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Old 01-05-2022, 09:54 PM   #1
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122...

ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122...

Personal weaponry is still in use in 2122, human nature not having changed in any measurable degree. Many of the same weapons that have been used throughout history remain in use on Earth in 2122, but a few new ones have been added as well.

Melee weapons: Knives, swords, axes, you name it, they all exist, though only knives see widespread violent use. Improvements in material quality mean that these weapons tend to be lighter and stronger, and hold an edge better, but otherwise much the same as they've always been. (In GURPS terms, Fine weapons cost the same as average quality in 2021.)

Firearms: These have changed somewhat in a century, mostly through a process of gradual improvements, along with improvements in materials science and a smattering of superscience here and there (much as microchips would be superscience to a person from 1930, but are often incorporated into devices someone from that era would recognize).

The vast majority of firearms in 2122 use what would today be called 'caseless' ammunition. This is an area where the slow-but-steady effect gradually eliminated the various problems associated with caseless ammo, such as brittleness, overheating, premature detonation, and so forth. By 2122 the standard forms of caseless ammunition are safe, stable, and very tolerant of environmental conditions.

Various forms of liquid-propellant firearms were also developed, and eventually made practical, but for the most part lost out to caseless weaponry for reasons of safety and mechanical complexity (and thus eventually cost). Liquid-propellant weaponry does exist, and is used for certain niche applications, but caseless is by far the standard.

Advances in chemistry permitted the creation of 'grades' of caseless ammunition as well. Externally identical, higher-grade ammo has greater range due to differences in the chemical composition of the propellant 'cake'. Most guns are rated to use multiple grades, any gun can fire a bullet with a lower range-grade than its maximum without difficulty, the only difference being a reduction in recoil and range, and greater impact for targets when long-range ammunition is used at short range.

(This does mean that a skilled gunman must practice with different ammunition grades in order to be equally accurate with all of them, since the 'kick' will be different.)

Using higher-grade ammunition than a weapon is designed to use is extremely dangerous to both weapon and user. Most jurisdictions require that the different ammunition grades by visibly marked to reduce the chance of a mistake, in the USA Federal law requires a color-coding scheme, in which red and blue circles on the exterior of the projectile indicate the grade, the more red circles, the longer the range.

Note that practical considerations mean that there are limits to this. The longest range pistol ammunition will still fall short of medium-grade rifle ammo, for example.

Also note that there is ammunition that is deliberately low-range compared to what we would expect of a given weapon in 2022. This is widely used in situations such as self-defense, room-to-room combat, or the like circumstances when lower range can actually be advantageous. Blue circles denote 'reduced range' ammunition, more circles=lower range.

(This has passed into everyday language in 2122, even outside America, 'blue range' means near-at-hand, '
red range' is extreme distance. This usage shows up in many contexts, not everyone even knows the source.)

The legality of different ammunition grades varies widely between jurisdictions, as does black market availability in restrictive jurisdictions.

Most of the familiar firearms of today exist in 2122 in caseless versions. Such venerable weapons as the .45, .22, and .357 all still exist. Revolvers also exist, though the chambers must be heavily modified to make use of caseless ammunition, and so revolvers are less common in 2122 than they are in 2022.

Needless to say, conventional ammunition from 2022 and 2122 caseless ammo are not interchangeable. A weapon made in 2022 can not fire caseless ammo, a 2122 caseless weapon can not use 2022 ammo. In principle a gun could be designed to use either, in practice it was never worth it except for freak instances that were never practical weapons.

The only other consistent change in firearms between 2022 and 2122 is that improved materials technology has made the later weapons tougher and more durable, more resistant to rust, corrosion, water, etc. That does not mean that one can get away with not maintaining one's weapon, merely that it will take slightly longer to catch up with you if you do not.

(On the other hand, Murphy's Law remains in effect: when failure to care for your weapon does finally catch up with you, expect it to be at the worst possible moment. Some things just don't change.)

As far as bells and whistles go, it depends on the manufacturer, the gun, the buyer, and the jurisdiction. Guns are manufactured in 2122 ranging from basic, simple weapons to fancy arms that have every special feature (security locks, biometric sensors, tracking transmitters (popular with police weapons), whatever) that one might reasonably expect.

