So, there's a long and involved small arms debate in another thread. This is not about that: this is about the big stuff. This is about the kind of things you'd arm vehicles or fire teams with - the smallest of these are weapons that could convert to crew-served weapons (IE, a Fury might be able to fire them like a rifle... If she were wearing a full battlesuit.) The biggest are not remotely personnel weapons. My players may be seeing some of these in the near future. :) For reference, these are intended to be heavy weapons: think "mount it on a truck or a Diatya" for scale. Absolutely no thought whatsoever has been given to making these "game balanced." These are ruinous heavy weapons in the scale between "you can use these like a gun" and "You mount this on the hull of a spaceship." Some of them [i]could[/i] be mounted to the hull of a spaceship... But I digress. Please, no arguing about the usefulness of these in the RPG. If you don't want mil-spec weapons in your game, well... Good luck keeping them out of the hands of players armed with open-sourced Fall-era military fabrication blueprints and nanofabbers! (Or just have the Eye tell them that if they deploy these weapons without authorization or an exsurgent outbreak they will face Consequences.) And yes, I [i]do[/i] tend to be verbose when I write things for games. Unlike the people who are making books to print, I don't have to manage wordcount. If you can and feel like coming up with TL;DR version which loses none of the important bits of what I've written or the vital flavor, be my guest. [h1]Heavy Machine (Rail)gun[/h1] Humanity have been using HMGs since the dawn of automatic weapons. Essentially burst-fire and fully-automatic capable sniper rifles in terms of the weapon's size and the caliber of round it fires, these historically have been, and remain, weapons which are best fired from the prone position with the bipod/tripod gecko pad-gripped to the ground, or from a vehicular mount. These weapons, even in railgun format, very frequently fire rounds whose dimensions are precisely 12.7x99mm, for reasons which only very old soldiers and military historians can adequately explain. [SolArchive link: [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Browning]John Moses Browning[/url]]. An HMG cannot be adequately wielded as a rifle by any biomorph which is of human size and scale. Even though modern rheological systems prevent muzzle climb recoil from being a factor, they do not magically negate recoil; even the biggest, toughest Fury will fall flat on her ass if she tries to fire something like this from even a kneeling position! Multi-limbed, rigid morphs of size comparable to a humanoid morph, such as the Arachnoid (or some of the more inventive Novacrab body-modders) can fire one adequately if it is mounted into their chassis, and biomorphs who are wearing power armor can pull this off, however. Being in low gravity does not help this situation, it exacerbates it by reducing the forces which serve to help you resist the recoil of this massive weapon. [i]Anyone who attempts to fire an HMG without adequate measures (firing from the prone position, firing a pintle-mounted weapon attached to a vehicle or a prepared firing position, being sleeved in an arachnoid which has the weapon mounted to their chassis, wearing power armor, etc.) suffers a -50 penalty to their attacks and is incapable of achieving any measure of success greater than simply having succeeded or failed. When they fire, after resolving their attack they have to pass a DUR ÷ 2 test, or be knocked prone![/i] If mounted on a Large morph or vehicle, the weapon can feed from an internal ammunition hopper, which can be as small as 100 rounds or as many as 1,000 (if mounted on something which is truly large, such as a truck or a militarized Diatya, on which it is a primary weapon,) but it tends to be around 300 rounds. If used as a crew-served weapon, most of them come in the form of ammo belts arranged inside ammunition boxes, which tends to be 100 rounds. If for some reason you absolutely have to have magazines for them, you can get a box mag of 20 rounds (or the enlarged version of 30 rounds.) [h2]Firearm Version[/h2] [i]Armor Penetration:[/i] -12 [i]Damage Value[/i]: 2d10 + 10 (Average DV: 21) [i]Firing Modes: BF, FA[/i] [i]Short Range:[/i] 0-100m; [i]Medium Range (-10):[/i] 101-400m; [i]Long Range (-20):[/i] 401-1,000m; [i]Extreme Range (-30):[/i]1,001-2,000m. [h2]Railgun Version[/h2] [i]Armor Penetration:[/i] -15 [i]Damage Value[/i]: 