Energy weapon burst firing

[Orin J.]

Correct. The general Burst rules were cut and "Standard" rate of fire no longer exists. Energy weapons are either single shot or pulse, which counts as a single shot with no penalties to strike (unless aimed or called when W.P. bonuses are halved. also modern W.P.'s are now broken down by type and they don't all have the same bonus progression). Going by the updated SDC guns in Merc Ops under GAW, it seems 3-round bursts is the limit of most guns, while machineguns have defined short and long bursts that do specific damage for 10 or 20 rounds per burst. No such thing as a full melee burst at all that I can find.

It is more accurate to say that only weapons with burst stats can now do bursts now. Do to the laser vulcan on the iron heart main battle tank. PG 108 rifts mercenaries. It is a energy weapon that says it does bursts. It would be in theory possible to make other burst fire energy weapons.
(In my games I allow creation of Laser mini guns would fire bursts doing similar damage to rail guns, 1d4X10 or 1d6X10 depending on size. So they do not break the game damage wise. Making one would require a weapons engineer but typically require special power packs. )

Laser mini guns are stupid. Allowing a laser minigun to fire burst basically gives it the ability to spray an are. It basically makes the weapon a constant beam or cutting laser. So instead of making it a stupid laser mini gun just introduce freaking constant beam cutting lasers does the damage as listed across a "sprayed" area

i mean that's probably not true. continuously firing an energy weapon like that would probably cause the weapon to overload and start melting pretty fast. i've always assumed that energy weapon "bursts" are preset burst-fire settings rather than conventional automatic weapon bursts and the laser vulcan is a rare example of them building energy weapons to operate like normal guns rather than set fire-pattern routines for reduced stresses to the weapon's systems.

[jaymz]

Um, just to be sure, any weapon that can burst fire can in theory spray an area and not be a "constant beam".

Full auto M-16
M-60 GPMG
Full auto pistols
and yes even laser rifles (or ion, particle and plasma) if they can burst fire.....

Yup. Your just looking at it reverse from the way I am. A machinegun does different damage based on the type of attack. The laser would do the same. It doesnt increase just because you decided to spray.

Except burst firing weapons does in fact increase damage unless specifically spraying an area and even then can do increased damage depending on the length of the burst spray.

[Axelmania]

hey KC here is something interesting, check out the "Equipment" section of the Rifts GM Screen.

Notice in the "Payload" column how the (roll 67-70) the L-20 lists 40/13 to complement its "2/6D6" damage, indicating how the 2nd amount results in fewer shots.

I will point out that 13 pulses is never mentioned on page 225 of RMB. This means while creating the GM Screen, they went out of their way to calculate this sub-capacity payload for the L-20

Now notice they DID NOT do this for the C-12 at rolling 09-12.

Next to 2/4D6 the payload does not reflect a lesser amount for the 4D6, exactly like 57-59 the TX-43 doesn't.

Instead there's a greater number listed (50) afterward reflecting if there's a cannister to supplement the short clip (20/50)

As in it's the same payload regardless of what damage you set it to: the 50 is just if you have a cannister.

It doesn't even list 60 (30 long plus 30 cannister) showing what an AFTERTHOUGHT the long-clip is.

You can see a decent amount of time was spent looking at the C-12 here, because they even calculate a 120/300 payload for the SDC blasts (the TX-43 can't compete!)

Interesting contrast with (75-78) the CV-212 here. It lists the SDC damage, but does not list an increased payload for it.

This did lead me to notice one interesting change from RMB203 for the C-12 to SB57 for the CV-212

"six SDC shots equals one mega-damage blast"
"six SDC shots equals one, light, mega-damage blast"

Do you recall if anyone pointed that out before? The addition of "light," seems to distinguish between the 2D6 and the 4D6.

I still think 4D6 represents a single blast, but this could represent some kind of intention to have the light blasts consume less power than the heavy blasts.

One other change was how the 4D6/2D6 order of damage was swapped to 2D6/4D6. I wouldn't read anything pulsy/bursty about that though, since ascending damage is also seen on RMB224 for the wilks/NG-57 too.

The NGR is supposed to be superior to the CS tech-wise, and it pretty consistently was.

The TX-43 wasn't some military secret, they sold the thing to adventurers/mercs, it had good availability. CS could've acquired and reverse-engineered it.

Unlikely, since they never added that description to the C-12.

NGR and CWC were written years apart, writing habits can change in that time.

UNLESS they were trying to highlight how the TX-43 was different from the C-12, by showing specifically that THIS gun can do 4d6 in a single shot.

That seems like a huge reach, given they wrote 'per shot' for a LOT of the Triax weapons, and few of the main book weapons.

I assume you understand the difference between pulses and regular bursts, so I don't understand what other distinction you're looking for.

Crunch-wise I don't know of any difference.

Fluff-wise apparently pulses look like a continuous shot while bursts might have distinct firing gaps.

In your theory, Palladium:
a) Accidentally included a claim that the C-12 had a setting for 5-shot bursts.

ONE OF my theories I would phrase it "forgot to omit". The original inclusion was obviously not accidental, but could've been written for a different payload.

b) They later corrected the CV-213 by removing that mention and replacing it with a description of the robot-link cable, and this decision had nothing to do with having less room for description.

Correct, they rehauled the weapon, they removed the SDC damage and changed it to "two settings".

"Aimed, Burst, Wild: See the Modern Weapon Proficiencies" was a direction to use the standard multipliers for bursts, not to ignore them and just roll +1 to hit with 4D6.

c) When CWC came out, Palladium made the decision to use an altered version of the same text in the CP-40, but did not choose to correct the C-12's description.

The CP-40 has "per single blast" and "per rapid-fire pulse" in the damage. The author knew that was necessary to distinguish a 2nd damage amount as a burst.

That they again refused to do that for the C-12 supports that the 4D6 still was not a burst, and was the single-shot setting.

They also altered the CV-212's version of this text, again without correcting the actual C-12.

126 kept the CV-213 the same as SB, only 94 tweaked the CV-212.

You're using "lack of correction" to argue against me in spite of that?

d) When the RGMG came out, Palladium again did not correct the erroneous mention of the 5-shot burst.

Reprints often include a lot of mindless copy and pasting.

Thus RUE having the old SB stats for skelebots instead of the CWC boosted MDC.

My argument they let misleading text ride is very plausible, since as we know, they even goofed RUE and had to errata it, and it still ended up goofy even with the errata because the C-12 still contains "blast or burst" in the ROF while the CV-212 only says "blast" in the ROF despite having a burst.

e) When RUE came out, Palladium accidentally swapped the CV-212's description/stats with that of the C-12. Palladium patched this mistake in the RUE Errata, and they swapped the descriptions in later printings of RUE, BUT they still never bothered to correct the erroneous statement that the C-12 has a 5-shot burst setting, and they never bothered to mention this accidental sentence in any online errata.

Actually, even in the errata the C-12 still says "or a burst of three". Which I assume some editor did after noticing the damage from CV212 was "triple burst" when pasting that there.

The idea that "standard" rate of fire meant "no bursting" in the GMG, flies in the face of "full auto" being the standard for energy weapons in general.

What part of the RGMG are you talking about...?

I can't find it... possibly I'm half-remembering something I saw in some other book. I just remember reading SOMEWHERE about "standard means one shot per action" being snuck into one of the later books... possible RUE? *shrug*

You've pointed out that the C-10's damage is listed as: 2d6 MD, no variable settings.
But in order for that to have a specific meaning, we'd need to find other weapons that also have a statement like "no variable settings" in the damage listing.
I don't know of any off hand, but there may be some somewhere.

You usually would not have to bother listing that, I think they did so due to it being an earlier version of the C-12 which does have one.

And I think they did it due to the C-10 being a earlier version of the C-12 that lacks the variable settings for ROF.

Aren't we saying the same thing here? We agree it's to contrast with the C-12, we just disagree on what the variable setting represents?

only the C-12 (and spinoffs) describes a gun that can fire in Single Shots or Preset Bursts, then lists two damages without specifying which damage goes to which ROF setting.

Which should be evidence to you that it is an error.

The SAMAS railgun on 194 uses a preset burst, for example, and then explains the damage.

Ergo if they don't bother to do this explanation, there's no reason to think that either of the damage amounts is a burst.

I would only assume that for a "bursts only" weapon, but I'm not even sure if we have an example of EVEN THAT with damage not specifying 'per burst'.

THAT weapon helpfully specifies "per single shot."

A trend of many weapons in that book, a sign of the times.

There is zero mention that this would be a Long Burst.

There would be no need for that if it was obvious from a 10-shot payload.

No other weapon ever makes an off-hand commentary of how many shots it would take to make any of the bursts from p. 34, because it's already spelled out on that page.

The C-12 description on 203 habitually just needlessly reiterates information that is later duplicated below.

"has three settings" for example, isn't necessary to state in the introduction, because it's listed under the damage.

"can be set to fire a single shot or a burst" is similarly unnecessary, since it says aimed/burst/wild below.

It's just standard Palladium padding that makes arguments about limited ink/space hard to swallow. Like "Mega Damage: xD6 MD" there's no need for saying MD twice.

There is no mention or indication that the C-12 ever was intended to have a 10-shot short clip.

You would not expect to see a mention for something they decide to change in final edits.

There IS an indication though: the short/long ratios seen on 225 for the NG-L5/JA-11/JA-9.

-We know that the 5-shot burst is a setting, and that the single shot option is a setting. Which means that the gun can't use the standard burst/spray rules.

When it directs us to see the section, you use the normal rules.

That's why the SAMAS/Enforcer railguns don't direct you there.

Not quite accurate.
RGMG 122
The CP-40 Pulse Laser Rifle is listed with Mega-Damage being:
Setting One: 2d6 MD or Setting 2: 6d6 MD.

Of course, CWC tells us in the damage listing that the 6d6 setting is for the pulse, but the RGMG does NOT.
I suppose you could argue that it's a change, and that as of the RGMG the CP-40 was intended to have a 2d6 setting, a 6d6 setting, AND a pulse option on top of those... but would you really make that argument?

This entry inherently relies on people to consult the earlier CWC for details though. There is no earlier thing to consult for the C-12

CWC92 "thirty single SDC blasts use up the equivalent energy of a single MD blast, while six SDC pulse blasts ountas one MD blast"
GMG122 "Note that six S.D.C. shots equals one Mega-Damage blast."

Reading the GMG in isolation, you would have no idea that "six SDC shots" is a reference to the "six SDC pulse blasts" and not the "single SDC blasts". Instead you would think 6 single shots or 2 triple-pulses.

Similarly: you would not know that a standard energy cannister in a pack weighs 4 pounds, or that a "dual backpack" exists.

Since this inherently requiers a reader to have CWC to understand all the weapon's aspects, it doesn't require standalone explanations for its damage like the C-12 did in RMB.

any way you slice it, the C-12 isn't described like other weapons.

Neither was the C-27, that 488km firing range was too sweet.

Either it has a burst setting that it never lists the damage for,
or it DOES list the damage, but doesn't specify that the damage is FOR that burst.

False dichotomy. 3rd option is that the burst setting count of five was written for a standard short (5/25) or long (5/10) meaning the damage is listed under standard multiplier rules.

That's the standard for Palladium math, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find an exception to the rule.

There aren't any standards to palladium math. NGR has 2D6 tripled to 1D4x10 and 3D6 tripled to 1D6x10.

Weird numbers exist, which means any time we see "X dice" instead of "dice times X" doesn't mean some special rules exist for preset bursts, because NO rules exist for them.

The mini-missiles DID show up eventually.

and the "burst of five" was removed eventually (for the CV-213, and in RUE)

As opposed to the C-12, which has never added a new damage for that burst, and has never removed the description of the burst setting.

It was entirely removed in SB for the CV-213 and changed to 3 in RUE for the C-12

For 30 years, the C-12 has had 3 damage settings.
Setting 1: 2d6 MD (with no direct indication whether this is a single shot or a burst)
Setting 2: 4d6 MD (with no direct indication whether this is a single shot or a burst)
Setting 3: 6d6 SDC (with no direct indication whether this is a single shot or a burst)

No, there was that brief period in 2005 until they released the errata that RUEp257-8 changed it to "burst of 3" and replaced 4D6 MD with 6D6 MD (burst)

When they changed it back in the errata they removed the (burst) too. They could have EASILY kept that next to the 4D6 to clear things up, had they intended that.

The only difference now is that we have "burst of three" left over as an echo of the CV-212, instead of "burst of five" left over as an echo of the original 10-shot payload of the C-12.

AND the C-12 has had a 5-shot burst setting with no direct indication what the damage for the burst is.

Not anymore, not since RUE, and RUE's errata did not add it back, it still says "burst of three", they rewrote it because they intentionally boosted it up to the CV-212 levels.

If all three settings are for single shots, then the 5-shot burst setting damage remains a mystery.

Like the mystery of Tromm, in early books, or why Tromm was corrected in later printings of RMB but C-27's kilometres wasn't, and even made it to RUE?

As does the mystery for why the CP-40 would replace the C-12, when it appeared to have significantly less firepower.

Only if measured in single shot.

If measured by action (short or long bursts take one attack) then the C-12 already had it's long burst nerfed by the Conversion Book, and it's ROF was rewritten in CWC simultaneously with the intro of the CP-40.

So there was never any point at which the C-12 outperformed the CP-40, because they retconned/nerfed the C-12 (along with other weapons) but changing the ROF.

As does the mystery for why the CS has never had another 4d6 MD burst-capable weapon.

Not a mystery: the C-12 wasn't meant to be burst-capable anymore as of CWC. It was single shot only, just like the C-10 and C-27 and C-14.

They were all nerfed to be single shot weapons.

CWC just neglected to fix other problems with these weapons, like the C-12's nonexistent 5-shot burst reference and the 488km range of the C-27.

If CWC overlooked the C-27 error (km inconsistent with feet) then why can't you overlook the C-12 error (burst inconsistent with removal of burst from ROF)

The time where the weapon went from SB1 57's
The rifle can also be set to fire in a single shot mode or a burst of five...
Setting 1: 2d6 MD
Setting 2: 4d6 MD
Setting 3: 6d6 SDC

to CWC 94's
The rifle can be set to fire in a single shot or a burst of three...
Mega-Damage: 2d6 MD per single shot or 6d6 MD per triple burst.
SDC Damage: 6d6 SDC per single blast.

That's because they decided to change the CV-212 into a pulse laser like the CP-40 instead of focusing on it's variable laser function.

It's basically an enetirely new CV-212 based on the CP-40 instead of the CV-12.

Just like there are two versions of skelebots, two versions of SAMAS, two versions of Abolishers, etc.

The CS tweaks it's tech without assigning new numbers to it sometimes.

The weapon remained the same in the RGMG.
In the first printing of RUE, those stats got swapped with the C-12's, but in later editions of RUE the stats were swapped back, and the CV-212's stats were again the same as in CWC, although phrased differently:
The rifle can also be set to fire in a single shot or a burst of three...
Setting One: 2d6 MD
Setting Two: 6d6 MD (Burst)
and a Setting Three (SDC): 6d6 SDC.

IF the 4d6 MD setting was a single shot setting.... where did it go....?

Kevin ret-conned the stats of the CV-212 the same way he did for a bunch of other Sourcebook 1 weapons.

Like for example SB34>CWC126 the damage of the FASSAR-20's vibro-sabers was boosted from 2D4 to 2D6.

He just tweaks stuff, it's no comment on how things functioned to begin with.

(Again, if the 4d6 setting was the burst setting, there's no mystery here. The old burst got replaced with a new pulse setting, so the old burst damage no longer applies.)

There's no 'mystery' when Kevin tweaks weapons, that's just what he does. New versions don't function like old versions, so the features of the old don't need to be explained.

Everywhere else, if a gun has a burst in the description, that damage is listed in the damage section.

UNLESS they follow standard bursting multiplier rules.

So either the C-12 is unlike "everywhere else" in that it failed to mention that the burst setting is the burst setting, OR the C-12 is unlike "everywhere else" in that it failed to list the damage for a preset burst.

OR (again you ignore option 3) it was never a preset burst, and 5 was a % of a compromise (25 midpoint) or ancestored (10) version.

(OR the C-12 is unlike "everywhere else" in that it accidentally spent a sentence describing a burst setting that was never intended to exist, but that has never been removed from the weapon's description).

You neglect to mention one of my theories: that a burst WAS intended to exist, but it followed standard rules.

That's not a viable option, because the text flat-out tells us that it can be "set to single shot or a five shot burst."
That's a specific setting, a preset burst.

You "set" other weapons to burst by holding their triggers down.

But hey, let's say you're right about that being preset for a moment, let's say they wrote it like the L-20.

Easy explanation: there was some burst damage but then they took it out and forgot to remove the reference to it in the description.

The thing again being overlooked here: in the Rifts Sourcebook, the CV-213 removed the '5 shots' text but kept the 4D6.

I've addressed this before:
The CV-213 is described as "the robot modified version of the Coalition's new CV-212." (SB1 34)
That means that it's the same weapon unless otherwise specified, but "not mentioning a feature" is NOT the same as "otherwise specifying" that the weapon lacks that feature.
And since the CV-213 is described under a Robot's description, instead of being its own weapon entry, it's pretty clear that Palladium cut some of the CV-212's description (including mention of the burst) in favor of substituting the CV-213's robot link, which IS different from the CV-212.
Weapon descriptions that are under robots, vehicles, etc., are often abbreviated compared to full descriptions in the entry for a weapon itself.

So it would stand to reason that you believe SB34's CV-212 retains the ability to fire SDC shots despite it being "abbreviation" by removing the line about SDC damage...

Even though the MD line was ALSO altered to specify it had "two settings" ?

Even though they reduced the WEIGHT compared to SB57?

we can recognize that it makes no sense for the a weapon that could fire bursts,
and to reduce that weapon to single shots only
while giving it a cable that allows it to have effectively infinite ammunition.

I'm not sure what you mean here, what makes no sense for a bursting weapon? Which reduction?

That implies the author felt the text was irrelevant (there was no 5 shot burst) but that the 4D6 represented a single powerful shot the Skelebot could do with the CV-213.

No. It implies that the author felt the omitted text was redundant, because it's already described in the CV-212.

The CV-213 and CV-212 are not the same weapon, SB57 is 1 pound heavier than SB34. Explain that?

That's still "not written up like other weapons."

Depends on what you mean by "like", what respect and severity of likeness.

Baseless fantasy that only kinda works if burst damage doesn't change depending on your ammunition capacity.
The rules of the game are "Short bursts fire 20% of the entire magazine," NOT "short bursts fire 20% of one hypothetical magazine the weapon is capable of carrying, regardless of the capacity of the actual magazine that's IN the weapon when you fire."