The above includes various high-tech targeting systems, which are popular and in widespread use. However, there are still many who prefer basic glass-and-metal (or composite and plastic) sights, which need no external power and don't draw attention to the shooter (unless light reflects off the sights, of course). Basic glass-and-metal sights remain widely popular.

Note that almost (almost!) all firearms manufactured in 2122 are safe to use in vacuum, should that situation arise. (Or at least, vacuum will not interfere in their functioning.)

To be continued...
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Old 01-06-2022, 02:02 AM   #2
warellis
 
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Default Re: ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122...

In your setting, among the older Solarigen spacefaring species, and the Helians, how advanced did personal small arms get?

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Old 01-21-2022, 06:32 PM   #3
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Default Re: ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122...

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Originally Posted by warellis View Post
In your setting, among the older Solarigen spacefaring species, and the Helians, how advanced did personal small arms get?
Among the various human(oid) worlds, things tend to plateau around where I describe Earth in 2122, with mostly refinements after that. The Helians are too alien to go into briefly.
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Old 01-21-2022, 06:57 PM   #4
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Default Re: ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122...

ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122 continued...

Hyperweapons (HYPERvelocity): These are superscience slugthrowers as well, but they are more mechanically complex and delicate. Their advantage is that they throw a shell at substantially higher muzzle velocity than a conventional pistol or rifle. Hyperpistols and hyperrifles both exist, thought the former are much rarer for practical reasons.

Note that hyperweapons of any sort are much more expensive than conventional pistols or rifles, as well as being legally iffier in many jurisdictions.

A hyperweapon incorporates superscience technology in the form of 'accerator coils' in the barrel, somewhat similar to a gauss gun but using different forces. A hypershell is a spherical pellet of dense material, coated in a complex ablative layer.

When fired, a hypershell leaves the barrel with a muzzle velocity in the neighborhood of 3000 meters/second. Normally air erosion would immediately begin to destroy the shell, but the outer coating contains materials that 'capture' some of the accelerating forcefield, reversing it into a repulsion that pushes the air aside momentarily, extending the range. When this effect dissipates the outer layer begins to ablate, protecting the inner shell somewhat until it strikes its target.

Hyperweapons exist in a variety of calibers and forms, and exact performance varies widely. A 'typical' hypershell might mass 30 grams, and 30 grams striking at 2-3 km/sec carries a substantial force. (Actually, at very close range the ablative layer might be partially intact and the impact be greater yet.) It is partly because of the large shells and large exit velocity that hyperpistols are rare: the 'kick' is ferocious.

Larger hypershells do exist, but are somewhat rare outside military applications.

Hyperweapons are often impractically powerful for most ordinary self-defense or comparable uses. They do have their uses, however.

Most hyperpistols use conventional power cells as their basic energy source, but include high-end capacitors to store up energy from the power cells to power the actual firing. This in turn means that a hyperweapon may be 'charged down' even if the power cells are still mostly charged, because the capacitors are empty and must recharge off the power cells, which takes a little time. A typical hyperrifle might be able to store enough energy in its capacitors for five-six shots before recharging is necessary, either from replaceable power cells or external power. Some designs have sockets for larger external capacitor cartridges, these might empower the weapon for ten-fifteen shots.

The time it takes a hyperweapon (or a laser weapon) to recharge its capacitors is referred to as the 'cycle time' and varies wide from model to model. More expensive weapons, of course, generally have a shorter recycle time. The phrase 'cycle time' refers to the time it takes for the capacitors to charge up enough for one shot. Thus, if a hyperrifles as a 'cycle time' of ten minutes, and enough capacity for ten shots, it'll be 'fully loaded' after 100 minutes unused (though external power might be used to do it faster in some models, the cycle time depends on both the design of the capacitors and the size/number of power cells).

To be continued...
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Old 01-27-2022, 12:24 PM   #5
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Default Re: ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122...

ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122 continued...

Blastpistols/blastrifles: These are laser-based personal weapon, utilizing pulsed lasers as the destructive agent. The common term 'blast' in this context comes from the explosive damage inflicted by the pulsed laser beam.

While advancing technology has made personally-portable laser weapons both practical and useful, they are by far the least commonly used personal weapons (at least by civilians) in 2122. They are not rare by any means, but they are a less popular choice than standard caseless slugthrowers or hyperweapons.

