Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

A gun that fires sword blades.

Or perhaps a sword made of gun.

Edited by MaxwellDaring on Feb 18th 2019 at 5:23:58 AM

Look, a gun that fires sword blades would be measured in excalibers.

I just ran into an old Pyramid (Steve Jackson Games' now-defunct GURPS magazine) article talking about ways to limit the impact of superscience on a superhero setting (which I've always thought is a missed opportunity but whatever), and the one that caught my eye was to allow technology to advance, but have the applications relate to common superhero tropes. The example given was how the usual "cities recover in mere days from some devastating event" deal is justified with advances in building materials, infrastructure and medical science. Now I'm wonderign what other superhero tropes could be justified through prime-universe Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome . I'm sure whatever advances in medical science that makes physical recovery from physical trauma much faster and more complete can also augment human lifespans and youthfulness, thus providing us with Comic-Book Time .

My girlfriend and I are working on our own superhero story and a lot of mad science inventions are often adopted on smaller scales for safety reasons but the result is a world more advance than ours, with people going on a Mars Mission in the mid 80s and androids existing as full on people.

I could say something about brassiere technology, but I wont.

Like I said, not giving yourself a true alternate timeline, advanced tech and all, is most certainly a wasted opportunity. Although for those that do go that route, I've noticed a trend of more advanced space programs. Of course, who wouldn't want a more advanced space program? Other than the people who run our nations, I guess. Anyway, I'm more thinking about technology that justifies the odd genre conventions of superhero fiction.

On that note, I imagine that with most government budgets going into reconstruction measures and defenses against kaiju attacks, alien invasions and mad demigod incursions, the budgets for improving facial recognition software has fallen to the wayside.

Kaiju attacks are also a thing in the setting, due to how most people get superpowers, the phleblotinum of the setting, it tends to produce Kaijus and such around Japan, they've developed various means of dealing with this and for the most part see it as normal at this point.

Extra points cause the phleblotinum is actively radioactive as well.

As a general rule you can take whatever the Mad Scientist's specialty and scale it down to hand cannon size for a sidearm.

Now here's a fun question, let's say you have a setting with mecha, spider or bipedal, doesn't matter. What weapons would you outfit them with? Autocannons, beam rifles, sabers, axes, what?

Depends heavily on what kind of setting I'm going for. My main setting is hard-ish, or a type-3 if we're going with Mo's Scale. Thus, mechs need to be armed with weapons that could realistically exist (even if the mechs wouldn't) and also be equipped for definite roles in the Standard Sci-Fi Army . for example, the Walkers from my Occupied Space project were originally built primarily to provide ECM and point defense screens over vulnerable targets. However, as material science improved and fusion reactors got more powerful with the introduction of antimatter catalyzation, they increasingly took on roles as long-range weapon platforms able to lay down fire against far away land targets (ironic, since walkers were once greatly inspired by Battletech) while clearing the skies of hostile missiles, drones, or manned aircraft. Weapons consist primarily of gauss or magpulse (gauss plus caseless electro-thermal propellent) autocannons or howitzers, high-energy lasers and-or particle cannons, and the trusty missile rack. Melee weapons are out of the bloody question. As of late, it's unfortunately become more economical to use a distributed network of dedicated sensor, ECM, point defense and long-range weapon platforms. While walkers still have a specialized place in most armies, their prominence has faded over time.

See? A good operating history can make a rather compelling piece of military hardware. Personally, specific armaments and peak capabilities don't interest me as much as the history and quirks of a weapon. Does a certain mass-produced mech have an unfortunate habit of overheating that while good for heating up MR Es or staying warm on iceball deployments proves to be hell elsewhere? Perhaps a mech made by another company was the product of industrial espionage against another, and the legal battles have escalated to the companies deploying these mechs against each other's assets. Maybe there are some nice nooks in the cockpit for smuggling booze. More importantly, where do mechs fit in within a given timeline? Are they new and untested tehcnology sending ripples through militaries around the world/system/cluster? Are they a mature and proven war machine with staying power to spare, or have they gone the way of the half-track?

Typically I use beam rifles, missile racks (shoulder/back mounted) and on occasion a Wave-Motion Gun type heavy weapon.

Also, various types of Laser Blade as emergency.

I would prefer to go closer to the Battle Tech/Mech Warrior route. Unit weapons are somewhat modular but built into the frame. Frames are varied specialists with varying degrees of firepower to suit certain roles.

