Wow, I end up aware from the boards a few days, and this topic gets filled with lots of awesome stuff.

I have no clue how all to reply, other than to toss stuff out.

Warning: Wall of text follows.
I shall not be held responsible for eyes that implode, burn out or otherwise explode while attempting to read a post that took a barely awake person an hour to actually finish.


1: The thing relating to anti-matter that I brought up.
well... lots of stuff I could expand on with...

Anti-matter is dangerous, but takes up little space.
Lunch box storage system vs. many shipping containers (the 8x8.5x40ft type)


The main problem is going to be energy.
An advanced space based group should not have such problems. Fusion power, quantum power, or solar arrays the size of continents floating in space.

A Dyson sphere sort of fixes the problem in general.
Or we go to look at a 1 AU radius Dyson sphere, and were are talking upwards of 1x10^17 square miles or 2.8x10^17 square km of surface. Even 1% of that used for solar energy collection means mind boggling levels of energy to play with.

Anyways, bullet itself is the containment unit, the magazine itself has small power source to maintain the power, which ties into the weapon, which has or is tied into the 'main' power source.
Or just make it a self contained weapon system that uses a special magazine that holds power cells and tiny anti-matter storage cells encased in bullet like casings. Toss in some dimensional shunt or one shot teleporter that dumps the anti-matter 'someplace else' in an emergency.

Be it a small 9mm bullet, a .50 caliber dessert eagle with an attitude boost, or just a super charged grenade launcher, RPG or man portable rocket launcher, anti-matter in a ranged weapon could be nasty.
If you want to get evil, move into the realm of hand grenades and demolition charges. Even a lunch box sized thermonuclear device could be scary. (Crusader No Remorse/No Regret suddenly comes to mind)

Have to think in today's terms, we already have things like watch batteries, all sorts of little things that use some sort of small electro-magnets, and also nuclear power sources that could likely fit into the back of a mini-van... so for a high tech futuristic group, packing nuclear death in a firearm might not be so hard.

Or to go out way into la-la land and perhaps well beyond the realm of sane sci-fi...
A specialized material that wants to remain cohesive and generate an EM field when charged in a plasma state, used to encase a microscopic amount of anti-matter with an equal charge. The 'shell' is 'repelled' from the anti-matter that has an equal charge, maintaining the vacuum around the anti-matter yet giving a method to keep matter from reaction to the anti-matter and also giving the anti-matter a method in which to be transported (accelerated at high speeds) to the target.

In terms of finite materials (and having access to the majority of the energy from an entire star) makes anti-matter a practical application, especially in terms of portability. Also, it doubles as a way to ensure the enemy can salvage no useable technology if a downed robot can self destruct themselves while using a specialized field to contain the majority of the blast, so they vaporize themselves, and not worry about leveling friendly positions or damaging friendly forces.

As I said, tiny amounts.
Which is why I said 1 micro-gram, or equivalent to just 80 pounds of TNT.

Crossing anti-matter with a Daisy Cutter or MOAB is just asking to crack a planet wide open or otherwise knock it out of orbit.

Could toss backpack nukes into the mix. I think the minimums are at the sub-kiloton range (could be mistaken), or the Davy Crockett, a portable nuke 'rocket' (from the 1950's no less) with a warhead yield of some 10-20 tons equivalent of TNT.

Also, transporting a microscopic amount of anti-matter would probably be cheaper and easier than trying to move dozens, hundreds or thousands of pounds (or tons) of more conventional explosives. A nice portable alternative to trying to haul around a massive fusion reactor when you could have a multi-purpose matter/anti-matter reactor/bomb that could generate power, blow up the enemy, or annihilate a friendly base to prevent tech from falling into enemy hands.
Heck, carrying around nukes would likely be safer and cheaper than hauling around lots of explosives.
Also, in terms of finite materials, high tech alternatives means more can get done with less mass and volume, which also means less effort is needed to transport said materials and the finished products of death and destruction.

Examples of anti-matter in sci-fi.
Buck Rogers (power plant someplace, real small, could fit into my front room, threatened to take out part of a continent due to a problem it developed in the episode it appeared in)
Star Trek (photon torpedoes, power plants, whatever else they cram it in)
Star Wars (hyperdrive rings for starfighters, and a type of Imperial mine... and a Star Destroyer prototype at some point)
Total Annihilation (in the Commanders and the 'nuke' missiles), and I think also in the spiritual successor, Supreme Commander (might also mention the effective intergalactic range teleports through some gate network thingy...)

(note, I already trimmed out maybe half of this first bit... amazing my keyboard isn't smoking or smoldering...)

