Stephane

Let's math   Assuming 20 mm and 70 grams for the shells (bore is smaller, but the'yre rimmed and it makes math simpler), this turns to an impressive 420 mm and 1.47 kgs for just the rounds ! Add the spring below when loaded, the magazine itself... say 450 mm (roughly 1.5 feet !) and 2 kgs (4 lbs). Ouch !

Double-stacking will make the beast shorter, but roughly 40/50 mm (1.7" to 2") thick... not very handy.

I was thinking more along the lines of the "classical", urban-setting Cyberpunk. With the explanations you give later it can work, without them it seemed a little too big to swallow confortably   !

Well, this is the kind of vehicules that are mostly "off limits" in even marginally controlled areas, particularly the "Thunder Bunny" with it's permanently-mounted milspec weaponry - even with 2020 lax standards it's difficult to get an autorization for this kind of stuff !

It also has a look so specific that any eyewhitness could identify it in a whole  mallplex car park ! A real bonus for anybody (corporate / cop / edgerunner) searching who hosed this or that with 25 mm shells.

The book, yes. The movie i'll be much less affirmative, a guy with both legs removed above the knee and an artificial lower arm saying "The army made me the man I am" (something like this, i'm translating back from French) didn't sound really pro-military to me.

I've seen (or used as a player or a GM) several "no-kill" techniques :

- hand-to-hand with Black Zap or "taserized" melee weapons

- gas grenades, with proper protection - a tear + vomit combo can inflict massive penalties on opposion's skill, allowing their neutralization without excessive damage

- auto shotgun or large-bore (10mm +) SMGs with rubber loads

- flashbang grenades or shotgun shells - in an auto shtogun (yes, I know, it's not very reallistic as such loads are likely to malfunction because of low recoil, but I like to reward more subtle approaches)

- this nasty 40 mm grenade loaded with paintball pellets, this time with sleep/incapacitating drug loads

More generally, the idea was generally either stealth + contact to pick and neutralize lone targets, or "area saturation" tactics to quickly remove a pack of threats, followed by sleep patches (or duct tape, according to budget ) to keep them down as long as necessary.

Maybe add some kind of of radio tracker - makes collecting what's left easier.

More simply add a targeting laser parallel to the axis of the device - with the width of the "beam" you don't need pinpoint accuracy, and an external targeting system is easier to shield.

The trick here is that it's a peak power, not a global energy. for exemple 40GW during one nanosecond means as much energy as a 40W (!) light bulb during one second... Definitely not a lot   !

The peak power of a lightning strike may be less high, but it is longer, so involves a lot more energy.

AFAIK, with pellet or flechette loads, there is generally something behind the load to trap the gases behind and propell it, making the barrel rather gas-thight.

I think the extra recoil can be explicated more accurately by initial velocity : most shot loads are in the 350 to 400 m/s while slugs are closer to 450 m/s. 10% to 20% extra speed with similar (or even heavier) load weight means extra recoil.

As for the "full-brass" thing I thing it's to prevent a very serious possible jam that could happen after a burst : a plastic casing melted and glued into the hot chamber. And yes, a lot of the CAWS-intended "specialty rounds" hare hotter loads, meaning more initial velocity and pressure (and recoil if mass isn't decreased accordingly).

Would *you* in RL be confident enough to haul around a thing full of enough acid to eat your arm up to the elbow or enough chemical to take down an elephant (or both !), stored inside pellets frail enough to splat on a soft target ?

Besides, I see several weakness.

- drugs would have a hard time penetrating heavy or armored or simply rainproofed/Gore-Tex clothing. When I shoot at somebody, I hope he drops *now*, not after the two minutes needed for the drug to seep through his armor. And if he's gone 'borg, they're useless

- acid rounds : if a material acid-proof, long lived and cheap enough for paintballs exist, you may expect it to be used in clothing as a protection agins acid rain/pollution - negating the acid effect. Also acid damage is seriously overrated. An effective acid-firing weapon would be a super-soaker, not a paintball.

As a final note, should any of my characters be on foot and cross 50 inquisitors - even armed with paintball guns - they would simply avoid them, maybe dropping a smoke grenade for cover. With that many opponents the chances for a lucky hit are simply too high to take them unless it's an absolute necessity.

Just sent the $5 through payPal. What's the next step (once you got it) ?

Well, this may be true for Shadowrun's datajacks, but in CP the plugs are connected to the neural processor and not directly to the nervous system. Connecting the plugs to the processor is a (not so   ) simple wiring problem, so you can locate them anywhere on the body without restriction as to what class of device you can control through them.

As someone posted before (can't remember where), there is a small port at the bottom of the gun allowing to extract unfired rounds - you rotate the bolt to line the chamber with the port and then remove the round, but I don't know exatcly how this was done, jerking the gun ? some mechanical systemto push the bottom of the chamber ? extrator tool ?

A very silent weapon that can be done using 2020 technology is a low-velocity (subsonic) electromagnetic launcher (no high pressure/high speed gases to make noise !) with a motor-driven action, with the proper design and controling software you can precisely control the moving part's velocity to prevent mechanical impacts and the associated noise.

Sure, it's a highly specialised and expensive tool, with few shots available, heavy and large, but probably one of the quietest design possible.

