Alliance Weaponry

## Kinetic Weapons

### Magnetic Weaponry

With graphene superconductors came the ability to replace chemical propellants with electrically-based acceleration. Magnetic weapons use a series of electromagnets to launch projectiles. These are primarily used by infantry forces, and offer a number of advantages over previous chemical-propellant weapons. Firstly, they have fewer moving parts and thus require virtually no maintenance and rarely jam or fail. Secondly, as graphene replaces chemical propellants in a smaller space that’s integrated throughout the gun’s frame, magazines only need to hold the actual bullet, allowing for a greatly extended magazine capacity. But an often-overlooked utility is the fact that the user can customize the rate of fire and power of each shot to fit a variety of tactical needs.

The word magnetic is typically abbreviated to “mag” to get terms like “mag pistol” or “mag rifle.” Magnetic projectiles are called darts and typically come in two varieties.

Compact darts are purely ferrous darts and exhibit little variation among different styles available. With their smaller size comes a magazine size that usually runs between 50 and 100 darts. These projectiles are designed to be fired at supersonic velocity, typically with a muzzle velocity of 1-2 kilometers per second.

One of the few differing types is the injection dart, which has a much lower maximum velocity, but that's perfectly fine for these non-lethal darts. Turgons describe these darts as giving them a mild prickling sensation.

Payload darts are a much higher caliber that are designed to be fired at lower velocities to reduce recoil. This results in a smaller magazine capacity and muzzle velocities normally around half a kilometer per second. Slower velocities can actually duck under the sound barrier and deliver nearly-silent gunfire salvos.

* Slug: various solid fills allow for typical performance.
* Ferrous: Certain powerful guns, mostly made for turgons, achieve even higher velocities with ferrous darts.
* Explosive: Exploding rounds do more damage.
* Penetrator: A core of tungsten or depleted uranium increases armor-penetrating power.
* Non-lethal: Iron particles suspended in a gelled liquid are less lethal ammunition that are known to even cause turgons actual pain.
* Micro-Missile: Rounds that can use any of various seeking methods to steer toward a target.
* Microdrone: Fired at low speed to seek out enemies.

### Railguns

Railguns lack the versatility of mag weaponry, but they are used for their sheer power. They usually have too much recoil for infantry and are typically vehicle-mounted. Railguns have extreme problems with barrel wear and heating, but they are capable of shooting projectiles many times faster than the maximum output from magnetic guns. This is especially important in stellar warfare, where railguns are just barely able to make it at the slowest end of space combat and are thus used in short-range combat. Railgun turrets do extreme damage at ranges close enough to hit through the opposing ship’s grav shields. Some ships and boats mount spinal railguns through their center, allowing them to take down much larger opponents with powerful blasts. Railguns have a slow firing rate, which is why several railguns are often combined into a gatling turret to allow a dozen shots or more per minute.

## Energy Weapons

### Lasers

The basic alliance energy weapon is the laser. Recent advancements have allowed something approaching efficiency from such devices, and they are used in both ground and stellar warfare. Laser sweepers are laser cannons that are designed to be fired continuously. Starships use them as point defense, though they are largely ineffective against ships coated in high-albedo armor except at the closest of ranges. Ground vehicles also find use out of them as point defense or for offensive use.

Pulse lasers by contrast fire a single powerful blast and then have a brief cooldown, usually about a second but sometimes upwards of ten seconds. They find little use in stellar warfare but infantry tend to appreciate them in sniper rifles, usually using lasers from outside the visual spectrum.

Lasers are also used for stealthy communication, mostly between fighters, and they find myriad other uses from mining to energy transmission and more.

## Explosive Weapons

### Stellar Missiles

Stellar fighters launch missiles which are smaller than torpedos but still effective. These are usually smaller x-ray laser warhead missiles with much less acceleration, meaning they need to be launched much closer to a successfully-defended ship to hit.

### Terrestrial Missiles

X-ray laser warheads are impractical in atmosphere so planetary fighters and ground forces usually use a different variety. Older chemical explosive warheads are still used to great effectiveness. And newer havoc warheads release a massive blast of electrical devastation that contains more power, yet in a fashion that is harder to predict. Microdrone warheads release a swarm of tiny flying drones loaded with explosives to seek out and destroy targets with hopefully much greater precision than the previous munitions. In dire situations, tactical nuclear warheads may be used.

### Grenades

Modern grenades are versatile explosive packages. They are designed to be thrown or shot from a mag. launcher and can be set to explode after a certain amount of time or on impact. With their built-in sensors they can be placed and linked to a datapad and to allow the user to see what they see and detonate them remotely when needed. They can also be set as proximity mines that will detonate when they detect an enemy.