Niklas Jansson
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Last Imperium - Weapons Cont.
🕑 Added 2023-06-23 20:42:16 +0000 UTCI have made a little progress on the weapons sheet. Because of the medieval undertones I've angled back the handles a bit, like on pirate guns. I'm unsure if these are compatible grip-wise with all of the playable aliens. I think I'd rather change the alien hands than making a bunch of variants of all wieldable equipment.
I also want to stay away from designing modern looking weapons, visually and functionally, so I'll have to invent a reason why they're not popular. Perhaps powder+casing bullets are not as effective due to armour and/or shield tech. They're also loud, need to be manufactured, and have messy slow trajectories. Their only advantage could be that they're compact and can be used in small hidden weapons, like wristcuff guns, canes, or for delivering custom ammunition like poison puffs, needles, rubber balls. It would be an advantage rules-wise if weapons in general were single-shot, so this works out.
In contrast, energy weapons could all need longer "barrels" (accelerators or whatever). I want to give these a visual language rather than doing a bunch of shapes and greebles, so I tried loosely working out some of the internals. One type has a prominent spherical core, and the other a power pack of some sort. I gave them red dot / reflex / hologram sights (as this allows me to make more exotic barrels if needed, without front sights). LEDs may or may not exist in this universe... I could fuzzy it by calling them glow dot sights or something.
Afaik, red dot sights are just a lens reflecting an LED, cleverly curved to match the eye's point of view and keep the dot centered (there's no laser dot on the actual target).
Guns used on ships would need to be less destructive, so, perhaps something like a beam gun which cooks organic bits and doesn't affect hulls much. I gave these a distinct radiator. Then there could be foam, tangle web, gas guns and such.
I'm not sure how to handle advanced melee weapons yet. These are usually vibro blades, monofilament blades, beam blades. Perhaps I could call them "hyper-edge" and just not explain it, and at least have my own thing going.
Lastly, I drew a cane which can also work as a spear, warhammer, and surprise gun.
Comments
Niklas Jansson
I was thinking that in a big side sci-fi universe, there would be planets with cultures which use ceremonial weapons or just stuff which makes sense given the available resources or tech level.
Boone
It's really funny seeing all these energy guns powered by "battery balls", followed by a regular macuahuitl. Even in a world of laser pirates, you'll always have some that stick to the classics.