Not a "hypothetical" magazine, a STANDARD magazine.

RMB34's "entire magazine" could be referring to the "entire standard magazine".

The CURRENT number of shots made available doesn't actually matter, after all, you use 20% of the 100% payload, not 20% of the current.

Why would you expect it to vary while other things like pulses don't?

OTHER rifles having 10 shots per short clip don't have anything to do with the C-12.

Sure it does, these are staple rifles. Juicers are so Rifts-core that KS could've wrote those guns first, modeled the C-12 after them, then boosted it.

look at the guns in the RMB and SB1: they tend to have different ammo capacities and damages, sometimes without much rhyme or reason (L-20).

L-20 was clearly cutting edge, CS probably modeled the CP-40 after it the same way they probably modeled the C-12 improvements to the C-10 after Triax's gun.

If that's what the author wanted, then they should have written the burst/spray rules so that ammo consumption was based on a hypothetical standard, and NOT on what kind of clip/mag was actually in the weapon.

34 never says 'in the weapon', so I read 'entire magazine' as being 'entire standard magazine' and not 'entire inserted magazine' as you do.

A long burst from a long clip in a JA-9 is going to be 15 shots: 50% of the 30-round capacity.

CB9 "A short burst fires 20% of the weapon's total rounds capacity."

Notice this says WEAPON and not CLIP.

So it would be the standard capacity, not optional longer clips.

If I use your 'the weapon's capacity is whatever I haver inserted into it' -esque approach, this creates problem for the TX-22 (WB5p143) because it actually has a capacity of 70 shots: 50 from the FSE in the front port and 20 from the short in the handle port.

So if weapons refer to whatever is stuck into them, this would mean a 50% burst from the TX-22 is 35 shots doing 2D4x3 damage?

OR: we logically understand this refers to standard capacity (actually making it useful to have an FSE clip for bursting and not just single shots) so that a long burst does merely 10 shots, and having an FSE gives you an addition FIVE long bursts from the TX-22.

the C-10 that can only get 5 short bursts from a short clip, or 5 short bursts from a long clip.

Respectfully disagree, it's nonsensical to think the % refers to anything but the standard clip used in a weapon.

You're basically saying that long clip bursts fire more shots but no more shots hit. That somehow long clips mandate you hold down a trigger for longer and that the weapon loses accuracy.

I'm working with ammunition capacities that the weapon actually HAS, instead of dragging in ammo capacities from other weapons.

I suppose pre-errata I could argue 488km being the correct range for the C-27 because I should only look at the range capacities a weapon actually has, instead of dragging in the comparative ranges from other weapons.

I'm working with the official burst/spray rules, where the ammo consumption is based on the magazine the weapon has in it when using the p. 34 rules.

34 never specifies it refers to the max capacity of the clip IN the weapon, so it could refer to the max capacity of the clip DESIGNATED for the weapon.

Pulses are preset bursts by definition, so their consumption is not variable, and is therefore not based on ammunition capacity.
Just like the C-12's preset burst.

Please explain why the 4D6 for the C-12 was not described as a pulse like the L-20 then?

a weapon with 30 rounds that fires a burst using the Burst/Spray rules on p.34 could only fire 5 short bursts from a 30-round clip, and could only fire 5 short bursts from a 99-round clip.

I say that depends on the standard clip amount.

It IS kinda like that.
And one can either imagine a cabal in which Palladium secretly changes and nerfs things, then denies it,

I thought we had pretty much proven this by now.

Not at all.

Try "neglects to inform" then. Not every single change comes with an announcement. They didn't put "we removed Tromm!" in later reprints of RMB for example.

the simplest explanation that fits the faces is the incompetence without the cabal.

Ergo: incompetence that they still haven't removed the burst statement.

I'd count "equal to the total number of hand to hand" and variants as being a specific number of shot per melee.
If you have 6 attacks, that's only 6 shots.

Agreed, that's why I used the Enforcer's laser as an example.

Although the same language is used for the Enforcer's railgun, which isn't the most helpful contrast.

And this is what ROF the C-27 was updated to in CWC, in order to clarify how the weapon is intended to work.

Coalition Grunt "Antagonist Y" (CB10-11) despite passing mention of him having a "Wilk's laser pistol" was clearly doing a burst with a C-18 laser pistol as his 6th and final attack, because it had a base 2D4 damage and consumed 5/10 shots. RMB223 the Wilk's 320 has 20 shots and did 1D6.

RUE257 of course, despite the above, by rewriting Rate of Fire to "Each laser blast counts as one meele attack" was merely "clarifying how the weapon is intended to work" ...right?

These are not clarifications. They are nerfs. Don't be sneaky.

there's the Fletcher 12 light rail gun (RGMG 118), which "fires dingle clugs," but has a ROF of "Standard.

That doesn't mean it can ONLY fire single slugs.

You must recall how CB9 nerfed (perhaps you think "clarified") rail-guns ability to be ultimate sniper rifles by adding "The damage for an individual round is for informational purposes only."

This meant from then on, "standard" ROF for rail guns meant they could burst and could not fire single shots.

So if damage for a single round was provided, it would be for calculating burst damage using standard rules ONLY .. unless the weapon explicitly said it could fire single rounds.

Such a contrast exists on WB5p147: the TX-250 says "can fire one bullet" so "single round does 1D4 MD" can actually be used.
The TX-500 below it, however, does not say "can fire one", so while it also lists 1D4 MD, this is for informational purposes only.

"fires single" for the Fletcher 12 is likely analagous to the TX-250: opting in for what is normally information-purposes-only notation for railguns.

Since it doesn't have listed preset burst damage/amounts like most railguns, the Fletcher12 would follow the usual rules for that, being a standard weapon

There's the PN-50 Splatter Gun (same page), which has ROF of "Standard, including bursts!" which isn't what you asked for, but it IS an indication that "standard" doesn't always include bursts.

Firstly: that could merely be standard Palladium superfluousness, not necessity. Like how you don't actually need to note "MD" in a section already titled "Mega Damage: "

Secondly: You're talking about a paintball gun here. The context of CB9's "the only weapons that state a specific number of shots per melee are not automatic." is ENERGY weapons, specified in the preceding sentence.

So "standard" means "automatic" for energy weapons, but does not need to mean that for non-energy ones.

And there's the NE-6 Magnum Plasma Cartridge Revolver, with it's ROF of "Standard; each shot counts as one melee attack."

That's standard for REVOLVERS.

Plus... Naruni could be a special case, because CB9 never clarifies whether "energy weapons" means "uses E-clips" or "expels energy".

Naruni weapons expel plasma, but they are loaded via cartridges, either in magazine or individually as with the NE-6. So if it referred to how their ammo is processed, then 'standard' for Naruni may not mean 'automatic' like it does for E-clip powered weapons.

Checking DB3, I notice the NE-2L on the next page (53) mentions "Standard for automatic pistols"

This supports my argument: if it were merely 'standard', the weapon could not burst at all (because it isn't e-clip powered) but due to 'for automatic pistols' (which we know CAN burst) suddenly a cartridge-fed weapon CAN.

The results were unclear in many areas, which is why they clarified by changing the C-27's ROF in CWC.

Right, just like the C-18 was "clarified" in RUE despite them obviously using it to burst in the Conversion Book's combat example. I don't buy it.

Palladium actually never specified whether the C-27 was a clarification or a nerf, so why are you so insistent on calling it a clarification?

They already had a history of nerfing bursts in CB (5>3 and 10>7) so Occam's is they continued that trend and axed bursting entirely.

I mean, the alternative is that they intended for the plasma cannon to be able to unload a clip at somebody for 6d6x10 MD, and later changed their minds.

But it doesn't seem plausible that they'd have a man-portable weapon that could do that kind of damage, for that low of a cost.

Why not? Keep in mind that 6D6x10 is largely inconsequential, we're talking about the 6D6x5 (~3D6x10) aspect of it tying the DPS of the boom-gun.

It still can't compete with the boom gun because of how quickly it runs out, how it's stopped by impervious to energy, and has horrible range.

CB9 "many automatic energy weapons can inflict the same damage as a rail gun by firing one long burst"

This seems well in line with the original intentions. But if perhaps they were only thinking of short (x2) when they wrote the weapons in the main book, that's probably why they reduced long bursts from x5 to x3.

It never WAS an automatic weapon; the preset burst precludes that possibility.

Even if it was intended to have a preset burst mode (and this wasn't just bad paraphrasing of a short/long based on previous payload) that wouldn't preclude the single-shot mode from having an automatic trigger function.

I think the existence of the Triax 4D6 burst capable laser DOES negate your point. Although they're higher-tech than CS in several respects, they manage to be in sync with each other in some other respects.

See the bolded portion of your own answer.
Best case you have here is "it is possible that maybe the CS had some tech on par with Triax, but they decided to abandon that tech in favor of more expensive, less-powerful weaponry."

They abandoned the 4D6/shot C-12 for the 6D6/pulse CP-40 because it means more output per second, obviously.

4D6 is the most the C-12 could do in 1 melee action as of CWC nerfing it's rate of fire, just like CB nerfed it's long/full burst multipliers.

[Zer0 Kay]

Correct. The general Burst rules were cut and "Standard" rate of fire no longer exists. Energy weapons are either single shot or pulse, which counts as a single shot with no penalties to strike (unless aimed or called when W.P. bonuses are halved. also modern W.P.'s are now broken down by type and they don't all have the same bonus progression). Going by the updated SDC guns in Merc Ops under GAW, it seems 3-round bursts is the limit of most guns, while machineguns have defined short and long bursts that do specific damage for 10 or 20 rounds per burst. No such thing as a full melee burst at all that I can find.

It is more accurate to say that only weapons with burst stats can now do bursts now. Do to the laser vulcan on the iron heart main battle tank. PG 108 rifts mercenaries. It is a energy weapon that says it does bursts. It would be in theory possible to make other burst fire energy weapons.
(In my games I allow creation of Laser mini guns would fire bursts doing similar damage to rail guns, 1d4X10 or 1d6X10 depending on size. So they do not break the game damage wise. Making one would require a weapons engineer but typically require special power packs. )

Laser mini guns are stupid. Allowing a laser minigun to fire burst basically gives it the ability to spray an are. It basically makes the weapon a constant beam or cutting laser. So instead of making it a stupid laser mini gun just introduce freaking constant beam cutting lasers does the damage as listed across a "sprayed" area

i mean that's probably not true. continuously firing an energy weapon like that would probably cause the weapon to overload and start melting pretty fast. i've always assumed that energy weapon "bursts" are preset burst-fire settings rather than conventional automatic weapon bursts and the laser vulcan is a rare example of them building energy weapons to operate like normal guns rather than set fire-pattern routines for reduced stresses to the weapon's systems.

Overload or overheat? Two very different things. A rotating arrangement of barrels is stupid. For bullet firing mini-guns it is to cool the barrels and extend barrel life it does not increase cyclic rate, a gun can be built to fire just as fast but the barrels would heat and warp. A laser doesn't need a long barrel. In the case of PB lasers the barrel should hold the lasing material these could be spun to cool them to reduce overheating but the electronics would be in the stationary part and no amount of spinning would stop them from overloading anyway. Also at that power level it would be better to cool the laser with nitrogen or even water instead of spinning them in the air. I think the best controllable method that wouldn't require liquids would be to use the Peltier effect using the same power supply that is powering the laser.

[Zer0 Kay]

Um, just to be sure, any weapon that can burst fire can in theory spray an area and not be a "constant beam".

Full auto M-16
M-60 GPMG
Full auto pistols
and yes even laser rifles (or ion, particle and plasma) if they can burst fire.....

Yup. Your just looking at it reverse from the way I am. A machinegun does different damage based on the type of attack. The laser would do the same. It doesnt increase just because you decided to spray.

Except burst firing weapons does in fact increase damage unless specifically spraying an area and even then can do increased damage depending on the length of the burst spray.

Nope. It did. Now on most weapons they'll have set fire rates and if they can spray an area it likely lists a reduced damage for the individuals hit.

[Orin J.]

i mean that's probably not true. continuously firing an energy weapon like that would probably cause the weapon to overload and start melting pretty fast. i've always assumed that energy weapon "bursts" are preset burst-fire settings rather than conventional automatic weapon bursts and the laser vulcan is a rare example of them building energy weapons to operate like normal guns rather than set fire-pattern routines for reduced stresses to the weapon's systems.

Overload or overheat? Two very different things.

with energy transfer, one usually means the other! having the circuits, capacitors, and various other goodies operating at "melt an engine block in under a second" levels as mega-damage inflicts is pretty readily gonna turn the parts soft if extremely strict tolerances aren't observed. it's probably better from a manufacturing point of view to sell people energy weapons where burst fire is only possible if prebuilt into the weapon as set fire patterns. given that, the burst rules for conventional ballistic firearms really shouldn't apply. a good advantage for railguns, i guess...

[Zer0 Kay]

i mean that's probably not true. continuously firing an energy weapon like that would probably cause the weapon to overload and start melting pretty fast. i've always assumed that energy weapon "bursts" are preset burst-fire settings rather than conventional automatic weapon bursts and the laser vulcan is a rare example of them building energy weapons to operate like normal guns rather than set fire-pattern routines for reduced stresses to the weapon's systems.

Overload or overheat? Two very different things.

with energy transfer, one usually means the other! having the circuits, capacitors, and various other goodies operating at "melt an engine block in under a second" levels as mega-damage inflicts is pretty readily gonna turn the parts soft if extremely strict tolerances aren't observed. it's probably better from a manufacturing point of view to sell people energy weapons where burst fire is only possible if prebuilt into the weapon as set fire patterns. given that, the burst rules for conventional ballistic firearms really shouldn't apply. a good advantage for railguns, i guess...

No they aren't overheating is the circuit heating beyond that which the device was designed for putting it at risk of damage. An overload is when the current exceeds the rating of protective devices. If a circuit overloads it cant overheat.

[Orin J.]

If a circuit overloads it cant overheat.

ლ(ಠ_ಠლ) please never work with electricity.

[Zer0 Kay]

If a circuit overloads it cant overheat.

ლ(ಠ_ಠლ) please never work with electricity.

Dude the textbook and therefore technical definition of a circuit overload is an overload occurs when the amount of current flowing through the circuit exceeds the rating of the protective devices.

I guess the protective devices may fail and cause the circuit to overheat.

WAIT. are you telling me your assuming an expensive weapon system dosen't have overload protection therefore making the definition of an overload or occurence of the system drawing more power than it can safely handle?

Any piece of military equipment would have circuit protection put in and not to provide safety for personnel but to ensure the safety of the equipment. Sometimes that also keeps the personnel safe.

Too late prior service USAF 2E071 Ground Radar Maintenance. Working with circuits from .5V to 250,000KV. Perfect safety record with 97% uptime rate.

[Orin J.]

If a circuit overloads it cant overheat.

ლ(ಠ_ಠლ) please never work with electricity.

Dude the textbook and therefore technical definition of a circuit overload is an overload occurs when the amount of current flowing through the circuit exceeds the rating of the protective devices.

I guess the protective devices may fail and cause the circuit to overheat.

WAIT. are you telling me your assuming an expensive weapon system dosen't have overload protection therefore making the definition of an overload or occurence of the system drawing more power than it can safely handle?

I'm saying the fire limiter IS protective device! this is a directed energy device that can put a hole the size of a volleyball through a tank that weighs like three pounds and is sold to people with zero technical ability! they're sealed-case systems not intended for field servicing from what we've seen of most designs, what're going to stick in there, a self-setting breaker? i'm saying energy weapon burst settings are unrelated to the burst rules of conventional automatic weapons here, what is so hard to grasp about this aside from the naming is conveniently similar?

EDIT:since this has veered entirely off-topic i should probably address OP

My brothers and I have returned to playing Rifts after a 20 year hiatus! Great to see some rules updated in the RUE and Conversion book 1, but I have noticed that there is no mention of energy weapons doing bursts. In the original main book it mentioned that you could do short/long/full bursts for x2/x5/10 damage, but there is no mention in the RUE. Is it regarded now that unless it specifically mentions in the weapon description that it can do a double/triple pulse etc, that it can only fire single shots?

Thanks in advance

Energy weapons do not use the burst/spray rules, those are explictly only for automatic weapons and machinegun/sub-machineguns. an energy weapon, regardless of being pistol/rifle*/heavy weapon only gets to burst fire if it has an explict burst setting otherwise it's only got aimed or wild shots.

*wait, shouldn't all energy weapons be carbines rather than rifles?

[Axelmania]

An overload is when the current exceeds the rating of protective devices.
If a circuit overloads it cant overheat.

I just want to know the term what happened to my fluorescent bulbs, I had a glass LED in there working fine (other socket was empty) and I go to put in a new plastic one (it was a T8 fixture, this was made for T8s and then it started alternating back and forth and then nothing would light at all and I thought I smelled burning.

[Zer0 Kay]

If a circuit overloads it cant overheat.

ლ(ಠ_ಠლ) please never work with electricity.

Dude the textbook and therefore technical definition of a circuit overload is an overload occurs when the amount of current flowing through the circuit exceeds the rating of the protective devices.

I guess the protective devices may fail and cause the circuit to overheat.

WAIT. are you telling me your assuming an expensive weapon system dosen't have overload protection therefore making the definition of an overload or occurence of the system drawing more power than it can safely handle?

I'm saying the fire limiter IS protective device! this is a directed energy device that can put a hole the size of a volleyball through a tank that weighs like three pounds and is sold to people with zero technical ability! they're sealed-case systems not intended for field servicing from what we've seen of most designs, what're going to stick in there, a self-setting breaker? i'm saying energy weapon burst settings are unrelated to the burst rules of conventional automatic weapons here, what is so hard to grasp about this aside from the naming is conveniently similar?

EDIT:since this has veered entirely off-topic i should probably address OP

My brothers and I have returned to playing Rifts after a 20 year hiatus! Great to see some rules updated in the RUE and Conversion book 1, but I have noticed that there is no mention of energy weapons doing bursts. In the original main book it mentioned that you could do short/long/full bursts for x2/x5/10 damage, but there is no mention in the RUE. Is it regarded now that unless it specifically mentions in the weapon description that it can do a double/triple pulse etc, that it can only fire single shots?

Thanks in advance

Energy weapons do not use the burst/spray rules, those are explictly only for automatic weapons and machinegun/sub-machineguns. an energy weapon, regardless of being pistol/rifle*/heavy weapon only gets to burst fire if it has an explict burst setting otherwise it's only got aimed or wild shots.

*wait, shouldn't all energy weapons be carbines rather than rifles?

