Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Lord Stone]

So, I am planning a futuristic setting, and am currently designing firearms.

Now, the setting is not very pulpy, not meant to be. I do not want laser pistols or plasma rifles. I just want to explore what another four centuries will do with guns.

Guns are a couple centuries old, and we can still recognize many of the designs and mechanisms of the past in modern firearms. Quite simply, I think with another 4 centuries we will still recognize a lot about the guns compared to now.

Now, normally you'd just use the modern firearms table... perhaps with different names, who knows. But who cares? Mechanically, guns have to compare to each other first and foremost.

However, in this game, timetravel is going to be a possibility. The players' firearms might be pitted against the normal modern firearms.

So the question is, how do I make them better. I reckon the damage guns do isn't going to change much. Perhaps they have better Armor piercing. Perhaps advanced technology can reduce recoil, resulting in better accuracy which translates to longer range increments. Increasing clip sizes also seems a likely improvement. And then of course there are always a couple of non-mechanical improvements, such as better silencers etc.

Of course, armors have to be improved as well. I think I am going to use what Kevlar does, that way giving melee combat a little edge as well as they do not have to deal with the increased protection against ballistics that bulletproof armors give.

What I am looking for is good ideas and tips from experiences GMs and players for designing the mechanics for futuristic guns. Creative ideas for interesting new gun-types and/or keywords are welcome as well :-).

[Sadric]

I try to remember Gurps Hightech and Ultratech.

A caseless round is nearly possible today.

I didnt think it would chgange the stats of the gun, except maybe +2 to clear a malfunction (for example after snake eyes).

Then there are fluid propelants, the propelant is injected in a chamber and ignited there. Maybe a simple +1 to damage and/or AP.

Then you could have targeting computers/Systems. Could work like the daring tale of the sprawl-cyberware. Lets say the system gives shooting a wild die of d8 or even d10.

different magazines with different ammunition, changed by speech is known in some Megacity.
You know, AP rounds, EX rounds and Gel-rounds. changed as free action.

[supercOntra]

Just look back a hundred years and see what's happened.
Lighter weight, better sights, more ammo, full auto on personal weapons. Attachments and electronics.

All these will continue to improve and will be standard built in the weapon itself. Further miniaturisation will probably yield smart ammo and remote controlled guns (a la Rogue Trooper)
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[Lord Stone]

Remote controlled gun turrets, or even automatic gun turrets, can be quite interesting. These are rather different from personal arms though, but I think I might tackle them as some kind of special equipment. After all, they are hardly using the Shooting skill of the character any more, rather they use an automated targeting system which might have a skill die of its own.

Caseless rounds is a good one, thanks. Won't change the statistics of the guns really, but indeed, clearing a jam should be easier.

Ammunition switcher is a nice idea, since I was already thinking of incorporating several types of ammo. One type of ammo is actually built to release an electric jolt (this is one of the more pulpy things still, but about the upper limit on how pulpy I want to make the base setting).

I am hesitant to let the character's gear change his Wild Die to be honest. I read Daring Tale of the Sprawl, but I decided against using the Wild Die altering mechanics on that front. The characters do have options to have certain types of guns as Cyberware though. I personally think that advanced targeting systems would aid in increasing effective gun ranges, I am trying to decide between a +50% increase or a +100% increase overall.

One thing I am considering is railgun technology, but considering modern railguns are cannons and can at most be shot 1-3 times before they fall apart, I wonder if it is really possible to make them personal arm sized... perhaps as a large, Heavy Weapon, long range rifle at best, but not even certain on that.

[chugosh]

I think gauss rifles are a lot more likely than not, but they would have the major drawback of being easily spotted with a magnetic field distortion sensor. Translate that to -2 stealth to carry, -4 if fired given an enemy with a standard sensor suite in his battle gear.

As for chemically fired guns, I like the binary fluid fuel gun idea. Tougher materials would allow for higher chamber pressures behind larger bullets, but I think the trend would be toward smaller bullets travelling much faster. This also has the problem of shoot through collateral damage.

Then of course if the firearms of the future divided into camps of more lethal battlefield weapons and nearly nonlethal police weapons, you could have massive rate of fire heavy projectile (colapsium?) armor piercing weapons as well as effective capture or riot control guns doing no permanent damage. The latter would be great for the time travel set as there would be no trail of bodies to mess up the timestream.

