History Main / KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter

* THE GUN IS GOOD! THE PENIS IS EVIL! SO SPEAKS {{ZARDOZ}}.

* In OGame, a browser game where you basically control a space empire, there is a Gauss Cannon. It apparently fires high-density metal bullets that weigh several tons in a railgun fashion, creating so much concussion that the ground nearby shakes and a huge sonic boom is created. And it is stronger than any other planet-mounted cannon sans the Plasma Turret, beating lasers.

-> ''An object impacting at 3 km/sec delivers kinetic energy equal to its mass in TNT.''

->''That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space!''
-->-- [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bloy8-7vrk Unnamed Gunnery Chief]] in ''MassEffect 2''.

The story is set some high-tech and/or [[TheFuture futuristic society]]. There are [[EverythingIsOnline massive computer networks]], sentient robots, and ships that can zip across space with the same amount of effort it takes you to go to the store down the street. Despite all this technology, however, combat isn't all that different. [[PoweredArmor Battle armor]] may have some gizmos on it, the guns may have higher muzzle velocities and an ammo count greater than the population of several rural communities, war vehicles may be able to do some fancy new tricks, but combat is the same at heart. If there are {{Energy Weapon}}s in the universe, they are either horribly disadvantaged with fewer shots before a replacement is needed, experimental, hard to get, or are wracked with issues like overheating, and that's supposing anyone other than the attacking alien race / evil faction even has ''access'' to them.

A theme in many Sci-fi works, especially newer ones. It is not a bad thing; in older science fiction, portrayals of energy weapons were usually very inaccurate, showing them as simply better because they were more high-tech. This is a surprisingly common misconception; if a category of technology is more "advanced" it must be ''better'' than something less "advanced." This is the same logic that has ''StarTrek'' medical isolation use "high-tech" forcefields instead of boring old walls, despite that boring old walls don't vanish if you unplug them.

In real life energy weapons would be hugely power-intensive; those that work through heating the target (such as lasers) would also be ineffective against infantry since our bodies are annoyingly made of mostly water, a substance with ten times the specific heat capacity of steel. They couldn't fire indirectly without using large vulnerable orbital mirrors, and beams of particles generally don't like working in atmospheres where other particles get in the way[[hottip:* :Electron beams self-focus in the air but still a lot of energy goes into useless fireworks, so at best it may be viable for a stationary point defence.]]. Weapons using chemical propellants are [[BoringButPractical just more efficient]] (that's why they are ''used'') and this situation isn't going to change any time soon.\\
Another argument in favour of projectiles in fiction is, surprisingly, RuleOfCool -- while subjecting stuff to melting or explosive evaporation is cool, [[ThatSatisfyingCrunch broken pieces of the same stuff flying away may be even better]].

Sometimes kinetic weapons themselves don't appear to have advanced either. Future weapons won't necessarily ''look'' more "advanced," mind, or really that different to modern ones: whether rounds are fired from a modern rifle or a [[MagneticWeapons space railgun]], it still involves precise guides to accelerate the projectile held by a solid external structure.

* Kinetic weapons are the big thing in ''CannonGodExaxxion''. While lasers are common, they cannot penetrate the DeflectorShields used in the series since they are based on ArtificialGravity tech & can thus redirect lasers using the gravitational lensing effect.

* In ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'', [[TheFederation the TSAB]] places heavy restrictions on the use of mass-based weaponry. It is implied that this is due to the devastation caused by interplanetary warfare with such weapons in the backstory.
* In ''CowboyBebop'' combat has switched from aircraft to starships, but most of it is still done with good old-fashioned machineguns and pistols. Energy weapons exist, but are implied to be rare and hard to get.

** Also, one episode definitely featured several satelites that had lasers capable of carving pictorial images into the Earth's surface which were visibile from space.

** [[spoiler: Subverted in the finale. Big O's final stage is a WaveMotionGun that outpowers its other weapons by a wide margin.]]
*** [[spoiler: It's also completely unable to do anything except miss it's target and fry all of Big O's systems so it can't do anything while Big Venus finishes her Gainax Ending Super Move.]]

* ''{{The Matrix}}'': The most advanced weapon in the Real World is an EMP gun, but all of the weapons the rebels wield are kinetic. Within the titular simulation however, since it is a simulated Late 20th/Early21st century Earth, modern weapons are to be expected.
** Except when [[spoiler: Cypher kills Tank with that energy gun.]]

