Whistle Dart

A type of ammo used in mostly high muzzle velocity weapons such as conarms that is capable of creating a supersonic shockwave several times it's diameter around it that can have damaging effects on weaker materials and cause soft tissue damage to nearby living things even if the dart itself does not hit the target.

## Info

Whistles are similar to solid conarm darts however they have an additional detail that makes them unique. The back of a whistle has special ring is mounted around the backmost part that is designed to create a sharp second supersonic shockwave while making the said shockwave create as little drag as possible. Usually the shockwave created by the shock ring stops after a certain distance that depends on the projectile speed. This sudden stop caused by the projectile tip's shockwave and the ring's shcokwave interacting makes visible the dents on the target material if the material is not torn apart.

When the ring created by the whistle's shockwave is measured right after fully forming (at it's optimal muzzle velocity) it creates what is called a Maximum Effective Diameter (MED). This is the constant diameter of the shockwave cutoff that the whistle is going to have. The higher the MED the shock ring is configured to have the more quickly the whistle will slow down as it travels through the air. A lower MED usually means a higher power and range but greatly lowers the effective radius of the shockwave and decreases the impact spread of the shockwave.

MED is measured either in percentages (for example 743% means 7.43 times larger then the projectile diameter) or diameter length (for example 140cm means if you were to measure the length of a line going from one end of the MED to another whilst passing through the center it would be 140cm long).

## Pros/Cons

* While whistles are quite damaging to thinner layers of material a direct hit on a sturdier structure is often a lot less effective. An impact against a solid surface does temporarily increase the strength of the shockwave though, so the surrounding damage caused to anyone nearby is greatly increased. In general a higher MED causes a stronger impact spread effect.
* Casted whistles are unable to be used at higher ranges as their shock ring creates a lot of drag. There are however complex whistles being developed by the Surface that only deploy their shock ring when in proximity to the target.
* Whistles drop greatly in efficiency with higher caliber conarms as the needed muzzle velocity for optimal performance is often very difficult to achieve with such high projectile weight. Lower speed projectiles are thus forced to have a much lower MED

## Trivia

* In the Downfall the usage of conarms mounted on planes is highly frowned upon due to the whistles that are most often used as ammo being able to fatally damage aircraft without a direct hit.
* Whistles got their name from the loud whistling noise they create when flying through air.
* Whistles have small deadzones at the points where their shock ring is connected to the main projectile body. Due to a whistle's average caliber this deadzone is negligible.
* If a whistle impacts a brittle solid surface the shockwaves that form often create a spider web like ring of cracks. this can even happen in materials prone to cleavage! Yes... yes i know what came to mind when you read this...
* Whistles rely on fluid dynamics and the surrounding atmosphere to form their devastating shockwave. This means that when shot through clouds or gas they tend to disperse it and create a tunnel the size of their MED. Similarly, when flying above a body of water whistles not only leave a trail on the surface of the liquid but also sometimes aggressively pitch down if the MED interacts with the surface of water. The latter is also present with terrain though it occurs a lot less.
* Whistles fired through a cloud, above water or near land create noticeably different sounds when flying. Whistles fired through a cloud are almost fully muted while they fly through the densely packed water particles as the sound form the shockwave is absorbed by the mix of water and air. A whistle flying above water causes it's sound to deepen, gain reverb and echo similarly to a high MED whistle flying through the air. Whistles fired right above terrain causes a quick cracking noise as the supersonic shockwaves rapidly deflect off the ground. This effect is stronger when flying over more structurally sound terrain.