. Out of universe explanation would be because they were all using modded Sterling 9mms.

The only organics using blasters on full auto would be the clone troopers, and I think they're well-trained enough to use the DC-15s without being affected by recoil.

Finally, I think in Neon's original post and I agree with him that the ROF of infinity is wrong, cause that would mean the weapons can fire up to infinite amount of shots a combat round. Bringing it down several notches from infinity, can you imagine a blaster or a slugthrower that can fire 2,500,000,000,000,000,000,000 rounds a combat round? (That's well below infinity if you can fire an infinite shots per round.)
_________________
The Enteague Sector | Cracken's Collection of Crackpots
In D6, of course.

[jmanski]

[shnar]

[Dread Pirate Al]

I think that Shnar must be correct. Additional evidence is that when shot the Stormtroopers were knocked back flat on their bottoms. Had they been hit by lasers then they would just have been vapourised a bit.



Yarr

[adamlumina93]

I wouldn't try to compare rules from the movies into the game. Look at how many times the Falcon got hit by lasers from the star destroyer in the asteroid field in Empire Strikes Back. With scale figured in and assuming he had full shields in the rear he is still at a 2 dice penalty, and he was easily hit at least a half a dozen times, chance are if you played out just the ISD doing damage verse the Falcon chances are Han would have gone poof. But on the reverse side I bet the ISD misses almost all of the time. Intriguing thought but I believe never try to mix the two unless you want to see a fight at a gaming convention.

[jmanski]

But was the Star Destroyer firing at full power? I've often wondered this.

But, of course, you can't translate screen straight across to paper....
_________________
Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[garhkal]

I could hav sworn i saw ruls for turbos being one shot a round at full power, if you wanted to shoot them more than that, you split the power between the shots.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[jmanski]

So it takes longer to charge up to full power. Makes sense to me.
_________________
Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?