* ''[[{{Terminator}} Terminator Salvation]]'' although to be fair, it is set years before the other future scenes seen in the other movies, so perhaps handheld energy weapons haven't been invented yet. The giant robot though seems to have a energy weapon of some sort.
* ''[[{{Film/Alien}} Aliens]]''. The Colonial Marines are armed with caseless assault weapons, though for some reason they've been mislabelled 'pulse rifles', presumably by someone unaware of the difference between kinetic and directed-energy weapons.

* In ''StarTrekFirstContact'', Picard lures some Borg--capable of creating a shield against phasers after two or three rounds--into the Enterprise's holo-deck disguised as a 20's mobster getup and wastes them with a Tommy Gun. Borg-Drones shielding doesn't block kinetic attacks.

**** Further Emphasized by the fact that Worf has the power to hack Borg Body parts off said Borg with what amounts to an impractical knive. If they had "traditional" forcefields that could not happen - recount the times he's banged his head against a security forcefield. In hindsight we have to wonder why they didn't just replicate moar dakka & blades.

* The [=~I, Robot~=] movie includes conventional firearms, albeit more futuristic versions of them.
* Both PitchBlack and TheChroniclesOfRiddick feature projectile weapons that, while more beefy looking, still use the good old gunpowder and slug ammo.

** Also, the protagonist will inevitably wind up using an old-fashioned gunpowder weapon for ''some'' reason or another, just for RuleOfCool.

*** It should be noted that the Eridani Edict only forbids kenetic strikes and orbital bombardment so long as you don't control all the orbitals of a planet. If you have taken over space around a world, and they refuse to surrender, you can bomb them with impunity.
** Also {{averted}}, in the {{Honorverse}}, in regards to final point-defense systems, where laser point defense clusters are vastly superior to autocannon in engaging any incoming missiles the counter-missile missiles fail to intercept.

* [[HBeamPiper H. Beam Piper]]'s assorted science fiction novels, including ''LittleFuzzy'' and ''UllerUprising'', have faster-than-light travel and antigravity, but modern-style guns are still universally used. (They also have huge mainframe-style computers programmed by plugboard, but that's ScienceMarchesOn.)

* In the ''{{Deathstalker}}'' series, projectile (kinetic) weapons are actually banned throughout TheEmpire, replaced by swords and blasters - the latter of which are powered by GreenRocks. The blasters take two minutes to recharge, and force shields will stop most projectile weapons... though that drains the fields' power fast. Ultimately, this trope is even [[LampshadedTrope lampshaded]] during a siege.

* The ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' novel ''Fallen Heroes''. The invading Bekkir have body armor that renders them immune to phasers, so O'Brian rigs them into grenades. Dax discovers that their armor isn't ImmuneToBullets, so she replicates a machine gun. A ''[[MoreDakka Klingon machine gun]].''

* In David Drake's stand-alone novel Redliners, the human Strike Force commandos use electomagnetic pellet rifles as their primary personal weaon, while the aliens use laser beams. This is because the pellet guns are massively damaging at the close range Strike Force mission usually take place at.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* The new ''BattlestarGalactica'' series: The show uses real-life guns in the show, or at least slightly dressed up ones. Even the starships slug it out like [=WWII=] battleships with heavy cannons and [[MoreDakka walls of small-calibre AA fire]], along with nuclear warheads.

* ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'': Even though the humans of Earth has access to tons of alien technology, modern-day weapons are still used. {{Justified}} since it has been shown that firearms were at many times, more effective than their energy counterparts, particularly when used against the Replicators.

** Played straight by the Ancients though. After going through energy weapons in all sizes, powered by all kinds of things (another dimension, for example...) they still arrived at remotely controlled drones that simply fly really fast and penetrate their targets, turning them into swiss cheese. The reason raillguns seemed weak in Stargate Atlantis was probably that the targets they were used against WERE FREAKING HUMONGOUS. Those hives did pack some bulk after all.