2d10 + 12 (Average DV: 23) [i]Firing Modes: BF, FA[/i] [i]Short Range:[/i] 0-150m; [i]Medium Range (-10):[/i] 151-600m; [i]Long Range (-20):[/i] 601-1,500m; [i]Extreme Range (-30):[/i]1,501-3,000m. [h1]Plasma Cannon[/h1] Just like the plasma rifle used by irresponsible Furies everywhere, but in a heavy weapon configuration, this weapon draws from massive supercapacitors and/or vehicular generators, and dumps waste heat to massive heat sinks with powerful liquid cooling systems. Occasionally found pintle-mounted in prepared fighting positions, this is not a weapon system which any reasonable squad of soldiers can haul to a battle on foot, more for reasons of set-up time than mass and size. You're perfectly capable of mounting it on a vehicle or large synthmorph, though. In terms of game stats, this is exactly the same as a Plasma Rifle, except that it can fire in Burst and FA modes, which are less repeating blasts and more extended, cooking shots of plasma. If attached to a generator, it has effectively limitless ammunition capacity. More than perhaps anything but a nuke or a cruise missile, this weapon could be described as the patron saint of collateral damage. Deploying a plasma cannon is likely to engender a [i]massive[/i] armed response, and if you happen to belong to a covert operations group like Firewall or Project Ozma, they will take a very dim view of deploying these weapons for anything less than an overt Exsurgent outbreak. Gamemasters are encouraged to play up the "bonus damage" aspects of firing off these weapons anywhere which is populated. [h1]Gatling Weapon[/h1] Known to those who lack a sense of historical majesty as Rotary Cannons, Gatling-style weapons are machine guns used when single-barreled weapons just don't give you a high enough rate of fire. First invented almost three centuries ago, the purpose of a rotary barrel was and is simple: enable a higher rate of fire than any one barrel can tolerate individually by using three, four, or more barrels. Gatling weapons can be machine guns or heavy machine guns, or even larger weapons. They can be propellant or mass driver weapons, but not even the generators and supercapacitors you can cram into a Large morph or a vehicle can cope with the voracious demand for power that a Gatling machine railgun demands... But Large vehicles/morphs can handle a propellant Gatling Gun just fine. (Theoretically you could make a rotary cannon firing a pistol-sized round... Why would you?) Gatling weapons require one action phase of non-firing to spin up before firing. All modern designs, of course, use electric motors and tend to have counterbalancing gyros to prevent unwanted torque from rotating you if you're in microgravity, which means you're perfectly free to keep the barrel spinning continuously. There is no way to make this stealthy in any kind of an atmosphere, but one could argue that the time for stealth is past when you're breaking out these cannons anyway. Rotary Cannons fire in fully-automatic mode [i]only[/i], and consume a voracious 25 or 50 rounds per shot. Like semiautomatic weapons, they may be fired twice with the same complex action (using the same rules.) A normal shot (directed at one person and everybody unfortunate enough to be in his general vicinity) consumes 25 rounds and may be focused on the one target, using normal rules for either focusing your fire for increased damage, or spreading the shots out for increased chance to hit. Anyone unfortunate enough to be within three meters on either side of your target is affected as if you'd used a normal machine gun's full auto to hose down the area. An expanded shot, using the higher rate of fire, hoses down an entire [i]area[/i] with fire. Pick a dramatic direction (such as "everybody on the left side of the street," or "anyone on that rooftop" and hose 'em down.) Notably, Particle Beam Bolters can be manufactured as miniguns whose power requirements meet the power budget of a small vehicle or synth, which provides a significant amount of relief to those on a budget who need the firepower of a minigun - or those who need to engage vast numbers of extremely weakly-armored and soft but determined targets, like swarming people whose brains have been hijacked by hostile nanotech. [h1]Laser Cannon[/h1] Every ‘mesh nerd who gushes about the obvious superiority of kinetic weapons to lasers knows that handheld laser pulsers are hilariously weak compared to even a primitive projectile rifle. This is not a laser pulser, this is a laser [b]cannon[/b]. This