Why carbine rather than rifle? Because it isn't rifled? Modern definition is a short rifle. Old definition is a short rifle or musket. At the point energy weapons become standard issue the term rifle would probably stop referring to rifling in the tube. Technically wouldnt it be a long or short laser gun or a pistol?

[Zer0 Kay]

An overload is when the current exceeds the rating of protective devices.
If a circuit overloads it cant overheat.

I just want to know the term what happened to my fluorescent bulbs, I had a glass LED in there working fine (other socket was empty) and I go to put in a new plastic one (it was a T8 fixture, this was made for T8s and then it started alternating back and forth and then nothing would light at all and I thought I smelled burning.

The protective device in the circuitry may have failed, or it was the protective device which could have been designed to burn out at a lower temperature to keep the light from igniting or it doesnt have a protective device in the circuitry relying on the breaker on the houses circuit to protect your home.

[Orin J.]

An overload is when the current exceeds the rating of protective devices.
If a circuit overloads it cant overheat.

I just want to know the term what happened to my fluorescent bulbs, I had a glass LED in there working fine (other socket was empty) and I go to put in a new plastic one (it was a T8 fixture, this was made for T8s and then it started alternating back and forth and then nothing would light at all and I thought I smelled burning.

if it's anything like the LED lightbulbs i've used it's probably that the thing wasn't built with a lotta forethought and the heat from sustained operation was sufficent to damage a board it was soldered to... the burning was probably just dust getting inside.

[Zer0 Kay]

An overload is when the current exceeds the rating of protective devices.
If a circuit overloads it cant overheat.

I just want to know the term what happened to my fluorescent bulbs, I had a glass LED in there working fine (other socket was empty) and I go to put in a new plastic one (it was a T8 fixture, this was made for T8s and then it started alternating back and forth and then nothing would light at all and I thought I smelled burning.

if it's anything like the LED lightbulbs i've used it's probably that the thing wasn't built with a lotta forethought and the heat from sustained operation was sufficent to damage a board it was soldered to... the burning was probably just dust getting inside.

Lol. It's weird I miss the smell of solder.

[Zer0 Kay]

I was just thinking if the military produces a laser "rifle" it is likely to be styled after the M-16, M-4 for familiarity. The breaker would likely when tripped eject the magazine and putting the magazine back in would flip the breaker. The foward assist and t handle would be a GFCI circuit. Pull t handle the foward assist pops push it back in if it stays your good to go. Not only that but if they make it so the laser only occupies the upper receiver and actuated using the old lowers then that's a bunch of money saved... the hammer would have to be reset somehow... or the upper bypasses the hammer and a the trigger assembly is bypassed somehow.

[Orin J.]

I was just thinking if the military produces a laser "rifle" it is likely to be styled after the M-16, M-4 for familiarity. The breaker would likely when tripped eject the magazine and putting the magazine back in would flip the breaker. The foward assist and t handle would be a GFCI circuit. Pull t handle the foward assist pops push it back in if it stays your good to go. Not only that but if they make it so the laser only occupies the upper receiver and actuated using the old lowers then that's a bunch of money saved... the hammer would have to be reset somehow... or the upper bypasses the hammer and a the trigger assembly is bypassed somehow.

the "military" weapons in RIFTs became the coalition weapons, and the long gun is the C-12* which has two energy reserves. i still say it's easier to put in fire limiters to bypass faulty inputs in the user-to-trigger relay, since that's where the most common faults happen.

*there was also the C-10 i guess, which is possibly able to do that but it's primaraly used as a sniper rifle so i don't see anyone spraying blindly with that.

[Axelmania]

Karl Prosek likes the C-12, and I bet he likes big damage. He has super-high MDC on his personal armor!

Also : in Savage Worlds Coalition Field Manual page 9 we have an interpretation of the C-10 vs the C-12.

The C-10 is given ROF 1 while the C-12 is given ROF 3.

The C-12 does +1 damage relative to the C-10 and the C-14, which do the same.

That's one part I don't like, since we know the C-14 does 3D6, so I would think the C-14 should be +1 to the C-10 and the C-12 should be at least +2 relative.

3d6 v 3d6+1 wouldn't exactly cover being 50% more powerful though... not sure why they made it such a slight advantage.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

I was just thinking if the military produces a laser "rifle" it is likely to be styled after the M-16, M-4 for familiarity.

Highly unlikely.

Keeping a weapon design for "familiarity" isnt something the Military really cares about.

The designs submitted for the next generation rifle have little in common/familiarity with the AR-15 platform weapons (well, the last three times the military has solicited new weapons at least; the projects have never actually accepted one because at some point the "the weapon we have is OK and we dont need to spend a 100 million "fixing" it" crowd gets its way).

The next/current/new rifle that the Army is considering (6.8mm) - both of the two main competitors are Bullpup designs with almost nothing in common with the AR platform.

[Zer0 Kay]

I was just thinking if the military produces a laser "rifle" it is likely to be styled after the M-16, M-4 for familiarity.

Highly unlikely.

Keeping a weapon design for "familiarity" isnt something the Military really cares about.

The designs submitted for the next generation rifle have little in common/familiarity with the AR-15 platform weapons (well, the last three times the military has solicited new weapons at least; the projects have never actually accepted one because at some point the "the weapon we have is OK and we dont need to spend a 100 million "fixing" it" crowd gets its way).

The next/current/new rifle that the Army is considering (6.8mm) - both of the two main competitors are Bullpup designs with almost nothing in common with the AR platform.

What? Why do you think the military didnt go with the AR-10? It didn't have lever on the bolt like previous rifles. So they went from the M1 to the M14 because it was similar to the M1. Then they added a foward assist on a rifle that really doesnt need it so that there is something to push the bolt foward like it had a lever. Then they go through all the rifle testing and come out with the M-4 now. You can't convince me a short barreled M-16 is the best possible carbine. It was done for ease of transition... or "familiarity".

[Killer Cyborg]

hey KC here is something interesting, check out the "Equipment" section of the Rifts GM Screen.
Notice in the "Payload" column how the (roll 67-70) the L-20 lists 40/13 to complement its "2/6D6" damage, indicating how the 2nd amount results in fewer shots.
I will point out that 13 pulses is never mentioned on page 225 of RMB. This means while creating the GM Screen, they went out of their way to calculate this sub-capacity payload for the L-20
Now notice they DID NOT do this for the C-12 at rolling 09-12.
Next to 2/4D6 the payload does not reflect a lesser amount for the 4D6, exactly like 57-59 the TX-43 doesn't.
Instead there's a greater number listed (50) afterward reflecting if there's a cannister to supplement the short clip (20/50)
As in it's the same payload regardless of what damage you set it to: the 50 is just if you have a cannister.
It doesn't even list 60 (30 long plus 30 cannister) showing what an AFTERTHOUGHT the long-clip is.

Or it shows how uneven and odd the GM screen is.
If you look at the rest of the weapons listed, you'll notice that quite a few have burst/pulse settings without any note of change in payload:
NP-IP7 Ion Pulse Rifle, TX-30 Ion Pulse Rifle, TX-43 Laser Pulse Rifle, etc. etc.
And in many cases, the listed payload doesn't match what's in the actual books.

The TX-43 wasn't some military secret, they sold the thing to adventurers/mercs, it had good availability. CS could've acquired and reverse-engineered it.

Or they could have NOT acquired and reverse-engineered it.
There's nothing to indicate that they HAVE.

I assume you understand the difference between pulses and regular bursts, so I don't understand what other distinction you're looking for.

Crunch-wise I don't know of any difference.
Fluff-wise apparently pulses look like a continuous shot while bursts might have distinct firing gaps.

Crunch-wise: Damage is calculated differently. Bursts used the p.34 rules for calculating damage and ammo consumption, but pulses never have.
Pulse damage tends to equal (1 shot)x(number of shots in the pulse), whereas normal burst damage is usually less efficient.
Because pulses are preset bursts, they always use the same ammunition regardless of maximum payload, whereas non-preset bursts use a percentage of the current clip/mag.
Because pulses act like one continuous beam, they can sometimes be used for Aimed/Called shots.

In your theory, Palladium:
a) Accidentally included a claim that the C-12 had a setting for 5-shot bursts.

ONE OF my theories...

See, this is one of the problems.
You come up with a theory, and I shoot a hole in it.
You then switch to a different theory (without ever admitting any flaw in the first theory) in order to patch the hole in the first theory... and then switch back to that theory again later while pretending that the second, different theory has fixed the first one.
But logic doesn't work that way. It's not a hydra.

Pick ONE theory for now.
Write it out thoroughly, perhaps by revising this attempt[/i I made to pin down exactly what you believe and why.
Let's work out whether ONE theory is actually sound and/or valid, and THEN move on to the rest.

Aren't we saying the same thing here? We agree it's to contrast with the C-12, we just disagree on what the variable setting represents?

We agree that it's [i]quite possibly to contrast with the C-12, and yes, we disagree on what the reference represents. So it's kind of a dead end.

only the C-12 (and spinoffs) describes a gun that can fire in Single Shots or Preset Bursts, then lists two damages without specifying which damage goes to which ROF setting.

Which should be evidence to you that it is an error.

It is evidence that there is AN error.
The rest of the stuff I've been talking about shows us what that error IS: that the 4d6 burst damage isn't specifically labeled as such.

No other weapon ever makes an off-hand commentary of how many shots it would take to make any of the bursts from p. 34, because it's already spelled out on that page.

The C-12 description on 203 habitually just needlessly reiterates information that is later duplicated below.[/quote]

Not the same thing.

There is no mention or indication that the C-12 ever was intended to have a 10-shot short clip.

You would not expect to see a mention for something they decide to change in final edits.[/quote]

That kind of logic allows anything.
We could say, "Hey... The plasma cannon does 6d6 MD per shot, maybe the C-12 was also supposed to, and they changed it.
The Boom Gun holds like a thousand rounds. Maybe the C-12 was also supposed to.
Jet packs let people fly. Probably the C-12 was also supposed to, and they change it.

But it'd all be the same: unsupported, unindicated imagination.

There IS an indication though: the short/long ratios seen on 225 for the NG-L5/JA-11/JA-9.

Those payloads don't indicate anything for any weapon other than those guns.

-We know that the 5-shot burst is a setting, and that the single shot option is a setting. Which means that the gun can't use the standard burst/spray rules.

When it directs us to see the section, you use the normal rules.

That's why the SAMAS/Enforcer railguns don't direct you there.

RMB 226
C-40R Coalition SAMAS Rail Gun
Rate of Fire: Standard, see Modern Weapon Proficiency Section.

That's the standard for Palladium math, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find an exception to the rule.

There aren't any standards to palladium math. NGR has 2D6 tripled to 1D4x10 and 3D6 tripled to 1D6x10.

Occasional deviance from a standard does not mean that there is no standard.

For 30 years, the C-12 has had 3 damage settings.
Setting 1: 2d6 MD (with no direct indication whether this is a single shot or a burst)
Setting 2: 4d6 MD (with no direct indication whether this is a single shot or a burst)
Setting 3: 6d6 SDC (with no direct indication whether this is a single shot or a burst)

No, there was that brief period in 2005 until they released the errata that RUEp257-8 changed it to "burst of 3" and replaced 4D6 MD with 6D6 MD (burst)

That period didn't affect the weapon's damages.
It only affected people's perception of the weapon damages.

As does the mystery for why the CP-40 would replace the C-12, when it appeared to have significantly less firepower.

Only if measured in single shot.

If measured by action (short or long bursts take one attack) then the C-12 already had it's long burst nerfed by the Conversion Book,

It never had a long burst. Only single shot, and a 5-shot preset burst.

and it's ROF was rewritten in CWC simultaneously with the intro of the CP-40.

The ROF change didn't affect anything.
The weapon already couldn't use the p.34 rules, because it already had a 5-shot preset burst.

So there was never any point at which the C-12 outperformed the CP-40, because they retconned/nerfed the C-12 (along with other weapons) but changing the ROF.

IF the 4d6 setting was a single-shot setting, then the CWC version of the C-12 would have had a 5-shot burst for 8d6 MD (or, if you want to go with your "the 5-shot burst was a long burst, because of the ammo capacity of entirely different weapons), then the C-12 would have had a 5-shot burst for 4d6x5 or 4d6x3 depending on whether you used the CB1 nerf to burst damage.
In each of those cases, the C-12 would have more firepower than the CP-40.

As does the mystery for why the CS has never had another 4d6 MD burst-capable weapon.

Not a mystery: the C-12 wasn't meant to be burst-capable anymore as of CWC. It was single shot only, just like the C-10 and C-27 and C-14.

It was still burst-capable; the burst was still listed.

They were all nerfed to be single shot weapons.

If CWC overlooked the C-27 error (km inconsistent with feet) then why can't you overlook the C-12 error (burst inconsistent with removal of burst from ROF)

Because the ONLY way in which the description of the 5-shot burst rule looks like an error is if you ignore a lot of the printed material in favor of head-cannon and bizarre assumptions.

That's not a viable option, because the text flat-out tells us that it can be "set to single shot or a five shot burst."
That's a specific setting, a preset burst.

You "set" other weapons to burst by holding their triggers down.

That's not what "set" means.

I've addressed this before:
The CV-213 is described as "the robot modified version of the Coalition's new CV-212." (SB1 34)
That means that it's the same weapon unless otherwise specified, but "not mentioning a feature" is NOT the same as "otherwise specifying" that the weapon lacks that feature.
And since the CV-213 is described under a Robot's description, instead of being its own weapon entry, it's pretty clear that Palladium cut some of the CV-212's description (including mention of the burst) in favor of substituting the CV-213's robot link, which IS different from the CV-212.
Weapon descriptions that are under robots, vehicles, etc., are often abbreviated compared to full descriptions in the entry for a weapon itself.

So it would stand to reason that you believe SB34's CV-212 retains the ability to fire SDC shots despite it being "abbreviation" by removing the line about SDC damage...

Even though the MD line was ALSO altered to specify it had "two settings" ?

That line tells us that there has been a deliberate change when it came to the number of damage settings, and the logical assumption is that the missing damage setting has been actively removed.
There's nothing telling us that 4d6 setting is no longer a burst setting. There's simply less telling us that it IS.

RMB34's "entire magazine" could be referring to the "entire standard magazine".

No. It could only be referring to "whatever magazine is in the weapon."
Start a new thread on this one, if you want to argue about it any more.

And this is what ROF the C-27 was updated to in CWC, in order to clarify how the weapon is intended to work.

Coalition Grunt "Antagonist Y" (CB10-11) despite passing mention of him having a "Wilk's laser pistol" was clearly doing a burst with a C-18 laser pistol as his 6th and final attack, because it had a base 2D4 damage and consumed 5/10 shots. RMB223 the Wilk's 320 has 20 shots and did 1D6.

RUE257 of course, despite the above, by rewriting Rate of Fire to "Each laser blast counts as one meele attack" was merely "clarifying how the weapon is intended to work" ...right?

THAT was a change in the rate of fire rules.
As of the RGMG, the C-18 with its ROF: Standard could only fire single shots or double-taps for x2 damage.
As of RUE, ROF: Standard was gone, and the original Burst/Spray rules were no longer canon.

there's the Fletcher 12 light rail gun (RGMG 118), which "fires single slugs," but has a ROF of "Standard.

That doesn't mean it can ONLY fire single slugs.

Yeah, it does.
That's the entire thing that "fires single slugs" means.

You must recall how CB9 nerfed (perhaps you think "clarified") rail-guns ability to be ultimate sniper rifles by adding "The damage for an individual round is for informational purposes only."

Definitely a clarification.

This meant from then on, "standard" ROF for rail guns meant they could burst and could not fire single shots.

Uh.. no.
"For information purposes only" means that it can't actually fire single shots. That leaves only the preset burst, and when there's a preset burst the weapon cannot use the burst/spray rules from p. 34.

And there's the NE-6 Magnum Plasma Cartridge Revolver, with it's ROF of "Standard; each shot counts as one melee attack."

That's standard for REVOLVERS.

Source?

This supports my argument: if it were merely 'standard', the weapon could not burst at all (because it isn't e-clip powered) but due to 'for automatic pistols' (which we know CAN burst) suddenly a cartridge-fed weapon CAN.

The results were unclear in many areas, which is why they clarified by changing the C-27's ROF in CWC.

Right, just like the C-18 was "clarified" in RUE despite them obviously using it to burst in the Conversion Book's combat example. I don't buy it.

Palladium actually never specified whether the C-27 was a clarification or a nerf, so why are you so insistent on calling it a clarification?

Because there's no reason to believe that it's a nerf.
There are many reasons to believe that it's NOT a nerf.
If you want to argue about the C-27, spin it off into its own thread.

Even if it was intended to have a preset burst mode (and this wasn't just bad paraphrasing of a short/long based on previous payload) that wouldn't preclude the single-shot mode from having an automatic trigger function.

You lost me at the bolded part.
If you're saying "maybe it could fire bursts on single-shot mode," then no.
The rules specify that things don't work that way.

[Axelmania]

Or they could have NOT acquired and reverse-engineered it.
There's nothing to indicate that they HAVE.

Sure there is. Compare the C-20 on CWCp90 to the TX-20 on NGRp143.

Does that seem like a coincidence?

The CS are going to prioritize rifle research over pistol research (it's their bread and butter) so having the C-12 adapt TX-43 tech (except using cannister instead of FSE) to improve their previous C-10 model makes complete sense.

The lower-priority is why they took awhile to replace the C-18 with it's bad delivery system.

Another reason is when you compare CS stuff in RMB to Wilk's stuff.

Pistol: Wilks 1D6 CS 2D4
Rifle: Wilks 3D6 CS 4D6

CS initially had slightly better laser damage than Wilks

Because pulses act like one continuous beam, they can sometimes be used for Aimed/Called shots.

Pretty fuzzy on that as I recall the CB saying they do the +1 for bursts. Do you remember which ones explicitly said they could do aim/call?

Further fuzzy since originally all call had to be aimed but then CB started talking about 'called bursts' (which related to arguments about boom guns trying to shoot other boom guns, or if a volley of missiles could target a boom gun, last year I think?)

As of RUE it seems a little looser since there's 2: aim 2: call 3:aim+call so you don't need aimed (single shot) to call anymore.

See, this is one of the problems.
You come up with a theory, and I shoot a hole in it.

Ditto.

You then switch to a different theory (without ever admitting any flaw in the first theory) in order to patch the hole in the first theory...

I wouldn't say switch. I thought from the outset I had proposed alternate theories simultaneously, since I didn't necessarily have reason to favor one over the other.

