That's probably all the ones with the magic bonus RC, 'special chamber' design, etc.

This has already been partially covered, but basically, standard ballistics use a front-loaded chemical explosion which is resisted by the cartridge and/or chamber, etc. depending on the specific firearm. This creates additional recoil above and beyond the physically mandated action/reaction recoil. Gas venting helps mitigate this recoil. A rail gun propels the projectile via electromagnetism over the length of two rails. Since it doesn't use an explosion of any sort, theoretically you can claim it would have optimally efficient minimal recoil over a standard chemical ballistic. Also, as someone else stated, the force is applied over the length of the barrel, so you have less kick in the recoil as well. This second part, along with theoretically extremely controlled nature of the force being applied was my rationale for having easier to control recoil (-1 per uncompensated vs. -2 for standard heavy weapons).



Presumably explained above. The lack of the explosion, and the potentially open nature of the rails would act as a natural sound suppressor. I'm sure it would still make noise, but it would be much quieter then any chemical balistic. No muzzle flare either. Now the humming....

Of course, there are reasons rail guns don't "exist" in the real world, but this is SR bleeding edge tech, so we assume solutions were found .




Ah well, I don't recall them , but I'm sure you could improve them and call it R&D next gen tech. An underbarrel nanite shotgun which shoots a cloud of targetting nanites with a linked AR display to select the nanite cluster you wish to target which then acts as a homing beacon for your gyrojet projectiles, giving you a Fifth Element style auto-targetting/hitting gun. Not sure how you'd work that with net hits to damage.... Just give the defender a defense die pool penalty probably.

The gyrojets have enough trouble just being 'dumb' bullets, let alone micro-missiles. But I'm not saying it's impossible in 2070 to have micromissiles (although, still pretty unlikely at the size and distances we're talking).

And railguns have rediculous energy and heat issues. But this is a near-future science fiction game with elves and dragons. I think the bar for plausibility has been pretty well established .

I guess i understand your position a bit now, but is there any real reason for the railgun weapons given the existence of the Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle? (p30 Arsenal) It uses a magnetic accelerator (coilgun technology), DV9, AP-4. Doesn't appear to have any effective improved recoil rules, though it does use ammunition and energy to fire each shot.