Rules for autofire and rate of fire.

[Lostboy]

What are the rules for autofire and rate of fire?

[CRMcNeill]

There aren't any really consistent ones in the RAW; it seems like every person who wrote up a stat for a repeating weapon came up with their own version. I use a house rule that autofire weapons have their autofire rate expressed in dice, which is then applied either to damage (when the gunner fires multiple shots at the same target) or against MAPs (when the gunner is trying to hit multiple targets in a round.

I usually figure combat blaster rifles are configured to fire either single shot or a short burst; the short burst consumes 5 rounds from the power pack and grants a 1D autofire bonus. Full repeaters (light, medium and heavy repeating blasters) can fire a full round burst that consumes 10 rounds and grants a 2D autofire bonus. I also downgrade the damage on repeaters by 1D, as I figure their increased damage is how WEG tried to express their high fire rate.

In addition, when using the autofire dice against MAPs, I impose an additional -1 penalty if the gunner is trying to hit two targets that are in adjacent fire arcs (more than 90 degrees apart), or an additional -1D if the targets are in opposing fire arcs.

Rate of Fire, on the other hand, is pretty consistent. If a weapon stat doesn't list a rate of fire, you can fire it as many times in a round as you want, just so long as you deal with the attendant MAPs for multiple actions. Everything with a Rate of Fire entry on a stat will limit you, whether it is 1 (once per round), 2/1 (2 times per round) or 1/3 (once every 3 rounds).

With regards to rate of fire on my house rules, I count a short burst as a single action, but the MAP for firing multiple short bursts is -2D, not -1D. A weapon firing a full-round burst has a Fire Rate of 1.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Bren]

[ZzaphodD]

[Spartikis]

I use a 3 shot burst for auto fire, the burst adds +1D dmg to the weapon and -1D blaster skill. For full-auto simple fire multiple burst at the target (just like our soldiers do when they only have burst fire m-16s), i count this as multiple actions so each burst fired during the round gives -1D skill since its a seperate action.

Also, i say that the majority of blasters come standard with semi auto fire (except some hight end military blasters) and require a after market auto-trigger upgrade.

[Naaman]

I like to say that fully automatic weapons can be used to "spray" an area. Full auto is really only effective against a bedroom sized area, but the shooter gets a bonus to hit in exchange for greater ammo consumption. The way I do it is to have the shooter declare the number of rounds he wants to shoot and then when he rolls to hit, I add the result on the wild die to the number of rounds spent (if he declares 10 rounds and his wild die comes up as a 4, he shoots 14 rounds). The more rounds he declares, the higher his bonus to hit.

For burst fire, I tend to just give a bonus to damage, and figure that the quicker ammo expenditure is the trade-off for the extra damage. It's kinda like the write up I did for firing a controlled pair/double tap (a sort of "feat" I made for CQB): the shooter, after rolling to hit, may declare a double tap and expend one additional round to increase damage by +1D.

[garhkal]

I have these.. but they are for firearms.

Auto fire rules
Many weapons, such as the SMGs, LMGs, assault rifles etc, have the ability to fire more than one bullet in rapid succession. This is represented by either a burst fire rate, or by full auto listing. Submachine guns and assault rifles are only capable of limited 3 round bursts, while For assault rifles and SMGs, choosing to go burst mode, adds 1D to the weapons single shot damage. For LMGs MMGs and HMGs add 1d+2 to the weapons base damage.
When choosing to use the full auto option, the user must either have a minimum of 24 rounds left in a 30 round clip (SMGs), 28 for a 36 round clip (assault rifles), or 38 rounds for a 50 round belt. .It uses the whole round (other than a half move), and is like a full piloting/dodge in that no other (dice rolling required) action (other than strength rolls for damage reduction) are allowed.