For the mechanics, to make things easy as possible, the heavy military weapons would be in the 3d8 range, rof 4 or 5, ranges 20/40/80 just to put some kind of limit on them, and several hundred shots, but would also be rather heavy being built for a man in powered battle armor.

The less lethal weapons would only be similar to modern large bore weapons but do non lethal damage. Unless specifically made for the time travel crowd, they would likely be big and intimidating for scaring criminals into submission.

[Virgobrown72]

Caselees rounds, alternate types of ammo, and greater firing rates are all safe bets for future personal weapons. Maybe, at the far end of the spectrum, a battery pack powered sniper rifle that uses a powerful ultraviolet laser instead of physical ammo? Unless you are actively sweeping for the ultraviolet range, it's undetectable, and no shells, ammo, or noise.


Hmmmm.....
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[OSIAdept]

the way i am handling this for my System Crash setting is with the use of Ammo Mods

got the idea from mass effect

The basic idea is that ammo is constructed with Inert-Nanites suspended in a hi-density polymer-matrix that mimics lead, the ammo mods program the nanites to perform certain abilities.

These were the standard mods i used

Armor Piercing: +1 ap
Incindiary: On a raise the target risks catching on fire
Cryonic: On a raise the target must make a vigor roll or it suffers -2 to movement and -1 to toughness untill its next turn
Gravitic: +2 damage +2 ap
Ion: +4 Energy shield penetration
High-Explosive: ammo explodes in a SBT

Ammo mods could only be used with certain types of weapons
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[ValhallaGH]

[steelbrok]

I can't help thinking that easiest FFF way to demostrate a difference is to increase the range increment of future weapons

[SlasherEpoch]

You can also increase the Armor Piercing value of bullets from the future, or make them Heavy Weapons.
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[GranFalloon]

A gun that can't be fired by anyone but the person keyed to it. They've had locks keyed to a magnetic ring you wear on your finger for decades. They've started building them using chips and fancy sensors, though having computerized devices in a gun puts them under a lot of stress.

So yeah, these kinds of locks should be readily available, but folk still might not use them.

[AMG503]

I'd say caseless and enhanced accuracy are the most likely.
Maybe smoothbore finned bullets and laser range finding to allow terminal guidance.
Definitely a plethora of different ammo types (which is already appearing on the market) everything from hi-damage,no penetration to tungsten core sabot rounds. Maybe explosive (contact mini grenades not current explosive styles).

One thought I did have was if the nature of a gun changes...metal storm is currently an experimental emplaced weapon (sort of like a phalanx system) with a centuries enhancements it might get down to pistol class weapons which would mean the return of the old pepperbox multibarrel pistols with ROF at huge levels (maybe a 6) and 6 bursts.

[Aki]

No laser rifles or the like? Hmm.. Ok, here's the thing, around 1890 we hit a wall. Guns haven't had any major improvements since because their underlying technology has hit its physical limit. You can play around with the powder load and the bullet size, but even that tinkering came to final fruit with the M-16. Now you can throw on technology assists and maybe even get a computer into the bullet to make it a guided projectile, but that underlying tech isn't changing anytime soon.

I mean, come on - some of John Browning's designs for WWI are still in widespread use - particular the M2 .50 cal machine gun. That gun has not changed notably since it was first deployed c. 1918.

In 400 years we might see a change in bullet propulsion, but the jury is out as to whether that's going to occur before lasers come into play, and it's also out as to whether it's even practical to do for a small arm. The most promising technology and the one the navy is investing the most money in is electromagnetic rail guns. These hurl the projectile along a track using electromagnets. The prototypes today can throw a projectile about twice as fast as the best powder gun, and it is hoped the technology will provide for muzzle velocities in excess of 6 times what a gun can provide. At those hyper sonic velocities the shell destroys the target via kinetic energy alone - it doesn't need a warhead to speak of.

But this is ship to ship / ship to shore gun tech. It will be a long time before it can be fielded. It will be even longer (if ever) before it's can be miniaturized for personal use.

Computer / biological integration is going to have a more profound impact, as are drones.

400 years in the future may be wildly speculative as seeing just 40 years into the future is becoming hard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

What happens when the computers can design, improve and build themselves?

Just some thoughts.