I think there's been 3 theories (2 from me 1 from you?) leading the discussion?

and then switch back to that theory again later while pretending that the second, different theory has fixed the first one.
But logic doesn't work that way. It's not a hydra.

Pick ONE theory for now.

When making a "this is probably based on an error" approach to solving problems, there isn't any reason to stick to just one.

Write it out thoroughly, perhaps by revising this attempt[/i I made to pin down exactly what you believe and why.
Let's work out whether ONE theory is actually sound and/or valid, and THEN move on to the rest.

Aren't we saying the same thing here? We agree it's to contrast with the C-12, we just disagree on what the variable setting represents?

We agree that it's [i]quite possibly to contrast with the C-12, and yes, we disagree on what the reference represents. So it's kind of a dead end.

only the C-12 (and spinoffs) describes a gun that can fire in Single Shots or Preset Bursts, then lists two damages without specifying which damage goes to which ROF setting.

Which should be evidence to you that it is an error.

It is evidence that there is AN error.
The rest of the stuff I've been talking about shows us what that error IS:
that the 4d6 burst damage isn't specifically labeled as such.

That's one possibility of what the error is. But long (based on 10 shots swapped out) or short (based on 25 shots compromise) also seem probable explanations.

If I had to guess at ods, in my mind it's like 20% for 4d6 burst, 40% for 25 based, 40% for 10 based. Whereas in your mind maybe it's 90% for your theory, 5% for each of mine?

That kind of logic allows anything.
We could say, "Hey... The plasma cannon does 6d6 MD per shot, maybe the C-12 was also supposed to, and they changed it.

Not the same basis for comparison.

My example is comparing to other laser rifles with exactly the same range and damage and clip type

You're comparing to a plasma rifle which is a different kind of damage, it has different range, and it uses a different energy container.

The Boom Gun holds like a thousand rounds. Maybe the C-12 was also supposed to.

Now you're going further, comparing rail guns to lasers.

I think you realize that my "kind of logic" (compare lasers to lasers) is a more realistic comparison to be making.

Jet packs let people fly. Probably the C-12 was also supposed to, and they change it.

But it'd all be the same: unsupported, unindicated imagination.

You're just being silly now KC. Lasers to Lasers isn't Lasers to Jetpacks. I'm not sure what argument you think you're making here.

There IS an indication though: the short/long ratios seen on 225 for the NG-L5/JA-11/JA-9.

Those payloads don't indicate anything for any weapon other than those guns.

They short a pattern across 3 weapons for short/long clip capacity in main book laser rifles.

That does indicate a potential pattern that might have existed across 4-5 rifles in earlier writing.

-We know that the 5-shot burst is a setting, and that the single shot option is a setting. Which means that the gun can't use the standard burst/spray rules.

When it directs us to see the section, you use the normal rules.

That's why the SAMAS/Enforcer railguns don't direct you there.

RMB 226
C-40R Coalition SAMAS Rail Gun
Rate of Fire: Standard, see Modern Weapon Proficiency Section.

The 194/226 contrast in ROF description of the C-40R is evidence of what I would call last-minute amendments to one section of a book without consideration for others, supporting my theories.

That period didn't affect the weapon's damages.
It only affected people's perception of the weapon damages.

Until they actually change something in the book, the printed damage IS the damage.

To use 2D4x3 bursting with the C-18 as an example: you can't just say that CB>RUE changed "perception" of the damage. It literally rewrote it so you can't x3 with it.

It never had a long burst. Only single shot, and a 5-shot preset burst.

We know it was written with a 5-shot burst, but this was never called preset.

Your interpretation is that it's preset. I posit 2 other competing theories that it could be a 50% of 10 long or 20% of 25 short, in which case it's not preset.

Given that the 4D6 is never specified in the damage section as representing a burst instead of a doubled-dice-laser (like the JA-11 has) we are left with the unresolvable dilemma.

The weapon already couldn't use the p.34 rules, because it already had a 5-shot preset burst.

Having a preset burst would not make it illegal to use the pg 34 rules.

The L-20 for example, could legally fire a 2D6x3 20% short burst (consuming 8 shots) if it wanted to. But nobody is going to do that because it's a horrible deal. You're much better off using 6D6 with 3 shots.

2D6x5 MD for 20 shots was an option though, if you really needed to max out your damage-per-action. Or 2D6x10 consuming 40 shots if you wanted to maximize on a surprise attack.

IF the 4d6 setting was a single-shot setting, then the CWC version of the C-12 would have had a 5-shot burst for 8d6 MD

(or, if you want to go with your "the 5-shot burst was a long burst, because of the ammo capacity of entirely different weapons)

then the C-12 would have had a 5-shot burst for 4d6x5 or 4d6x3 depending on whether you used the CB1 nerf to burst damage.

My interpretation is that CWC rewrote the C-10/C-12/C-14/C-27 as non-bursting weapons, and probably intended to for the C-18 as well (as they eventually did in RUE) but forgot.

It was just a negligent update (notice the KILOMETER range for the C-27 remained until RUE) so they neglected to remove the grandfathered reference to the C-12 doing a burst, just like they forgot to remove/tweak it in RMB.

It was still burst-capable; the burst was still listed.

and the burst capability was listed for the C-18

and the KILOMETER capability was listed for the C-27

obviously both mistakes.

They were all nerfed to be single shot weapons.

Exactly: so the 4D6 for the C-12 was not a burst, or it would be gone too.

the ONLY way in which the description of the 5-shot burst rule looks like an error is if you ignore a lot of the printed material in favor of head-cannon and bizarre assumptions.

You're ignoring the 2D6/4D6 juicer/triax precedents (and 'heavy' semantic, and Wilk's contrast, and GM screen) supporting many people's interpretation of the C-12.

You "set" other weapons to burst by holding their triggers down.

That's not what "set" means.

Feel free to show us where 'set' is strictly defined in Rifts.

There's nothing telling us that 4d6 setting is no longer a burst setting.
There's simply less telling us that it IS.

By "less" you mean "nothing", right?

Of course, there was nothing saying that to begin with, it was always ambiguous.

It could only be referring to "whatever magazine is in the weapon."
Start a new thread on this one, if you want to argue about it any more.

I understand both interpretations. It would be an interesting separate thread. Maybe later.

THAT was a change in the rate of fire rules.
As of the RGMG, the C-18 with its ROF: Standard could only fire single shots or double-taps for x2 damage.
As of RUE, ROF: Standard was gone, and the original Burst/Spray rules were no longer canon.

So in the GMG>RUE gap 'standard' and ABF differed

[jaymz]

RUE if anything supercedes the GMG since it is more recent/current as it pertains to rules etc.

[Killer Cyborg]

Or they could have NOT acquired and reverse-engineered it.
There's nothing to indicate that they HAVE.

Sure there is. Compare the C-20 on CWCp90 to the TX-20 on NGRp143.

Does that seem like a coincidence?

Nope.
But it seems unrelated to the question of whether or not the CS reverse-engineered the C-12.

Pistol: Wilks 1D6 CS 2D4
Rifle: Wilks 3D6 CS 4D6

CS initially had slightly better laser damage than Wilks

You're using circular logic again.
Should be "Rifle: Wilk's 3d6, CS 3d6," because the C-12 only did 2d6 per shot.

As for the pistols, the Wilk's 320 and the C-18 were pretty evenly matched, but the 320 is the more elegant weapon. 1,000' range instead of 800', payload of 20 instead of only 10 (with a note that the C-18 has a "less efficient delivery system), and the 320 has +2 to strike on aimed shots.
They compromised damage, dropping from an average of 5 per shot to an average of 3.5 per shot, but overall the 320 is arguably the better weapon overall.
(This comparison could be its own thread, though, and the two are so close it's mostly just preference)

Because pulses act like one continuous beam, they can sometimes be used for Aimed/Called shots.

Pretty fuzzy on that as I recall the CB saying they do the +1 for bursts. Do you remember which ones explicitly said they could do aim/call?

RUE 361.

See, this is one of the problems.
You come up with a theory, and I shoot a hole in it.

Ditto.

Okay, fine: I'll revise.
"See, this is one of the problems.
You come up with a theory, and we both shoot a hole in it."

You then switch to a different theory (without ever admitting any flaw in the first theory) in order to patch the hole in the first theory...

I wouldn't say switch. I thought from the outset I had proposed alternate theories simultaneously, since I didn't necessarily have reason to favor one over the other.

I think there's been 3 theories (2 from me 1 from you?) leading the discussion?

I've only got the one.
Not sure how many you have.

and then switch back to that theory again later while pretending that the second, different theory has fixed the first one.
But logic doesn't work that way. It's not a hydra.

Pick ONE theory for now.

When making a "this is probably based on an error" approach to solving problems, there isn't any reason to stick to just one.

The reason is so that your hypothesis can be adequately tested, instead of changing the subject to a different hypothesis every time things look bad.

I think you realize that my "kind of logic" (compare lasers to lasers) is a more realistic comparison to be making.

It's exactly as realistic.
You're latching onto different guns by different manufacturers with different kinds of tech than the CS, and 2/3 of your examples are sniper rifles where low payload is the norm.

RMB 226
C-40R Coalition SAMAS Rail Gun
Rate of Fire: Standard, see Modern Weapon Proficiency Section.

The 194/226 contrast in ROF description of the C-40R is evidence of what I would call last-minute amendments to one section of a book without consideration for others, supporting my theories.

Any differences in ROF are only evidence that Palladium didn't have their ROFs nailed down yet, and were prone to making errors when listing ROF.
For example, giving the C-12 a ROF that was incompatible with its preset burst.

That period didn't affect the weapon's damages.
It only affected people's perception of the weapon damages.

Until they actually change something in the book, the printed damage IS the damage.

Incorrect.
Errors are only errors, NOT game stats.

It never had a long burst. Only single shot, and a 5-shot preset burst.

We know it was written with a 5-shot burst, but this was never called preset.

It doesn't have to be called one; it is one by definition.
It's a 5-shot burst setting, and you can't change the number of shots fired in that burst.
That's a preset burst.

The weapon already couldn't use the p.34 rules, because it already had a 5-shot preset burst.

Having a preset burst would not make it illegal to use the pg 34 rules.

The L-20 for example, could legally fire a 2D6x3 20% short burst (consuming 8 shots) if it wanted to. But nobody is going to do that because it's a horrible deal. You're much better off using 6D6 with 3 shots.

Incorrect, as I've already pointed out.

https://palladium-megaverse.com/index.p ... te-of-fire
Pulse rifles (like the Wilks 457) can NOT fire bursts on the single shot setting, but must be set for a burst.

My interpretation is that CWC rewrote the C-10/C-12/C-14/C-27 as non-bursting weapons, and probably intended to for the C-18 as well (as they eventually did in RUE) but forgot.

Your interpretation is incorrect.
CWC 91 C-10 Light Assault Laser Rifle ROF: Aimed, Burst, Wild.
CWC 91 C-12 Heavy Assault Laser Rifle "The rifle can also be set to fire a single shot or a burst of five."
From the previously linked errata on ROF: "Plasma ejectors (like the NG-12) are not usually burst weapons."

The C-10 could still fire p. 34 bursts/sprays as of CWC. As of the RGMG (and the abandonment of the original burst/spray rules) the ROF was changed to "Standard," which meant that it could still fire a two-shot burst for 4d6 MD. It wasn't until RUE that the C-12 stopped being burst-capable, when the ROF was changed to "Each laser blast counts as one melee attack."
The C-12 as of CWC could fire 5-shot bursts for 4d6 MD (which is why that damage is still listed).
The C-27's ROF was corrected to match its original intent, which is that plasma weapons aren't burst-capable as a rule.

The C-14 is the one weapon on your list where it's not entirely clear whether the gun was nerfed by the change in ROF, or if the gun was originally intended to only fire single shots, and the initial ROF was an error. So that MAY or MAY NOT have been a nerf. There's no way to tell unless we ask Palladium.

the ONLY way in which the description of the 5-shot burst rule looks like an error is if you ignore a lot of the printed material in favor of head-cannon and bizarre assumptions.

You're ignoring the 2D6/4D6 juicer/triax precedents (and 'heavy' semantic, and Wilk's contrast, and GM screen) supporting many people's interpretation of the C-12.

Addressed in the bolded portion above, and my previous addressing of the GM's Screen.

You "set" other weapons to burst by holding their triggers down.

That's not what "set" means.

Feel free to show us where 'set' is strictly defined in Rifts.

That's not how this works.
The way this works is that unless a game defines a term to have a different meaning from standard English, then that term retains its normal meaning.

THAT was a change in the rate of fire rules.
As of the RGMG, the C-18 with its ROF: Standard could only fire single shots or double-taps for x2 damage.
As of RUE, ROF: Standard was gone, and the original Burst/Spray rules were no longer canon.

So in the GMG>RUE gap 'standard' and ABF differed

They've always differed in that ROF Standard meant different things depending on what kind of weapon it was being applied to.
In a vacuum, it meant you could use the burst/spray rules.
In a weapon with a preset burst, it meant you could us an attack to fire either a single shot or a preset burst.
In a Plasma weapon, it meant single shot unless otherwise stated.

ROF: Aimed, Burst, Wild, on the other hand, seems to always and only refer to weapons that could use the original Burst/Spray rules (which is impossible for weapons with a preset burst).
There is some question as to why some RMB/SB1 weapons had an ROF of ABW, and others had a ROF of "Standard," and there's no clear answer... but it IS possible that Palladium did have some kind of distinction in mind. In the past, I've toyed with the notion that ABW weapons were intended to use the Machinegun burst rules, but I've never been able to determine if that notion pans out or not. It could simply be that Palladium's definitions were sloppy enough to simply include overlap.

[Orin J.]

There is some question as to why some RMB/SB1 weapons had an ROF of ABW, and others had a ROF of "Standard," and there's no clear answer... but it IS possible that Palladium did have some kind of distinction in mind.

Honestly, i think just going through the rifts book answers that. while all modern weapon profiencies list the option for burst fire, the "standard burst rules" are listed as only being for automatic weapons and machineguns, and energy weapons are their own thing. so while it's possible for energy weapons to burst fire, they have to have a burst "setting" first. No burst setting, no burst option. editing was just sloppy about it. it's the same with revolvers. the rules as written in the first place technically give them stats for if they're burst fired, but they can't burst fire because there's no specific stats for firing them that way.

[Axelmania]

here's the reply to the 2nd half of KC's previous post along with Jaymz's from Feb 29
sorry, had to go AFK before I typed it all, and submitted quickly instead of saving to notepad
below will do a followup post about the reply to 1st half of my reply he made on March 1st, along with OrinJ's comment
...hope KC can hold off til then so maybe we could consolidate the replies once more instead of staggering
(very sorry about this)

One interesting thing to note about RMB34 is the short/long/full 2/5/10 for 20/50/100 is titled "FROM AUTOMATIC WEAPONS AND SUB-MACHINEGUNS"...

So even though right prior to that it mentions "Semiautomatic/automatic weapons, machineguns and sub-machineguns are designed for burst firing" it seems like we never had rules for SEMIautomatic weapons, unless we assume 'automatic' includes them too.

ALSO interesting: turns out I'm wrong about NGR introducing the first 'synergy' weapons. RMB228's "double burst" on the modified NG-101 (Sky King) doubles 6D6 to become 2D4x10 even though 1D4x10 is in every way better than 6D6, except perhaps in having higher odds of doing less than 11 damage due to averaging.

That doesn't mean it can ONLY fire single slugs.

Yeah, it does. That's the entire thing that "fires single slugs" means.

You would add "only" if that were the case.

Definitely a clarification.

No, it's a rule change. If you list the damage something does, it means you can actually DO that amount of damage, unless otherwise indicated.

"Clarification" is when preceding text actually supports an outcome but was worded ambiguously.

If someone intended something but wrote it in a way which couldn't possibly mean that, it's a change.

You're clarifying INTENTION (perhaps: no way to prove it) but not actually clarifying the TEXT or RULES.

Sort of like how adding a -10 to dodge lasers isn't a clarification, it's a rules change. Perhaps you intended all along for lasers to be harder to dodge, but if you never wrote anything to that effect before, you aren't clarifying actual rules, just PERHAPS unwritten imagination which never made it to paper.

This meant from then on, "standard" ROF for rail guns meant they could burst and could not fire single shots.

Uh.. no.
"For information purposes only" means that it can't actually fire single shots. That leaves only the preset burst, and when there's a preset burst the weapon cannot use the burst/spray rules from p. 34.

There's no text saying you can't fire normal burst if you have presets.

Pg 9 of CB said "designed to fire controlled and predesignated bursts" but it doesn't say you can ONLY fire those.

About the only way we can exclude rail guns is by not considering them to be NEITHER automatic or semi-automatic weapons.

There could be some grounds for doing that on CB8's "Firing Bursts" based on what seems to be 3 tiers of things described:

A burst is fired whenever somebody fires
a pulse weapon,
rail gun,
or
a rapid succession of blasts from a semiautomatic or automatic weapon (bullets or energy)

Pulse weapons and rail guns being listed separately does seem to imply that while their attacks are considered to be bursts, they are not considered to be automatic or semi-automatic. Otherwise there would be no point doing a separate listing.

If that's the case:

1) not semi-auto: they do not fire multiple shots in 1 action by pulling trigger multiple times
2) not full-auto: they do not fire multiple shots in 1 action by holding trigger down

I imagine how they would function in both cases is:

1) trigger is pulled but does not need to be held down (or there may be no trigger at all, in case of voice-activated railguns perhaps on some robots)
2) does not use short/long/full bursting %s or multipliers.

That does not by any means imply "cannot fire single shots" though. 1D4 for a SAMAS round and 2D6 for an L-20 shot are listed in exactly the same context in RMB. The implication being since it is listed, you can fire that for accuracy or for ammo conservation.

So 'informational purposes' for railguns was clearly a retcon, at best clarifying intent if not the text itself.

Why I don't see it as clarification: the damage for 1 was never given 'for informational purposes' in other burst weapons, like for example the 200 flechettes in a boomgun, the 50-round 1D4MD machine gun burst (4000 creds RMB226/227 for Speedster/Wastelander; for some reason 6500 to put onto a Highway-Man.

Anyway, I would also like to add that we are never told that "pulse-capable" or "rail gun" means "can't also be automatic".

It should be possible to have a weapon which fires like semi-auto or full-auto in non-preset mode, and fires a preset-count pulse/railgun burst in preset-mode. Will revisit this at end.

That's standard for REVOLVERS.

Source?

RMB243 had revolvers as a separate section from automatic pistols.

RMB32 "all cylinder style handguns, not automatic (trigger must be pulled each time the gun is fired).