Full automatic fire, is just spraying a lot of ammo, in the hope of hitting the target(s) and causing more damage than the weapons single shot or burst fire could do. Depending on the weapon, you get a number of dice to add when going full auto, to the damage pool and the to hit pool (firearms skill). There are 2 ways to use full auto fire.

F.A.S.T:
Or full auto single target. This is basically shooting a lot of rounds at one target hoping the excessive amount of bullets hitting it will drop it. The target gets to add the recoil value as normal, but you get a bonus of 1-3 dice to hit due to the high number of bullets flying the target’s way. If you still hit, you add a number of dice to the damage based on the weapon.

Weapon To hit bonus dice Damage bonus dice
Sub machine guns (SMG) 1D 3D+1
Assault rifles 2D 3D+2
Light machine guns (LMG) 2D+2 4D
Medium machine guns (MMG) 3D+1 4D+1
Heavy machine guns (HMG) 4D 4D+2

Spray fire.
This is the act of moving the guns barrel to the left and right rapidly, while holding down the trigger. It is also a full round action (half move can be allowed), and so can not be used with reaction skills. Unlike FAST, this must have a FULL clip or 50 round belt. It can be used in 2 fashions. Cover fire, or to damage:

Damage sprays.
The gunner makes ONE roll, adding in the bonus dice he gets for the weapon. Each target within the area above 1 (for SMGs and assault rifles) or 5 (for LMG to HMG) subtracts one from this die pool. Then each of those targets gets to add in the recoil value to their individual dodge rolls. If any are hit, the damage is rolled individually.

Weapon To hit bonus dice Damage bonus dice
Sub machine guns (SMG) 3D 1D
Assault rifles 3D 2D
Light machine guns (LMG) 4D 3D
Medium machine guns (MMG) 4D 3D
Heavy machine guns (HMG) 5D 4D


Cover sprays.
Unlike the former, this is not used to cause damage, but to stop the enemy from returning fire. The user still gets the addition of the FA dice (listed above), but does NOT subtract any dice for targets in the spray field. BUT he does subtract dice based on the AREA of the spray field. The gunner THEN rolls, against a difficulty assigned by the GM (based on range to the area for the cover spray, cover/concealment in the cover spray area and any other factors he deems necessary). If it hits, anyone in the area of cover spray suffers a penalty to their to hit pools of –3 per 5 points of difference between the gunners to hit pool and the diff set.

AREA MOD AREA MOD AREA MOD
5mtr by 5mtr No pen 10mtr by 10mtr -1d 15mtr by 15mtr -1d+2
20mtr by 20mtr -2d+1 25mtr by 25mtr -3d 30mtr by 30mtr -3d+2
35mtr by 35mtr -4d+1 40mtr by 40mtr -5d 45mtr by 45mtr -5d+2
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[borithan]

I thought that most automatic weapons had the extra shots taken into account by having a higher damage code? Going by the 1st edition rules the SMG, for example, has a damage of 4d compared to the rifle's 3d. A rifle will generally be much more powerful than a single round from an smg (which tends to fire a pistol round or, in the the more modern versions, a small armour piercing round). However, if you take into account the higher rate of fire, and presume that most target's "hit" by an smg are actually hit by a short burst. With more bullets hitting the target there is a greater chance of a serious wound or armour being defeated.

Unfortunately this obviously doesn't give any option for suppressive fire or anything.

[ZzaphodD]

[jmanski]

That's what I do also.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[atgxtg]

I do something similar, reducing the base damage and giving the weapon a "burst vale" that can be dplit up between attack damage, and targets (one target for 1D).

I do the same thing with starfighters and fire control. For example, an X-Wing pilot can set his guns to fire 4-lined (fc 3D dam 6d). in pairs (fc 4D, dam 5D)m or individually ( fc 5D/dam 4d),

[Bren]

[Ray]

Remember: Short, controlled bursts! Even blasters have recoil.

I'll ask my old GM if he still has the burst rules for blasters that he made up/modified from a full-auto blaster weapon.

[garhkal]

[Bren]