2. The thing about Depleted Uranium.

Being classified as a heavy metal, I figured it was 'toxic' to humans, as other heavy metals are.
Also, DSTech may be robots, but I am sure their organic neighbors might be more concerned.
Also in question would be what they would be doing with the whatever large amounts of Uranium they would need to make large amounts of Depleted Uranium, especially when stuff like fission based reactors might not even be practical or efficient compared to what all DSTech likely has access to in terms of energy sources.
On a related note, didn't the US Navy phase out DU and start using Tungsten for their 20mm CIWS ammo?

3. That video of the rail gun.

Yeah, that does look nifty.
If they get it so they can take out a modern day main battle tank with a 15mm or 20mm round hit to the main armor (and not a weak spot of some sort), then I will be impressed.
(War INC for the win)
Also fun watching air cannons put assorted materials through brick walls, wooden walls, windows, etc, while testing effectiveness of building materials vs. stuff like tornadoes and hurricanes.

4. Did the subject ox X-Ray lasers pop up somewhere and I just missed it?

Nothing like a big gun that can not only devastate whatever it is aimed at, yet also level the area it happens to be in. Make a handy bunker buster... it fires into bunker from just above ground... bunker gets a big hole to drop stuff into, everything above ground just gets nuked in some way. Unlock the front door and mow the lawn in one fell swoop... or something like that.

5. I saw the words 'laser bazooka'.

Reminds me of the computer game Silent Storm, where there was a massive beam cannon thing wielded like a rocket launcher of large size... had over-penetration problems iirc... such as taking out the poor bastards/buildings/stuff behind the heavily armored target being shot at.

Sorry for the long post, but there was some 4-5 pages of stuff I had to sift through, and I only got 6 hours of sleep, and my mind needs new brakes or something.

Mentioning Supreme Commander, how about Black Sun? Since you have teleportation tech, an effective DSTech superweapon could involve siphoning off small amounts of a dyson sphered star and releasing it near enemies.Yes, but the without ridiculous storage technology the size is going to end up larger than otherwise. It's going to take some utterly ridiculous technology to make it bullet sized.If they can produce military-scale amounts of anti-matter I'm pretty sure they can get depleted uranium or another metal with similar properties.Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is.Well they're talking about possibly terawatt scale lasers, so overpenetration constricted to that scale would be worthy of applause.

Let me expand on what Allstone already told you: antimatter itself indeed does take up a very low amount of space... but you have to keep it in a void, otherwise it'll blow up. And in that void you have to keep it away from the walls of the containment unit, because they're, y'know, made of matter, so you have to lodge a shitload of equipment to generate a magnetic field to hold it without actually touching it. And if you can do that in a lunch box, then it's either a really big-ass lunch box, or you have nothing better to do with your resources.

allstone and metal meltdown are forgetting the concept of miniaturisation and the game being set in the future. someone less than 50 years ago would have called bull♥♥♥♥ on a computer that could do all the shyte a P3 can do being the size of a P3, but now we scoff at it and its ~0.25micrometer fabrication process. the point is, as research goes on, ♥♥♥♥ gets smaller. so dstech, being crazy robots with stupidlyfast supercomputers and the future on their side, can have antimatter containing bullets if they want.
rditto, you are forgetting that BOOODGE is fun in a game once, maybe twice as a general rule if it is intended as a part of every game (which, if you're putting it in bullets, it is likely to be). if it is intended as a victory pathway on a more long term basis, then it can be fun (race to get enough money to get an antimatter charge, drop it near THE ENEMY's brain, profit style games), but if youre going to put it into a gun and fire it at some inane rate at the enemy, you take all the challenge and therefore fun out of the game. as fun as all your enemies vanishing in a flash of gamma and heat and visible light and everything in between might seem, it isnt a very good game mechanic.

Erm, the fact that an antimatter containment unit would be portable on a truck is more than considerable when it comes to miniaturization. Anyways, why use an automatic weapon when each round is powerful enough to annihilate the whole map?

Have you used the FORCE?
I really just think antimatter bullets would be game-breaking. Even if used in a sniper role, you will always have balance issues if the player has the ability to shoot a bullet at any respectable speed that will blow a sizable hole out of the map. I suppose if the explosion was smaller, that wouldnt be so bad, but that would raise the question of "Why did DSTech decide to develop anti-matter rounds", which would really only be answered by "Because they liked the flashy explosion" or "The word 'antimatter' sounds awesome!". Eh, up to DSMK2 i suppose, but I dont think its that viable.

Also, in response to your first point: the first random number generator devised wasnt even really truck portable, and all it did was spew out random numbers, really slowly. The first computers were room sized, as well as super crappy by todays standards. A truck-portable antimatter containment unit can become bullet sized quite feasibly.

Magic Science justification coming right up.
The ridiculously small circuits that the DSTech use for their robots can be used to generate super powerful small magnetic fields by cooling to extreme temperatures. The intricacy of these circuits allows for incredible control, which means you can use them as anti-matter containment. They also have really good cooling systems, based on atomic scale reactions and super surface size stuff.

