Vehicle Weapons

Vehicle weapons are those weapons which are generally too large and cumbersome for a person to carry on their own, even dismantled. They are not just heavy, crew-served weapons like mortars and machineguns, but larger weapons that must normally be mounted on vehicles or buildings, or bolted to the ground before they can be safely fired. They come in a variety of types, shapes and sizes, but all have standardized hardpoint attachments, making it easy to mount them on space ships, mechs, and standard vehicles.

### Vehicle Weapon Properties

Like standard Weapons, those mounted on vehicles may have special functions unique to them that differentiate them from other weapons. This allows players to make granular decisions about how they engage in combat. While many vehicle weapons use properties that also apply to standard weaponry, there are some specific to large ordnance which are listed below.

Any properties for vehicle weapons that can be **applied** at the time of purchase will have the weapons they can apply to noted in their descriptions.

The Gatling property can be applied to the following weapons:
* **Autocannons**
 Autoloading
 Twin-Linked

### Vehicle Weapon Basics

Vehicle weapons have the same statistics as those carried by hand, but with an added power requirement and different size categories. Weapon properties, critical effects and other rules function identically to normal weapons and can be found on the Weapons page.

Unlike weapons wielded by hand or parts of a character's body, Vehicle Weapons normally do not use any of a character's Combat Skills when rolling. Any time you fire a weapon from inside a vehicle, using the vehicle's controls, you add the vehicle's AGI attribute to the pilot's Piloting ranks and roll that many dice. With weapons integrated into hardsuits and characters who are manually firing a Vehicle Weapon from within the hardpoint, you use their AGI attribute and their Ranged and Heavy Weapons skills instead.

#### Vehicle Weapon Ammunition

Ammunition for vehicle weapons can be stored in one of two ways:

* Storing ammunition **inside the hardpoint itself** allows the ammo to remain accessible without taking up any of a vehicle's available inventory space. Hardpoints can only store as much ammunition as the mounted weapon can carry in its magazine.
* Storing ammunition **inside the vehicle** allows much more ammunition to be carried, but takes up a vehicle's inventory space. Unless the vehicle is modified with an **autoloader**, weapons will still have to have to be manually reloaded when the magazine is empty. All vehicle weapons take a total of 6 AP to reload.

#### Vehicle Weapon Size

Vehicle Weapon Size is used to let you know about how heavy or about how big a weapon is. It is most important for determining the type of hardpoint the weapon can be mounted on. Most vehicle weapons themselves do not take any of a vehicle's available mass - instead, hardpoints simply "reserve" the space.

* Light Vehicle Weapons are by far the most common. They can be mounted onto hardsuits, tiny mechs and most standard vehicles and can easily be converted into a static turret. They primarily include low-caliber autocannons, Gatling-style machineguns and point-defense lasers. They have an inventory size of 9.
* Medium Vehicle Weapons are significantly larger than Light Vehicle Weapons and are often seen used as primary weapons on vehicles designed solely for combat. They can be mounted onto light mechs and military vehicles and include things like high-caliber autocannons, low-caliber artillery cannons and gauss guns. They have an inventory size of 12.
* Heavy Vehicle Weapons are very bulky and very powerful. They can be mounted onto medium mechs and military vehicles, but are most often used by ships in space. They mostly include mid-caliber artillery cannons, missile launch tubes, torpedo launch tubes and amplified energy weapons like XRASER beam emitters and plasma projectors. They have an inventory size of 18.
* Spinal Vehicle Weapons are extremely large - so much so that they make vulnerable targets when mounted externally. As such, hardpoints for spinal weapons often take an enormous amount of space in order to allow for most of the weapon to be housed internally. Spinal Vehicle Weapons can be mounted on heavy mechs, but are usually used as a main gun by capital ships. They include things like Bose-Einstein Condensate Projectors, Lightning Guns and Particle Accelerator Cannons. They have an inventory size of 24.

On the weapon tables, Vehicle Weapon Sizes are listed as L, M, H and S for Light, Medium, Heavy and Spinal weapons, respectively.

## Autocannons

An autocannon or automatic cannon is a large, fully automatic, rapid-fire projectile weapon that fires armour-piercing or explosive shells, generally within the range of 20-40mm in caliber. Though they are much less powerful than artillery cannons, they have far greater rates of fire, making them better suited to engaging smaller, quicker targets.

## Artillery Cannons

A type of extremely large-bore gun firing very high-caliber shells over massive distances, artillery cannons are among the oldest gunpowder weapons in human history. In general, they take the form of a truncated cone with an internal cylindrical bore for holding an explosive charge and a projectile. While they pack an enormous wallop, artillery cannons have no automatic firing mode and a single-round internal magazine that must be reloaded after each shot. Many modern variants of such weapons have autoloader systems installed, which automatically move ammunition from an armored storage container into the weapon's magazine between firing cycles.

Artillery cannons generally come in one of three broad variations:

* **Field guns** are designed to fire long, lightweight, fast-moving shells in a mostly flat trajectory. These are the most common cannons, those you might see mounted on a tank or a combat spaceship.
* **Mortars** fire wide, but short, stubby and slow-moving projectiles in a strongly arched parabolic trajectory. They are considerably lighter weight compared to other artillery cannons and can be mounted on smaller vehicles; however, they are much less damaging than howitzers and have a far shorter effective range.
* **Howitzers** fire long, heavy, fast-moving shells in a strongly arched parabolic trajectory. They are extremely large and demand a dedicated platform to be mounted on standard vehicles. They make up for their high cost and bulk with incredible power and the ability to hit targets at extreme ranges in an atmosphere.

## Point-Defense & Close-in Weapon Systems

Point defense weapons are weapons that are used to shoot down projectiles, especially guided missiles, and also to ward off less-threatening enemies. The most common and least effective type of point defense system is a pair of simple, automatic light machineguns mounted to a standard hardpoint and operated manually by the crew, usually seen on criminal or civilian vessels. On the other side of the spectrum are advanced close-in-weapon systems up to 20mm in calibre that automatically track and destroy targets without any human intervention. Some variants of CIWS are even entirely energy based, such as automatic laser weapons, eliminating the need to worry about ammo logistics.