Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

Hello!

As the name implies, this thread is for the designing and creation of sci-fi weapons and equipment/vehicles (primarily military, but civilian stuff would be okay too). If you actually want to figure out how these things would actually be used, then you'll want to check out the Sci-fi Military Tactics and Strategy thread, which initially started out as being for my setting only but then expanded to allow anyone to ask about/describe how their settings' militaries conduct themselves.

Some quick pointers before we set out, though hopefully they will prove unnecessary:

• Hard or soft sci-fi is perfectly acceptable, though it may help to specify whether your setting is a hard one or a soft one if you're going to ask for help, since it helps people tailor their responses.

• When providing a critique of a design or concept, please ensure it is constructive criticism. Similarly, don't just say "That's cool/dumb/makes my head hurt" if you can help it - explain why it's cool/dumb/makes your head hurt. One of the goals of this thread is to create weapons, vehicles and equipment that makes sense (for the setting), after all.

• Be polite/respectful etc. etc., you know the drill.

I think that's about it, really.

---

To start us off, I've got something I've been wrangling with for a while now.

• One of the human factions in my soft sci-fi setting, the Svina Confederacy, favours the use of exotic energy weapons*
  I.E. not lasers/particle beams
  and defences. However, since I am woefully unknowledgeable about such things, I'm not sure what they would be like. Any suggestions?

• An alien civilisation from the same setting - the Sirian Union - uses lots and lots of railguns, even for infantry. The size, weight and recoil of such things are pretty much a non-issue for them, as they use powered armour*
  Indeed, they're the only ones with powered armour right now
  and are superhumanly strong by our standards, leaving aside the fact that your typical Powered Infantry soldier is around 10' tall. So, assuming that their infantry railguns are the same size as assault rifles*
  Albeit from their perspective rather than a human scale
  , how large would they be and what sort of damage could they do? I don't need an exact estimate of either, just a ballpark idea would be good.

Thank you in advance, and hopefully this thread will be helpful for everyone who's ever wondered what their setting's space marines are kitted out with.

Locking you up on radar since '09

Regarding the 'exotic' energy weapons, GURPS has a few interesting ones.

• Ghost Particle Beams rely on unstable dark matter, which decays into more familiar subatomic particles within nanoseconds of leaving the accelerator. Exactly where this decay occurs can be predictable with the right kind of superscience, and since the stuff doesn't really interact with regular matter in its unstable state, what you get is a 'beam' that bypasses any kind of defense to 'detonate' inside the target, unleashing a shower of high-energy particles that'll really ruin the day of anybody within the area of effect.

• Nucleonic Disintegrators temporarily cancel out the Strong Nuclear Force in the target, causing the nuclei of its component atoms to fly apart into protons and neutrons. The results are both impressive and messy.

• On a less over-the-top level, there's Gravity Guns (also found in some other works...Schlock Mercenary makes very good use of them). An offshoot of tractor/pressor beam technology, these either hit the target with a massive kinetic impact (think "Noisy Cricket") or use fine-controlled gravity fields to crush the target from within, bypassing any kind of armor. The latter are known as "Gravy Guns" in the Schlockverse, both for their gravitic nature and for what happens to organics caught in their area of effect.

• If psionics exist and are sufficiently understood in your setting, you might consider Psi-Beams. Simple versions can stun or directly stimulate the target's pain centers from a distance (or just have the target experience a highly embarrassing moment in public). More advanced versions can implant psionic commands into the target, such as "put down your weapons and surrender now" if you're feeling nice, "Commit Suicide" or simply "Stop Breathing" if you aren't.

edited 19th Oct '13 7:00:39 AM by MattStriker

Thanks for answering, Matt Striker!

GURPS is a system that I've heard of thanks to cruising the Internet, though I don't actually have any of the books.

That aside, the weapons you mentioned definitely sound like the sort of things the Confederacy would pursue, especially since their main threat - the Coalition of United Peoples - can call upon many more soldiers than they can, so it's important to knock down a target first time every time. Of course I'd prefer to avoid copying things outright, but this at least gives me a good point of reference!

To be more specific...

