Do Full Size Machine Guns count as area of effect attacks?

[ways and means]

In the Big Weapon thread someone mentioned a minigun as a weapons 4 gun and it made me think with full size machine guns (mounted) it would be impossible not to hit someone who was right next to your target, so semi-auto rifle etc where spray attacks make sense it would probably be better to model full size machine guns as area of effect (hitting everyone within a zone) weapons like grenades rather than spray attacks. What do people think would this be fundamentally de-balancing if a PC took a bunch of strength powers and decided to wield a minigun?

[UmbraLux]

Unbalancing?  No, not really.  Wizards throw higher weapon attacks around.

However I don't see it as ever happening in a civilian setting.  Unleash a minigun downtown and the cops will take you down hard.  If you're inhumanly tough and the cops can't do it, the National Guard will, or the Army...etc.  Worse, somewhere along that causal chain the stink is going to get large enough for supernatural groups with a desire to maintain anonymity to step in.  Of course all that assumes you could simply acquire the weapon and ammunition to start with. 

But, if you're playing Predator?  Hell yeah, bring out the miniguns! 

[Tedronai]

COPS?
They find out you're toting around a minigun, they're gonna jump straight to at least ATF support (though the police snipers might take a few potshots while they wait for the cavalry to show up)

[ways and means]

COPS?
They find out you're toting around a minigun, they're gonna jump straight to at least ATF support (though the police snipers might take a few potshots while they wait for the cavalry to show up)

Perhaps this is more proof that every good combat build has glamours nothing like the invisible minigun senario.

[crusher_bob]

The problem is that zones can be quite large areas.  The 'casualty' radius of a normal hand grenade is around 15 meters, so it's believable that you could attack everyone in the zone with it. 

However, a machine gun doesn't have a beaten zone near that large, so a zone wide attack would only really be convincing in very small zones.

A better way to do it is to probably set up maneuvers that support a spray attack.

[devonapple]

I don't think machine guns of any size should count as automatic zone attacks, unless we find ourselves in a MechWarrior/Gundam game.

[ways and means]

I don't think machine guns of any size should count as automatic zone attacks, unless we find ourselves in a MechWarrior/Gundam game.

I will take your word on it I have no idea what the bullet spread of full sized Artillery machine gun is, I though it would probably be over several meters but I will take your word on it that it is not that large. What that does mean is you could use a minigun for precision shooting in game, hitting one target even though he has civilians next to him and argue that the civilians would be safe as the shots wouldn't disperse over several meters.

[devonapple]

What that does mean is you could use a minigun for precision shotting in game, hitting one target even though he has civilians next to him and argue that the civillians would be safe as the shots wouldn't hit people in the imediate area surrounding him.

Yep. Pretty much. Unless the GM opts to Compel the "High Aspect" of this massive weapon. A capable wielder should be able to perform more effective Spray Attacks, or use other Maneuvers to increase the damage output, but as has been noted, Zone-wide can be quite a large area depending on the conflict scale.

I see what you're getting at, though, but I'm disinclined to accept that it is some sort of laser-precise weapon simply to make up for not letting it be a zone-wide attack.

Plot and reason need to come into the picture. And full-size machine guns only really happen in over-the-top combat situations with large numbers of  well-armed and armored as well as supernatural combatants, like that confrontation on Demonreach during which Marcone's crew showed up with that specially rigged chopper. And when that was happening, the plot wasn't featuring a lot of friendly fire.

[Belial666]

Depends on what "full-size" actually refers to.

A HMG like the M2 shoots 13mm rounds at 800 m/s at rates of 10 rps to 20 rps (rounds per second). It is weapon 4, weighs 58 kilograms and could be conceivably wielded by an extremely strong human. It is not really large enough for zone attacks.


The GAU-8 Avenger shoots 30mm rounds at over 1000 m/s at a rate of 70 rps. The entire weapon along with bullets weighs 2,5 tons and has a recoil force of 45 thousand newtons. (10.000 pounds-force). Anything save a troll with supernatural strength (at least) cannot fire it at all. But if you can carry it around and fire it, it is worth it because it is definitely large enough for zone attacks and it can also turn tanks into swiss cheese - so I'd say it is weapon 7 or so.

