Consider this. What would a pistol from the year 2400 look like. A more clever design, for sure, but it would I think mostly be capitalizing on newer materials available. Stronger, more heat resistant, wonder materials. What would the gunsmiths of 2070 do with steel that is strong as diamond, radiates away heat like it was in a freezer, and weighed next to nothing. I am not all that sure, there is already and upper limit to what a human can handle firing, but I still thing much could be done. If I were a mage living in 2070 here is how I would make a wonder material.

Making a hard thing harder is easy enough.

Reinforce (Physical)
Type: P • Range: LOS • Duration: S • DV: (F ÷ 2) + 1
This spell increases the structural integrity of an object
no larger than caster’s Magic in square meters. Each hit increases
both the Armor and Structure rating by 1 for the duration
of the spell.

Reinforce quickened on armor is about all you would need to make a suit of magic armor. Reinforce cast on a gun would make a gun that is very resistant to damage, wear, and could probably be loaded with much heaver charges, or the gun could be made with less steel or of nontraditional softer materials.

For engineers in all sorts of fields finding ways to radiate away excess heat becomes the name of the game, especially for electronics where cumulative heat damage is often what eventually kills them.

Alter Temperature Type: P • Range: LOS (A) • Duration: S • DV: (F ÷ 2) + 1
--this could have a non area, touch version.
Alter Localized Temperature Type: P • Range:T • Duration: S • DV: (F ÷ 2) -3

As alter temperature raises or lowers temperature it might be combined with a detection spell at the time of its quickening, to regulate the temperature up or down to try to reach some ideal.
Thermographic vision may be appropriate enough, so might analyze device, which could provide information for and be tied into other spells cast on the device. Logically a simple detection spell to determine the temperature of a inanimate object probably already exists in the Shadowrun universe, it is just not that useful to shadowsrunners or anyone else.

The reasons this could be useful are many but for example, automatic guns need to vent away a lot of heat, but at the same time steal that has been heat treated becomes more brittle in cold temperatures. The higher the temperature the steel has been treated to the harder the steal is, and the more brittle it is in lower temperature. If alter temperature were simply used to endlessly lower the temperature of a gun, then when not in use it would eventually get extremely cold, and fairly brittle. When combined with reinforce the brittleness might not be an issue, but the ideal would still be for the gun to be heated or cooled to room temperature.

Making something weigh next to nothing is more tricky. In shadowrun of course you can not mess with gravity. Levitate for example does not remove gravity it just lifts an object up. The mass, and inertia of an object being lifted is unchanged. Think of heavy steel girder suspended on pulleys so that it can easily be pushed back and forth. To the pusher the girder effectively weighs nothing because he needs no effort to lift it, the pulleys have it already lifted, but the girder still has a lot of mass. It takes a lot of effort to get the girder moving backwards or forwards, and a lot of effort to stop it.

Levitate or some modified version of levitate could be used to constantly exert some force directionally, linked to a detection spell. The detection spell would be to locate earth, likely by searching for the larges astral object or some thing like that. The modified levitation spell would be constantly pushing away from the direction of earth found by the detection spell, with the goal of zeroing out the weight by balancing forces. The result in may ways would be more useful than something that simply weighs next to nothing. Something that has lots of inertia but is not hard to lug around could be very useful for both ranged and melee weapons.

Large amounts of mass helps cut down on recoil. Using tungsten weights (hard, high melting point, and denser than lead) a fairly small pistol could be very heavy and the recoil from the gun greatly reduced. Massive melee weapons could also be made. A super sledge comes to mind. Relatively easy to wield and striking with the force of several hundred pounds swung as fast as you can manage.

A levitation spell might also be used to create directional force in an item that is constantly meant to go in only one direction. Such as a car, or an axe, adding a little extra speed.
===============================================
I deliberately left out any in game bonuses this might give. In game you have to worry about game balance, which this could upset. I simply used this as a thought exercise. I think it started with thinking about how swords and sorcery style magical weapons and armor might be made in Shadowrun. As if Shadowrun mages had simply not rediscovered how to make such magic artifacts. That said I think that if magic existed an awakened engineer could probably make some crazy things. Things like endlessly combusting car engines and flying yachts.

The in game limitations to this (disregarding it not being an efficient use of karma) is the same for all quickened spells. Cost, magic attacks from astral, background count and so on. Still, Someone would do it, even if just for research/the heck of it.

I guess this is all fairly pink mohawk.

There's at least one problem with integrating magic and technology. There's precedent in the rules and fluff for a conflict between magic and technology, as embodied in the Object Resistance Table (SR4A, p. 183). The more highly processed and advanced the material, the more difficult it is to do magic stuff to it directly. That makes it more difficult for the "average" wage mage to make mana-enhanced materials.

On the other hand, just as the Therans performed experiments to work magic in different ways in the Earthdawn setting, no doubt corps and universities already are researching how to work magic differently than it's understood in 2073. Who knows what the world, magic and technology might look like in 2100?

Just FYI: making a gun out of lighter materials (even if it is capable of functioning normally) causes increased recoil, as the force has to overcome the weight of the gun.

It would be like holding a .44 caliper, 5 pound gun, or holding a 100 pound .44 caliper gun suspended by a rope. the recoil reducing inertia of the heavy gun would not be changed by it's downward pull by gravity being canceled out by an equal upward force.

I think the sensation of moving that heavy weight around would be strange. It would be hard to whip the gun around from target to target. The weight at the tip of a sledge hammer is all in all not that heavy and yet it is very difficult to change its path while swinging. Don't even try, you will rip up your mussels, and not feel it for hours.

