Heavy + Auto weapons

[doctorhook]

In my copy of NEW (v1.1), several weapons listed in the equipment section have both the Heavy and Auto properties, including the heavy polaron gatling gun, the portable pulse cannon, and the railgun. (All of those weapons are also listed as size Large, which seems implicitly related to the Heavy property.)

The Heavy property means that a weapon "can only be fired once per round, and requires two actions to reload". That seems pretty logical for something like a rocket launcher, but less so for an automatic weapon like a gatling gun. An automatic weapon is especially useful for suppressive fire, but only firing once (or every just for one round) seems pretty limiting on such a weapon.

I'm just confused about how these properties should interact. If my Ogron marine wants to carry a gatling gun, can he not shoot more than one target? Obviously he can use suppressive fire, but since NEW doesn't encourage tracking ammo (nor do I want to), when should he be forced to stop and reload? Am I missing something here?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Morrus]

The once per round essentially abstracts reloading (archaic firearms often have that issue, too). It means you don't have to track ammo and reloading - if you're not tracking ammo, and I don't do that either as it's not my idea of fun, you don't need to worry about the reloading thing. That's there for the folks who really want to micromanage! So we just say it averages out to once per round.

The auto property is mainly designed for suppressive fire, although it's a keyword which can be used to access certain exploits and such. Those will appear, likely in EONS, at some point. Many keywords are there as the roots of exploits.

 

[doctorhook]

Ah, gotcha, and thank you! That's quite helpful.

Keep up the great work, Morrus! This system is a hidden gem, but I'm converting people whenever I can.

 

[Morrus]

This system is a hidden gem

I do try not to hide it!