[Lord Stone]

Oh, I have been working on this setting on quite a lot of fronts. This thread was specifically for guns.

The world I am designing has none of the traditional science fiction disaster stories... well, except for the corporatocracy future, but even that turned out not that much of a disaster so far.

In this game the early 21st century will be referred to as the Technological Revolution. I think you understand what that implies about the kind of walls that were encountered in many areas of technological development. It's all quite different from you average utopian or dystopian science fiction stories, which is why I said it's not going to be a pulpy game.

Getting back to guns though... I have been looking into guns and shooting ranges and I am starting to get the feeling that the range increments in Savage Worlds are *very* generous. Now, I am not at all a gun specialist, so I might be horribly mistaken, but does anybody know something about that? Not saying it is necessarily a bad thing, but I just would like to know how those ranges compare to real life shooting.

[ValhallaGH]

[Lord Stone]

Okay, thanks :-). In my opinion, miniature battles tend to be very limiting. It can work well with melee combat, but once you are starting to talk guns or even magic you tend to need more room than a regular table tends to offer. I am tempted to try a smaller scale, measuring everything in centimeters instead of inches. I am not even sure yet if I even want to try miniatures in a gunfight at range.

[Timon]

However projectiles and propulsants may or may not change we can already see the shape of the future in the current increase in the use of drones.

It seems to me very likely that future gunners will in fact not hold a gun, but be the smartest part of a targeting, friend or foe, tactical system that coordinates multiple walking, flying or mounted weapons.

In Savage terms you would still have a shooting roll, but you would be able to fire X drone weapons of all the varieties described above at targets you can see directly or which a drone perceives and reports to you. Your ability to discriminate between important and irrelevant targets becomes key.

You would probably not be anywhere near the battlefront: mostly you would be shooting and interdicting each other's drones and trying to track down the commander's location. Personal combat will become much more like modern naval combat.
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[Lord Stone]

I already have some rules for drones. I have automated drones that have their own 'skills', and remote controllable drones. Well, actually, they are the same but you can use them in either mode.

Drones are controlled through Neural Interface Controls. Without training this imposes a -2 modifier on all actions remotely taken through droids (or other machinery for that matter. This is more than combat alone). A trained individual with the right professional Edge can ignore this penalty.

The players are going to be a bit like Shadowrunners though. For them there is a lot to gain from the personal approach as well from time to time. A drone after all is much easier to take out than a person is and vulnerable to electronic warfare and weapons designed to disable machines. A master hacker might even intercept them and turn them around against you. I mean, it is nice to know you are safe with a drone, but having a drone disabled will still cause your mission to fail which, depending on the importance of the job, can be a professional demise.

So yea... still lots of reason to carry personal arms around for the players. I agree though that in warfare things are probably a lot different.

In terms of weaponry there will also be cyberware (up to full cyborg) and powered suits with heavy weapons and heavy armor. Many guns can be had as cyberware as well, hidden within an arm or somewhere else. Those will be handled the same as normal guns with the difference of them being implanted inside the body, which has advantages and disadvantages. Cyborgs that can be reached through the wireless though can be hacked as well, though the hacker would have to be pretty experienced.

And then of course there is advanced AI weaponry. Think tanks and the lot. Even androids, although they are not necessarily the most efficient form for a weapon (an AI tank is much more effective).

Quite a bit of inspiration is taken from Ghost in the Shell.

But yea... I mostly want to know about guns and ballistics in general, mostly because this is a rather unfamiliar area for me, both in real life as in roleplaying games as this is the first time I run an urban setting.

[ValhallaGH]

[Virgobrown72]

One interesting thing I've done in my games is changed the weapon ranges to makes them simpler.

Ex:
Close Combat= Adjacent
Short Range= 12 inches
Medium Range= 24 inches
Long Range= 36 inches
Anything longer is Ballistic ranged.

All the standard negative modifiers I still use when shooting beyond normal range.

Ex:
Pistol (Short Range weapon)
Short Range -0 modifier
Medium Range -2 modifier
Long Range -4 modifier

While a little less realistic, it makes for less guesswork about ranges, leaning toward FFF. ALL the weapons I use in my games fall under one of these ratings. Narritively, it's easy too, because you can just say, " this person is within close range, this person is within medium range", etc.

Try it. It makes things really FFF!!!
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