To get back on the original topic...

Lasers are very inefficient. It would probably be more dangerous to get the laser battery and attach that to a projectile that explodes upon impact, than throw the laser, rather than to use the laser as described. They are also heavy, bulky, hard to reload, easy to bust (since they need to be perfectly aligned) and incredibly expensive.

Normal guns meanwhile are cheap, simple, robust and gosh darn effective.

Unless we make some truly outstanding jumps in power generation and storage, lasers will be a second rate weapon with some interesting specialty roles, if any, for a long time.

(BTW, for some more info on sci-fi lasers, check out:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3l.html

)

Also, all powerful lasers require large quantities of hazardous chemicals.
You would need a very powerful and ridiculously bulky laser. The Airborne Laser (ABL) needs a converted cargo plane. Even if you got a laser to a fraction of that size it would be mounted in a jeep, and would not be anywhere close to man portable.

I can't really support the idea of microammo mentioned in the OP, because, as many people have stated, the physics simply don't allow tiny projectiles to do huge tissue damage, even if they're going, y'know, 0.5 [/i]C[/i]. They'll just pass right through, leaving a small hole and a hurting, but functional, combatant.

Given the projected technology of 2070, however, I'm goddamned amazed that ergonomics, gas venting, integrated gyroscopes (without the harness and retarded movement penalty) and what-all haven't produced weapons with next to no recoil. The gas venting available is simply not enough to reflect a fierce R&D competition on firearms for 100 or more years. While I understand action-reaction, I see no reason that said reaction couldn't be mitigated to "irrelevant" or close in the next 60 years, at least for 9mm and smaller rounds. I also realize, hey, it's a game, and games need balance. No one would use a single-shot pistol if a machine pistol or compact SMG would provide more bang for the same recoil.

Someone also mentions larger-bore weapons and metahumans. I totally agree, though there are armor concerns there. Nevertheless, regardless of larger bore weapons used against metahumans, what about large-bore firearms for metahumans? Brief caveat: I always felt the recoil comp for strength rules were way out of whack. A troll of STR 11 is literally twice as strong, at least, as so-and-so winner of World's Strongest Man (I know, it's not linear, I'm just making a point). So Joe Troll could, in theory, easily fire a semi-automatic round (or revolver) with a caliber of 1, something like 20mm, today's anti-materiel round. And the frame of the pistol itself would actually be closer to ideal for a troll, anyway. Try shoving a bratwurst through the trigger guard of any pistol you own (a delicious experiment!). Now add big-ass bones to it. But that's a whole other rant.

I can't imagine a future where the rules of physics were so distorted (magic aside) that your assault rifle carries 500 rounds of ammunition without reloading, while remaining effective. Even flechette rifles, like the ACR (wait, that's right, right?), encase the flechette substantially and thus don't really increase capacity.

But hey, that's my gaming group, and we sort of pay attention to ammo and ammo models (for instance, the 7.62mm NATO for our AK-97s don't work in our 5.56mm NATO M-23s, but we don't bother with damage and penetration differences - yet.

If an infinite stream of sliver-sized projectiles made of, I dunno, mercury(?) can cause fist-sized holes in soft targets in your game, that's great. At least you get to forget about another bookkeeping aspect of the game, and emo would love that shit. More power to you! Just not for me, and I would totally bitch and nerd out about it if I were in the game in question.

Who needs micro ammo?

The Calico can load a hundred rounds of regular 9mm ammo. It's kinda largish for a pistol, granted.

And it's awfully awkward, balance wise. But that's because the designer attached the magazine in kinda a silly unbalanced place.


-karma

hmm shooting 3 inch groups at 100 yards does not sound unbalanced.

Note the pistol/SMG version carried 50 rnds, carbine carried 100 rnds 9 mm.

I like the design but it was doomed by events beyonds the companies control.

WMS

What does flechete have to do with my needle ammo ?? They are totally different things. Flechette is specifically for shredding unarmored targets. My needle ammo is specifically for punching right through armor although it has extremely low damage.

Well my understanding is that flechete rounds are what older sci-fi used to call needlers, the only difference is that people discovered in the real world that needlers didn't work so the term evolved.

Of course, I could also be totally off base here as well...

For a far-future sci-fi game I did some research on various supertech man portable weapons assuming near unlimited energy budgets (antimatter power supplies). The limiter was that people were still people and physics was not handwaved.

Lasers suck in atmosphere due to particulate-based disruption. Fire one in a sandy area and you've just create glass particles in the air, possibly done damage to your own eye from reflections, and cause diddly squat damage to your target. Even in space lasers are only useful out to a range of about a light-second or so, depending on the velocity of space craft.

Ionic and plasma beams are pretty nice, being close to laser-straight beams at significant fractions of light speed and they inflicts a mixture of radiant energy and kinetic damage. Downside is they generate a lot of incidental heat and the beams can be deflected by magnetic fields. Needs a lot of mag field but hey, unlimited power budgets go both ways. Plus being close to the target of a plasma or ion bolt is bad for the shooter as there will a significant plume of superheated mass ejected back along the firing path.

Small diameter hypervelocity weapons have problems with creating laser-like wound tracks (meaning tiny regions of disruption). Hit a side of beef with a waterjet metal cutter and it cuts a hole. The meat doesn't explode because the hydrostatic forces within the tissue act as a solid, channeling the blast. You can cheat by using frangible rounds that fragment on impact to get wide wound paths but they'll be crap against hard targets and could come apart on leaves or other light foliage.

Barring the invention of a Star Trek phaser (a beam weapon that doesn't produce a crapload of incidental heat), the best manportable weapons really turned out to be slug throwers using projectiles comparable to current rounds. Mag fields or a super propellant might be the means of acceleration but recoil is still limited by the shooter, so the velocity/slug mass ratios stay within the same ranges. The best you get is more ammo capacity.

Sure it might not be the most effective weapon out there, but you've got to admitt these babies have style (I own both a 9mm and a .22 Carbine.) and if that isn't Cyberpunk then I don't know what is.

I'm shocked ... and I thought things like that were called needle-less drug injector and had rather "short" ranges at which they can deliver the desired compounds ... or in other cases are simply called "air brush" ... Thanks for the enlightenment

I don't think it's unreasonable to increase the capacity of firearms in SR4, especially with guns like the PS90(50 rd mag) and the calico(50-100 rd mag) as examples.

Granted my experience with the calico wasn't very positive, that was due to it slam firing 10 to 15 rounds at a time.

PS90: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_PS90

Speaking of ammo...

I'm trying to do a conversion of a bunch of weapons from Twilight 200 to SR4 and am trying to figure out the DVs. Raygun's guide is a help, but does anyone have a copy of NightmareX's firearms conversion guide they could send my way?

No, no joke. It's obvious that the creator of the linked page only put those words in the story in a perfectly clever attempt to avoid being tracked down and killed by a CIA secret agent wielding the very weapon being exposed.

Brilliant.