Making carbine rifles could be done with using the appropriate weapon name (points to caliber/ammunition, also keeps stuff canon-friendly). Carbines are effectively rifle -caliber weapons in shorter "chassis", so you get the power of a rifle in a SMG package. Double the cost in credits.
Carbines require two hands to operate due to their rifle caliber (higher recoil than automatic pistols/small caliber smgs) and the size of the stock, receiver, and barrel length.
Suggesting pistol ranges for these weapons, medium capacity (high capa clips could be x2 the cost and harder to obtain), and normal autofire rules (halving the range).
ex. Autotarget carbine, item lvl 2, cost 1500, 1d6 P, cap 10, range 30ft, analog, automatic.
That would be your "street-level" weapon that every thug can get off the black market. Like a homegrown AR-15 variant, that has been tooled with to make it fire at full-auto. Smaller caliber (9mm or so) fit into pistol capacity clips. You can double or triple the capacity on this thing just by adding length to the magazines. Should be relatively difficult (DC 15) gunsmithing roll/ blackmarket purchase. Not a game-balance killer, just something cool to add for starting level characters. Most of the time these street-level modified carbines will not feature attachment rails, because those things are milspec stuff, and thus not available to the general public.
The next level would be military stuff, where everything is optimized, from range down to the handling of the weapon.
ex. Combat carbine, item lvl 15, cost 33,000, 3d8 P, cap 24 (extended), range 60ft, analog, automatic, railed
Think of your modern military rifle-caliber carbines and this is the M4 of the Starfinder universe. I plan on giving this to all my police/military personnel in my games. Made of light metal and some version of polymer materials, they are light and sturdy, with attachment rails and usually a foldable stock.
Benefits of this weapon platform are increased capacity, added autofire capability, and concealment (regard the weapon as a small arm). If a carbine rifle is fitted with a collapsing stock, increase the difficulty for spotting the concealed weapon depending on the situation. Your standard career criminals will definitely want to get their hands on these.
Finally, halfway between a carbine assault weapon and a sniper rifle is the DMR (or Designated Marksman Rifle):
Take the Combat carbine, convert it into a heavier caliber, increase barrel length and weight, add a medium-range scope, remove autofire capability, add a bipod if you want and you have yourself a military DMR.
ex. Combat DMR, item lvl 15, cost 49,500, 3d10 P, cap 10, range 90ft, analog, railed, sniper (250ft).
This is the SR-25 of the Starfinder universe. Somewhere between a battle rifle and a full sniper rifle. This fits the niche for operatives, and would-be assassins, especially if mounted with a collapsing stock and removable scope attachment (for close quarters combat). Increased capacity for longevity in the fight.
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Its a thought, but I'm not sure it would be as useful as an actual SMG, which is something that doesn't really exist. After all, and SMG would logically fit the role of "Small Arm that is heavy and more restrictive, in exchange for damage closer to a Long Arm". The most obvious restriction being Unwieldy + Free Hands 2: an SMG-scale weapon is too heavy and awkward to make full attacks, *unless* you use both hands for it.
Regarding extra large magazines, the whole reload economy is generally something you can only mess with via feats and class abilities at this point. I’d want to take a long hard look at saying “You can just buy a double sized magazine” before adding that into the game. Also, its actually bad for automatic weapons, since you use all the remaining ammo whether you get to hit something with it or not.
Something like your ‘Combat Carbine’ has some issues. It would definitely fall into the longarms category in Starfinder, which is problematic since its worse than other longarms of a comparable level. If you felt you had to stuff it into the small arms category, well, its better than comparable small arms. So it’s either a choice nobody will ever make (if a longarm) or a choice everyone will make (if a small arm.) That’s not great balance.
I like the looks of your combat DMR, I tend to be a fan of that sort of rifle in video games. However, its strictly worse than the already existing level 14 sniper, the Saboteur Coil Rifle (except for price.) And while it’s pretty close, price wise, to the level 13 Elite Shirren Eye rifle and beats it on ammo capacity, the rest of the numerical stats are slightly to markedly worse. It not being unwieldy is either great or doesn’t matter, depending on the customer and character build. I’d call it a push in the best case scenario, while being slightly edged out by existing weapons for the most part.
I think you’re letting your ideas of how the weapons on earth look/perform/act get ahead of how these things translate into the game. I like your ideas, I think you just need to sit down and both balance your weapons based on Starfinder rules and reality, as well as make a conscious effort to place these weapons (in terms of damage, level, etc) so it’s an actual choice that makes sense.
Lastly, @Metaphysician: You mean Free Hands 1. Free Hands 2 implies the user is holding the weapon and has 2 more free hands to use.
Okay, actual SMGs today require 2 hands to use. They use lighter ammunition which allows for more in a magazine. They gain a little extra velocity over a handgun because of slightly longer barrels.
So, a Carbine could be a 1d6 longarm with auto capability. 20 or 40 capacity, 1 Bulk. If you equip it with a sling can be fired with 1 hand with a -2 attack, Range 40 feet. Cost roughly same as a regular Longarm rifle in whatever category it shares.
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A classic carbine is really just a rifle, but would have a shorter range because of the barrel length. I'm not sure what advantages you would want to give them. In real life they are a little easier to carry, easier to bring around in close quarters, easier to stow. Easier to one-hand if you just want to pray and spray.
An SMG starts on the semi-auto or auto carbine end, but ultimately converges with pistols in terms of ammo and range. They require two hands because they go full auto. In theory you could one-hand one, but it would be difficult, and the "machine pistol" concept went away and merged with the SMG for this reason. Basically like a heavy pistol, but you gain automatic fire in exchange for requiring two hands.
Honestly, given that most Long Arms don't have autofire, I'd be inclined to say they already are carbines, in terms of usage and design concept. At least, the ones that don't explicitly have long range increments. Note that, IRL, one of the reasons carbines are often popular over full length rifles is that in 90% of actual combat, the added range of a rifle is irrelevant.
I would make the Double-Barreled Jetlauncher. Tiers of it: Tactical, Advanced, Elite, Paragon. Levels: 3, 8, 14, 19. Damage= 1d12 B, 2d12 B, 4d12 B, 6d12 B. Type: Small Arm. Bulk: 1. Usage: 2. Capacity: 4. Costs: 1250, 8950, 119550, and 675750. Property: Analog. Range: 90 feet. Critical: Knockdown.
I included some ways to convert and customize weapons in this post, including adding stocks to small arms and converting them to automatic fire.
Outatime1985 wrote: I would make the Double-Barreled Jetlauncher. Tiers of it: Tactical, Advanced, Elite, Paragon. Levels: 3, 8, 14, 19. Damage= 1d12 B, 2d12 B, 4d12 B, 6d12 B. Type: Small Arm. Bulk: 1. Usage: 2. Capacity: 4. Costs: 1250, 8950, 119550, and 675750. Property: Analog. Range: 90 feet. Critical: Knockdown. And I would say that this gun would easily be the best small arm in the game, with around double the damage and around 50% more range than any other small arm in those level areas.
Which is another way of saying "You made a ridiculously broken item, and you should probably scale it down to be closer in line with other small arms, or give it some marked disadvantages to compensate for the huge discrepancy between it and existing weapons."
This was a raw post of mine that I tinkered around with for a week or two. This was during my time of planning to dump Starfinder races and some of the lore into a Shadowrun universe, and trying to make the weapons "modernized" which meant more slugthrowers and stylistical influences from Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun.
I wouldn't throw around double capacity magazines or other stuff lightly, unless I was planning to really work with the system (Action economy etc.) to make it fit into the genre elements I'm trying to work on.
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