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[Pimp-Boy 2000]

I've been working on several gaming projects lately, not the least of which include Fallout HERO, another post-apocalyptic campaign of my own design, and slowly, slowly reading the rules for Shadowrun.

Now, recently, I've decided I want to create my own "Dark Future" campaign setting.  The plotline and the backstory are still way out in limbo, and I'm looking for inspiration for them.  One of the first things I want to work on, though, is designing a large, comprehensive, flexible, and interesting weapons set.  It's still in the concept phase, of course, which is the best time to get input from fellow gamers; as veterans of Shadowrun, I would truly value any input Pub members are able to offer concerning this endeavor.

I face several challenges in approaching this project:

-- I want to create categories of slugthrowing (ballistic) firearms which operate in a futuristic fashion, yet are not based solely on "rubber science", nor on modern conventions of how slugthrowers should work, nor on concepts which are already cliches in the SF genre.  Something all-new, in other words.

-- I want to create energy weapons which are based, however loosely, on physics as we know them today.  For example, Star Wars blasters shoot laser bolts that sound like "PPPEEWW!!  PEEEWW!!"  What would be the most feasible types of energy weapons in the future, what would they look like, and how would they work, realistically speaking?

-- Aside from traditional (fictional or real) physical and energy weapons, what other sorts of weapons might develop in the "Dark Future"?  How would they be used to attack an opponent?  How would you hold them?  What would they look like?

I'll be posting my own ideas to this thread, and I strongly encourage you to help me out when and if you can.  If this "Dark Future" project pans out, I can (and will) publish it to a PDF; any contributions from Pub members, or anyone else, will be prominently noted in said tome.  Fallout HERO is one thing, but I'm copying someone else's work there... I want to go out on a limb and see what I can do on my own, with the help of friends, of course.

I'm truly passionate about game design and all the aspects that go along with it.  There's a lot of crap out there today, and if I can create something that's fun, innovative, immersive, and unique, it would really make me happy.

But I cannot do it alone.  Ruski, you often have time at work to think and type and plan and imagine... if you're interested in collaborating in designing a game, we can do a lot with our spare time.  That goes for anyone else, as well.

[Pimp-Boy 2000]

Although this thread is doomed to become one of those "we don't care" threads -- as do all my threads here in fiction -- I'll continue posting here.

I have an idea for a firearm, which is inspired by the anime movie Kite.  It's a pistol which fires a special bullet; once the bullet enters its target, the shooter can press a button on the grip of the pistol, causing the special bullet to explode (while lodged inside the target).  Obviously, this causes devastating amounts of damage.  Of course, the bullets would probably be expensive, illegal, and hard to come by.

Suggestions, anyone?

[ROOTless]

Not so much a special pistol as a special bullet, and a gun with a build-in RC.

Caliber should probably be pretty low, both to ensure that the projectile doesn't just pass entirely through the body of the target and to reduce the risk of ballistic deformation destroying the detonator (which AFAIK is the main part of the reason why we don't have these bullwts already).

A larger scale version is ofcourse possible, and see use today, as an anti-armor munition, but there the detonation is designed to take place outside the body.

[Ruski]

advanced laser technology would probibly end up being more a cross between a lightsaber and a whelding torch.

it'll melt things, set things on fire, (not be a quick little foot long shot) more like a beam that you have to drag acrost the target. (the slower the drag, the better the dammage)

i would imagine that a room after a laser fight would have a lot of 'S's' drawn on the walls, from where people 'walked' their beam into their opponents...

-RuskiFace the Pirate

[Pimp-Boy 2000]

ROOTless, excellent observations on the gun/ bullets.  As you mentioned, the gun needs to have the remote detonation transmitter installed to make it an effective system.  It'd take a significant amount of retrofitting to allow a normal firearm to shoot these bullets, but it sounds fine to me.

Ruski, I agree with your assessment of laser weapons.  I've always thought that REAL futuristic lasers would not shoot energy packets, but simply project powerful laser beams.

[ROOTless]

And even if they do "hurl energy packets" (that is, use a pulsed laser), the laser pulses move at the speed of light and so would seem continues to humans, assuming we'd percieve them at all.

Ofcourse, we'd probably need some serious advances in laser technology before something like that happened. At the moment, lasers tend to be extremely energy inefficient, except for a few solid state lasers that have very low output limits.

[Ruski]

Yea. but hey, it is the future right?

actually, plasma weapons would look like little bolts of light.
they basicly heat up something (like iron) to a point way beyond it's boiling point, and then release it by throwing it. (like hucking a handfull of mud) at that point it burns everything to a crisp.

i'd imagine that it would look more like a flame thrower through. what with oxygen burning quite easily at thoes tempatures and all...

-RuskiFace the Pirate

[ROOTless]

Funny thing that, how everyone talks about plasma weapons, and then imagine firing off a blob of superheated liquid, and not actual plasmatized matter.

[Ruski]

Well, it's hard to get it that hot, and still do something with it.
you could probibly get it pretty close though...

-RuskiFace the Pirate

[Pimp-Boy 2000]

It's difficult to get it that hot, but easy to CONTROL plasmatic material.  You have to use supermagnets to contain the plasma in a field so that it is not touching anything.

I know this because I read about some machine at a university that is capable of creating plasma.

[Ruski]

still, the space between the plasma and the magnets would have air in it, and air burns quite nicely... would have to operate in a vacume...

-RuskiFace the Pirate

[ROOTless]

so what?

Compared to the requirements for making plasma, a vacuum (well, a good enough vaccum) is easy.

[Ruski]

hmm... good point. but what about delivery?

how are you going to get the plasma from your vacume sealed magnetic creation device to some space other than it's extreamly protected enviroment?

opening it up to the air would cause a huge firestorm.
and if that's the effect you wanted, a flame thrower would work much better.

perhaps a plasma gernade would be a better idea?

-RuskiFace the Pirate

[Pimp-Boy 2000]

You can get the plasma delivered by pushing it with the same magnetic field that's restricting it, just the way your throat muscles help you swallow water, or the way your stomach muscles allow you to vomit.

[Ruski]

but as soon as the plasma hits air, it's going to go to hell. how far can you create a vacume infront of the gun to deliver the plasma... and wouldn't the vacume destroy most things you'd be trying to plasma-attack anyways?

could work good on a space ship as a ship to ship weapon perhaps, but I see only limited use inside the atmosphere...

-RuskiFace the Pirate