History Main / KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter

* In ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato2199'', the titular ship can fire either energy beams or the Type-3 Armor-piercing shells from its primary and secondary guns. Those shells, although seldom used due to their limited stock, are all but guaranteed to one-shot whatever it managed to hit. Those shells happen to be ''[[NuclearOption thermonuclear]]'' in nature, which ''[[{{Understatement}} might have slightly]]'' increased their destructiveness.

* In ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato2199'', the titular ship can fire either energy beams or the Type-3 Armor-piercing shells from its primary and secondary guns. Those shells, although seldom used due to their limited stock, are all but guaranteed to one-shot whatever it managed to hit. Those shells happen to be [[NuclearOption thermonuclear in nature]], which ''[[{{Understatement}} might have slightly]]'' increased their destructiveness.

* ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato2199'' touches on this. The Yamato's turret guns can fire energy beams or large shells. The shells can do serious damage to lighter enemy craft, but they come into their own later in the series. When traversing a warp gate, normal beam weapons are useless and the WaveMotionGun is not entirely safe to use. Good old fashioned shells work just fine. Dessler was not pleased.

*** Another example in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny'', where the ''Archangel'' and ''Minerva'' duel (again), during the ZAFT invasion of Orb. With both ships equipped with Laminate Armor, they could take several beam shots from each other with no damage. The ''Archangel'' eventually wins by abandoning the duel, going underwater, and sinking ZAFT submarines with it's railguns, forcing the entire army to retreat.

*** The Stub Gun is more of a subversion. It's enormous energy output makes it [[ExplosiveOverclocking notoriously]] [[StuffBlowingUp volatile]] [[LudicrousGibs to use]], causing the weapon to fail all trials for field use. The decision to fetch the few existing prototype models out of their storage, was one of the signs that the war had long since crossed the GodzillaThreshold.

** Also played straight by da Orks. A common attitude among Ork boyz is that a shoota isn't "proppa" if it doesn't leave a hefty chunk of something in it's target. This may have something to do with their experiences with the Imperial lasgun coupled with their own SuperToughness. Orks will, however, make some exceptions for beamy guns that are [[{{BFG}} sufficiently "killy"]], like a good Zzap gun or Plazma Deffgun.

* In the discontinued ''Series/BabylonFive Wars'' tabletop game, kinetic weapons ignored armor and did standard damage, which means that you could deal the attack's full damage to the component you hit, so if you hit the hull, there was a good chance you could tear a giant chunk out of it. It's main downside was that if you hit a less-than-vital component (like one forward gun out of thirty), then the damage would not transfer to the hull like the other weapon types.

** There was also the secret experimental beam weapons in ''VideoGame/FrontMission3''. One of which was on an enemy mech, the other could be gotten through a secret code used on the in-game Internet. It did tremendous damage, but the fact is you wouldn't be very skilled with it due to how late in the game you got it and it was difficult to fire due to it's high AP cost. Pretty though.

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'' plays this straight on an infantry level. For infantry, kinetic weapons are better because they're available! The only man-portable energy weapons are the electricity weapons on the Tesla Troopers (slow rate of fire and rather short-ranged, but devastating against vehicles and infantry) and the Tank-Busters who can easily carve up tanks with their plasma-cutters but do pretty poor damage against infantry. It also plays this straight for ant-air weapons, as missiles and auto-cannons are the best for shooting down aircraft. The Archer Maiden's arrows look like energy bolts but they're really ordinary arrows with a explosive shell for a tip and the Cryo Legionaire only get their anti-aircraft freeze ray if they are garrisoned in a Multi-gun Turret or IFV. For vehicles, this is trope is largely averted, all 3 factions use energy weapons for high-end units because in a world where mad science reigns supreme, energy weapons hit a lot harder. Nothing can match the firepower of the Giga-Fortress, Harbinger Gunship and the Shogun Battleship. And unlike other games, most artillery is energy-based (the Pacifier is kind of a hybrid, it fires bomblets that deliver protonic energy blasts) for reasons of heavier firepower or in the case of the Athen Cannon, better accuracy. Even for the tier 3 tanks, the Apocalypse Tanks dominates because of its "magnetic harpoon" tractor beam, in a pure gun to gun battle it'll barely survive against King Oni and only because it has two cannons to the King Oni's one "blaster". (Althought it can be argued that the King Oni's single beam attack consists of firing both it's eye beams at once). And, for once, there isn't a conventional Nuclear Missile. The Soviets use what's essentially a short-lived Black Hole, the Allies have an Antimatter cannon, and the Empire uses large-scale telekinesis PoweredByAForsakenChild.