Mecha weapons: Here's my take on it. I make suggestions for anti mecha, anti infantry, anti tank, anti aircraft, and artillery.

Kinetic weapons and missiles are your best bet to go too once you reach vehicular sized scales and ranges.... You can't bounce a laser over the horizon, or arc it past cover this alone limits you to a 20km range maximum on a ground vehicle.

Given how important range is, how it increases constantly, and the tech involved... this just kind of flat out cripples lasers for any kind of serious use.

Buuut if your going with Mecha, your probaly more about the cool any way, and lasers do have that going for them.

I know of many places in Colorado where line of sight is upwards of 200 km or more. Unimpeded. Yes in most of them you'd be firing from on the side or top of a mountain but it's doable.

The horizon is a lot farther away than 20 km.

In unrelated news, one of the reasons why mecha writers avoid kinetics (and possibly why real-world mecha would do the same) is ammo stowage. You wouldn't have much room (or much armor) with which to carry a lot. Meaning either your kinetic weapon has very few shots or is too small of caliber to be used against all targets. Sure you could make a maximum 5 meter tall humanoid mecha with a rifle firing 25mm Bushmaster in real life and have it be effective against many targets but it'd be damn difficult to make it have a lot of ammo. Especially if you ever needed or wanted to employ suppressive fire or Anti-Air type fire.

Say you make an Exo Squad type humanoid mecha, barely much bigger than its pilot. A weapon chambered for 25mm Bushmaster at that size would maybe carry a single 200 round can attached to the weapon or as an Ammunition Backpack. It'd be reliant upon even smaller calibers to achieve sufficient ammo as well as needing to be equipped with (relatively few by comparison) missiles for anything tougher than a Humvee.

Either that or head for the realm of energy weapons.

Edited by MajorTom on Feb 22nd 2019 at 6:27:00 AM

I was going to say... the horizon distance from any point on Earth is about 5 km for a perfectly flat landscape. That is literally the farthest you could possibly shoot in a straight line. Increasing elevation helps that, of course.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:37:24 AM

Given current technology, a power pack for a laser that equaled the energy output of a gun would be larger and heavier than the magazine for that gun. But it's mecha, so who cares?

Most of the artillery range limitations are from the general limitations of the 155mm family of guns. Differing guns systems have variance in range. The majority of 155mm field guns have a rough 20km range limit +/- 5km on average with a generic shell. The M777 and some of the newer ones are about 25km or longer with base bleed. A concept model with a long barrel modification would push it to 70km of generic shells. The M 777 firing the Excalibur guided shell hit 40+km with a first shot hit levels of accuracy at that range. Another factor is the targeting system behind the artillery piece which can add degrees of accuracy and extending the effective range of the piece. Other changes to ammo and propellant can give even small guns impressive ranges. Saboted shots from pieces designed by Gerald Bull for Project HARP could pass the K-Line when fired vertically. The 5" or 127mm guns tested could lob a projectile vertically to 71km. Its theoretical horizontal firing range would be rather impressive. The bigger 16" firing piece hit a max altitude vertical shots of about 135km.

It boils down to a combination of the individual artillery pieces, targeting and tracking systems, and what sort of ammo it is firing.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:49:07 AM

I’ve been thinking about a space navy that in order to shave a lot of €€€ off their budget developed what I’m going to call a “parasite carrier” where smaller scale ships (comparing for example 4/6 frigate sized craft) cling to the exterior or interior surface of their parent ship for transport into and out of combat. The two net bonuses would be a craft who does not need an ftl system (in the universe I’m working on, ftl has several restrictions such as the ships must be a certain size either horizontally or vertically so the paired ftl generators don’t interfere with each other) and a combat craft with a really good thrust to mass ratio without having to deal with the bulk of a ftl system, could anyone give me their thoughts ?

Thank you

I've seen something similar to that used in various sci-fi settings. In Dune, most ships were strictly sublight, but massive carriers would carry entire fleets inside of them for FTL voyages (this was due to limitations in navigation, being dependent on specially trained navigators who basically lived in a suspension of the Melange spice which granted limited prescient abilities, allowing them to see a clear path to their destination without telefragging something).