Going out of your way to call an energy weapon a 'revolver' is pretty clearly saying it's not even semi-auto and maybe even that you should use that WP.

I guess you might be attempted to assume that Naruni weapon uses "W.P. Energy Pistol" ?

RMB33 says "includes lasers and all types of energy firing small arms".

Naruni rounds are physical in / energy-out so they may differ from standard rules. There aren't merely "look like" akin to the Wilk's-Remi series (New West 207, still powered by E-clips) but more like the CFT Experimental series (New West 212) which I think might reasonably be able to use the non-energy WP proficiencies:

CFT Revolvers require manual re­ moval of the spent shells and reloading;
pistols will have a clip
The discharge of energy has a recoil, or "kick," like a conven­tional revolver or pistol;

Also note that CB8 just before "Firing Bursts" had "Time required to reload" particular to revolvers:

a revolver can be reloaded in about six to eight seconds and counts as two melee actions if the character has a WP in the weapon being loaded. Characters without a WP will need a full melee round or four melee attacks (whichever is shorter) to manually reload.

I think that applies to Naruni and CFT weapons. Despite plasma/lasers coming out, they use the non-energy WP skills and do not count as energy weapons for the purpose of assuming they have burst capability when 'standard' is listed.

New West even says "a character may try to fire a CFT E-6 cartridge from a conventional revolver or pistol". These weapons are basically just MDC revolvers/pistols that won't fall apart under the strain of these strange rounds.

Most clearly though:

anybody used to handling a gun (i.e. has a W.P. revolver or W.P. pistol skill) can use a CFT "energy" gun,

Naruni guns (except e-clip variants) are the same concept (physically chambered ammo) so the same rules should apply.

This doesn't matter in the case of the NE-4 because it uses a magazine and automatic magazine pistols use the same burst rules as automatic E-clip pistols. But in the case of the NE-6, being a revolver (individual round loading, not magazine like the NE-4) means no burst and also longer reload time compared to magazine/clip weapons.

there's no reason to believe that it's a nerf.
There are many reasons to believe that it's NOT a nerf.

Here are the facts I hope we can agree on

*the C-18 could fire a 1-action 2D4x5 long burst in RMB. This was reduced to 2D4x3 in CB
*the C-10 could fire a 1-action 2D6x5 long burst in RMB. This was reduced to 2D6x3 in CB
*the C-14 could fire a 1-action 3D6x5 long burst in RMB. This was reduced to 3D6x3 in CB
*the C-27 could fire a 1-action 6D6x5 long burst in RMB. This was reduced to 6D6x3 in CB

RMB listed the C-18/C-14/C-27 as having "standard" rate of fire.
It listed the C-10 as having "aimed, burst, wild" ROF.

It was clearly the C-18 doing a long (x3) burst in CB, meaning "standard" weapons could burst, not just aimed/burst/wild ones.

CWC (in 1996) changed the ROF of the C-10, C-14 and C-27 from ABW/standard/standard to "number of hand".

C-18 wasn't changed until RUE when it too was listed that way.

"standard" was never designated as meaning "single shot" until the 2001 GMG when it was given a double-tap option to compensate that (same damage as a short burst, but using fewer shots for weapons with payload above 10)

When you go from the C-18 doing max 2D4x5 in 1 action (RMB) max 2D4x3 in 1 action (CB) to max 2D4x2 in 1 action (GMG'01) to max 2D4x1 in 1 action, that is most definitely a progressive nerf. It was nerfed THREE times in terms of maxDMG/action potential.

Now: compared to this, is the eventual subtraction of k from km obviously a typo fix? Yes, of course.

However, as I've pointed out, 'burst of five shots' WAS eventually subtracted in the CV-213 writeup.

The inconsistency of that subtraction elsewhere doesn't matter. There is also inconsistency of subtraction of the K in KM for the C-27. It was fixed in RUE Update, but despite that, remains in the 2017 PDF edition of the GMG.

Basically when Palladium fixes something (as they did for C-27 in RUE Update, or for the CV-213 in SB1) they often forget to make that fix elsewhere and continue to reprint the error where it had occurred previously.

Even if it was intended to have a preset burst mode (and this wasn't just bad paraphrasing of a short/long based on previous payload) that wouldn't preclude the single-shot mode from having an automatic trigger function.

You lost me at the bolded part.
If you're saying "maybe it could fire bursts on single-shot mode," then no.
The rules specify that things don't work that way.

Where are you seeing the phrase "single-shot mode"? I'd like to know which weapons.

I can't recall anything along the lines of "if I'm not in a preset pulse burst mode or preset railgun burst mode, I must be in single shot mode".

Can you show me where it says being an automatic weapon and being a pulse weapon are mutually exclusive things?

If something has 2 known modes (the L-20's pulse mode and the L-20's non-pulse mode, for example) then we do NOT know the L-20's non-pulse mode is "single shot only". The non-pulse mode could also be semi-automatic or automatic.

CB9 asserts itself here:

Unless otherwise noted, most energy weapons are considered to be automatic weapons.
Only weapons that state a specific number of shots per melee are not automatic.
A pulse blast is always a burst shot.

The L-20 does not state a specific number of shots per melee. That means melee round.

I think you might be misinterpreting this part here:

Most pulse rifles,
like the Wilk's 456 Laser Pulse Rifle
and TX-30 Triax Ion Pulse Rifle,
are designed to fire either
the standard three pulse burst
or can be manually switched to fire a single energy bolt.

What this means is there's a "manual switch" between two modes:

1) pulse: you can't fire single shots
2) non-pulse: you CAN fire single shots

It's just meant to give the option to over-ride the rule from the previous page (CB8):

Pulse weapons that automatically fire two, three or more simultaneous blasts can NEVER get the +3 bonus for an aimed shot.

Nothing at all here says the non-pulse mode can ONLY fire single shots. The non-pulse mode where you CAN does not mandate you are limited to that.

The non-pulse mode is perfectly capable of being "automatic" (which it IS, until we're told it's not) and following the short/long/full rules.

RUE if anything supercedes the GMG since it is more recent/current as it pertains to rules etc.

The 2001 edition (which had the double-tap rules) yes, since RUE came out in 2005.

The 2017 PDF edition, probably not. But I'm not sure anything in that edition contradicts RUE.

Pg 121 of the 2017 edition still says "burst of five" so I'm not sure if that would over-ride the RUE errata which kept the description at "burst of three".

Pg 121 of the 2017 edition of the GMG says "488 km" once more for the C-27's range, so...

The interesting thing I just noticed is right below it, it also says 427km for the C-29 "Hellfire" Heavy Plasma.

That's also the case for CWC 94, goes to show even when they amended the (k)m range after reducing 1600ft to 1200ft they didn't notice it, or when copying it to the GMG, or when updating the GMG from 2001 to 2017.

Based on that, I'm hesitant to say that the reprinting of "five shots" in 2017's GMG should necessarily over-ride the reduction to "three shots" in RUE which RUE Errata did not alter.

[Axelmania]

found another of what I'm nicknaming "pulse synergy" weapons: Warlords 225 the S-500: 1 shot does 2D6, 4 shots do 1D6x10

I think one thing we need to remember is how recent the equipment in RMB is actually intended to be. Pg 193:

The famous Death's Head motif of the Coalition's armor and war machines has struck fear into the hearts of its opposition for nearly 40 years."

This means that if the Death's Head motif existed in 60 PA, it's implied to not be striking fear into opposition at that time.

Most likely it means that the "Dead Boy" body armor, the PA-06A version of the SAMAS, the UAR-1 Enforcer, the Spider-Skull Walker, the AFC-050 Death's Head Transport... none of them likely existed back then.

RMB193 actually specified the body armor was made from Lone Star tech, meaning it couldn't have existed prior to 68PA when the facility was unearthed.

The earliest known instance of the Death's Head transport is 70PA because we know Joeph Prosek was inside one when he was assassinated. His son Karl was 26 at this time, I wouldn't be surprised if the skull stuff was all his idea and his dad went along with it.

WB12 mentions the CS already had tech for the SAMAS prior to finding Lone Star in 68 PA but I would posit that they were using some earlier non-Death's Head version (let's say a hypothetical PA-05A) if they had a SAMAS prior to 60PA.

it seems unrelated to the question of whether or not the CS reverse-engineered the C-12.

er, you mean reverse-engineered the TX-43 to make the improvements to the C-10 resulting in the C-12?

It's too bad books rarely list "year released" dates for weapons, would really simplify these considerations.

The relation is obvious: the CWC rollout wasn't that long after RMB was established.

We have no idea how long the C-12 has been out for. It could've been released recently after the CS learned of Triax and started analyzing their tech. All we know is the C-10 came out first. The C-14 is called "new" and the C-12 isn't, so I would assume the C-12 came out before the C-14.

We know as of CWC that the CS out-performed the T-20 with their C-20.

So outperforming the TX-43 with the C-12 is not controversial at all.

RMB establishes CS capacity as of ~100PA (per Tarn's letter on pg 137) while CWC as of ~105 PA (pg 13 of CWC).

So it is entirely possible, for example, that the C-12 was released in 99PA, the C-14 was released in 100PA, and the C-20 in 105 PA.

WB5 seems to bet set ~103 PA (Tarn's letter, also a CS letter on pg 18)

Although pg 18 says "it has only been in the last ten years that any measure of trade and diplomatic relations have been established" (which still means it began in 93 PA, seven years before RMB was set) that they've "known about each other's existence for decades (which means at least since 83 PA).

RUE 361.

I mean before that retcon. Prior to that, pulses did explicitly fire like bursts. They only got the +1 and couldn't do called shots any better than other bursts.

I should have clarified: I meant how pulses were discussed THEN (in the 90s) not the changes RUE made to them.

Since we're talking about how pulses worked in RMB/CB in interpreting other early-90s stuff in RMB/CB.

You come up with a theory, and we both shoot a hole in it.

Now time for a frank discussion of how many holes a triple-pulse would put into a wall or helmet (1 or 3) and WIT (what in Tarn-ation) shot the non-cauterized hole in the CS helmet on the cover of Juicer Uprising.

The reason is so that your hypothesis can be adequately tested, instead of changing the subject to a different hypothesis every time things look bad.

I don't think your 1 theory or my 2 theories are necessarily testable.

Basically you and I both have a "the five shots belongs there" theory: yours is "it's a burst-mode (like a rail gun or pulse laser but mysteriously neither) doing 4D6" and mine is "it's a short burst that did 6d6x5 or 2D6x5 or 4D6x5 until CB when it did 6d6x3 or 2D6x3 or 4D6x3"

I just have an alternate "the five shots belonged there in an unfinished version of Rifts but doesn't belong there anymore" theory too: that is was written as a long burst about a 10-shot payload and they forgot to change that to being a 10-shot burst for a 20-shot payload, or just remove it entirely as they eventually did in the Sourcebook for CV-213.

I am not attached to one of my theories over the other, this is Sophie's Choice.

It's exactly as realistic.
You're latching onto different guns by different manufacturers with different kinds of tech than the CS,
and 2/3 of your examples are sniper rifles where low payload is the norm.

Firstly: you at least admit they are all GUNS, so enough with the jetpacks please.

While "C-12 and JA-11 and TX-43" are indeed "different guns", and the Boom Gun is also a "different gun", I think you do understand KC that the Boom Gun is MORE different?

Sort of like how Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt are different guys, but I am a more different guy in comparison to either of them than they are in respect to each other.

The sniper rifles I point out do not have a low payload from the long clips. They have the same exact payload as the C-10 and C-12 and C-14 get from long clips.

We have two short/long patterns in RMB:

the 100% / 150% pattern for the C-10/C-12/C-14
the 100% / 300% pattern for the JA-9/JA11

Then there are just 2 weird outliers:

100% / 200% for NG-L5
100% / 125% for L-20

Any differences in ROF are only evidence that Palladium didn't have their ROFs nailed down yet, and were prone to making errors when listing ROF.

Given the proven propensity to copy+paste rather than rewrite from scratch, the central question I guess is whether 194 or 226 was written first, and which was the followup edit.

For example, giving the C-12 a ROF that was incompatible with its preset burst.

RMB never stated anywhere I can see that having a preset burst mode is incompatible with having a non-burst mode with automatic firing capability.

Even pushing your 4D6=preset-not-single theory, I'm not sure why you'd think this prohibits firing a 2D6x5 (pre-CB) short burst too.

Errors are only errors, NOT game stats.

I don't think RUE 258 was necessarily an error at all. I think RUE Errata was released January 2007 (that's what the "2nd printing 1st page of PDF says) so in respect to August 2005 we're looking at 19 months after RUE came uot.

RUE 258 looks like an intentional change to me, because they swapped in the CP-40 damage for the C-12 the same way they swapped in the CP-40 damage for the CV-212 in CWC.

The reason it looks intentional to me is because of how they changed "burst of five" to "burst of three". Which of course was left like that even after Errata/2ndPrint.

Now using your "errors are online errors" approach, shouldn't that mean you should be saying "it was always meant to be a burst of three all along, never five" ?

It doesn't have to be called one; it is one by definition.
It's a 5-shot burst setting, and you can't change the number of shots fired in that burst.
That's a preset burst.

You can't change the number of shots fired in a short/long/full burst on the C-18 either, it's always 2, 5 or 10.

Five is only fixed in respect to whatever kind of burst that is.

You're fixated on deriving "setting" from "can also be set to" yet completely ignore the ALSO.

Meaning these are factors IN ADDITION TO the three settings previously discussed.

You expect people to believe "they erroneously never rephrased it" but reject "they erroneously never removed it" even though the CV-213 did remove it.

Incorrect, as I've already pointed out.

https://palladium-megaverse.com/index.p ... te-of-fire
Pulse rifles (like the Wilks 457) can NOT fire bursts on the single shot setting, but must be set for a burst.

I don't remember you pointing out the FAQ earlier.

C-18s are "standard", they're clearly the pistol used on CB9 to do a short burst.

"unless noted otherwise" here is the CB9 statement that all energy weapons are automatic unless noted otherwise.

What you linked to didn't downgrade C-18 to single-shot, only RUE did that.

Similarly, it doesn't downgrade that for any other weapons until ROF was changed to 'number of hand'.

CWC 91 C-10 Light Assault Laser Rifle ROF: Aimed, Burst, Wild.
CWC 91 C-12 Heavy Assault Laser Rifle "The rifle can also be set to fire a single shot or a burst of five."

My mistake. I'll try to remember for future: C-18 and C-10 ROFs were unchanged, C-12/C-14/C-27s ROFs were altered. 2 light / 3 heavy... got mixed up.

From the previously linked errata on ROF: "Plasma ejectors (like the NG-12) are not usually burst weapons."

The NG-E12 "Heavy Plasma Ejector" (Mercs 100) said "standard".
Per CB9 this means it was an automatic weapon and could do SFL237 bursts.

The NG-E4 "Northern Gun Plasma Ejector" (SBp56) didn't just say Standard it said "see Modern Weapon Proficiency Section".

Why would you need to see that to understand ROF unless it was talking about bursting?

If it doesn't burst then you don't point to the section, you just say 'number of hand'.

The way to read the FAQ is thus: Plasma ejectors are not usually burst weapons. NG-12 is a plasma ejector.

It isn't saying NG-12 (whatever that might be, perhaps meant NG-E12) can't burst.

Instead it means some unknown majority of plasma ejectors can't do it. Ones which don't have 'standard' or 'see MWP' or ABW in it.

Examples of usual plasma ejectors (non-standard ROF) would be in Warlords of Russia where ROF is instead "each blast counts as one melee attack":

pg 183 the Beofsky
pg 184 the Big Bear

It wasn't until RUE that the C-12 stopped being burst-capable, when the ROF was changed to "Each laser blast counts as one melee attack."

u meant C-10 there right?

BTW if we lack 'standard' ABW rules then in the 2017 version of the GMG, what is page 175/178 referring to for the Wilks 320 and CFT Auto-Shooter?

Seems like RUE268 nerfed the 320 but then GMG'17 un-nerfed it and restored its ability to burst.

The C-12 as of CWC could fire 5-shot bursts for 4d6 MD (which is why that damage is still listed).

Or: the damage is still listed because it still meant in a single shot like for the JA-12 and TX-43.

Because: they just forgot to remove the "burst of five" (as they did in the CV-213) like how they forgot to remove the K from the C-27.

The C-27's ROF was corrected to match its original intent, which is that plasma weapons aren't burst-capable as a rule.

There's no proof that was the original intent, the erratum you linked can be righteously interpreted as a balance retcon unless you supply proof that 6D6x3/action wasn't intended by CB.

The C-14 is the one weapon on your list where it's not entirely clear whether the gun was nerfed by the change in ROF, or if the gun was originally intended to only fire single shots, and the initial ROF was an error. So that MAY or MAY NOT have been a nerf. There's no way to tell unless we ask Palladium.

That's not a guaranteed way to tell. Palladium 2020 may not give accurate accounts of Palladium 1990, even if the intent to is present.

That's not how this works.
The way this works is that unless a game defines a term to have a different meaning from standard English, then that term retains its normal meaning.

If we're talking about verb "set" here I think that's too broadly used in standard English for you to latch specifics too.

They've always differed in that ROF Standard meant different things depending on what kind of weapon it was being applied to.
In a vacuum, it meant you could use the burst/spray rules.
In a weapon with a preset burst, it meant you could us an attack to fire either a single shot or a preset burst.
In a Plasma weapon, it meant single shot unless otherwise stated.

That 3rd one's a retcon, it only meant that when they decided for it to.

Just like long/full was x3/x7 when they decided for it to.

Or when C-18 went from 2D4x3 to 2D4x1 max when they decided to.

Retcons mean it wasn't always that way.

CB referred to energy using bursts matching rail guns. What weapon do you think it was talking about?

ROF: Aimed, Burst, Wild, on the other hand, seems to always and only refer to weapons that could use the original Burst/Spray rules (which is impossible for weapons with a preset burst).

Having a preset burst (mode/setting) would not forbid using automatic fire on the non-preset mode/setting.

All the non-preset means is the capacity (but not obligation) to fire 1 shot.

while all modern weapon profiencies list the option for burst fire,
the "standard burst rules" are listed as only being for automatic weapons and machineguns,
and energy weapons are their own thing.

If you check RMB32 the standard notation for MWP was to list "not automatic" if that was not an option. We see that only for 'revolver' and 'bolt action'.

I realize they can sound separate because the right column of CB9 had:

Rifts: Change for Page 34
Bursts or Sprays from Automatic (and Energy) Weapons and Sub-machineguns

but the left column (continuation of Firing Bursts started from page clearly has it listed as a subset:

Automatic and Semiautomatic weapons (energy and conventional projectiles types)

so while it's possible for energy weapons to burst fire,
they have to have a burst "setting" first.
No burst setting, no burst option.

