edit: What do people think about including functionally identical (or nearly so) but practically different "brands" of items? Consider:
laser wrote:Though not a laser by any stretch of the imagination, due to its resemblance to the so called 'lasers' of classic games and movies of the previous millenium, the misnomer has stuck stronger than space rated epoxy. Cheap and utterly dependable, this and other similar low yield exhaust-compression weapons are ubiquitous in armed civilian populations.
Laser: Burton and Wells c92 'Cutter' wrote:The latest entry in one of the most respected laser series, the Cutter has received remarkably poor reviews from specialists. With a relatively high price tag when it hit the market, the Cutter nevertheless exhibited surprising failure rates, and shipyards reported problems with installation and in-flight software bugs. Patches and replacements prevented it from becoming a full recall, but Burton and Wells' reputation has not yet recovered.
Cheap and utterly dependable, this and other similar low yield exhaust-compression weapons are ubiquitous in armed civilian populations.
This allows the creation of a larger, more immersive game world than simple generic "lasers" and "shield 4s" and such. Now, without further ado, here are a bunch of more generic weapon fluff descriptions.Laser: NeoPlast Inc. 'Rockbiter' wrote:Billed as "the miner's best friend", NeoPlast Inc.'s dependable Rockbiter design sets the stage as the baseline exhaust-compression 'laser' type weapon. Inexpensive and functional, the major critique offered for these tools is that their construction has a lot of crude, rough edges on which EVA mechanics could rip their spacesuits. Thus far there are no reported events of this taking place.
Cheap and utterly dependable, this and other similar low yield exhaust-compression weapons are ubiquitous in armed civilian populations
ion_beam
'@upgrades/medium.png@The electric charge of ionised plasma makes it particularly easy to compress and fire using simple magnetics. Deceptively simple in design, these weapons' expense comes from the difficulty in making an ionised plasma that remains coherent after firing. In the last ten years, advances in this field have led to drastic drops in the accessibility of ion beam weapons, and to a market glut of cheap knockoff brands.
ion_burster
'@upgrades/beam2.png@Actually an older design than the ion beam , the ion burster relies on solid ammunition to form ionised plasma. An ultra-high-frequency magnetic induction field turns a solid vapourisation plate into semicoherent plasma, simultaneously stripping it of its electrons. Before it loses coherency this ionised plasma is ejected at high speeds. The relative simplicity of this system compared to generating a plasma from scratch allows it to be more refined and elegant than the modern ion beam.
stormfire
'@upgrades/swarm.png@Individually fairly worthless, the PC-031 "Stormfire" was designed as a low-yield, low-overhead gun that could be employed in high numbers on fighters with multiple weapon mountpoints, or as point defense on capital ships. Surplus Stormfires have seen additional use among merchants as cheap, reliable alternatives to the laser.
antimatter_gun
'@upgrades/medium.png@Antimatter is not to be toyed with, but some people do anyway. As storing ammunition for an antimatter weapon is nearly as dangerous as being hit with such a weapon, most antimatter guns rely on a "pay-as-you-go" system. Fueled by raw deuterium, they generate antimatter on the fly and eject it using a sophisticated point-repulsion charge. Any error during the firing process will not merely slag the gun, but will evapourate it and a large portion of the vessel on which it is mounted; thus, every aspect of the process is perfectly controlled. Needless to say, such engineering does not come cheap.
tractor_beam
'@cargo/cargo_hud.png@Artificial gravity technology can be used in a wide variety of ways: arguably the most popular is keeping your soup in its bowl. A Nonreal-Point Gravitic Field Emitter, commonly known as a tractor beam, is good at putting somebody else's soup in your bowl.
repulsor_beam
'@cargo/cargo_hud.png@Generating a negative-gravity beam is quite a lot more difficult than it sounds. Repulsor beams, relatively new items on the market, have seen considerable use in large-scale construction projects; some creative combatants have found different uses for them.
tractor_heavy (expanded)
'@cargo/cargo_hud.png@Animal magnetism is overrated. This is just over-engineered. Capable of producing a g-field that could crush a human being, heavy tractor beams are rarely seen outside of deepspace construction yards and piracy organisations.