• The ghost particle beam sounds like what the Confederacy would come up with if given enough time, or a similar system might well be fitted to Confederate warships.

• Nucleonic Disintegrators would probably be a fine vehicle mounted/anti-tank system. Bang and the dirt tank is gone!

• Gravity Guns and other gravity weapons might be infantry weapons; presumably the larger varities might be able to affect multiple targets at a time (again, extremely useful for dealing with enemies that enjoy a numerical advantage.

• Psi-Beams are one thing I'm not sure of. I'm not sure whether my setting would have honest-to-God psionics or not*
  It's difficult to articulate my feelings on the subject; if you want, I can PM you about it
  , though if there were they'd probably be discovered a little bit into the setting's future. There might be technology that emulates the effects of psionics without actually involving literal psionics. If it helps, a silly example of what I'm talking about is compact anti-gravity generators to emulate telekinetic abilities rather than being actually telekinetic. Though since I'm not sure my setting has such things (psionics or psionic imitating tech), it's a moot point.

But if such things were available, you could bet your bottom dollar they (and the other factions) would be all over it.

edited 19th Oct '13 1:46:54 PM by Flanker66

Locking you up on radar since '09

Mini/Micro Missiles and Rockets. Difference between the two is that missiles are guided and rockets are LOS dumb weapons. Pretty much the answer to heavily protected cybernetic soldiers, exoframes with bolt on armor, and power armor. The most common varities are either a HESH warhead or a Tandem HEAT warhead. They can be fired from multishot handheld units about the size of MILKOR MGL, shoulder mounts on power armor, small drones, turrets, and other similar arrangements. The downside is the many targets have either ECM, Soft Kill, and/or hard kill protection systems. Where the guided shots can be fooled the dumb fire rocket variant require careful aiming. Other variations on warheads for the weapon include Fuel Air Blast, Blast Frag, Incendiary, IR/Chaff Smoke and Debris, and other variants.

edited 23rd Oct '13 6:39:43 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

That's a great idea, especially since my setting's already chock full of micro-munitions and similar weapon systems. That aside, they're not stupid - they would have considered the possibility of having to fight the SU, and the Coalition's special forces (Armata) make extensive use of invasive cyberware in their agents.

Thanks a lot! Though if you were just tossing out a general idea then disregard this post I suck jet efflux.

Locking you up on radar since '09

Infantry weapons:

• There was some debate in The '90s about caliber. The US Army came up with the OICW, bullet hose backing up a 25mm grenade launcher. Good idea but the smart grenades never worked right until well into The New '10s.

• .50 BMG, many replacements were tried but dammit, John Browning's Ma Deuce lives.

• Kevlar gave way to spectra and other fabrics. Some didn't work some did.

• Modularity: MOLLE, Weaver rails, things mount on things.

That said, I could see rifles having an over/under config: smart micro-missiles with the bullet shoot-y part under it. The missile could be selectable (revolver-style mag) or stacked.

Some weapons would be modular. Small pistol plugs into larger frame to make a carbine. Rifles form the lower receiver or action for a SMG or squad automatic weapon. Rail guns and energy weapons would have a more conventional backup or could be on a dual mount (or a rail gun/ion cannon with a .50 BMG co-axial mount).

Uniforms and body armor would have many attachment points for gear. Exo-frames would be scaleable so that troops can add or subtract armor and stuff as needed.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Come on Marine, you know that line is blurring into irrelevance. Just take the laser guided versions of the Hydra 70 and Zuni aircraft rockets. They behave just like laser guided missiles and by definition are.

In the German language, there is no distinction between rocket and guided missile.

I've said it before but I like including huge, usually backpack reactor-powered Electrolasers. Basically you target someone with a voltaic arc and press the button that sends the charge down down the channel. I like making them bulky and connected by tube to a backpack power supply.

Another favorite quirk of mine is weaponized biografts like venom-spraying glands concealed beneath the skin. Diluted for stun. Concentrated for kill.

Two Words: Revolver Crossbows :)

Now I want to include the continuing service of M2 Browning derivates among certain ridiculously cheap PMCs as a sort of backstory gag.*

Still, that's good to know!