* Supernovae are an extreme example of kinetic energy impact. One type of supernova, the Type II, is what happens when the core of a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and implodes into a neutron star. Leaving aside the gory details, the entire energy of the core's freefall is radiated away in about ten seconds, plus the rest of the star comes crashing down on the core so hard, the resulting shockwave literally blows away everything above the core, producing enough light to outshine an entire galaxy. At it's peak, a supernova can be over 10 billion times brighter than the sun, and even that energy is only about a percent of the total kinetic energy involved. The total energy released is so massive that if all of it were to be converted into radiation, even explosions thousands of light years away could roast us under light brighter than the sun.

* ''Literature/{{Starworld}}'' by Creator/HarryHarrison has the rebel admiral explain to the protagonist why energy weapons don't work in the [[ArbitraryMaximumRange vast distances of space]]. Although missiles are being used by both sides, the rebels use linear accelerators firing unguided ''cannon balls'' to gain the decisive edge, then finish them off with a FlechetteStorm of rocket-propelled bullets.

* ''Space Empires'', having both types, has this in a way. Most energy weapons have the advantage of not requiring ordnance to be built into the ship, only supply (which is essential for any ship). However, the damage potential for energy weapons falls away as the target is more distant. Projectiles and missiles, however, do not, always dealing the same range of damage when they hit, no matter how far away the target is (provided they're not beyond the weapon's ArbitraryMaximumRange.)

* ''Half-Life'''s sister franchise, ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' loves bullets so much, [[CartridgesInFlight they fire the WHOLE Bullet]]. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xR26S9mNgU That's 65% More Bullet, Per Bullet]]

* Standard Weapons in ''[[VideoGame/SystemShock System Shock 2]]'' are superior in most respects to weapons falling under other categories such as Energy, Heavy, or Exotic. Whichever character class you start off with, you will almost certainly be using a Wrench, which counts as a Standard Weapon in terms of damage but does not have any skill requirements. Unlike other weapon categories, every single Standard Weapon is highly useful: the Pistol, Shotgun, and Assault Rifle are all powerful and versatile weapons that are capable of handling a wide variety of opponents, especially with specialized anti-armour or anti-personnel bullets. All of them use ammunition that is widely available and, with the exception of the Assault Rifle, have comparatively low requirements for their use. Two of the three classes start off with level 1 Standard Weapons by default (which they can then raise to level 3 with one of the prologue assignments). Unless following a specific play style by choice, it's pretty hard to justify not choosing one of the Standard Weapons as your primary weapon

* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'' contains a general balance between energy weapons and kinetics (although energy weapons make up a disproportionately larger portion of the very high end attacks). The Protoss rely pretty much entirely on energy weapons (including energy melee weapons), but they are pretty balanced against the bullet and missile wielding Terrans and the claw and acid-spit-or-something wielding Zerg.

[[folder:Web Comic]]

** [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20001029.html This strip]] has an explanation for why, in addition to energy weapons like Schlock's plasma cannons, ammo based pistols are so common.

* As for as ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends''

* The Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilizing Discarding-Sabot (APFSDS) round, the standard anti-armor ammunition of the M1 Abrams tank and most other modern [[CoolTank main battle tanks]], is referred to by [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]] as a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_penetrator Kinetic Energy Penetrator]]. It uses no explosives, and is merely a long arrow-shaped super-dense dart made of a tungsten or depleted uranium alloy which travels between 1,400 and 1,900 m/s (around Mach 4 to 5). It is specifically designed to penetrate the armor of the target vehicle: the resulting heat, spalling (breaking off of bits that make up the vehicle) and pressure wave generated by the projectile after it punches through vehicle armour is strong enough to kill or incapacitate crew members, or set off explosions in the tank's ammunition and fuel stores. It therefore requires a very high degree of accuracy, more so than other tank shells, and is considered a highly specialized round, more-so than older armor-piercing ammunition (which usually had an explosive component). HEAT (High-Explosive Anti-Tank) rounds are still the preferred round of choice for killing anything lighter than a tank, though.