The mechanics of the "Combat Sequence Example" of Antagonist Y (a Coalition Grunt) on CB9 disagree.

Despite happening to own a Wilk's laser pistol (which should do 1D6, the only Wilk's pistol identified at the time AFAIK) he's clearly using the C-18 (despite it not being named) in his sixth and final attack. We're told five shots it half the payload of the clip (so the clip holds 10 shots) and that the base damage is 2D4.

The C-18 listed standard, not ABW, therefore standard meant short/medium/long capable for energy weapons.

[Orin J.]

so while it's possible for energy weapons to burst fire,
they have to have a burst "setting" first.
No burst setting, no burst option.

The mechanics of the "Combat Sequence Example" of Antagonist Y (a Coalition Grunt) on CB9 disagree.

what's CB9?

Despite happening to own a Wilk's laser pistol (which should do 1D6, the only Wilk's pistol identified at the time AFAIK) he's clearly using the C-18 (despite it not being named) in his sixth and final attack. We're told five shots it half the payload of the clip (so the clip holds 10 shots) and that the base damage is 2D4.

The C-18 listed standard, not ABW, therefore standard meant short/medium/long capable for energy weapons.

if your argument is hinging on an example that wasn't referenced well enough to get the weapons right, i can't say i'm much inclined to take it as viable. you're also still assuming "standard" includes all automatic weapons rules for whatever reason but i wanna know what this CB9 thing is first.

[Axelmania]

The mechanics of the "Combat Sequence Example" of Antagonist Y (a Coalition Grunt) on CB9 disagree.

what's CB9?

Page 9 of the original (unrevised) Rifts Conversion Book.

Despite happening to own a Wilk's laser pistol (which should do 1D6, the only Wilk's pistol identified at the time AFAIK) he's clearly using the C-18 (despite it not being named) in his sixth and final attack. We're told five shots it half the payload of the clip (so the clip holds 10 shots) and that the base damage is 2D4.

The C-18 listed standard, not ABW, therefore standard meant short/medium/long capable for energy weapons.

if your argument is hinging on an example that wasn't referenced well enough to get the weapons right, i can't say i'm much inclined to take it as viable. you're also still assuming "standard" includes all automatic weapons rules for whatever reason but i wanna know what this CB9 thing is first.

Coalition Grunts might own 2 laser pistols. Using a C-18 when you need to burst some guy and a Wilks on the sly when you want to do single accurate shots at greater distance makes complete sense.

[Orin J.]

The mechanics of the "Combat Sequence Example" of Antagonist Y (a Coalition Grunt) on CB9 disagree.

what's CB9?

Page 9 of the original (unrevised) Rifts Conversion Book.

and the fact they apparently must have taken it out when the revised the book doesn't tell you they decided it wasn't what they wanted?

[jaymz]

RMB and pre revision books are superceded by later printings and editions.

Using them to say a stance is correct is tantamount to saying I can still drive 65mph in a 50 zone because it used to be 65.

[Killer Cyborg]

There is some question as to why some RMB/SB1 weapons had an ROF of ABW, and others had a ROF of "Standard," and there's no clear answer... but it IS possible that Palladium did have some kind of distinction in mind.

Honestly, i think just going through the rifts book answers that. while all modern weapon profiencies list the option for burst fire, the "standard burst rules" are listed as only being for automatic weapons and machineguns, and energy weapons are their own thing.

That was how many people interpreted the rules when the RMB was new, but:
a) Many energy weapons' ROF directs people to the Modern Weapons section, where the standard burst rules are included.
b) A limited number of energy weapons had a ROF of "Aimed, Burst, Wild," which seems to refer strictly to the Burst/Spray rules on p. 34, since these weapons (other than the original C-12) had no preset bursts or anything.
c) Conversion Book 1 eventually explained at length that most energy weapons should be assumed to be burst capable.
d) The online Errata states:
See Rifts RPG, pg. 33-34 for full details but, generally, figure that energy rifles can fire bursts unless it specifically says that particular weapon cannot.

[Orin J.]

There is some question as to why some RMB/SB1 weapons had an ROF of ABW, and others had a ROF of "Standard," and there's no clear answer... but it IS possible that Palladium did have some kind of distinction in mind.

Honestly, i think just going through the rifts book answers that. while all modern weapon profiencies list the option for burst fire, the "standard burst rules" are listed as only being for automatic weapons and machineguns, and energy weapons are their own thing.

That was how many people interpreted the rules when the RMB was new, but:
a) Many energy weapons' ROF directs people to the Modern Weapons section, where the standard burst rules are included.
b) A limited number of energy weapons had a ROF of "Aimed, Burst, Wild," which seems to refer strictly to the Burst/Spray rules on p. 34, since these weapons (other than the original C-12) had no preset bursts or anything.
c) Conversion Book 1 eventually explained at length that most energy weapons should be assumed to be burst capable.
d) The online Errata states:
See Rifts RPG, pg. 33-34 for full details but, generally, figure that energy rifles can fire bursts unless it specifically says that particular weapon cannot.

so most energy rifles can burst, but pistols can't....i guess? also what does this mean for sprays....i guess the "empty the magazine" option is right out as well. the burst rules don't have an "all-purpose" damage list so i'll assume they mean burst according to the submachinegun rules instead of the full machineguns due to shot limitation differences.

edit: i'm also assuming particle beam weapons can't burst-fire, they're disgusting enough without a long burst of x5 damage in a single attack.

[Killer Cyborg]

There is some question as to why some RMB/SB1 weapons had an ROF of ABW, and others had a ROF of "Standard," and there's no clear answer... but it IS possible that Palladium did have some kind of distinction in mind.

Honestly, i think just going through the rifts book answers that. while all modern weapon profiencies list the option for burst fire, the "standard burst rules" are listed as only being for automatic weapons and machineguns, and energy weapons are their own thing.

That was how many people interpreted the rules when the RMB was new, but:
a) Many energy weapons' ROF directs people to the Modern Weapons section, where the standard burst rules are included.
b) A limited number of energy weapons had a ROF of "Aimed, Burst, Wild," which seems to refer strictly to the Burst/Spray rules on p. 34, since these weapons (other than the original C-12) had no preset bursts or anything.
c) Conversion Book 1 eventually explained at length that most energy weapons should be assumed to be burst capable.
d) The online Errata states:
See Rifts RPG, pg. 33-34 for full details but, generally, figure that energy rifles can fire bursts unless it specifically says that particular weapon cannot.

so most energy rifles can burst, but pistols can't....i guess?

Well, since Conversion Book 1 shows a CS Grunt firing a burst from his C-18 pistol, I'd say that even pistols can.
Unless the errata came out after CB1, and indicates a change in the rules regarding pistols.
CB1 9 tells us multiple times that energy weapons are generally capable of using the RMB 34 burst/spray rules:
"Automatic and Semiautomatic Weapons (energy and conventional projectiles types:"
and
"A gun with a 20 round magazine fires four rounds/energy blasts per each short burst."
and
"These rules apply to automatic energy weapons, as well as conventional, bullet-shooting, automatic and semiautomatic weapons. Unless otherwise noted, most energy weapons are considered to be automatic weapons."
and
"Only weapons that state a specific limited number of shots per melee are not automatic."
and
"Yes, theoretically, many automatic energy weapons can inflict the same damage as a rail gun by firing one long burst...
...the range of the rail gun is far superior to all pistols and most rifles."

The errata is the ONLY place I'm aware of that indicates the possibility of a different rule for energy pistols than for energy rifles, and I think the errata is likely in error with that implication.

also what does this mean for sprays....i guess the "empty the magazine" option is right out as well. the burst rules don't have an "all-purpose" damage list so i'll assume they mean burst according to the submachinegun rules instead of the full machineguns due to shot limitation differences.

I've tried to determine what weapons (other than SDC machine guns) are intended to use the Machinegun Burst/Spray rules, but I can't really say.
It's unlikely that a Wilk's 320 was ever intended to inflict 1d6x20 MD by emptying its mag at somebody, but it seems fine for the weapon to inflict 1d6x10 MD with that same kind of attack using the Automatic Weapons and SMGs table.

edit: i'm also assuming particle beam weapons can't burst-fire, they're disgusting enough without a long burst of x5 damage in a single attack.

I make that same assumption. Unfortunately, we don't have much support for that assumption because while the errata states that most PLASMA weapons don't burst fire, they don't mention particle beams.

[Killer Cyborg]

I'm going to consolidate some things, because a lot of the conversation keeps hitting he same points.

One interesting thing to note about RMB34 is the short/long/full 2/5/10 for 20/50/100 is titled "FROM AUTOMATIC WEAPONS AND SUB-MACHINEGUNS"...

So even though right prior to that it mentions "Semiautomatic/automatic weapons, machineguns and sub-machineguns are designed for burst firing" it seems like we never had rules for SEMIautomatic weapons, unless we assume 'automatic' includes them too.

Agreed.
This is why I have always interpreted "automatic" in that context to refer to semi-automatic or fully-automatic.
Many people are careless about the distinction, and tend to use "automatic" to refer to either, and Palladium is no exception.

That doesn't mean it can ONLY fire single slugs.

Yeah, it does. That's the entire thing that "fires single slugs" means.

You would add "only" if that were the case.

No, I wouldn't.
But I would add "sometimes" or "can also fire" if the weapon was capable of firing anything other than single shots.

"Clarification" is when preceding text actually supports an outcome but was worded ambiguously.

You can also clarify a previous statement by pointing out that the original statement was in error, and making a new statement that better reflects your intended message.

If someone intended something but wrote it in a way which couldn't possibly mean that, it's a change.

No, that's still clarification.
A change in the rules would be when Palladium correctly conveys their message to the readers, and then later changes that message to be something significantly different.

'burst of five shots' WAS eventually subtracted in the CV-213 writeup.

viewtopic.php?p=3041226#p3041226
I've addressed this before:
The CV-213 is described as "the robot modified version of the Coalition's new CV-212." (SB1 34)
That means that it's the same weapon unless otherwise specified, but "not mentioning a feature" is NOT the same as "otherwise specifying" that the weapon lacks that feature.
And since the CV-213 is described under a Robot's description, instead of being its own weapon entry, it's pretty clear that Palladium cut some of the CV-212's description (including mention of the burst) in favor of substituting the CV-213's robot link, which IS different from the CV-212.
Weapon descriptions that are under robots, vehicles, etc., are often abbreviated compared to full descriptions in the entry for a weapon itself.

Basically when Palladium fixes something... they often forget to make that fix elsewhere and continue to reprint the error where it had occurred previously.

Agreed.

pulses did explicitly fire like bursts. They only got the +1 and couldn't do called shots any better than other bursts.

But they inflicted (single shot)x(number of shots in the pulse) damage or better, where standard burst weapons used the p.34 rules (or an equivalent) and were much less efficient.
THAT was the original difference between a normal burst, and a pulse.

you and I both have a "the five shots belongs there" theory: yours is "it's a burst-mode (like a rail gun or pulse laser but mysteriously neither) doing 4D6" and mine is "it's a short burst that did 6d6x5 or 2D6x5 or 4D6x5 until CB when it did 6d6x3 or 2D6x3 or 4D6x3"

Correct.
And one of these theories makes a lot more sense with the rest of what we see in the books than the other theory.
In your version, the CS had a weapon that could inflict as much as 4d6x5 MD per attack, and they replaced it with a weapon that could inflict as much as 6d6 MD per attack, for the reason of (among others) "INCREASED FIREPOWER" (CWC 92).

I just have an alternate "the five shots belonged there in an unfinished version of Rifts but doesn't belong there anymore" theory too: that is was written as a long burst about a 10-shot payload and they forgot to change that to being a 10-shot burst for a 20-shot payload, or just remove it entirely as they eventually did in the Sourcebook for CV-213.

Which makes zero sense.
Try to find somebody else who thinks that notion has a shot in heck of being close to true, and I might address it again.
Until then, it's not worth my time to even discuss.
Start a new thread on it, if you like.

Any differences in ROF are only evidence that Palladium didn't have their ROFs nailed down yet, and were prone to making errors when listing ROF.

Given the proven propensity to copy+paste rather than rewrite from scratch, the central question I guess is whether 194 or 226 was written first, and which was the followup edit.

OR both ROFs for the C-40R are accurate, because
"Standard" when applied to a weapon with a preset burst (like the L-20, various rail guns, etc.) means that you can pull the trigger once per attack, firing however many rounds the preset burst uses,
and
"Equal to number of combined hand to hand attacks" (and other similar phrasings) means essentially the same thing.

Errors are only errors, NOT game stats.

I don't think RUE 258 was necessarily an error at all. I think RUE Errata was released January 2007 (that's what the "2nd printing 1st page of PDF says) so in respect to August 2005 we're looking at 19 months after RUE came uot.

RUE 258 looks like an intentional change to me, because they swapped in the CP-40 damage for the C-12 the same way they swapped in the CP-40 damage for the CV-212 in CWC.

You think that the CV-212's damage change in CWC was an accident...?

The reason it looks intentional to me is because of how they changed "burst of five" to "burst of three". Which of course was left like that even after Errata/2ndPrint.

It DOES still say "burst of three" in later copies (at least, in my 2nd printing RUE), but that fits in with the RUE version of burst/spray rules: 3 shots = x2 damage.
Just like the previous 5-shot burst fit in well with the original burst/spray rules.
The net result is that the C-12 has improved mildly, with a 2d6 single shot setting, a 4d6 setting for their 3-shot burst (more efficient than the previous 5), and the SDC setting.

IF RUE had kept the original 5-shot burst for 4d6 MD, this would have broken the pattern that RUE set for bursts, and the C-12 would have become a very
inefficient weapon due to the changes in the burst/spray rules.

It doesn't have to be called one; it is one by definition.
It's a 5-shot burst setting, and you can't change the number of shots fired in that burst.
That's a preset burst.

You can't change the number of shots fired in a short/long/full burst on the C-18 either, it's always 2, 5 or 10.

You're actually describing a change in the number of shots right there.
2 is different from 5, and each of those are different from 10.
So when firing the C-18, you change the number of shots you fire depending on what kind of burst you want to fire.
The C-12 doesn't have that option. You can change from a preset 2d6 MD single shot, to a 4d6 MD preset burst, to a 6d6 SDC single shot.
The ONLY number of rounds you can fire with a burst from the C-12 is 5 (or rather, in current RUE, it seems to be 3 now).

You're fixated on deriving "setting" from "can also be set to" yet completely ignore the ALSO.

Meaning these are factors IN ADDITION TO the three settings previously discussed.

By "completely ignore," you of course mean "addressed in my initial post in this thread."

viewtopic.php?p=3040560#p3040560
Even today, many people believe this was how the weapon was supposed to work, for some reason finding it more plausible that Palladium...
a) Has never listed the burst damage for any of those settings.
b) Described the 2d6-MD-per-shot CP-40 as having "increased firepower" over the C-12.
c) Has never again had any CS weapons that could fire bursts of 4d6 MD blasts.
d) Uses the exact same phrasing "The rifle can also be set to fire a single shot or..." even though it's clear that the word "also" conflicts with the rest of the description of the weapon.
and
e) Never (AFAIK) gives a weapon a preset burst/pulse setting without specifying the damage for that setting.

Than that Palladium simply
a) Used the word "also" erroneously.

[The C-12 and CV-212 weapon descriptions both] say "The rifle can also be set to fire in a single shot mode or a burst of five."
The key difference is that with the CV-212 that sentence directly follows a description of multiple damage settings, but with the CV-212 the sentence follows a description of the weapon being "a sturdy, reliable rifle that can survive a fair amount of combat abuse," and so forth.
There's a similar description of reliability with the C-12, but sandwiched between this time is the sentence about the weapon having different damage settings, and I suspect that Palladium intended the mysterious "also" to refer to the reliability passage, NOT the part about the damage settings... just like it's actually written in the CV-212 description.

Also, note that CWC 94 removes the "also" from the description of the CV-212:
The rifle can be set to fire in a single shot or a burst of three

This happened when Palladium decided to change the weapon from a 5-shot burst for 4d6 MD to a 3-shot pulse for 6d6 MD.

I don't remember you pointing out the FAQ earlier.

In the first page of this thread.
viewtopic.php?p=3041021#p3041021

Spoiler:

It not only could NOT fire x5 or x10 bursts like other weapons, it necessarily could not.
Just like the L-20, the C-40R, and every other weapon with a preset burst/pulse setting.
The preset burst is incompatible with the standard burst/spray rules.

In the early days of Rifts, it wasn't clear whether you could use the p. 34 Burst/Spray rules on the single-shot setting for those weapons, using semi-automatic rapid-fire to fire off multiple rounds in one attack, BUT this was covered in online Errata:
https://palladiumbooks.com/58-resources ... te-of-fire
Pulse rifles (like the Wilks 457) can NOT fire bursts on the single shot setting, but must be set for a burst.

Weapons with preset burst capabilities can not use the burst/spray rules from p. 34, even on the single-shot setting.

C-18s are "standard", they're clearly the pistol used on CB 9 to do a short burst.

Correct.
I wasn't discussing the C-18 with that link; I was discussing the L-20 and other such weapons that have preset bursts, but can also fire single shots.
The rules are that such weapons can NOT fire bursts using the p. 34 rules.
Which is why the C-12's original ROF of ABW is incompatible with its description of a 5-shot burst setting.

From the previously linked errata on ROF: "Plasma ejectors (like the NG-12) are not usually burst weapons."

The NG-E12 "Heavy Plasma Ejector" (Mercs 100) said "standard".
Per CB9 this means it was an automatic weapon and could do SFL237 bursts.

No. That meant that until things were clarified by the errata, it appeared that the NG-E12 was capable of bursts/sprays.

The NG-E4 "Northern Gun Plasma Ejector" (SBp56) didn't just say Standard it said "see Modern Weapon Proficiency Section".

Why would you need to see that to understand ROF unless it was talking about bursting?

Because Palladium is lazy and sloppy, and they often think they're being clear when they're NOT.
This could be a cut-and-paste error, or it could be that our assumptions are wrong, and the "see Modern Weapon Proficiency Section" part was NEVER intended to direct us to the Burst/Spray rules at all. It could have been intended to direct us to a detailed explanation of what each ROF means, but this section was later cut from the Modern Weapon Proficiency Section.

BTW if we lack 'standard' ABW rules then in the 2017 version of the GMG, what is page 175/178 referring to for the Wilks 320 and CFT Auto-Shooter?

