this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Worldbuilding

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Yinrih don't use nukes, as they never bothered to weaponize them before discovering how to yeet things at significant fractions of the speed of light.

I've mentioned retribution fields before, which are force fields that absorb the kinetic energy of projectiles and then fire that energy back at the attacker. They were invented to counter...

...Quasiluminal munitions (Commonthroat gkg rDFrlmqrLPq or more often known by the military slang term gkrdfg, a clipped and reduced form of the above) are projectiles that travel at relativistic speeds and whose destructive power comes solely from their kinetic energy rather than a incendiary or nuclear payload.

Force projectors are used at shorter ranges. As the name implies they project force at a distance. As weapons you mostly see them on paw gauntlets as part of powered armor. By thrusting the palm forward a force extends outward beyond the reach of the attacker's foreleg, sort of a long-distance punch. They have scalong issues though. they convert surrounding oxygen to ozone, and can't be operated in atmosphere beyond a certain size for reasons I have yet to figure out.

Since yinrih are quadrupeds they can't practically use human guns. Modern soldiers use back mounted drone capsules that hover nearby and fire at enemies, similar to the Option power-up from Gradius. Older firearms are saddle-mounted and sit on the back and have a tail-actuated trigger.

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[–] Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I suppose it depends on what you consider "interesting" - I tend to find relatively "conventional" sci-fi stuff like coilguns or advanced missiles, so long as they're fairly well designed! But with that in mind, let me discuss a few relatively unique ones:

  • C+ Artillery is... exactly what it sounds like. Actually predating FTL travel by a fair bit (humans... go figure), C+ artillery hurls a massive slug through a sequence of faster-than-light spacefolds, like skipping a stone off a pond. The results are utterly catastrophic: Not only does the projectile bypass armor and interceptors as it "skips", but the target is subject to the unspeakable gravitational shear forces at the event horizon of the final fold... and that's before the enormous slug at .99C slams into it. They're used for cracking fortress-stations and dreadnoughts, and thankfully have never been fired against a planet.

  • The typical infantry armor can be outfitted with the SPG-22, a 60mm, box-fed semi-automatic coilgun mortar. This system is mounted pointing vertically on the back, and is fed from a 4-round box magazine. It's most notable for the lack of need for emplacement: If necessary, the operator can kneel, the armor braces itself in place, and the mortar fires as necessary. Typically the user is actually aiming the system using an onboard firing computer, while an assistant operator keeps the weapon fed. In this way, rapid firepower can be pushed down to a platoon level.

  • The AGS-202 'Easifa' ('Storm') is a monstrous cluster munition: Weighing in at over 3,000kg, it fragments into several individually-guided petals, which in turn try to arrange themselves for maximum coverage of an area... before they in turn disperse a mix of pyrophoric incendiaries, high-explosive fragmentation, and guided armor-penetrating bomblets by the hundreds. They're meant to erase entire defensive lines, although if you can disperse one over a base, the results are equally terrifying.