** Blasters (which fire particle beams) are overwhelming the most common weapon, particularly in millitary applications. "Slugthrowers" do still exist and are used for civilian applications like hunting (for instance, Luke's weapon that he tries and fails to use against a Tusken Raider in ''Film/ANewHope''). There are some obvious advantages to blasters, like minimal recoil, more shots before reloading, and the logistical advantage of [[UniversalAmmunition all using the same power source]], although [[DependingOnTheWriter the reasons given aren't always consistent]]. It's also worth noting that ''Star Wars'' firearm technology seems to have stagnated, resulting in slugthrowers most closely resembling UsefulNotes/WorldWarI-era technology which gives an obvious advantage to blasters which are more similar to modern firearms in terms of effectiveness - Luke's slugthrower rifle from ''Film/ANewHope'' is an old-fashioned wooden-stocked rifle which looks like it only holds one shot at a time, while the blaster rifles the Rebels use in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' are built out of M16s.

** The [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Scatter_gun scatter gun]] proves to be [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOVOz75TgZ4 very effective]] in ''VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefront''. It's basically just a double-barreled shotgun. Despite firing pellets, it can one-shot armored Stormtroopers at a pretty decent range, and is even very effective against the personal DeflectorShields you can get. In the same game, the slugthrower Cycler rifle (which looks and acts like a beaten-up mid 19th century breechloader) is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo-6Ar6Mi58 very powerful]]. It's highly accurate and will generally one-shot the target, the main weakness being that it is single-shot.

* When you take ballistic weapons UpToEleven, it turns out that an inert metal slug striking a sufficiently dense target at even a small fraction of light speed releases a phenomenal amount of energy. At a mere 3 km/s -- one thousandth of a percent of light speed -- any object contains as much energy as an equivalent mass of TNT. Firing anything at even one percent light speed turns it into a nuclear-scale destructive device. Of course, accelerating it to that speed involves its own brand of speculative technology, but at least they're not firing [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]].

[[caption-width-right:300:Awesome = ½''mv''[[superscript:2]] [[note]]For emphasis, that plume of flame behind the slug is ''not'' an explosive propellant - [[UpToEleven it's plasma being formed from the air being ripped apart in its wake.]] Also, the lensing in front of the slug isn't a camera effect; you are looking through the hypersonic shock cone from behind.[[/note]]]]

** Between the aforementioned newer technologies and the fact that the weapon '''lacks a non-lethal option''', Starfleet would have happily discontinued the TR-116 as soon as possible. Less a case of "too good" and more a case of "This is only good for assassination now, so the [[TheFederation United Federation of Planets]] does not need it." After all, humans in Franchise/StarTrek tend to be [[HumansAreGood good]] and [[HumansAreDiplomats prefer diplomacy]], so such an effective assassination weapon doesn't fit their modus operandi as well as the phaser, which has more utility and [[StunGuns can be set to stun]]. Of course, the plans still aren't classified enough, and in the only episode featuring the TR-116, [[spoiler:this fact plus crazy person plus MatterReplicator equals murder.]]

* In fact [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_observation_of_gravitational_waves The first observation of gravitational waves]] involved two colliding black holes that released 3 Suns worth of mass energy (if the Sun were to be completely turned into radiation) in a fraction of a second in the form of gravitational waves. The energy comes from the kinetic energy of the black holes orbiting close to light speed just before impact. The power radiated was 50 times greater than that of all the stars in the entire observable universe, put together, making it the most energetic event ever detected - that's right, the energy of two falling bodies was more powerful than the rest of the universe. These black holes were absolutely puny though in comparison to the largest black holes weighing in at billions of solar masses, so even scientifically, there's absolutely nothing, nothing in the universe that really comes close to the power of sheer kinetic energy.

* In ''VideoGame/UFOAfterlight'', Earth technology based projectile weapons have better stats than laser-based weapons and electricity-based weapons. And all other ranged weapon types become unwieldy heavy weapons in human hands. Your main opponents also use primarily projectile weapons, but tend towards AbnormalAmmo. Although, like every other game in the ''[[VideoGame/UFOAfterblank Afterblank]]'' series, the best weapon depends on the enemy: projectile weapons are either decent or great against most enemies, which is why they are universally favored, but lasers are exceptional against robots and enemies susceptible to fire, and plasma weapons are devastating to most enemies with shields (which are not designed to defend against plasma). More specialized weapons have more specific applications. In all three games, for example, warp weapons are murderous against armored foes and almost completely useless against unarmored foes (since there's not enough mass to warp).

