Guns and Stuff

Created Saturday 19 January 2019

Offspring Rifle

All of this wonder-tech aside, I'm among those who really don't see a post-slug-thrower world. (And I for one appreciate Traveller calling them that: It was totally their style of game.) And close combat is still dominated by them here. So, this is the best I can see in such a weapon system.
Secrecy/cover, low recoil, accuracy, rate of fire, reliability, penetration coupled with more damage inside (like bullets tapered in the back to take a wondering path through the body).
Offspring comes from a misunderstood joke from the Boondocks kickball episode, but I am thinking an increase to smaller calibres with denser, specialized rounds. Sure, some spray guns (it was machineguns that won the Great War and cleared the American plains of bison and people), but still a lot of close combat is still pretty distant. More sniper like: A slow main gun and a sprayer side arm. But low recoil and accuracy allow the firer to stay on target and keep killing from quite a range.
Still figuring out the most important thing: firing from a secure position. Well, for the gun at least that means no flash, bang, and smoke. So, that's the "offspring": the part of this addition to the story that I know needs to be done, but that I've only thought enough about to think about it when Ihear a kinda neat name for something. It just sounds like it could be a real thing.

C60 γ-gun

Commonly known by the most common version made by The Flloyd Foundry, the Flloyd Death Ray.
The standard handheld energy weapon system of most human infantry units (e.g., cobalts).

Uses ⁶⁰Co as the core.
- Ships with dirty drives can end up having a good bit of ⁶⁰Co as a by-product of their reactors. So, γ-guns are a relatively easily gun to have ammo for out there.
  - Dirty drives are fusion reactors. Even though fission is great (and keeping it cold is one of the few things easier in space), many long-haul craft also (or only) have fusion reactors. They're most durable and easier to maintain. And a lot chaper to make. So, despite the bulk oif the fuel, they common among ships that need to rely on their own power for years at a time---like those sent jumpless to new systems to establish jump points on local resources. But even a lot of luxury interstellar craft have them since they were more common on older ships and still are cheaper to make. (Fusion reactors havne't been produced on a industrial scale yet. It's ironic since they largely drive industiry, but they themselves are made one at a time, fine-tuned to their own particular standards despite efforts to standardize them.)
Rather compact, carbine style weapon with a small, facetted face for a bit more precision.
Changes frequencies between rounds (well, cycles through a few) to delay the bloom for a few rounds from / to a given position.
- But can be quickly toggled to fire from all facets inhe same frequency to create a bloom shield
- Although this, obviously, uses a lot more ammo than single shots
And, yeah, it's primarily an atmospheric viewshed weapon
- Intended for fast-moving forces that can jink around a bloom to fire fresh shots and hide behind their own bloom shield (and the growing bloom of any sustained ingas energy exchange

AMM Rockets

They're small---about .22 size---and highly magnetic. They are typically shot out of a rail gun that leverages their small mass and magnetism to accelerate them greatly given their traditional physcial properties.
They're also semi-guided in that they're essentially hollow point but with a small piece of exotic material rolling around that forward cup. This bead is not itself massive but is especially sensitive to (affected by) gravity waves within a rather narrow range. The attraction to other massive bodies follows an ogive getting nearly assymptotically attracted other massive bodies (and yeah, so stays put in the cup pretty well; and the cup needs to have a very hard and low-friction surface). As the AMM rocket approaches any other massive body (in the bleak of space this is usually the target) it pulls the AMM rocket toward that target. This is a dumb system that can be foiled by chaff and isn't that big an influence on something travelling that fast, but can help compensate a bit for the need to be really accurate over the distances.
The bead tries to attach to the slug, but the reaction of them touching causes a hug impulse pushing them forward and keeping them from getting closer in touch. Thus AMM rockets are partially self-navigating while that matter bead lasts; after that it's aim and magnetism.