There are several reasons for this. The first and probably the most important is expense; laser-weapons cost substantially more than the various forms of slugthrower. They require finely prepared optics and other components, as well as additional engineering to compensate for the fragility of certain components. Then there is heat dissipation and so forth. All these problems have been solved by 2122, but not necessarily cheaply.

By 2122 laser weapons are fairly sturdy and reliable (if still on the bulky side), but earlier models were often fragile and delicate, and this reputation still carries over to the modern models, somewhat unfairly. That said, it is
still easier to damage a laser weapon with rough handling than a slugthrower.

Most personal laser weapons in 2122 use infra-red light, at a low enough frequency that reflections and stray light are absorbed by the liquids in the eyeball rather than reaching the retina to damage it. The best frequencies for Earth-surface use are the optical wavelengths, but laser weapons using those frequencies represent serious blinding risks to unprotected bystanders (or the user for that matter if he or she is not properly protected). Almost all such weapons use a handful of frequencies chosen carefully to avoid such problems as 'frequency doubling', which can convert a vision-safe beam into a blinder. Unfortunately, the 'safest' frequencies are not necessarily the ones with the best range performance.

Laser weapons have something of a bad public image in 2122 in many places (including the USA), precisely because their use in earlier warfare and conflicts with optical-frequency beams did indeed result in large numbers of casualties with damaged or destroyed eyesight. Just as roundshot once produced a disproportionate number of casualities with missing limbs, laser weapons produced a disproportionate number of people who were blinded but otherwise healthy in several mid-late 21C wars. This led to a substantial public hostility that has not yet entirely lifted in 2122.

Most blastpistols and blastrifles in 2122 are designed to specific infra-red frequencies, as noted, and they are designed to be difficult to change. Difficult is not impossible, though, it is possible for someone with the right skills and tools to rewire a standard blastweapon to use optical frequencies, and this is occasionally done for the performance boost. This is usually very illegal, even in jurisdictions which are relaxed about weapons ownership.

['Very illegal' means that even in tolerant jurisdictions, simply possessing such a modified laser weapon outside one's own property is enough for prison time. Actually firing it makes the sentence longer. If someone ends up with damaged or destroyed vision from such firing, even very tolerant jurisdictions (including most U.S. States) will impose decades-long sentences.]

Power-wise, most blastweapons use the same powercell/capacitor combination that hyperweapons do, and the 'cycle time' terminology applies to them as well.
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Old 01-27-2022, 12:36 PM   #6
Sam Baughn
 
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Default Re: ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2 View Post
(In GURPS terms, Fine weapons cost the same as average quality in 2021.)
TL8 (i.e. 2021) muscle-powered weapons are already fine quality by default. Do you mean for them to be fine at 40% of 'normal' cost (the cost of 'good' quality weapons at TL8) or very fine at normal cost (or maybe both)?
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Old 01-27-2022, 08:51 PM   #7
Johnny1A.2
 
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Default Re: ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam Baughn View Post
TL8 (i.e. 2021) muscle-powered weapons are already fine quality by default. Do you mean for them to be fine at 40% of 'normal' cost (the cost of 'good' quality weapons at TL8) or very fine at normal cost (or maybe both)?
Both. They're cheaper (though the 40% varies) and better simply because of generally improved materials tech.
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Old 07-21-2022, 07:07 PM   #8
warellis
 
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Default Re: ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122...

Since personal lasers are a thing, have particle weapons been shrunk down to personal levels? Or are they, at most, vehicle mounted due to weight and heat concerns?
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Old 08-11-2022, 10:31 PM   #9
Johnny1A.2
 
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Default Re: ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: Personal Armaments in 2122...

Quote:
Originally Posted by warellis View Post
Since personal lasers are a thing, have particle weapons been shrunk down to personal levels? Or are they, at most, vehicle mounted due to weight and heat concerns?
They are being researched and worked on, by as of 2122, they are not yet practical personal weaponry. They are too bulky, too power-hungry, and the problem of backscatter, Bragg imprecision, and so forth are not fully solved (at least not at personal weapon level).

Particle-beam 'artillery' does exist, as semi-experimental military weaponry, but it is still too expensive and too tricky for widespread adoption.
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