I could see this happening with certain experimental Coalition and Confederate rifles, though they would still be undergoing field trials. One issue that would plague them is that although micro-missiles are smaller than ever before, micro-missiles you can fire from an assault rifle or whatever would be trickier to engineer.

This is probably one of the defining features of the United People's Army's*

mainstay rifle - it's extremely quick and easy to swap out parts for whatever needs to be dealt with at the time, especially since the various components are lightweight, compact, and effectively snap into place. Alternatively, the needed weapons are assembled prior to actually fighting. With the focus on maintaining momentum, the Coalition prefers not to have to wait for, say, anti-tank teams to arrive to deal with enemy armour. That isn't to say specialised weapons don't exist, but for the most part everyone can do everything, albeit perhaps not as effectively as dedicated guns.

Another hallmark of Coalition design; the Confederacy just engineer their weapons to such a high standard that potential failures are extremely rare (and considering the stuff the bog standard infantryman plays around with on a regular basis, catastrophic failures tend to afflict soldiers with a serious case of not-alive-anymore-itis).

Good point. In my setting human exoskeletons/frames are purely non-combat use, but desperate or crazy folks might well decide to arm their exoskeletons and slap makeshift armour on - after all, it can't hurt, right?

Fair point - I do imagine many more weapons will be guided in the future. However, at least in my work ECM and ECCM - not to mention hard/soft-kill measures - are very common, and so many guided weapons have a dumb-fire mode in case obtaining a lock is impossible. Alternatively, HOJ*

is often an available targeting sub-mode. Discipline with jammers and ECM is something drilled into recruits from the very beginning, since nobody likes a squad getting swatted with anti-personnel micro-munitions because Private Dumbass forgot to switch off his ECM suite.

Huh, interesting. The way things work in my setting's universe, energy weapons generally aren't bulky unless they're crew-served or vehicle mounted due to refinements in their design.

That's pretty cool.

One unusual trick that Special Activities Force agents like to employ (though only as a last resort due to the fact that they're usually not long for this world at that point) is to use what is codenamed "Red Bloom" - essentially, they use the nanomachines that are present in their bloodstream to (crudely and imprecisely) wirelessly control any of their spilt blood and splash opponents with it.

The nanomachines contained in this blood then begin attacking them, disrupting blood clotting and injecting toxins among other things. However, it's really only effective against unarmoured organic targets. Still makes a nasty surprise, though.

The Sirian Union's special forces are enhanced by both genetic and chemical means, though aside from being much more physically powerful, faster and smarter, I'm not too sure what else they could have in terms of enhancements. But that's by-the-by.

Also wow, long post is loooooooong.

Locking you up on radar since '09

Nah man, standard issue heavy machine gun of everyone. Actual Deuces would hold up pretty well in interstellar war on account of their exceptional reliability and hard hitting power. About the only thing you could do to upgrade it is give it a more recoil dampening muzzle brake and digital targeting computer for sight systems.

There's not a whole lot you can do to improve on near-perfection.

The Ma Deuce is a magnificent machine gun, and I'd be very surprised if there wasn't something at least akin to a M1 in the future, especially with the power of the .50 BMG round. However, it would strike me as strange if we were using exactly the same device way way way into the future, especially if weapons tech has advanced.

Also, since I forgot to put it in my last post, how does this sound as a weapon:

Pressor munitions are those that exert an intense gravitational force, which depending on the settings either immobilises targets or crushes them outright. They are available in bomb, landmine, and grenade formats, though the last one has a limited range and can only exert its field for a minute or two at most. Its field is also weaker than those available to the larger munitions.

Do you think it would be effective in dealing with multiple targets*

? How about in general? Why/why not?

Locking you up on radar since '09

Gravity weapons on infantry? Isn't that like using naplam to kill a flea?

The problem with weapons or tech that beats up spacetime and punches general relativity in the 'nads and is pocket-sized is the plothole: won't this be a risk to the user as well? What's to keep a careless soldier from imploding the universe?

Why not just trow singularity baseballs around?

"Space mines" are one thing: a seeker that looks for ships and spawns a Negative Space Wedgie that is a sci-fi trope as old as "Take me to your leader".