These are perhaps the most believable reasons any military could give out for developing exotic weapons.
I like it.

Get it so? It's already that way. That thing will hit a tank in the front armor, and then travel all the way THROUGH it, likely vaporizing everyone and everything inside that can be vaporized.

Most likely though, railguns will be mounted on naval ships and used like artillery. Very very long-range artillery. The idea is to have something that can effectively replace missiles for much less cost. Missiles might not be killed off entirely, but somewhere in the 2020s we might start seeing destroyers armed with railguns, either instead of or as well as missiles. Hell, I can't help but giddily wonder if it will mark the return of battleships.

Transformers 2. It had the ship mounted railgun, and it was awesome. They use it to shoot Devastator in the balls.

Add trench warfare and retardedly large tanks. Then you have my dream world. Also, 8 turrets + railguns + broadside = ...

No, 8 turrets + railguns + broadside = nil, if you get my drift.

I suppose railguns wouldn't be very useful for anti-air or anti-missile because of the large energy-to-projetile ratio. Unless they made railgun buckshot rounds...

Just place multiple objects into a sabot, then launch the ♥♥♥♥ out of it!

Oh, and depeleted uranium still emits radiation.

Well, realize that railguns would most likely be used on targets out of visual range. Though I suppose if the ship goes sideways and fires all its stuff sideways, then its still technically a broadside. Though its less likely you're broadsiding another ship and more like you're broadsiding a small country.


Actually, somewhere I saw that they could easily put scattering rounds in a railgun. Imagine a rain of metal chunks going at mach five falling down and peppering an entire enemy installation somewhere over the horizon. It's definitely a method best suited for multiple targets. But I think at closer ranges, there are better answers to anti-missile and anti-air. Actually, anti-aircraft guns are horribly misrepresented in fiction. In reality, getting within range of modern automated AA guns pretty much means you're dead. You don't just doge that ♥♥♥♥. I imagine they could hit some missiles too if they needed to.

How about a nanogram of anti-matter?
Equivalent to 1.3 ounces of TNT.
Maybe use an energy field that has the same polarity so they repel each other and keep the anti-matter in the middle of the containment unit.

Baring that... how about baseball sized thermonuclear devices for use as hand grenades?
Arm, throw, and pray your fox hole is deep enough and that no friendlies pop their heads up to see what you just threw.

Heck, weren't there supposed to be 'mini-nukes' in Starship Troopers that could be used as either an RPG round or as a hand thrown device?




Let me rephrase that.
Get a vehicle mounted weapon capable of putting a 15 or 20mm round, as in small cannon or anti-material rifle sized round, to go through modern day armor. As in a small, light weight round packing equal penetration power to a 120mm DUAPFSDS round that can dump a 16 pound, 37mm diameter DU 'dart' into a target at speeds almost fast enough to be rated as miles per second. Except without needing a massive 2.5 ton cannon on a 60+ ton tank to achieve the effect. Well, might still need a fairly heavy vehicle unless you got a lot of bungie cords or a lot of people to go fetch the gun every time it fires, or otherwise just leave the vehicle in neutral and use the brakes so the gun doesn't flip the vehicle when it fires...
The game War INC had 15mm and 20mm Rail Guns that replaced 120mm cannons later in the game. Heck, a 'heavy power armor' could mount the 15mm Rail Gun (among other things), making for a scary mobile anti-tank weapon with better maneuverability than a tank, but maybe not as durable.
There was also a 9mm version mountable on lighter vehicles (and cyborgs, irrc), which I think came close to the punch of a smaller cannon (been ages since I played the game, can't remember if there was anything between 40mm and 105mm in the game)

Although I'm guessing the DSTech assault rail gun might fit the bill of 'let's put something like 9mm pistol round sized projectile through anything not classified as a main battle tank'.

I wonder if it would be hard to make an explosive type material that is normally stable and that easily survives the rapid acceleration of a rail gun, but which will detonate when it slams into something, perhaps either penetrating as it detonates or 'flattening' on the target before going off, be handy for using a little round to make bigger holes in things that aren't so hard, or generally ruining enemy armor.


On the subject of rail guns on ships.
Combine them with the AGS system, see just how far they can lob one of those long range rocket assisted (possibly self guided?) 155mm rounds. Baring that, slam a 155mm round through an enemy ship hull and see if the round has time to actually detonate before the remains of the round tear out the other side of the ship hull.

Or to rip off an awkward round from an unusual game system... take a roughly 2in diameter and 7in wide canister, cram if full of a bunch of 0.2 in diameter/1in long 'cylinders' and fire the thing off at 5 times the speed of sound, and see what happens when that sabo peels away and some 200 horribly aerodynamic cylinders are released into the air... (I will be surprised if anyone recognizes wth I am talking about...)
Rail shotgun anyone?