RGMG 40
But what of the old weapons that have damage for a single blast but not a burst, but list Attacks Per Melee: Standard, or Aimed, Burst, or Wild shot.
It is fair to assume that the weapons can fire a short, two pulse burst that does double damage of a single shot. Each double pulse counts as one attack, but uses up two shots from the payload.

That's not how this works.
The way this works is that unless a game defines a term to have a different meaning from standard English, then that term retains its normal meaning.

If we're talking about verb "set" here I think that's too broadly used in standard English for you to latch specifics too.

Find any definition for "set" that can be used in the phrase "The rifle can be set to fire a single shot or a burst of five," where "set" means something to the effect of "the shooter can choose to fire five rounds by either holding in the trigger just long enough for 5 rounds to fire, OR the shooter can fire the weapon 5 times in rapid succession."
If you can't, then drop this angle because it's flat-out not working.

They've always differed in that ROF Standard meant different things depending on what kind of weapon it was being applied to.
In a vacuum, it meant you could use the burst/spray rules.
In a weapon with a preset burst, it meant you could us an attack to fire either a single shot or a preset burst.
In a Plasma weapon, it meant single shot unless otherwise stated.

That 3rd one's a retcon, it only meant that when they decided for it to.

That's something that you'd prefer to believe, but that has no supporting evidence.

CB referred to energy using bursts matching rail guns. What weapon do you think it was talking about?

Pretty much any of them that inflicted 2d6 MD per shot, and could use the burst/spray rules.
A C-10 could fire a long burst for 6d6 MD, which is the same damage, for example.

[Axelmania]

and the fact they apparently must have taken it out when the revised the book doesn't tell you they decided it wasn't what they wanted?

A lot of things were taken out when the conversion book was revised to make room for new things. It's not like they gave a replacement combat example. A bunch of monsters were moved to Dark Conversions and warlock spells were moved to Book of Magic, as the two most notable omissions.

There is no need to speculate based on an absent example though, because the 1st print of revised CB came out in November 2002, while the GMG came out September 2001 and changed standard from vague/synonym to the ephemeral option come to be known as "double-tap":

what about the old -weapons that have damage for single blasts but not a burst,
but list Attacks per Melee: Standard, or Aimed, Burst, or Wild shot.
It is fair to assume that the weapon can fire a short, two pulse burst that does double the damage of a single shot.
Each double pulse counts as one attack, but uses up two shots from the payload.

They could have rewritten the scenario using this (a 2D4x2 burst consuming 2/10 shots instead of a 2D4x3 burst consuming 5/10 shots) in the revised CB, so I really think the reason this was dropped was because of space.

RMB and pre revision books are superceded by later printings and editions.

Using them to say a stance is correct is tantamount to saying I can still drive 65mph in a 50 zone because it used to be 65.

It would be helpful to quote a portion of a post so we know who you're addressing here.

The first (Dec 31) post by AdamB85 was specifically asking what changed from the original rules set.

Also: it is completely legal to play by your 1990 basic set if you don't want to play by your 2005 ultimate edition. Nobody will arrest you.

so most energy rifles can burst, but pistols can't....i guess?

The errata's summary is inconsistent with the CB summary which was energy weapons in general (including pistols and plasma ejectors) not just rifles.

Much like the errata was also consistent with GMG2001 since it treated standard/ABW as different while GMG'01 treated them as the same (can double-tap)

The errata is the ONLY place I'm aware of that indicates the possibility of a different rule for energy pistols than for energy rifles

or for plasma ejectors, for that matter. GMG'01 still let you do a 6D6x2 double-tap with the C-27 AFAIK.

I make that same assumption. Unfortunately, we don't have much support for that assumption because while the errata states that most PLASMA weapons don't burst fire, they don't mention particle beams.

Do you know what year that errata first came out?

"Standard" weapons may only be fired in single shots (unless noted otherwise)

That seems to directly contradict GMG2001p40:

It is fair to assume that the weapon can fire a short, two pulse burst

Is this some written-1999 FAQ that was superceded by a 2001 GMG, or some 2003 FAQ that superceded the 2001 OGMG?

You know KC, one hole I see in this "plasma ALL ALONG" deference to FAQ...

Look at the picture on CB8... that's a C-27.

When writing this new section with all it's rules, all it's "only weapons that specify a limited number" text...

The author had the C-27 in the forefront of his mind, yet put no special rulings for it there.

Kevin Long's illustration of that plasma rifle is front and center

About the only distinction I do see is pg 16 listing WP Heavy / WP Heavy Energy as ineligible for Sharpshooting.

You can also clarify a previous statement by pointing out that the original statement was in error, and making a new statement that better reflects your intended message.

I would say it's a very rare moment when we see "this was an error" in reference to a change being made.

The foreword by Brandon K. Aten for RUEupdate is in that format, but I think it's disingenuous to read every change in there as an actual mistake.

Pg 83's changes to the new "Merc Soldier" OCC for example. The General Athletics notation is immediately confusing, took me a second to understand that the change was that they took out "Computer Operation +10%".

If you look at RUE82 though, it's pretty clear that in looking at the Communications Expert MOS that "+10% to Computer Operation Skill" was meant to STACK with the OCC skill (net +20%). Removing it gives nothing to stack with, which is why they changed that to be Computer Operation +15%.

82/83 is a perfect example of something which is absolutely not an error/mistake. It was intentionally and accurately written one way, and they decided to change it later. I think the alterations to the C-12 are the same.

A change in the rules would be when Palladium correctly conveys their message to the readers, and then later changes that message to be something significantly different.

Which is what happened with Merc Soldier's Computer Operation and with the C-12's three-shot burst.

That means that it's the same weapon unless otherwise specified, but "not mentioning a feature" is NOT the same as "otherwise specifying" that the weapon lacks that feature.

So omitting the SDC firing mode wouldn't mean it could no longer fire SDC?

Omitting the ability to take long clips wouldn't mean it could no longer use those in a pinch?

Well then, I guess RUE "not mentioning" the C-18 and C-10 could fire bursts doesn't mean they can't. It was just left out in the ROF because of a decision to emphasize how single shots work, but not to rule out the non-mentioned kind of shots.

Weapon descriptions that are under robots, vehicles, etc., are often abbreviated compared to full descriptions in the entry for a weapon itself.[/i]

It's not always clear which was written first though, like with the SAMAS railgun.

But they inflicted (single shot)x(number of shots in the pulse) damage or better, where standard burst weapons used the p.34 rules (or an equivalent) and were much less efficient.
THAT was the original difference between a normal burst, and a pulse.

Not if you were firing (RMBp244 Automatic Pistols) the .45 automatic. Even using the new x7 for full bursts it breaks even.

Only place it might come behind is a long burst since I guess that would consume 4 shots and only do x3...

But then does that mean you can't do a 2nd long burst with an odd-numbered payload? Do you round one's requirement up and the other down?

I think 50% consumption assumes even-numbered payloads...

one of these theories makes a lot more sense with the rest of what we see in the books than the other theory.

Agreed, though I think we disagree on which one. I see the C-12 in terms as a parallel to the TX-43, matching the single-shot capacity of the JA-12 and being a heavier laser than the C-10 just as the C-10 is a heavier laser than the C-18.

The C-14 having a heavier laser than the C-12 probably makes sense to you because of the greater numbering, but I always saw that as meaning it was developed later, and was heavy only because of the grenades. The laser itself was never called "heavy" even though the C-14 was heavier than the C-12.

In respect to an 'appeal to art', looking at RMB203, compare the size of the laser barrel on the C-12 to the laser barrel on the C-14... looks like double the diameter. A wider more powerful beam.

Did we ever get any C-10 illustrations?

In your version, the CS had a weapon that could inflict as much as 4d6x5 MD per attack, and they replaced it with a weapon that could inflict as much as 6d6 MD per attack, for the reason of (among others) "INCREASED FIREPOWER" (CWC 92).

You're again conflating OOC retcons with IC events.

CWC came out after long bursts were nerfed down to x3, so you shouldn't be comparing it to x5.

CWC also simultaneously decided that the C-12/C-14/C-27 couldn't burst anymore.

So when you compare the 6D6 to the retconned-reality, it was replacing a 4D6 single-shot weapon, in my approach.

If you go back to the time when I'm saying the C-12 did 4D6x5 (1990) or 4D6x3 (1991) then you're basically saying CWC wasn't out yet, so there wasn't any 6D6 replacement to compare these to.

Which makes zero sense.
Try to find somebody else who thinks that notion has a shot in heck of being close to true, and I might address it again.
Until then, it's not worth my time to even discuss.
Start a new thread on it, if you like.

Populum fallacy. No need for a new thread, it's an on-topic rebuttal to the idea that we must assume 4D6 represented an intended-to-remain 5-shot burst setting.

RUE proved 5 was not intended to remain that way, it was changed to 3 shots. 3 not being 20% or 50% of any numbers at that point is fine since RUE had abandoned the % system.

OR both ROFs for the C-40R are accurate, because
"Standard" when applied to a weapon with a preset burst (like the L-20, various rail guns, etc.) means that you can pull the trigger once per attack, firing however many rounds the preset burst uses,
and
"Equal to number of combined hand to hand attacks" (and other similar phrasings) means essentially the same thing.

Why they aren't the same is "combined" for the PA/bot writeups was I think meant to remind the reader to add the bonus attacks for RPA:Elite skill.

This gets confusing for the NG-101 Forward Mounted Heavy Laser (oh look, heavy does 4D6) on RMB228, because this uses "combined number of hand to hand attacks" but there isn't any +attack skill applicable to the NG Sky King that I know of.

Meaning I guess it might mean combining HTH and Boxing? *shrug*

You think that the CV-212's damage change in CWC was an accident...?

Not sure how you're getting that impression.

I said that RUE 258 looked intentionally the same way the CV-212 change looked intentional.

It DOES still say "burst of three" in later copies (at least, in my 2nd printing RUE), but that fits in with the RUE version of burst/spray rules: 3 shots = x2 damage.

RUE 328 I'm guessing? Begins under pistols, for rifles too...

For rifles... x3 for long bursts of 6 rounds costing 2 attacks... surprise attacks are the ONLY use I can see for this. Spending those 2 attacks on two consecutive short bursts (~x4 dmg) makes a lot more sense for optimizing damage-per-rounds and in forcing more dodges.

Look at RUE 329, why would you ever do a long burst with a Submachine-Gun except to surprise attack to take advantage of there being no defence?

12D6+6 vs 1D6x10+4 ...

IF RUE had kept the original 5-shot burst for 4d6 MD, this would have broken the pattern that RUE set for bursts, and the C-12 would have become a very inefficient weapon due to the changes in the burst/spray rules.

Inefficient in respect to SDC weapons? Doesn't seem important.

You're actually describing a change in the number of shots right there.
2 is different from 5, and each of those are different from 10.
So when firing the C-18, you change the number of shots you fire depending on what kind of burst you want to fire.

Correct, but it is preset to be 2/5/10 depending on length of time the trigger is held down.

There is no amount of time you can hold those triggers down to fire 3/4 or 6/7/8/9 shots instead.

That's what I mean: the C-18 had 3 kinds of preset bursts but the modes/settings were toggled by trigger depression lengths.

The C-12 doesn't have that option. You can change from a preset 2d6 MD single shot, to a 4d6 MD preset burst, to a 6d6 SDC single shot.

The C-12 did have the trio of standard short/long/full options, because RMB203 said to "see Modern Weapon Proficiencies".

If all it's bursting options had been spelled out there, you would not need to consult MWP.

The ONLY number of rounds you can fire with a burst from the C-12 is 5 (or rather, in current RUE, it seems to be 3 now).

ROF never stated that.

Having a preset mode doesn't forbid using normal rules for semi-auto or full-auto fire in the non-preset mode.

You're fixated on deriving "setting" from "can also be set to" yet completely ignore the ALSO.

Meaning these are factors IN ADDITION TO the three settings previously discussed.

By "completely ignore," you of course mean "addressed in my initial post in this thread."

This bit?

AND they added another feature: the pre-set 5-shot burst setting, which conflicted with the ROF: Aimed, Burst, Wild, but Palladium accidentally neglected to update the ROF in the description

It's apparently wrong for me to insist "Palladium accidentally neglected to update" the "burst of five" but okay for you to insist they neglected to update the ROF?

Subsequently BOTH happened (twice apiece) so there's pretty equal footing to both approaches.

Your subsequent comment on that was goofy though which I already mentioned:

As has been noted, this would technically mean--IF Palladium was good with precision writing--that in addition to the 3 Settings, there was also a burst toggle.
Which would mean that the C-12's three settings would have been:
Setting 1: 2d6 MD per single shot, OR a 5-shot burst for 4d6 MD.
Setting 2: 4d6 MD per single shot, OR a 5-shot burst for 8d6 MD

You're double-dipping with the 4D6 there. 4D6 representing a single-shot setting would mean you don't use it to represent a 5-shot burst with the 2D6 setting. Your double-dicing here was obfuscatingly speculative.

A 5-shot burst could have been x5 for 10-shot clip or x2 for a 25-shot clip. Standard non-pulse bursting uses multiplication to the result of the base roll, not multiplying the number of rolls to create extra addition.

a) Has never listed the burst damage for any of those settings.

We know how much damage a four-shot burst does on a 20-shot clip. It's 20% so it does x2 damage, as a short burst.

Another easy explanation: they mistakenly wrote "five" instead of "four" because 5x4 / 4x5 and alliteration and stuff. Easy mistake.

b) Described the 2d6-MD-per-shot CP-40 as having "increased firepower" over the C-12.

It had 50% better damage-per-action than the C-12 as of CWC since CWC removed the C-12's burst.

The C-10 could still do a 2D6x3 long burst at that point so it's akin to a tie if you like wasting ammo.

c) Has never again had any CS weapons that could fire bursts of 4d6 MD blasts.

Already addressed, they retconned the ROF (single shot only due to number of hand, just like C-14/C-27, but forgot to remove the burst text) so later weapons didn't have to compare to the RMB monsters.

e) Never (AFAIK) gives a weapon a preset burst/pulse setting without specifying the damage for that setting.

As rebutted, they also never specify damage for a burst without saying it's a burst.

Also, note that CWC 94 removes the "also" from the description of the CV-212:
The rifle can be set to fire in a single shot or a burst of three

I do note the specificty of the amended-from-SB1 version of CV-212 on CWC94 which resembles the specificity of the CP-40 on 92.

Which only makes more glaring the non-specificity of the damage and payload of the C-12, which we know they DID alter, since they changed the rate of fire.

If they had intended for 4D6 to represent 5 shots then they would have added next to "20 MD blasts" a parenthesized "(or 4 bursts)" as we see the Paload for the CP-40 and CV-212 do. They would've added parenthesis next to the 4D6, just as the CP-40 and CV-212 do.

CWC only had two weapons that did 4D6 bursts: the CP-30 laser pistol and C-200 rail gun. Palladium consistently specifies they are bursts and lists a reduced payload when bursting in respect to total rounds.

In the first page of this thread.
https://palladiumbooks.com/forums/viewt ... 1#p3041021

Spoiler:

It not only could NOT fire x5 or x10 bursts like other weapons, it necessarily could not.
Just like the L-20, the C-40R, and every other weapon with a preset burst/pulse setting.
The preset burst is incompatible with the standard burst/spray rules.

In the early days of Rifts, it wasn't clear whether you could use the p. 34 Burst/Spray rules on the single-shot setting for those weapons, using semi-automatic rapid-fire to fire off multiple rounds in one attack, BUT this was covered in online Errata:
https://palladiumbooks.com/58-resources ... te-of-fire
Pulse rifles (like the Wilks 457) can NOT fire bursts on the single shot setting, but must be set for a burst.

Weapons with preset burst capabilities can not use the burst/spray rules from p. 34, even on the single-shot setting.

We can toss that, the FAQ explicitly contradicts CB (no bursting with 'standard' weapons like C-18 which did a 5-shot burst) and OGMG (can do 2-shot bursts).

Plus that's pulse rifles, you haven't been saying the C-12 pulsed.

It shouldprevent other burst types dont with a SAMAS railgun either, or using Spray rules.

I wasn't discussing the C-18 with that link; I was discussing the L-20 and other such weapons that have preset bursts, but can also fire single shots.
The rules are that such weapons can NOT fire bursts using the p. 34 rules.
Which is why the C-12's original ROF of ABW is incompatible with its description of a 5-shot burst setting.

You can't just cherry-pick the parts of that FAQ you like, either it's all reliable or none of it is.

It is clearly a retcon-FAQ because it denies the burst capacity of "standard" weapons like the C-18.

With that being a retcon, I am right to look at other stuff from that same entry like "pulse weapons can't use standard burst rules" or "plasma weapons can't burst" as similarly a retcon.

That's fine: retcons have been a thing since CB changed the bursting rules. It never gets spelled out as a retcon, but we know it is.

From the previously linked errata on ROF: "Plasma ejectors (like the NG-12) are not usually burst weapons."

The NG-E12 "Heavy Plasma Ejector" (Mercs 100) said "standard".
Per CB9 this means it was an automatic weapon and could do SFL237 bursts.

No. That meant that until things were clarified by the errata, it appeared that the NG-E12 was capable of bursts/sprays.

That was a retcon, not a clarification.

The errata you linked retcons all standard pistols, including the C-18, directly contradicting earlier precedent.

That's fine: CB itself was a retcon (it applies the retconned long burst multiplier of x3 instead of x5) but I will continue to acknowledge it as that.

Changes are by default retcons unless there is obvious reason to think it an error, like KM>M

The NG-E4 "Northern Gun Plasma Ejector" (SBp56) didn't just say Standard it said "see Modern Weapon Proficiency Section".

Why would you need to see that to understand ROF unless it was talking about bursting?

Because Palladium is lazy and sloppy, and they often think they're being clear when they're NOT.

Except there was nothing at all clear about any intention whatsoever of plasma/particle beam weapons having a different rate of fire from laser pistols.

This could be a cut-and-paste error, or it could be that our assumptions are wrong, and the "see Modern Weapon Proficiency Section" part was NEVER intended to direct us to the Burst/Spray rules at all. It could have been intended to direct us to a detailed explanation of what each ROF means, but this section was later cut from the Modern Weapon Proficiency Section.

I see, so you can imagine THAT was cut, but I can't imagine damage for a burst of five was cut?

BTW if we lack 'standard' ABW rules then in the 2017 version of the GMG, what is page 175/178 referring to for the Wilks 320 and CFT Auto-Shooter?

RGMG 40
But what of the old weapons that have damage for a single blast but not a burst, but list Attacks Per Melee: Standard, or Aimed, Burst, or Wild shot.
It is fair to assume that the weapons can fire a short, two pulse burst that does double damage of a single shot. Each double pulse counts as one attack, but uses up two shots from the payload.