This also had the side effect of putting a damper on interstellar conflict, as you couldn't really invade a star system without getting the Spacers Guild to sign onto the plot, which was presumably expensive to do. The entire plot of the first book kicks off when the Emperor, the Spacers Guild, and the Bene Gesserit (space nuns running a Long Game conspiracy plot) all agree that House Atreides is getting too popular/dangerous, and back House Harkonnen in a plot to take out House Atreides.

Another setting I've seen the practice done is my favorite Kilo Wick go-to, Honor Harrington, with Light Attack Craft, more or less a spacefaring equivalent to Torpedo Boats, being piggy-backed through hyperspace by larger warships, at first as a one-off trick to augment a very limited hyper-capable fleet during an invasion, and later as a primary tactic with the development of dreadnnought-sized warships designed primarily to haul dozens of LACs into combat. While it's easy to think of them as an equivalent to fighter planes, the narration does occasionally remind the reader that these things are about the size of a 20th century Destroyer, with a crew size equivalent to something like a mid-20th century heavy bomber. In later books it is very rare to see less than a hundred of them figure into a battle.

I had forgotten completely about Dune and the guild liners :/ damn and it’s one of my favorite books series too.

My main issue (the universe is being developed as miniatures space war game in the 1:10,000 scale ) is the limits of the craft. From the scale, theoretically I could produce battleship sized battleriders carried into battle by what amounts to a giant box with clamps for them to dock to and an ftl system system. I’m trying to balance world building and player experience and not having the funnest of time right now.

As to Harrington I’ve never read the books but it does strike me as a series that’s very meticulous in its world building and tactics in universe. For example, in my/the games fictions. Standard sci fi carriers do not exist with drone carriers (the pilots sit in a VR command seat and direct squads of drone fighters/carriers from safety or not of their ship) as I do not believe manned snub fighters/bombers have a place in space combat.

That's a perfectly viable justification, IMO. Every spacecraft will not have an identical type of drive- why should they? If certain craft are specialized for FTL, then it makes sense for those to carry others across interstellar distances. If you like variety, there is no real need for the FTL craft to resemble or operate like a wet navy aircraft carrier (that is to say, by carrying the "fighters" inside itself). For color, use it like a spacebarge, instead, pushing or pulling a train of other craft (some larger, some smaller than itself) through hyperspace.

Oh, another example is Mech Warrior, which does a twofor in that the Mechs have to rely on dropships to get from ground to space and back, and the dropships hitch rides on jumpships to travel between star systems.

Babylon 5, for a variation, didn't typically use motherships, but since they transited to and from Hyperspace via portals called Jump Points, it was common practice for larger ships to open up jump points and allow smaller ships to travel through them, having much the same effect as long as they were traveling the same way. You knew someone was ready to kick some teeth in if a bunch of fighters spilled out of a jump point before the warship (usually their carrier).

I like the idea, especially for a gameplay mechanic. The motherships would need to be protected if you wanted to be able to exit an area, but would also lend smaller forces a degree of flexibility that larger forces might not necessarily have if they don't have enough motherships for their whole fleet to chase after you with. The mothership could be relatively helpless, or be big and well-armed, but still in that definite category of "too valuable to risk losing" for many folks.

With Fighters and Bombers being drone operated they do require a parent ship to carry into battle, the reason every ship is not also a carrier is the extensive array of communications equipment that such a setup demands. This space could more then easily be dedicated to more weapons systems, shield generators or point defense blisters.

As to a B5 jump point I think it would be fair to explain Rift Space or Rspace as it’s known in setting:

Rspace is likened to a series of long, gravity compressed corridors that exist between major gravitational objects such as stars, gas giants and black homes. These corridors can even exist between planets in a star system although these so called “Rift windows “ are unstable and may disappear periodically. Further, Rift corridors can subdivided into two types : the larger “Star Roads” older and most stable trade routes around the galaxy , the control of these Is key for any military force. The latter are the shorter but more flexible “Star Lanes”, which act more like branching tree paths.

Entering and existing Rspace is the same process: for example, to enter R Space, most civilian drives must clear at least beyond the top most orbit from the nearest gravity well. The drive is then fed a massive electrical charge which polarizes the ships hull. Finally with the ship now being to translat toward Rspace the ship must be aligned with the target corridor and the drive activates, a blinding flash, and the ship is now traveling in Rift space. To exit the process is the same but reversed, allowing a ship to slow from super luminal speeds and arrive safely without striking a planet or other ship, a series of powerful bouys are used to scan the ships exit area and place it in space away from anything that has enough mass to be seen as danger.