** Also Earth Alliances latest warship the Warlock class destroyer has in addition to two [[WaveMotionGun Wave Motion Guns]] and a plethora of secondary energy weapons, three heavy railgun turrets and a shitload of missiles as the main component of it's secondary battery. In the shows background, apparently, the only reason why the EA defeated the Dilgar a much more advanced race (having artificial gravity and gravitational propulsion at a time when the EA navy hadn't even developed rotating sections to simulate gravity.), was their use of kinetic weapons (railguns and missiles) that passed through any type off Armour like it was tissue paper. By the time of the Earth-Minbari war, EA energy weapons had advanced enough, to make their lack off ammo more appealing then the railguns penetrating power, and kinetic weapons were phased out. The result was the curb stop war that was the Earth Minbari war, when Earth energy weapons barely scratched the crystalline Armour developed by the Minbari specifically to stop energy weapons. Hence when the Warlock project was started, one of it's goals being to build a warship capable of defeating the Minbari in one on one combat, the EA brought back kinetic weapons because the crystalline Armour of Minbari ships could not handle kinetic impacts as well as Earth Armour (one of the reasons the Victory class destroyers built by humans in collaboration with Minbari have a composite Armour made of plasteel, human built resistant to kinetic impacts, and crystalline Armour, Minbari built resistant to energy weapons ). Also, to end this long post, the PPC, Earth Alliances standard sidearm, while being technically an energy weapon, because it fires a Plasma bolt, it's in reality, according to background material , a kinetic weapon because it relies mostly on plasma bolt kinetic impact to disable it's target.

* Played with in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Energy weapons exist, and in fact FrickinLaserBeams are explicitly both easy to construct and more reliable than kinetic weaponry, however the standard issue bolter of [[SuperSoldier the Space Marines]] is fully considered a more powerful weapon in the background and tabletop - but the fact they're generally 0.75 caliber armour-piercing rounds that explode after impact and gain momentum as the shots travel go a long way to explain it. However, many people still swear by solid-projectile weapons, because a) it's easier to get full-auto fire from an SP weapon than a lasgun, and b) the roar of an autogun is just so much more ''[[RuleOfCool impressive]]'' than the ''zzip'' of a lasgun. To be fair, an Imperial pulse lasgun is still a powerful weapon by our standards, strong enough to blow limbs off a human being. It's just most humans' bad luck of being born into [[CrapsackWorld the 40k universe]], where their fantastic futuretech guns and body armour has about the effectiveness of a flashlight and wet cardboard against everyone else.

** This isn't to say that one should discount energy weapons in ''40K''; the two most powerful standard-issue weapons are both energy - the Necron gauss flayer (which strips the target atom by atom and can damage even the toughest tank) and the Tau pulse rifle (which punches through Guardsman as if they aren't even there). And the most powerful infantry weapons available to most Imperial forces are energy - lascannons, plasma weapons, and melta weapons are all pretty scary energy weapons.
** You can't forget the [[WaveMotionGun Nova Cannon]], the main weapon of Imperial battleships. It's magnetically fired at just under the speed of light for some... [[NoKillLikeOverKill interesting effects.]]

** Autoguns have the same stats as lasguns if this troper recalls correcly. Lasguns have the advantage of being incredibly easy to recharge though, making logicstics much for the Guard.

* In ''{{Battletech}}'' chemically propelled cannons and lasers coexist, both having advantages and disadvantages. There are still discussions which is better ingame. The Gauss Rifle was added later. It uses commons metal slugs, propelled by magnetic fields and it fricking rocks, though its size weight limit the usefulness somewhat.

*** Missiles are the third option between lasers and cannons, trading limited ammunition and the need to establish a lock for very long range, good damage, and self-guidance. A longbow with a targetting designator and full banks of missiles is a fearsome enemy, especially when it acts in a fire-support role for scrappier mechs.

* ''{{Battlefield 2142}}'' aside from the floating [[AirBorneAircraftCarrier Titans]], the other air vehicles, hover tanks, speeders (for the PAC at least) the Goliath, the anti-ground vehicle and anti-aircraft emplacements, and gadgets you could unlock, the guns still slung lead. Hell, the side arm for the EU was a revolver which had a speedloader cylinder. The developers stated in interviews that a gun firing bullets "felt more real to them" than just "pew pew you're dead."