is a heavy antivehicular weapon which delivers enormous amounts of energy directly to the target in one short pulse, though you can use it against personnel targets if you really want to. It fires in SS mode, with an armor penetration of -20, dealing 3d10+20 damage to a single target. So much energy is absorbed at the moment of impact that each trigger-pull on this weapon is (exactly) like centering a high-explosive grenade blast at the point of impact, with a blast which deals 3d10+10 damage (falling off at -2 DV per meter.) This damage is dealt again to the primary target if the shot hit, and the attack scatters if it misses. If the target’s armor was completely overcome by the initial attack and it also dealt a wound, the secondary blast damage bypasses the target's armor entirely, and (if the target was a vehicle,) any passengers or crew in the hit compartment suffer full blast damage to boot. This weapon is called a cannon for a good reason, and organizations like Firewall would very much not approve of its indiscriminate use without a very good reason. [h1]Microwave Cannon[/h1] Despite its intimidating name, this is actually a crowd-control weapon, intended to be nonlethal if used as intended. It is basically a Microwave Agonizer writ large, capable of making continuous, fully-automatic emissions of microwaves along a wide area; just like the minigun, you may fire two “Fully Automatic” shots per round, and actively deny a broad swathe of area. Being affected twice by the agony setting does nothing, nor does focusing in, so a user going for area-denial is well-advised to choose two broad swathes of terrain, and to choose the +30 to-hit option. The Roast mode is another matter. Like the standard Microwave Agonizer, it has an Armor Penetration of -5 and deals 2d10 damage. The user may choose to use it to cook an entire area, dealing 2d10 damage to everyone with a +30 benefit, or the user may roast a single target and anyone around him to the tune of 5d10 damage. [h1]Seeker Rifle[/h1] For when you absolutely, positively have to blow up every motherfucker in in an entire public plaza, the vehicular Seeker Rifle is your weapon of choice. It functions just as a Seeker Rifle which your friendly local Fury would carry, firing minimissiles, but its internal ammunition magazines can carry 20 rounds each, and it has five magazines, with the ability to switch between them at-will. It fires in SA, BF, and FA modes, with the usual benefits/drawbacks thereof. [h1]Seeker Pod[/h1] Fighters on foot who need a lot of boom are offered a devil's choice: carry one full-sized Seeker in a disposable launcher, capable of eradicating one target altogether and then useless as anything but a cudgel, or carry a minimissile/micromissile seeker rifle, which is effective as a grenade launcher but not very useful if you need to kill tanks. Fortunately, if you're driving a tank, or sleeved into a heavy synth, you don't need to choose! Just mount a Seeker Pod, and strap several missiles into an armored case mounted on the top. Small but heavy synths like the Arachnoid might be able to mount two seekers in a pod, while really big ones like a Diatya or an armored fighting vehicle could mount four, six, eight, or more. Anything larger than this is the domain of rocket artillery and cruise missiles. [h1]Laser Anti-Missile System[/h1] Not intended for direct use as a weapon system, the Laser AMS is basically a laser with sufficient cooling and generator/supercapacitor capacity to fire continuously - that is, at full-auto rates of fire. It functions just like a laser pulser with an FA rate of fire if used offensively, but that’s an off-label use. The intended use of the Laser AMS is to shoot down incoming missiles aimed at vehicles and large combat synths. Each action phase, the onboard AI shoots at seekers launched into the general vicinity of the vehicle which possesses it (or its tacnetted allies, if they’re in range and so is their attacker.) It shoots at the standard AI skill of 40, with a +10 modifier for the smartgun system included. Every additional time it attempts to shoot down a missile, it incurs a -20 penalty; so in any given action phase, it fires at an effective skill of 50, 30, and 10, before it can’t fire again. If the LAMS’s shot succeeds, the incoming missile is destroyed immediately, detonating 1d10x6 meters away from the victim, to a minimum of 10 meters away from the shooter. If the shooter is firing at under ten meters, LAMS cannot intercept the seeker. [h1]Chemthrower (Torch/Sprayer/Freezer)[/h1] This modern-day chemical thrower is a vehicular heavy weapon with which to project a liquid up to 80 meters. Owing to its liquid dispensing method, it has a short range of 50 meters, a medium range of 80 meters, and no further weapon ranges. Each shot covers an area roughly three meters in radius, though if you’re firing flamethrower fuel, you’ll also hit anything along the line to that target. Missed shots scatter as per normal rules, which can easily result in a “miss” still being a hit. These weapon, in most vehicular mountings, have two tanks, each containing twenty shots worth of chemical, which you may load and discharge as you see fit per complex action; each type of shot may fire in semiautomatic mode, with the expected results. Between shots, a blast of high-pressure gas cleans the system, just in case you loaded materials which might unfortunately interact with one another, or the barrel. (You can get these high-pressure liquid dispensing sprayers made as backpack-mounted weapons, in which case they have only one tank of ten shots.) A Freezer tank fires Freeze foam, as normal, and a variety of drugs are available with which to spike it as you see fit. Out of this massive tank, it can be used to very rapidly construct huge barricades! A Chemical tank fires any chemical/drug you see fit, as per usual. Slip is a popular choice, as you can cover a much larger area with Slip than with other substances, thanks to the way it splashes and so little goes so far, covering an entire 45-degree cone 80m long if you wish to discharge ten shots in one go. A Torch tank seems like a step back from the standard Torch flamethrower’s ammunition capsules, which are much more portable and wieldly. It in fact is not, however, as this vehicular weapon launches either a 1:1 mixture of monomethylhydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, a hypergolic admixture that very vigorously catches fire and burns even in the absence of oxygen or external ignition source, or the even simpler and more terrible singular compound chlorine triflouride, which is hypergolic with practically every substance known to transhumanity, including sand and water (with which it reacts explosively,) as well as almost all modern smart materials - and of course, with oxygen. (Luckily it tends not to react with basic structural metals like steel, for the same reason oxygen declines to explosively react with aluminum.) A Torch tank firing a hypergolic hydrazine mixture has an armor penetration value of -4, deals 3d10 damage, and any target which is directly splashed continues to take 2d10 damage every round thereafter until they can clean themselves off or the fuel burns out (which takes place in 5 action rounds.). A successful Fray check (which is not halved against the slower-moving liquid splash,) allows the target to get out of the way of the direct splash, but if they were in range, they will still take 1d10 damage from the intense heat alone. Chlorine Triflouride does the same, but once it's on someone (a direct hit with the liquid,) it's absolutely impossible to extinguish the fire until it goes out; and as a bonus, it releases some very effective chemical warfare agents, which though not immediately lethal or deadly unless the victim is breathing them into their lungs, are still quite ruinous to biomorphs. Although not typically a habitat-wrecking weapon, using flamethrowers (not to mention chemical warfare,) on ordinary transhuman targets has long been considered a barbaric act and a war-crime in most circles. (The rumors that Direct Action mercenaries were very fond of using chlorine triflouride on evacuees who may have been from "compromised" (read: poor) populations during the Fall are, of course, completely unfounded, just ask Direct Action's PR division.) Flamethrowers of this size are ruinously effective against nanoswarms, of any origin, TITAN (including their sub-nanoscale picoswarms) or otherwise, cooking entire swarms with one shot which only needs to be a Simple Success. This is a simple fact of thermodynamics and cannot be avoided, no matter the level or origin of the technology, so if you have reason to fear nanoswarms, a vehicular flamethrower loaded with hydrazine is by far and away your best bet. It also works well against the reanimated dead, according to most videogames to feature zombies and other reanimated corpses for the last hundred and fifty years, though as-yet no field results on the subject have come back conclusively one way or another.