Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailanka
A TL 12 antimatter round can fit into a 10mm round, which means you can fit it into a portable railgun. A portable railgun has +7 range, which we can easily increase to +9 with extended aiming. With a compact scope, that bumps up +4 to +13, and with a targeting program, that increases +2 to +15. If we brace, that's another +1, and if we go AoA, that's another +1, so we're at +17. We want to hit at least 3k yards away (which the portable railgun can easily do), which is -19. At skill 14, that still hits on a 12 or less. This attack will deal an average of 800 burning damage, and 20 million toxic/radiation damage. That's "nobody survived that hit."
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One way to mitigate this somewhat is to say that there is no passively stable antimatter containment. It always needs active control, which requires at least a minimal power source and a computer. If there is an accident, if you lose power, if the antimatter round is bumped too hard, or if an EMP (or its TL 12 equivalent) fries the computer, the antimatter round detonates. If you are the one carrying it, this is A Very Bad Thing. With good point/zone/area defense, the AM round might get lased out of the sky when it is still quite close to the person shooting it, which again is not so healthy for the gunner.
Mini-nukes are a bit more problematic in this regard. Even if they are antimatter-initiated microfusion (one of the more plausible scenarios), presumably they are not armed until fired so even an accident that exposes the antimatter only makes a small boom and not a big boom. Still, a boom of few kg TNT equivalent is Not Nice when you are carrying it.
Luke