* Laser-guided concrete bombs are an example of purely kinetic weapons being just better than kinetic weapons that go BOOM. Need a target in an urban area destroyed while minimizing the collateral damage using shrapnel-and-blast-force-inducing high explosives? Just drop a slab of good old-fashioned concrete right on top of your pesky target. Who needs fancy high-explosive mixtures when you have the simple blunt force of a solid chunk of concrete dropped from the sky?

* In ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Starfleet developed a projectile weapon known as the TR-116, in the event that personnel were in environments that phasers would not work. The rifle had some interesting uses, Chu'lak modified it with a mini-transporter, allowing it to beam its bullet to other rooms, only a few centimeters from its target. The rifle never entered service due to the invention of newer technologies. In some of the ''Deep Space'' novels however, the rifle is said to be quite useful, especially against the Borg. It is also implied that another reason Starfleet doesn't use the weapon is because it is ''too good'', since one can modify it to transport bullets, allowing potential assassins to do their work with little effort, except the Transporter used had a very weak signal to prevent tracking, but would also mean it would be easily blocked, making it only useful for murder as any high ranking official at least * SHOULD* have some sort of inhibitor active at all times unless willingly transported.

**** This is deal with humorously in a ExpandedUniverse novel, the borg can just teleport between shots.

* ''Film/{{Avatar}}'': The weapons used by the humans in Avatar are just futuristic looking versions of ours, they still sling ammo exactly like present day Earth. However, in some [[AllThereInTheManual sources]] it is said that weapons on Earth are far more advanced then weapons used on Pandora, but the former are far easier and cheaper to produce, especially when you are about a lightyear away from Earth.

** Not to mention impractical. Spike's ''Swordfish II'' fighter has a massive and powerful plasma cannon, but when he fires it, it takes at least a minute for it to recharge, and it shakes his ship violently when fired. Extrapolating from that, energy weapons are big, bulky, overly powerful, with long refire times and a change of damaging the platform firing it.

**** We also don't know if the Borg could adapt to bullets or not. They're only used once and very briefly. It's conceivable that the Borg could have adapted and generated shields that deflect bullets after being exposed to them for long enough.

In real life energy weapons would be hugely power-intensive; those that work through heating the target (such as lasers) would also be ineffective against infantry since our bodies are annoyingly made of mostly water, a substance with ten times the specific heat capacity of steel. They couldn't fire indirectly without using large vulnerable orbital mirrors, and beams of particles generally don't like working in atmospheres where other particles get in the way[[hottip:* :Electron beams self-focus in the air but still a lot of energy goes into useless fireworks, so at best it may be somehow viable for a stationary point defence.]]. Weapons using chemical propellants are [[BoringButPractical just more efficient]] (that's why they are ''used'') and this situation isn't going to change any time soon.

* On ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' the Borg can quickly adapt and become immune to phasers, but in one movie they are killed by a Tommy gun.

*In [[CityOfHeroes]], you have access to a ridiculous number of ranged damage sets. Most of these are elemental or energy based, but three (Archery, Assault Rifle, and Dual Pistols) rely solely on kinetic weaponry. While firing a bow and Arrow isn't as cool as PlayingWithFire, the Weapon Sets certainly aren't starving for damage. They also have a unique advantage in the fact that their "Nuke" powers don't leave them exhausted after user.

** Don't forget the starship/orbital platform mounted MAC (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon) guns. To the layman, a railgun. To the more sophisticated type, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_kill_vehicle an RKV]].
*** The MAC is a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun coilgun]], actually. Similar effect to a railgun, but different operating principle and design. Still, the most powerful of [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment MAC cannons]] could easily gut a[[strike:n (unshielded) ship]] ''shielded Covenant cruiser'' stem to stern. [[CaptainObvious The crew aboard that ship then has their day ruined.]]

** In ''Halo 3'', the UNSC have started using laser weaponry, and it is a lot more powerful than normal weaponry but it takes a long time to charge and uses up it's battery quickly, making it more of an Anti-tank weapon than anything else. The aforementioned Spartan Laser is so large it can only be practically wielded by [[SuperSoldier Spartans]].

*** The MAC is a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun coilgun]], actually. Similar effect to a railgun, but different operating principle and design. Still, the most powerful of [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment MAC cannons]] could easily gut an (unshielded) ship stem to stern. [[CaptainObvious The crew aboard that ship then has their day ruined.]]