How should ranged combat in Rifts/Chaos Earth work?

[tgunner91]

Okay, this is a pretty basic question, but I seem to be having problems wrapping my head around it.

On page 339 of RUE you get the basic breakdown of a melee round, which is fine if everyone is running around with fists and melee weapons looking to beat the stew out of each other. Opponents square off, roll for initiative, and the the high roll in each "paring" gets the first blow, then the foe gets to parry/dodge, then the attacker gets to roll for damage, and then the melee goes to the other guy who gets to strike back. The whole thing goes back and forth until someone goes down or bails out. Easy enough and rather fun if you have some men-at-arms bashing goblins in Fantasy. Oh, and I think that folks with *long-range* attacks get the initiative and get to shoot first.

However to me this whole thing goes to pot when I have a squad of NEMA peacekeepers run into a group of bandits hiding in a building and a firefight breaks out. By the rules as written (raw) the *long-range* attacks would go off first, so the hiding bandits get their shots off first. Then what after that? From what the rules say I would assume that I have to break them down into *melee* type pairings, roll for initiative, and then the high roll in that pairing shoots and goes through the attack routine, and then the low roller in that pairing shoots back, and so on? Is that what the rules intend?

Honestly I've been doing things like this- roll for initiative for everyone (granted that is a real bother for the GM to roll initiative for 5 tangos...), then go in initiative order starting with the high roll and working my way down the list. Once everyone gets an action I go back to the top guy again and go through the process, again and again... until finally everyone has burned off all of their actions.

Am I on the right track here? Or am I missing something?

[xunk16]

Seems like the way to go, yes.
The Melee type pairing are only useful when the multiple parts of a fight would not be able to intermingle too much though, IMO.
If you risk having a player wanting to save his friend in the other initiative bunch over there, chaos will ensue fast enough.
In these case, the old "everyone from the top of the list" is still the less confusing.

Packs of enemies or Player (unit style) can also be useful in massive combat zones.

[tgunner91]

(snip)... The Melee type pairing are only useful when the multiple parts of a fight would not be able to intermingle too much though, IMO.
If you risk having a player wanting to save his friend in the other initiative bunch over there, chaos will ensue fast enough.
In these case, the old "everyone from the top of the list" is still the less confusing.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. The pairings seem to be fine in a melee where you have scattered fighting at close range. Then you can do what Kevin mentions in the rules about going to one pairing, fighting out a couple of melee attacks, and then moving on to another and playing that out a bit.

But in a mostly ranged firefight you've got guys moving around, taking cover, snapping off shots and either trying to hit someone or at least get them to duck back into cover so you can maneuver. It seems to me that a general roll for initiative and then hitting everyone in initiative order, one or two actions at a time, seems the way to go. Firefights are just more mobile with folks taking fleeting snapshots, mostly, at each other while maneuvering, so the "pairings" can easily change as more priority targets reveal themselves. A loose initiative order with people acting on their number seems to make more sense here. However I can see a hidden sniper still taking advantage of the Long Distance or Sneak Attack rules.

How do you other GMs run this sort of running and gunning type of combat?