[crusher_bob]

Here's some sample machine gun math:

I want to fill a beaten zone 10meters (~33 feet) across with bullets.  I want to distribute the bullets so that they are spaced in a straight line, with around 10cm (~4 inches) between each bullet.  This takes me 100 bullets.  If I am firing my machinegun continuously, how will will it take to cover the entire beaten zone?

Somewhere between 6 (1000 rpm) and 15 (400 rpm) seconds of continuous fire.  Even using an M-134 minigun, which fires around 3000 rounds per minute, it would take me around 2 seconds of holding the trigger down to get enough bullets in the air to do the job.
Or, I could just drop one fragmentation grenade, which would cover the whole beaten zone with it's expected kill radius, with a lot of extra area left over.

So, machineguns aren't really area of effect weapons.

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Now what about the room clearing power of the dreaded shotgun?

A reasonable rule of thumb for shotgun spreads is around 2.5cm of spread diameter per meter of distance (1 inch per 3 feet).  So if you shot at someone across the street with a shotgun (around 12 meters or 13 yards for a 2 lane road) I'd expect my shotgun spread to cover a circle around 30 cm / 12 inches in diameter.  Also not much of an area of effect weapon.

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And don't even get us started on authors who describe a Glock as having a manual safety... 

[Belial666]

Throwing a grenade means drawing one, removing the pin then throwing. It takes a second or two. Covering said zone completely (as you described) with a GAU-8 Avenger takes 1,4 seconds. Hence the GAU-8 could be used as a zone attack or as a higher-rating single-target attack... provided you can actually hold it.

[BumblingBear]

First off, I would like to say that in any game I run, since a 50 bmg is a weapon:4, I would allow a full auto .50 like an M2 to be a weapon:5.

As for a zone attack, I would actually allow it.

However, since magic users have to invest 2 extra shifts in order to affect a zone, I would rule that a machine gun with a weapon:5 would be a weapon:3 for a zone attack. (5-2)

Still not too shabby, but not ridonkulous either.

[stabbald]

First off, I would like to say that in any game I run, since a 50 bmg is a weapon:4, I would allow a full auto .50 like an M2 to be a weapon:5.

As for a zone attack, I would actually allow it.

However, since magic users have to invest 2 extra shifts in order to affect a zone, I would rule that a machine gun with a weapon:5 would be a weapon:3 for a zone attack. (5-2)

Still not too shabby, but not ridonkulous either.

I agree with this, except for the weapon 5 bit. I would add +1 accuracy shifts instead much in the same way the Storyteller System works for burst fire, with a minimu strength of course otherwise there would be massive accuracy penalties.

Good luck getting one of these though, they don't grow on trees for good reason.

[admiralducksauce]

First off, I would like to say that in any game I run, since a 50 bmg is a weapon:4, I would allow a full auto .50 like an M2 to be a weapon:5.

As for a zone attack, I would actually allow it.

However, since magic users have to invest 2 extra shifts in order to affect a zone, I would rule that a machine gun with a weapon:5 would be a weapon:3 for a zone attack. (5-2)

Still not too shabby, but not ridonkulous either.

That's a good way to handle it IMO as well.  Subtract 2 from the weapon rating and go to town on the zone.  Not that the systems are anywhere near similar, but Star Wars Saga handles automatic fire as an area effect too, so there's definitely precedent in the thoughts of other designers.

To handle the "firing a minigun into melee" problem, you could definitely compel the phantom high concept of the minigun to NOT do that or the target could make a Declaration to the same effect.

[Belial666]

Autofire in SW Saga is between area effect and target effect rules-wise. And it is kinda meh. As a 6th level sith (jedi levels actually), I concentrated for a few mins until I could raise a max effect energy resistance (resist 20) and then spent a supplemental every round to maintain it indefinitely. Suddenly, most weapons that could autofire did not look that threatening.