History Main / MagneticWeapons

You ever take two magnets and try to place them together, only to find that, with their poles aligned, they fly apart from each other? You ever play with them to see how far you can launch one using just the magnetic force alone? Ever think to yourself, "Someone could make a ''gun'' out of this!"? Fortunately, you're not alone.

* ''Literature/ArifuretaFromCommonplaceToWorldsStrongest'': Hajime utilizes quite a few forms of these, in both of his dual pistols labeled "Donner" that, while looking like normal six-shot revolvers, are actually miniaturized-railguns utilizing bullets that pack a '''major''' punch. Later on, he creates an anti-material rifle that, while only holding a single rifle round, it acts as a '''heavy-hitting''' magnetically powered artillery round, and if the victim it's fired at isn't durable, they'll be reduced to dust.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Contra}} Contra Returns]]'': Besides the Railgun cannon, you can also get the Magnetic Rifle and Electromagnetic Pulse Rifle which fires an EMP blast so focused and powerful that it fries your foes.

* ''VideoGame/UFOAfterBlank'': The first game ''Aftermath'', the alien's had a much larger and varied arsenal of weapons. Among these are the Magnetic Accelerators, these are relatively lightweight guns that weigh similar to one of the various human assault rifles but far outclassed them in damage and rate of fire with its magnetically propelled pellets. Humans can reverse-engineer the weapon to create some cruder but larger and more damaging magnetic weapons: the railgun which is a portable, manned turret gun that requires deployment and a Gauss gatling gun which requires a suit of [[PoweredArmor heavy armour]] to use.

** Later games in the series has the Accelerator firearm accessory. This is a piece of future human technology which is fixed over the muzzle of your traditional human firearm such as assault rifles and machine guns. It's a device that use electromagnetic force to increase the velocity of the bullet coming out of the gun's barrel.

* The military of Greengaft uses EM weapons aquired via STC in ''FanFic/AgeOfStrife''.

* ''Videogame/DeepRockGalactic:'' The Gunner can unlock the [=ArmsKore=] Coil Gun as one of his weapons, a giant HandCannon of a sidearm that will fire a tungsten sphere the size of a golf ball through roughly ''everything'', including thick walls of solid rock. The thing hits ''very'' hard and leaves a superheated trail that burns things for a few seconds afterwards, but it takes a while to load and charge, so it's not good for snapshots like the [[RevolversAreJustBetter Bulldog]] is.

* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' features a railgun as an OldSaveBonus. Players of the [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 enhanced]] [[UsefulNotes/XboxOne version]] who are returning from the [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 previous]] [[UsefulNotes/Xbox360 version]] will be able to buy it in Ammu-Nation for a whopping [[CrackIsCheaper $250,000]]. While it does have a few disadvantages, such as a low ammo capacity, it essentially functions as a rocket launcher with no travel time, effectively creating an explosion instantly wherever the player presses the fire button. Is it any surprise that it's [[GameBreaker one of the strongest weapons in the whole single-player game]]?

* Ships in ''VideoGame/NexusTheJupiterIncident'' use magnetically-launched projectiles to do hull damage, since [[EnergyWeapons energy shells]] only affect shields, and most [[SlowLaser Slow Lasers]] are horrible at hull damage (their purpose is SubsystemDamage). Later, more powerful, projectile launchers are also able to do shield damage, but dedicated energy shells are better. The only weapon that is better at doing hull damage is the [[WaveMotionGun siege laser]], but it requires your target to stay still and requires four ships to pump all their power into the weapon for long periods of time (while being immobile and defenseless).
* Gauss cannons are the second most powerful planetary defense in the German MMO ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGame Ogame,]]'' surpassed only by plasma turrets. In-game [[FlavorText flavor text]] describes how, when fired, they create a incredibly powerful shockwave that can be heard for miles, and how crews near them must take special protective measures due to the ear-splitting concussive effects they produce.

* The Farsight XR-20 from ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'', which is essentially a OneHitKill sniper rifle. That can track and shoot enemies through walls. It doesn't track particularly quickly, and its low rate of fire makes it awkward at close range, but it's still considered a {{Game Breaker}} in multiplayer.
* New Jericho weapons from ''VideoGame/PhoenixPoint'' are gauss weapons that fire iron bullets at such velocities they look like [[FrickinLaserBeams blue lasers]] (as opposed to Synedrion's guns, which really do use lasers). If you look closely, the muzzles have [[labelnote:solenoids]]The technical term for an electromagnetic coil[[/labelnote]] running their length. They have slightly more power per-shot, but fire in lesser bursts (their basic assault rifle shoots 4 times for 40 damage/bullet) than the basic AR (6 times for 30 damage per bullet), and have bonus Shred damage (directly damages armor; 15 to the basic and laser assault rifle's 1). The upgraded Piercing version [[ArmorPiercingAttack simply ignores 20 points of armor]].

* Various types of magnetic weapons form one of the three starship weapon families in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}''. The largest models are [[FixedForwardFacingWeapon Fixed Forward-Facing]] {{Wave Motion Gun}}s capable of one-shotting pirate cruisers from several [=AUs=] away. They excel at stripping shields but fall a few ticks short against heavily armored targets, so they perform best when paired with armor-melting EnergyWeapons.