* ''VideoGame/Nitemare3D''. The pistol is the only weapon in the game that can hit a target instantaneously instead of waiting for a slow projectile to cross the room. In fact, what exactly ''is'' the advantage of the first two weapons, again? It's ''intended'' to be ammo efficiency - your wand should drop magic-based enemies or your blaster tech-based ones using fewer shots than the equivalent in silver bullets. There are just enough bullets around that it doesn't matter much.

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager'' is ostensibly a 1950's PulpMagazine story, but has this trope to give it a {{Retraux}} look (actually sci-fi stories of TheFifties used either contemporary firearms or an 'atomic blaster'). ''UNRS Voyager'' has atomic torpedoes and multi-barreled autocannon, with the {{Space Marine}}s armed with machine guns and (albeit [[AtomPunk nuclear-powered]]) flamethrowers. The only RayGun we see is a cumbersome crew-served weapon [[RealityEnsues burdened with a radiation shield, liquid-helium cooling unit and portable atomic generator]].

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager'' is ostensibly a 1950's PulpMagazine story, but has this trope to give it a {{Retraux}} look (actually sci-fi stories of TheFifties used either contemporary firearms or an 'atomic blaster'). ''UNRS Voyager'' has atomic torpedoes and autocannon, with the {{Space Marine}}s armed with machine guns and (albeit [[AtomPunk nuclear-powered]]) flamethrowers. The only RayGun we see is a crew-served weapon burdened with a radiation shield, liquid-helium cooling unit and portable atomic generator.

Compare RockBeatsLaser, BoringButPractical, ModernStasis, BreakOutTheMuseumPiece and VideoGameFlamethrowersSuck. Usually goes hand in hand with OurWeaponsWillBeBoxyInTheFuture. Contrast WeWillUseLasersInTheFuture, where energy weapons are more prevalent than kinetic weapons. For cases where certain ''specific'' kinetic weapons are preferred, see RevolversAreJustBetter or ShotgunsAreJustBetter. And if you're looking for the trope taken to its logical extreme, there's the ColonyDrop.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Starfinder}}'' plays with this. Kinetic weapons on average deal more damage than energy weapons, but armor provides more protection against them, balancing them out.

** In the second game the Salvatore gang in New Reno is widely known and feared for its exclusive use of Enclave energy. Ingame NPCs claim that one thug with a simple laser pistol could wipe out an entire squad armed with regular weapons. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation Quite the opposite in actual gameplay, asearly energy weapons do barely any damage and are almost completely ineffective against metal armor]]. This is evident, for example, if you start a gunfight in the Salvatores' bar: the thugs with laser pistols will do almost no damage to you, while the bartender with ye olde double-barreled shotgun does 20 times more damage than them.

* The Creator/{{TSR}} roleplaying game of ComicStrip/BuckRogers, Buck still has his .45 pistol and it was unusually effective against his enemies of the 25th century as they had no protection designed to stop bullets. Did people in the future forget how to make kevlar? And this is a setting that had gyrojet weaponry. Anyways Buck has to watch his supply of bullets as he can't get any more once he runs out (because in the future, they somehow can't make bullets but they can make spaceships and arcologies).

** In ''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]]''.

** ZigZagged in ''Literature/HammersSlammers'', some armies use railgun rifles because thy have better armor piercing capabilities than [[PlasmaCannon powerguns]]. However, railguns are no cheaper, since they [[EnforcedTrope require]] [[BlingBlingBang diamond barrels]], and don't [[{{BFG}} scale up]] the way powerguns do. [[EnergyWeapon laser guns]] can't be made in man-portable sizes because they require a 400 pound fusion reactor to reach killing power, and explosive bullets are just as likely to vaporize a leaf as kill an enemy.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'', many radiation and energy weapons, namely the Gamma Gun and Gauss Rifle, will ''appear'' to have massive damage, but so many enemies are resistant to those damage types and their resistances are so high that there's little point. Radiation damage, for instance, is wholly ineffective against robots, ghouls (sentient and feral), super mutants, animals, and humans in power armor; that makes up about 70% of the baddies you'll be dealing with. They also tend not to benefit from sneak bonuses to base damage and crit, as most weapons of these types cannot be modified with silencers. Bullets, however? ''Nothing'' in the game has full immunity to those.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'', many radiation and energy weapons, namely the Gamma Gun and Gauss Rifle, will ''appear'' to have massive damage, but so many enemies are resistant to those damage types and their resistances are so high that there's little point. They also tend not to benefit from sneak bonuses to base damage and crit, as most weapons of these types cannot be modified with silencers.