A bit of googling and ctrl+F in the armory and core rule book have failed me.
Can you fire a weapon that has less ammo left than its usage?
Does the answer depend on the type of ammunition used (rounds/charges/etc)?
For instance, you just fired every round from your heavy machine gun (usage 4), and popped in a partially used magazine from your x-gen gun (usage 2). Does the heavy machine gun still fire when there are only 2 rounds left in its 100 round magazine? Does it fire the last two rounds and have a penalty or no effect? Does it simply not fire the last two rounds?
But is this (that it cannot fire) written somewhere, or is it just a reasonable assumption?
Like this example off of page 168?
"ChargesThis ammunition powers energy or projectile weapons using charges stored in batteries. Since each energy weapon varies in intensity, stronger weapons use up more charges per shot. You can restore a weapon’s charges by attaching it to a generator or a recharging station (see Professional Services on page 234) and thereby recharging its battery, or by swapping out its battery for another fully charged battery. Recharging a weapon’s battery from a generator takes 1 minute per charge restored, and using a recharging station takes 1 round per charge, but swapping out a battery takes only a move action. Most batteries can hold 20 charges, but some high-capacity versions made of rare materials can hold more (see Table 7–9: Ammunition). A weapon’s battery cannot be recharged to hold more charges than its capacity. A weapon that holds a high-capacity battery still works when a lower-capacity battery is inserted into it, but if a battery has fewer charges remaining than the minimum number required to fire a shot, the weapon doesn’t fire. In addition to weapons, batteries can be used to power a wide array of items, including powered armor and technological items."
Cool. Scratch charges off my question list. Got one for rounds, petrol, etc?
No. I would say you shouldn't need them, since the concept of usage is clear enough, but I don't have quotes.
Thanks for taking the time to check, and thanks for finding the one about charges.
Just want to make sure I'm not needlessly house-ruling things that are already covered.
It makes sense for me that a charge-using device would fail to charge, but something like an analog projectile weapon should still fire even if there's less ammunition that the usage.
I imagine that heavy machine gun with usage 4 is shooting 4 bullets with each trigger pull, a flamethrower is sending out a certain amount of flaming death, etc.
If a player has one bullet left and wants to take a shot with a 2+ usage gun, I'll let him do it with some penalty since there are no rules or reason not to.
After reviewing the weapon tables. I would be ok with most of the projectile and petrol weapons being allowed to shoot at less than the required ammo.
You adjust damage down accordingly. Half the required ammo then half damage and half the critical effect(if applicable).
Heck if one of my players wants to fire a light dart cannon with 1 dart in it for 10% damage of 1d8 (i.e. 1 point)its fine with me.
Probably better off reloading, but strange tactics to come up from time to time.
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I think houseruling damage down should be fine, so long as the players haven't found a loophole that somehow takes advantage of it.
But that would be a houserule. It's not supported in any source I'm aware of.
A weapon’s capacity measures what size battery it uses or the number of cartridges it can hold, and its usage is how much ammunition it uses with each attack.