Plus AMM rockets tend to be fired in quick succession (like a gatling gun), so the earlier rounds pull the later ones along a bit. And, yeah, at every long intervals they tend to clump up into a ball that gets erractic and volatile.

They are, afterall, antimatter-matter slugs. A highly magnetic ball of matter with a somewhat smaller ball of antimatter that their rear. The magnetism pulls them together, but the constant antimatter-matter reaction creates a constant explosion that propels the rocket forward with ever-increasing accelaration as it gets smaller (less massive and thius even fast accelaration) until finally it's a reeeallly fast slug of really hot matter (all the antimatter annihilated) that will slam into and splatter through its target. Or, at closer ranges, slam a nice chunk of antimatter into the target to shatter and annihilate all at once.

AMM Rocket Bays

Having slugs of highly-magnetic, raw anitmatter rattling around in your ship isn't a long-term solution. Anyway, the key to there being antimatter slugs in the first place are factories that can produce it. So it nearly has to be that AMM rocket bays are in fact antimatter factories. Yeah, they'd have to be highly-magnetized factories (at least while there're AMM rockets inside), but also hopefully fast-producing for the "line" of AMM rockets that can help each other hit their target.

Heat Darts

Especially common with Hagge forces (or any forces stationed on Venusian planets), these are dart-shaped slugs with rudiementary guidance systems that use heat vent dech to propel them forward. Their effectiveness and accuracy thus vary with the conditions of the planet they're being used on, but the heat vent dech itself is durable stuff, so these darts can fly great ditances, even circling the planet many, many times before they eventually wear out. Heat vent dech is also quite strong, so they have good armor piercing ability. They are also nearly incidentally produced by Hagges as they work to produce the heat vent coverings for the buildings, suits, and robotic fauna to protect and support the Hagge.
Their guidance systems are similar to those of AMM rockets: on-board AI manipulated the vented heat to alter their course; unlike AMM rockets, though, they also have fins that the AI can use to furhter guide their course . . .

and to stay airborn for months. If enemy forces are imminently atmospheric (or whatever nearly-clever phrase I can think of---or did and forget---for this), then Hagge forces can preemptlvely launch swarms of heat darts. Sure, they're easy to track even days away, but fly fast enough that they're hard to avoid. And multiple swarms can be coordinated to flank forces or at least ensure that any attempts at besieging a Hagge have to protect their flanks pretty darned well.

Dirsupter Fields

MULEs are pretty low tech. And cheap (well, underfunded). Being modified mining craft, one of their main weapons is a disrupter field. A shortish-range (a couple thousand miles---or, well, ~~whatever is a reasonable range to hit a good number of asteroids in a typical belt~~) electromagnetic field that induces resonnant vibrations in materials that cuases them to rather quickly atomize. They were originally designed to break up asteroids and the like for othe craft to process and refine on site, but they work pretty well for combat. They are often---but not always---modified to give them better aiming and longer durations. But, yeah, they're essentially Umga weapons and require similarly good piloting to use effectively.
Nonetheless, when used well (and piloted well), they are among the human's best defenses against Blinker Blasters. And it's agianst them in the Battle of the Hagge Hammers that MULEs first gain prestige and aceptance as a fighting force to rechon with and acknowledge.

Yeah, so deal more with space being really big.
And yeah, so the disruptors having a "puny" range of a few thousand miles. Itself nearly uselessly short for an asteroid field. Seems average distance of anything of useful size is about 8 AU.

So maybe not a disruptor at all. What good would it be to break up something into dust so far away you can reasonably get there in time to collect it before it dissapates or re-aggregates? Well, re-aggregating may be the best, since you're essentially dhewing it up into a bollus before a Baleine comes to eat it.

Gotta think about that. Maybe if they move fast enough, have a disruptor field all around them? Chewing the asteroids---after nudging their course---getting them ready and on path for a Baleine to intercept? Disruptor pulses? Not very useful for traveling in packs, though. No much for looking like one ship on directional sensors as the othes all fly expertly right behind the leader.