You're citing text present in OGMG (original, 2001), but that's not in the RGMG (revised, 2017)

That means we now no longer have text to explain how to read 175/178, with the double-tap rule presumably no longer in effect.

Oddly, pg 42 still in 2017 uses that fun adjective: "Most conventional and energy automatic weapons re­quire little time to reload."

Does RUE even have any "automatic" (ie can short burst) energy weapons left? That wouldn't even fit your view of the C-12 since it should be 1 trigger pull of any length essentially pulselike with worse damage and can't aim.

Find any definition for "set" that can be used in the phrase
"The rifle can be set to fire a single shot or a burst of five,"
where "set" means something to the effect of
"the shooter can choose to fire five rounds by either holding in the trigger just long enough for 5 rounds to fire, OR the shooter can fire the weapon 5 times in rapid succession."
If you can't, then drop this angle because it's flat-out not working.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/set has three:

"to direct with fixed attention"
"to cause to assume a specified condition"
"to fix or decide on as a time, limit, or regulation"

Whereas I think you have tunnel vision for these usages:

"to cause to assume a specified posture or position"
"to fix in a desired position"

Set does not have to refer to an actual spatial relationship, a yes/no toggle like a light switch.

It is not purely digital, it can refer to analog things, like I can set an analog clock's second hand at a non-discrete measurement just like lengths of time tend to be imperfect and non-discrete.

The result of non-discrete trigger holding results in discrete tiers of shots fired and shots landed, however.

One approximates that as one approximates the amount of pressure needed to flick a light switch.

That's something that you'd prefer to believe, but that has no supporting evidence.

The supporting evidence is the web page you sided includes other retcons which deviate from CB/GMG.

There was absolutely nothing in RMB/CB indicating plasma could not burst. That conclusion from CWC forward came from the ether, just as it did for particle beam rifles eventually too.

That the hammer came down on the 6D6x3/action before the 1D4x30/action is merely because of the CS-centric memory/complaint process. NG imbalance was an afterthought.

Pretty much any of them that inflicted 2d6 MD per shot, and could use the burst/spray rules.
A C-10 could fire a long burst for 6d6 MD, which is the same damage, for example.

The C-10 could fire a long burst for 2D6x3 which was similar (less averaged) to the 6D6 burst of the NG railgun, I'll give you that.

If you assume 'a rail gun' to mean the weakest railgun.

If you don't... then what about the 1D4/1D6/3D6 (all x10) used by the SAM/Samson/GB?

[Orin J.]

We are now at a point where nobody can actually assert their version of how it works is ACTULLY the right one because they've all got shoddy footing (but axel's is still the shoddyist) so people can only try to snipe each other and try to no-sell when their arguments fall apart.

i'm calling it, we're in "talk to your group and play with what your table wants on a case-by-case basis" lands here.

[Axelmania]

Went to look up previous discussions of this.

the Feb 2011 thread started by pharaoah brings up something not discussed here, which is claims by The Galactus Kid that he clarified it was 4D6 per single shot by talking to Kevin about it...

He quotes from TGK's reply to a Januay 2011 thread

Interestingly promotes the idea that neither of us has backed, that it's both 4D6 per shot AND still burst capable.

TGK seems to use your view of Palladium's swap-happy math using 12D6 instead of 4D6x3.

Plus if we do look at the modern weapon section as KC pointed out, it should really be just 4D6x2 on a 3-shot.

TGK didn't respond to the January thread about why CS would switch to CP-40's 6D6 burst though, whih is why I think Pharaoh made that followup.

KC there you mentioned hearing from KS in 2005 about 4D6 being burst. This is going back 15 years so I don't suppose there are records?

I'm guessing that would've been presented (just as TGK would have presented records of talking to KS if he had them) so probably in both cases you guys had non-recorded in-person conversations at a con or editing room which we can't review raw records of.

axel's is still the shoddyist

I have versionS so that should be "are the shoddiest"

Plus out of my 3 theories I would like to know how you rank them in terms of shoddiness.

[Killer Cyborg]

Went to look up previous discussions of this.

the Feb 2011 thread started by pharaoah brings up something not discussed here, which is claims by The Galactus Kid that he clarified it was 4D6 per single shot by talking to Kevin about it...

He quotes from TGK's reply to a Januay 2011 thread

I think that Kid Galactus is confused.
My second guess is that Kevin is confused, because he told me that the 4d6 setting is the burst setting.
These guesses are not mutually exclusive. Kevin could have told Kid Galactus one thing, and me the other.

I guess the only way resolve that would be to have a long, recorded conversation with Kevin where he clarifies things.

Interestingly promotes the idea that neither of us has backed, that it's both 4D6 per shot AND still burst capable.

I've pointed out that THAT possibility would mean that the CS replaced a 12d6MD-per-attack rifle with a 6d6MD-per-attack rifle because they wanted "increased firepower."
Which doesn't make a lick of sense.
Also, it leaves us wondering why the CV-212 got stuck with a 6d6 MD pulse in CWC, and it leaves us wondering whether the CV-213 dropped the burst mention because it lacks that feature for some reason, or if it's supposed to still be burst/pulse capable.
Sigh.

TGK seems to use your view of Palladium's swap-happy math using 12D6 instead of 4D6x3.

Because that's how Palladium does it. Sometimes they round up or down, but when they're coming up with the listed damage for a weapon, they only seem to list (dice)x10 or even 20... but not 2, 3, 4, etc.
Instead they tend to multiply the number of dice, not the damage.

Plus if we do look at the modern weapon section as KC pointed out, it should really be just 4D6x2 on a 3-shot.

Kid Galactus mentioned something in that thread about the C-12 being intended to be a pulse... but I'm not sure he was using the term "pulse" right.
A pulse of 5 shots of 4d6 MD would be 2d6x10 (or however you want to write it out), and a pulse of 3 shots would be 12d6

TGK didn't respond to the January thread about why CS would switch to CP-40's 6D6 burst though, whih is why I think Pharaoh made that followup.

KC there you mentioned hearing from KS in 2005 about 4D6 being burst. This is going back 15 years so I don't suppose there are records?

I didn't record the conversation, but I did post about it at the time.
Here's that thread:
https://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/ ... e7#p861910

I'm clear on what Kevin told me, but I do allow for some (very) small percentage chance that he misspoke or misunderstood the question somehow.

I'm guessing that would've been presented (just as TGK would have presented records of talking to KS if he had them) so probably in both cases you guys had non-recorded in-person conversations at a con or editing room which we can't review raw records of.

Yup.

[Axelmania]

One thought on firepower...

If say the C-12 did 4D6/single and 4D6x2 per short burst...

In terms of "why use the CP-40" because 6D6 is less than 4D6x2 (~8D6) one thing occurs to me...

With the new rule on pulses being able to do called shots (bursts can't) wouldn't the CP-40 be better firepower in terms of what you can call with?

6D6 which can target a helmet could be seen as better firepower than 8D6 which could not.

Also, while single/burst are equally dodgeable, do you recall if the "you can only parry single shots, you can't parry bursts" rule introduced in RCB is still active in some form in RUE?

I've largely been thinking "4D6 burst is inferior to 4D6 single shot" but if you were fighting a laser-parrier, taking the accuracy hit for bursting could be useful largely in that respect.

I would probably make an exception for sprays though. Sprays even though multiple shots often end up with merely 1 round hitting a target, in which case it seems fair to allow it to be parried as if a single shot.

In fact, maybe with parrying a burst, you should be allowed a partial parry, like you could roll the damage of 1 round and subtract it from the damage the burst rolled?

[Blue_Lion]

why would a calculation about called shots be the key to fire power statement made before they made it so that burst could not do called shot?
Quite simply a called shot requires 2 attacks so in terms of fire power it is allot lower. (fire power is amount of damage not where the damage is dealt.)

The C-40 is as written in the flavor text missing 2 damage settings (1 sdc and 1 MD) an that are in addition the pulse.

The CP-40 has four settings, two S .D.C. and two M.D. The rifle can also be set to fire a single shot or a pulse of three nearly simultaneous blasts.

The way it is written makes it appear the damage setting and pulse fire are separate things. (If the four settings and the pulse and single shot are the same thing then them pointing it out they way the did seams redundant.)

(It would say an official written statement would be the best way to resolve the stats, not a personal conversation.)

If the C-40 had 2 MDC single shot damage settings, it also had the ability to pulse both those like the flavor text says it does.

That means one must be 2d6 MD on the single shot with the pulse for it would be 6d6 MD. If the confusion is what the second damage setting it was suppose to also have if is also the second 6d6 MD setting single shot with a pulse setting that would be 18d6 MD pulse that could be the cause of the confusion as in editing the second damage stats where cut. (this would make the statement about increase fire power true but is just a guess.)

[Killer Cyborg]

One thought on firepower...

If say the C-12 did 4D6/single and 4D6x2 per short burst...

In terms of "why use the CP-40" because 6D6 is less than 4D6x2 (~8D6) one thing occurs to me...

With the new rule on pulses being able to do called shots (bursts can't) wouldn't the CP-40 be better firepower in terms of what you can call with?

6D6 which can target a helmet could be seen as better firepower than 8D6 which could not.

Eh.
Only maybe sometimes. And definitely not post RUE, where Called Shots take 2 attacks.
Called Shots only REALLY work when you can reliably hit and destroy the target in just a few attacks, ideally one single attack.
6d6 MD averages out to 21 MD per attack.
Skimming RGMG 192-193 to look at the Black Market, Bandito Arms, & Generic body armors,
The Bandito[b] has 30 MDC to the helmet, 38 to the Main Body, 18 per armo, and 24 per leg.
If you get a bit lucky with the damage roll, you MIGHT take out a leg, but it's best to err on the side of overkill, so you'd be best going for an arm. That way you'd destroy the limb in a single hit unless you rolled lower than average damage. People can generally still fight without an armor a leg, if they have a ranged attack that can be used 1-handed (or 0-handed).
If you go for the helmet, it'd take you 2 shots on average to get the kill (maybe 3, with the GI-Joe Rule), but you could just blast through the Main Body with those same two attacks, and kill the target that way. Except that you're more likely to miss at least once with the Called Shots because they require 12 or higher to hit (original rules).
Helmets tend to have so much MDC, that there's usually no real advantage in aiming for the helmet. Especially since if you MISS the Called Shot, you damage the torso, which generally counts as a miss for practical purposes in this case.

[b]Branaghan armor has a larger gap between the helmet (40 MDC) and the Main Body (103 MDC), but in RUE rules it's still impractical to go for the head because it'd take you 4 attacks to make the 2 Called Shots to the head, and you could hit the Main Body for 84 MD in that same time. If you miss with a single Called Shot, then you'll probably break even with the guy shooting strictly at the Main Body with a CP-40, and a guy with a C-12 doing 8d6 MD (28 MD average) will kill the torso in 4 attacks on average (112 MD).
With the original Called Shot rules, you need a 12 to hit, which means you're effectively choosing to fire at -8 to strike, which often makes a difference when rolling a d20.
So I think that going for the head here would be marginal at best... and Branaghan is likely to have the highest head-to-torso difference, due to the armored overcoat.
Bushman has 50 to the helmet, 60 to the main body, and this kind of ratio is pretty common. Again, no point in going for head shots under most circumstances.
A C-12 firing for 28 MD per average attack will kill the main main body in three attacks (or TWO attacks that are only slightly better than average).
A CP-40 firing for 21 MD per average attack will kill the head in three attacks (TWO if the attacks are better than average).
No real difference.

You can crunch the numbers more if you like, but I'm getting tired, and I'm pretty certain that further results would get us the same information: on average, there's no significant advantage in trading a 8d6 MD burst for a 6d6 pulse when it comes to Called Shots.
It'd only make sense to retool the entire army's basic infantry weapon of choice that way IF the CS was anticipating a large and/or extended engagement against an enemy that used armor that was particularly vulnerable to Called Shots within that firepower range.
Like if there was a huge army of people wearing Plastic Man (which only has 15 MDC per arm) or something.
And even still, if something like THAT was intended, it would have made sense for Palladium to mention that kind of thing in their weapon description.

Also, while single/burst are equally dodgeable, do you recall if the "you can only parry single shots, you can't parry bursts" rule introduced in RCB is still active in some form in RUE?

I've largely been thinking "4D6 burst is inferior to 4D6 single shot" but if you were fighting a laser-parrier, taking the accuracy hit for bursting could be useful largely in that respect.

I would probably make an exception for sprays though. Sprays even though multiple shots often end up with merely 1 round hitting a target, in which case it seems fair to allow it to be parried as if a single shot.

In fact, maybe with parrying a burst, you should be allowed a partial parry, like you could roll the damage of 1 round and subtract it from the damage the burst rolled?

I'm not sure if the CB1 Parry rules are still official or not.
But IF we extrapolated from them a bit, I could see sense in a houserule allowing a parry against a pulse to take off 1-2 shots worth of damage.

[Mack]

My version of the venerable C-12:
-- Has three power settings: 6D6 SDC, 2D6 MD, & 4D6 MD
-- Has two 'volume' settings: single shot and 5 round burst (x2 damage)
-- Cannot fire long bursts, etc.

While the new CP-40's pulse for 6D6 is a slight step down in straight damage compared to the C-12's 4D6x2 burst, it's a big improvement in efficiency. It get's 7 pulses from a short clip, where the old C-12 would only get 4 bursts. Or to put it another way, that's a 30% damage increase per short clip. Plus there's the accuracy advantage of using a pulse instead of a burst.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Killer Cyborg]

My version of the venerable C-12:
-- Has three power settings: 6D6 SDC, 2D6 MD, & 4D6 MD
-- Has two 'volume' settings: single shot and 5 round burst (x2 damage)
-- Cannot fire long bursts, etc.

While the new CP-40's pulse for 6D6 is a slight step down in straight damage compared to the C-12's 4D6x2 burst, it's a big improvement in efficiency. It get's 7 pulses from a short clip, where the old C-12 would only get 4 bursts. Or to put it another way, that's a 30% damage increase per short clip. Plus there's the accuracy advantage of using a pulse instead of a burst.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Axelmania]

On a diff note... did anyone here tend to forget the "Close Proximity Strike Bonuses" from RMB40? Outside "normal hand to hand combat among humans" it seems like +1 to hit anyone within 500ft, as long as you're using PA or a bot...

I'm a little unclear if it applies to non-HTH combat (like guns) since I'm not sure how to red "using weaponry or hand to hand combat with Robots and Power Armor".

Like does that mean ANY weaponry (regardles of w/ bots/PA) or only weaponry w/ bots+PA?

I know it's in the 'High-Tech War Machines' section but that includes the Called Shots rule and I don't think we've ever limited that to war machines... monsters had called shots, psi could do called shots...

why would a calculation about called shots be the key to fire power statement made before they made it so that burst could not do called shot?

*checks RMB 40* huh there isn't anything about needing it to be aimed or prohibiting bursts (I think I misremembered) so "called shot is an aimed shot" on RCB12 seems to be the first reference to that...

So I guess you could even do called shots w/ burt shots / wild shots in RMB?

While the new CP-40's pulse for 6D6 is a slight step down in straight damage compared to the C-12's 4D6x2 burst, it's a big improvement in efficiency. It get's 7 pulses from a short clip, where the old C-12 would only get 4 bursts. Or to put it another way, that's a 30% damage increase per short clip. Plus there's the accuracy advantage of using a pulse instead of a burst.

I guess there is still a place for the C-27 since single shots are still slightly better aiming than pulse shots, and because no 1/2 dmg to glitter boys, and because double damage to fire-vulnerables, and because better range than C-29.

[Blue_Lion]

My version of the venerable C-12:
-- Has three power settings: 6D6 SDC, 2D6 MD, & 4D6 MD
-- Has two 'volume' settings: single shot and 5 round burst (x2 damage)
-- Cannot fire long bursts, etc.

While the new CP-40's pulse for 6D6 is a slight step down in straight damage compared to the C-12's 4D6x2 burst, it's a big improvement in efficiency. It get's 7 pulses from a short clip, where the old C-12 would only get 4 bursts. Or to put it another way, that's a 30% damage increase per short clip. Plus there's the accuracy advantage of using a pulse instead of a burst.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I would think it would be a 3 round burst. That more accurately represents weapons with limited burst. Military assault weapons with a burst setting like the old M16a2 had 3 round burst.
Double damage seams appropriate for a 3 round burst from such weapons.

[Orin J.]

My version of the venerable C-12:
-- Has three power settings: 6D6 SDC, 2D6 MD, & 4D6 MD
-- Has two 'volume' settings: single shot and 5 round burst (x2 damage)
-- Cannot fire long bursts, etc.

While the new CP-40's pulse for 6D6 is a slight step down in straight damage compared to the C-12's 4D6x2 burst, it's a big improvement in efficiency. It get's 7 pulses from a short clip, where the old C-12 would only get 4 bursts. Or to put it another way, that's a 30% damage increase per short clip. Plus there's the accuracy advantage of using a pulse instead of a burst.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I would think it would be a 3 round burst. That more accurately represents weapons with limited burst. Military assault weapons with a burst setting like the old M16a2 had 3 round burst.
Double damage seams appropriate for a 3 round burst from such weapons.

yeah, but it states 5-round burst in the rulebook so...

[Mack]

My version of the venerable C-12:
-- Has three power settings: 6D6 SDC, 2D6 MD, & 4D6 MD
-- Has two 'volume' settings: single shot and 5 round burst (x2 damage)
-- Cannot fire long bursts, etc.

While the new CP-40's pulse for 6D6 is a slight step down in straight damage compared to the C-12's 4D6x2 burst, it's a big improvement in efficiency. It get's 7 pulses from a short clip, where the old C-12 would only get 4 bursts. Or to put it another way, that's a 30% damage increase per short clip. Plus there's the accuracy advantage of using a pulse instead of a burst.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I would think it would be a 3 round burst. That more accurately represents weapons with limited burst. Military assault weapons with a burst setting like the old M16a2 had 3 round burst.
Double damage seams appropriate for a 3 round burst from such weapons.

My version is based on how we read the original description in RMB back in 1992 (or so). It expressly says a 5-round burst.
(Note - sticking with a 5-round burst also avoids the issued of the burst being a percentage of the weapon's payload. With the C-12, the 'payload' could be 20, 30, 50, or 60 MD blasts. Or up to 360 SDC blasts. The text said a 5-round burst, so we kept it simple.)

Having said that, I'm not going to say that anyone else's version is right or wrong. There's been too much ambiguity and changes over the years for that.