Any object normally made out of steel would weigh about 2.5 times more if made out of tungsten (about 19.25 g/cm3 tungsten vs. 7.75 to 8.05 g/cm3 for steel). Ultimately though melee weapons just store up a little kinetic energy of the wielder. The wielder swings it in an ark, putting more and more energy behind it, until it hits and hopefully efficiently transfers that energy to the target in a destructive way. Yet a sword does more damage than a knife, and a great sword does more damage than a short sword. As I understand it, part of the difference is leverage, and part of the difference is weight. It is an appealing image to picture swinging a big hammer hand have bad guys flying off like they got hit by a car, but that is an exaggeration. Still for someone who already has super human speed and strength this might help them make better use of their strength in melee. But it is hard to think what bonus to damage, or armor penetration, or whatever might be and appropriate in game bonus.

Check out "Way of the Adept" for some ways an Awakened Engineer Adept might go around being a force of nature!

Consider that 400 years ago we were just making the switch from wheellock pistols and matchlock arquebuses to flintlocks. Some nations effectively fielded armies without the use of firearms at all. Firearms were clumsy and difficult, though not nearly as much as they were a hundred years before. The only reason they became more prevalent over the arebalast is that it scares the bajebus out of horses.
A hundred years later, the range and power of the firearm has allowed European powers to control three and half continents not their own. A competent soldier can learn to shoot 4 times a minute in a matter of days, effectively turning conscription from a concept to a necessity in the wealth of nations.
A hundred years after that, rifling and grapeshot have turned warfare from a conquest for cities into a conquest for continents.
A hundred years after that the sidearm we recognize today is commonplace. The small arm is a secondary consideration on the modern battlefield.
A hundred years after that, we can kill a man from so far away that it is impossible for him to either see the muzzle flash or hear the sonic boom.

To consider what a firearm would look like in 400 years is effectively impossible, as, in all likelihood it shall defy what we know about physics and what we know about the world.

Such as a gun that fires a round at 6 billion meters per second.
</reference source='Orphans of Chaos'>
And yes, the main character does mention that the round was outside her frame of reference, as her paradigm obeyed the speed of light (the paradigm of the bullet did not).

A gun that has inertia but weighs nothing, mysteriously lowers or raise heat with no apparent source from the outside world, and is hard as diamond but seems to molecularity be and unremarkable alloy of ordinary steel. That does radically defy what we know about physics and what we know about the world.

I don't think it would be hard for the best minds of this age to design an effective laser pistol if realistic limitations on things like, power consumption, heat dissipation, weight, and structural strength of the most ideal materials, were to simply be removed.

Consider a traditional pistol. Today both their design and materials are better than they once were. In 2070 pistols are better than now, both in design and materials. It seems a plausible progression from modern technology, as it was designed to be. The crazy materials you can make in game with magic are something you would not expect in a mundane world in 100 years, or 100-200 years ahead in Shadowrun's timeline.

Regardless of how much better, I think you could make just about anything a whole lot better if you were willing to throw a whole lot of magic at it.

A refrigerator for example could just use an alter temperature spell and then use no electricity. But this would be a silly waste as electricity is cheap.

Weapons and armor however, are relatively simple things of great value to some people in Shadowrun. They have creative yet relatively simple designs and rely heavily on the materials they are made from.

Hell, for all we know it could be Nikola Tesla's Death Ray that's the Firearm of the Future.

What would it look like? probably a glock 17 or 1911. What would it shoot like? those type cartridges but with far higher pressures, so ++++P. Mechanically I'd expect 9S or 9D. Of course that is assuming someone engineered human hands willing and able to fire such a recoil monster...

If a mage has to spend karma to 'hand make' each item (possibly at multiple points during creation), it's not quite what you might call engineering. I get the idea of letting technological design processes intentionally take magical influences into account, but I don't necessarily want a gun that can't pass wards, or can be dispelled, or takes karma from pretty powerful mages. It's definitely not something for the assembly lines, and maybe not the front lines either. I can't even guess how expensive, but I *can* guess that it's probably prohibitively so (or at least not cost-effective).

How about Troll hands and wrists?

As for weak little human and elven hands, that's what cybernetics are for.

"[Wedge] likes his new shoulder anyhow." - FastJack

Part of the problem with the Mage spending Karma or otherwise using magic to alter materials... spell signature and astral links.

Though the idea of having a Mage who enchants most of his belongings so they work magically as opposed to normally, that sounds like a interesting concept. Appliances that work without power, vehicle that works without fuel, etc.

Making combat armor enchanted would probably be one of the only really worthwhile targets. Reinforce has a game mechanic already for increasing armor. You could combine this with deflect, and some other spells, invisibility maybe. It would be like quickening yourself but you can leave those spells behind. Still not a great solution probably.

Shadowrun would be a different sort of game if you could quicken things a little more easily.

I'm still not sure that's even what Reinforce does, as discussed in other threads.

You could count it as a barrier when it is cast on armor. Every 2 structure works like one point of armor. The armor itself is much harder to destroy but it is not that much better at protecting you. It would make more sense. I honestly remembered it as being that way but it does say armor in the description.
It is probably meant to be cast on vehicles, and maybe people. Well not people, there is already an armor spell and it is worded basically the same as reinforce.

But structure does seem to equal hardness, or at least difficulty to destroy. You could think of reinforce as something that holds all the parts in place and supports everything, like bandages rapped around the ankles of a gymnast, rather than something that for example makes glass as hard as steel. But however it is done reinforce has that game mechanic of making it have a much higher structure rating. Easily being equivalent hardness to things not even given examples of on the little structure table used to give you an idea what things have what structure.

Actually the "firearm of the future" in a Shadowrun setting will be a laser or particle weapon with a version of recharge quickened on it. Continuous electrical power means infinite ammo and therefore infinite firing* of the weapon


* == until the weapon itself fails.