realistic ones.

ones with nice proper physics behind em

the beauty of gadgets like that is that you can predict exactly what will happen when they interact with objects/ people

I want to check out a pistol from the 'weapon shops of Isher'



Quote from story: "The right to buy weapons is the right to be free."



I've not read that in decades--anyone know if it's in print?--Dean

Check it out on Amazon.com -  there's usually a good selection of used books there.

 

swhitebull -  great book, along with Null-A,  iirc.

how about the HIWS?

that looks like its straight out of Ghost in the shell

As to a favorite conceptual weapon, for use by troops wearing light power armor, I'd go with a over and under light machinegun, hypervelocity mini-missile launcher. The machinegun is similar to the ones used by the marines in Aliens, while the missile launcher fires 40mm guided rockets. The machinegun is used against soft targets, while the missile launcher is used against hard targets or those requiring explosive ordinance. Available rocket ammunition includes HVAP (basically a sabot round with a rocket motor built around it), HEAT (conventional or tandem shaped sharge), HEP (aka squash head), HEAB (airburst), HEBP (barrier penetrating, basically a multirole concrete-rubbling/wall piercing round that can either penetrate through a barrier such as a concrete wall and explode on the other side or penetrate into a barrier and explode inside to maximize damage to the barrier). The machinegun is fed from a linkless feed drum on the soldier's back, the rocket feeds from 3 box magazines using a rotary chamber, with the ability to use different ammunition in each magazine and select the type needed. The entire weapon is mounted on an articulated arm which provides stabilization, data links to the fire control system, and helps protect the linkless feed chute to the machinegun from damage. A slat-armor shield is built around the gun for frontal protection from RPG type projectiles that articulates with the stabilization arm depending on the attitude of the weapon to the firer's body (which principally applies when the firer is prone so it folds flat against the ground).

ive tried to design some nice toys using 3g and fire fusion and steel

the physics gets in the way of a lot of good ideas, rocket for instnce- scaling problems mean that you cant really have an effective rocket much smaller than 30mm, even then its a trade off between warhead, motor and guidance

i found that as a warhead gets smaller more and more of it is fuse.- look at the current 40mm grenades for example

the only way around it is to postulate some massive tech jump- say isotopic explosives, micro miniaturised jet engines etc

...rocks, but they make the mistake of assuming at a basic level that all small arms weapons will always be constructed using steel. What is with that?

If the LSAT system is put into action the degree of limitation of Fire Fusion and Steel will become really aparent. It is still an amazing tech sourcebook, and I like using it as a check step to see if my ideas for a weapon system are even remotely realistic.

The mini-missile launcher was originally designed using Fire Fusion and Steel, except that it seems like the rocket rules didn't include the concept of just using a long rod penetrator as the entire warhead, so I had to fudge a tiny bit. I think I designed the penetrator using the rules for either rail guns or APFSDS ammo, and set the penetration stats equal to what it would have if launched by a gun at the velocity of the rocket, and designed the rocket as if it was using a warhead as heavy as the penetrator. It is by far the most effective heavy infantry weapon I was able to figure out for attacking relatively light armor. Part of the problem in its case is that FFS acknowledges that small rockets suffer inefficiency but just places a 10x inefficiency coeficient on any rocket design below a certain point--like below the level of an actual booster--rather than scaling the eneficiency to the actual size of the weapon, so it is easier to make a really tiny and extremly high velocity missile work.

Treadgar

Lightweight Small Arms Technologies, the Army's effort to finally produce a new weapon system. And probably to make the OICW feasable in the process. there's a recent update on the status of it on the Weapons of the World board.