Also, you can easily adjust the velocity of the projectile, for exemple going supersonic when power is more needed than discretion.

Locking the slide serves mostly to prevent the noise from the operating action of a (normally) self-loading weapon.

Caseless actions are probably a bit quieter than cased (no always-openend ejection port, no brass ringing inside the action), but still haves moving parts likely to make noise.

"sound-proofing" the action will reduce mechanical noises, but an important amount of the noise comes from the gases ecaping from the barrel, and switching to caseless won't help with that !

It may be a bit harder to identify the sound as a gunshot at close range, but I don't think it will significatively alter the overall noise reduction.

About the LeMat there is a black-powder replica currently made by one of the companies making this kind of stuff, but i forgot which one exactly, maybe Pietta or Pedersoli.

The names are given in the rule book, in the description of interface plugs : "plug head" - at temples, "frankenstein" - just behind the ears and "ppethead" in the back of the head

Well, it's hard to figure game stats because they say nothing about the way it works. This could be "simple" image enhancement, or something more complex.

I agree with the cost/HL, but suggest changing game effect to "negates up to 4 points of penalties to vision from bad weather".

You have an additionnal problem : with a color video camera  the input is separated in three color bands(you know, Red/Green/Blue) to get a color perception similar to the human eye - AFAIK this has been done with three captors and optical separation of the wawelength (expensive), with a single detector integrating three kind of receptors, with a maximum sensitivity centered on different wawelength (cheap but less sensitive), probably other solutions exists.

UV and IR are filtered/not used because they can drastically alter the color of images and make them look unnatural. If you want to "see" normally colors plus pick UV or IR when needed, you probably need at least 5 kinds of receptors (the usual red, green and blue, plus  UV-sensitive and IR-sensitive), possibly additonnal IR for thermograph. Integrating those extra detectors means either a larger detector or a finer make, you pack more stuff on the same area.

A purely numeric zoom also means increasing the density or size if you don't want hideously pixelated images beyond x3/x4.

All this mean a very fine and/or large chip, and this spells extremely expensive, wiht little hope of reducing the cost by increasing the amount manufactured.

There is one thing I find a bit excessive in your package : the amount of "base" functions integrated :

IR/thermo -> IR-spectrum receptors

UV -> UV-sensitive receptors

Low-Light -> high-sensitivity receptors and amplification systems - well, anti-dazzle could dampen "normal" lighting under saturation level allowing the use of Low-light receptors for "normal" vision but this sounds weird

Anti-dazzle -> wide band light dampening, necessarily included in the optics, because once the receptors are saturated processing the datas won't solve the problem

Teleoptics -> optical zoom integrated, this will take some room in the optic

Micro-optics -> is probably packed with teleoptics in a wide-range focus system of the eyes, but still it's larger than a "single" (tele- or micro- only) option

Total the equivalent of 5 to 7 cyberoptical options crammed into a single optic... This is a lot, the only thing you remove when compared to a "normal" cyberoptic is the conversion and interface from numeric images to optical nerves. I'd suggest allowing 4 or 5 functions selected among all those above.

Sorry, I was a bit confused by the expresssion "available options". I understood it as "options you can add to the standard package" where you meant "non-permanent modes included in the package"  

Just a comment about the above package : you can't pick alternate spectrum (UV, IR thermo) whithout having the proper receptors build into the optic itself, and why bother integrating such capacities (with the extra cost) if they're not used ? It's like building an AM/FM/LW radio and selling it with only the FM band selectable by the user.

Personnally I simply added and option : digital link - visual data from the optic (and whatever options in it - thermo, UV, low-light..) can be "exported" to any system needing it (recorder, computer... implanted or connected through interface plugs), and likewise the optic accept digital image feed, with overlapping/transparency options. Possible uses are pattern/item recognition and highlighting, "virtual tagging" of items in the field of view, and most kinds of "augmented reality" applications.

Considering the "official" technology in CP 2020, it's a bit early for extracting image feed from the visual cortex and allowing such "augmented reality" with natural eyes instead of cyberoptics or connected goggles, but it's a likely developpment of the concept, probably worked on in some labs.

Ok, sorry for the confusion. I was talking about my interpretation of CP 2020 Image enhancement, not RL system.

Personnally I interpret the description more as this :

starting with the numerical picture from the optic, the system adjust color balance,contrast and luminosity (for exemple spreading the pixels from white to black instead of light grey to dark grey) and possibly interpolating pixel to improve "readibility" for the human brain.

This helps discerning minute color differences, or in low-contrast situations like dawn, dusk and other poor ligthing. This will also dampen"white spots" (bright lights visually erasing the backgroung to black).

Displaying in color is not an obligation, you can perfectly translate temperature into levels of grey (black = cold, white = really hot) or even shades of green !

Considering the evolution or real-life night vision and thermal imaging equipment, I'd suggest the following :

1) "active IR" vision (IR light source + IR receveir picking it's reflection -> a spotlight but outside of visible spectrum), this kind of stuff is probably outdated and not likely to be made anymore in 2020.

2) "IR" means you "see" the overall luminosity over a relatively wide spectral range - like B&W television but in IR spectrum.

3) "thermograph" can actually discriminate IR wawelength and their respective intensity, opening the door to temperature reading and the like - color TV equivalent for thermal IR wawelength.