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

It wouldn't surprise me if WW 2 veterans find it a tad strange*

that we still use the Deuce today. The design is 90 years old after all.

In my setting, wormhole technology is an Earth exclusive technology made possible only by the strange materials popping up in the aftermath of a Mass Super-Empowering Event.

Civilian use mainly involve transporting bulk freight across long distances, either by having a vehicle enter a portal or having special warehouses utilizing such technology.

Military use of wormholes covers logistics, as in the previous case, but it can also be considered a weapon.

Possible ways to kill a person using a wormhole:

• Aircraft
  • Collision into ground
  • Collision with self
• Land vehicles and infantry
  • Open up a portal to a large body of water.
  • Transport them 10,000 feet into the air.
• Ships
  • Open portal into body of water and flood the vessel.
  • Direct them into a sheer cliff.
• Multiple
  • Redirect their own bullets, shells, and missile back towards them.
  • Expose them to the vacuum of space.
  • Expose them to the heat of the mantle.
• Special
  • Directing a planetary defense particle cannon towards another solar system.
  • Exposing the target to the surface of a star.
  • Exposing the target to the interior of a star
  • Exposing the target to a black hole.

@Taira:

Fair point, I can see where you're coming from. I can't really think of a good justification, especially since the one I can think of*

can probably be satisfied with more conventional weapons...

On the plus side, generally pressor munitions can be used both for anti-tank/vehicle weapons as well as anti-personnel (though the anti-personnel settings aren't going to affect vehicles very much), and it's easy to select the effects you want. There's also pressor space mines, as you suggested.

Alternatively, perhaps they're strictly for attacking vehicles and/or on the personnel scale they can only immobilise targets*

? That's the only other way I can imagine them making sense.

@Major Tom:

Heh, very true.

@Worlder:

My setting does have wormholes/portals as a FTL method, and weirdly enough they're also only used by the human factions*

. I was thinking that they might be able to use them as impromptu shields in a similar manner to what you describe, but it probably wouldn't be a very efficient use of the tech since it still requires a charge up time and can't be maintained for very long - the general expectation is that you enter the portal and close it behind you, so it stresses the drive to force a portal to stay open (and might cause overheating or technical gremlins). It's still very unpleasant for whoever's on the receiving end, especially if they had just fired their most potent weapons.

The Sirians' FTL doesn't have that particular issue, and one way they like to use it is to teleport chunks of an enemy vessel into space (particularly the ship's bridge/command area, if they know where it is), or making one ship teleport into another with predictable results. It still has the problem that it's more energy intensive than just using it normally, though, and whilst in the particular sub-mode necessary to do this they can't teleport either.

Nevertheless, I imagine the humans could eventually iron out that problem in their FTL and then there's wormhole/portal shenanigans a-plenty.

Thanks for all the responses, everyone! This is really helpful.

Locking you up on radar since '09

@ Flanker:

I tend to assume any directed energy weapon would need a portable power supply... but that's my 'verse. Venom glands are more discrete and don;'t need a power source, and plain old guns are cheaper and more common than exotic weapons. Particle Weapons and Energy Weapons are more commonly used as vehicle-mounted weapons than as hand weapons in my 'verse.

I'd say there are an infinite number of ways to kill someone using a wormhole, but with probably equal chance of killing oneself in the process... LOL.

One could also shoot stuff through wormholes. In one of my settings there is a weapon designed just for that. A miniature wormhole inside a "gun". It's fairly small, or at least small enough that one man can carry it, but it's just as powerful as the point-defense lasers fitted ships. There is just such a laser in the other end of the wormhole.

Also works with projectiles. Then it have the added bonus of having no recoil at all.(Wormholes just work that way.) In this case there's a railgun in the other end.

edited 21st Oct '13 6:28:04 AM by m8e

Of course! I don't expect what is true in my 'verse to be true for all sci-fi 'verses, since that would be stupid. In some kinetic weapons are king, in others it's energy weapons. In still others it's a mixture (like mine) or an entirely different type of weapon dominates the battlefield.

Just to clarify, when you say a "portable power supply", am I correct in thinking you mean a generator or other such system rather than batteries? Because the latter are the main method of powering energy small arms in my 'verse (vehicle mounted energy weapons are powered off the vehicle's power plant, which gives them superior energy reserves to draw upon for obvious reasons).

As for kinetic weapons, railguns*

and (electrically actuated?) guns fed with caseless ammunition*

Mostly human PMCs and irregular units in general

are a very popular choice.

I dig the bio-grafting idea, by the way. In my 'verse I think those would be rather rare, though: perhaps there would be the occasional special forces guy who has something unusual*

.

Cool idea! Unfortunately, I think such tech would be pretty far out of my 'verse's civilisations' reach right now - the wormhole/portals are purely used for transporting spaceships from place to place.

On a different note, I've been mulling over the answer to my second question in the interim, and though I'm not sure how large the railgun assault rifles would be physically, I think I've figured out what their calibre (as far as such a classification fits for railguns) would be. However, I would really like input because my sense of scale (coincidentally) is shot to hell, so I'd rather not get things too wrong.

I think they might be roughly 20/25/30mm in calibre, possibly a smidge smaller or larger. What sort of damage would railguns of that size be capable of?

Locking you up on radar since '09

If Wormholes need to be big, you can still use them offensively. Again, there's a good example from Schlock Mercenary :

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2009-12-16

To give you a sense of scale...that cylinder is about 6km in diameter, and used to be disguised as a space habitat for 28 million people.

Yeah, I figured it would be viable for larger installations. That would be much more doable in my 'verse, especially since the main issue would just be over-stressing the drive (though that's not to say it's a trivial matter - drive failures aren't anything to laugh about).

Still, thanks for the input!

Locking you up on radar since '09

So here are some superweapons I thought of.

• Monopolar Gamma Cannon: Uses fancy space science magic to generate a miniature sun with only one pole aimed at a target. Said target is then vaporized by a beam of nuclear energy. Has almost no basis in real life physics, relying on Rule of Cool to function.

• Neutronium Slug: A tiny shard of antineutronium is kept in electromagnetic and gravitational stasis until it gets shot out of a very long tube. Yes, it fires Neutronium made of antineutrons. The weapon fires a corridor of plasma in order to remove atmospheric particles so it doesn't detonate before hitting the surface of a planet. Once again, physics took a lunch break.

• Grey Bomb: The most scientifically accurate thing on this list. A rod filled with nanobots gets fired from orbit into a planet's surface. Although the force of the impact is enough to qualify it as a weapon of mass destruction alone, the real damage comes from the nanobots. Once they are embedded deep in the planet's crust, the nanobots will replicating. This generates heat waste that melts surrounding rock and creates a buildup of thermal pressure. Eventually, the pressure will become enough that it will vent out onto the surface, causing further damage across a wider area. This usually doesn't take effect for at least a month, so the motivation to use such a device would be to cause damage to a planet's biosphere.

edited 21st Oct '13 3:27:02 PM by MaxwellDaring

I've been sitting on this idea for a while. Improvised Weapon is one thing. But why not modify tools as a backup weapon?

There was a Black & Decker concept for a laser tree trimmer: just point and zap the branches away. There are all kinds of power tools for power tool-y things...

I came up with the "Spacer's Friend":

• modify a rivet gun or other power tool to fire a rivet or bolt at high speed, it doesn't even have to kill. A nasty welt or wound can end a fight.

• Laser cutters, welders, aiming devices modified as a weapon. Even a one shot is better than nothing.

• there might be "zip gun" style hold outs for when the local State Sec tells you to "put your hands up!", tip the tool and fire off a charge or make a loud bang to escape.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Wouldn't the laser set fire to the tree?

Another Idea I had was carbon nanotube buckshot. Primarily used to take out armored high-priority targets, many soldiers use the prohibitively expensive ammunition to clear plant matter, much to the dismay of the CO.

That's probly why there are no laser tree trimmers at Walmart®.

Synthetic diamonds as flack was one idea. "Buckyshot" is a new one.

edited 21st Oct '13 5:35:18 PM by TairaMai

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48