Pulse bow or crossbow and some powered melee weapons?

[secretfire]

EMP grenades are actually not really that crazy, --much to my surprise-- as someone with a physics degree. I can’t find any information about it on the internet now, but I am 100% entirely positive that the military has tested backpack-sized emp stuff. It doesn’t affect anything with military hardening (so robots would be unaffected) and has a very small range, of about a block. They were first used in the Iraq war. I don’t know why I can’t find anything about them on the internet now. (then again, HEMP (high altitude electromagnetic pulse) stuff has been basically purged from the internet, too, so I mean I guess I understand, especially in this day and age.) I mean, honestly, I can’t see them working for any -useful- purpose, but there’s just enough give that its not in the entirely fantasy realm, especially in the future. I certainly can’t see them being regular issue as the military wouldn’t have any domestic use for them in any circumstance I can conceive of. But you know, grain of salt. And it might be better from a gameplay point of view to move that stuff to a mod anyways since nothing is lost and makes the game more customizable.

That being said, no opinion on the above ideas, just commenting on the grenades due to geekyness…

EDIT: This is relevant. Not arguing for its implementation, and I reaalllly doubt it’ll ever sell in the US as it breaks a host of FCC regulations and would require better aiming or a lot more power to be practical then what they are claiming… buuuut: http://gizmodo.com/5454295/this-emp-cannon-stops-cars-almost-instantly

Edit 2: Though, you know…I’m suddenly getting ideas for enemies that would be reaaalllly annoying to people in invincible unstoppable death-machines…that happen to be speeding…

[Chezzo]

You can make an emp grenade in real life by coiling wire around an explosive.

How E-Bombs Work

[kevin.granade]

While EMP pulse weapons are somewhat well-understood and in practical use, a handheld device capable of emitting a burst capable of damaging nearby electrical systems is still firmly in the realm of sci-fi.
I could see putting backpack-sized single- or limited-use EMP devices in the game as a “current technology” type thing, but grenades are still quite a stretch.
As for the e-bomb, it requires the explosive and winding to be very carefully tuned to each other, and even so it doesn’t “generate” an EMP as much as compress an existing field into a short pulse. As such a grenade-sized device would still have a great deal of trouble reaching the signal strength you need to damage electronics.

[Bumpkin]

the power fist(unarmed), power axe(cutting), power spear(stabbing), power warhammer(blunt)

What would these things be and how are they supposed to work? I mean, I understand that they’re more powerful versions of regular weapons and require a power source to run, but what exactly is the power source supposed to be doing to make them more powerful?

[Valpo]

It infuses it with the wrath of the emperor of course when you push the on rune.

[Coyote]

To play devil’s advocate, I could see a spear with a head designed to shake violently after you stab something. Not sure that’d actually do that much more damage with current power sources.

Alternately a pneumatic spearhead?

[kevin.granade]

For something that actually exists, look up “powerhead spear”, which is a real thing and would be super useful.
Basically it’s a knife or spear with a tube that opens at the tip, when triggered after stabbing something, it injects high-pressure gas (usually CO2) into the wound, causing massive tissue damage.

[Bumpkin]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:10, topic:9367”]For something that actually exists, look up “powerhead spear”, which is a real thing and would be super useful.
Basically it’s a knife or spear with a tube that opens at the tip, when triggered after stabbing something, it injects high-pressure gas (usually CO2) into the wound, causing massive tissue damage.[/quote]

I looked it up and it seems it’s more commonly a bullet-firing spear in .357 or 12ga. The high-pressure gas one would be extremely cool though ; maybe we could start seeing a use for oxygen tanks.

[kevin.granade]

Whoops, you’re right I got the name mixed up, I meant… http://www.waspknife.com/

[Bumpkin]

Personally I’d love to see them both added into the game, perhaps powerhead arrows/javelins as well. One of those spetznaz-style knives that uses CO2 to fire the blade as a projectile could be cool as well.

Still not sure what kind of practical futuristic/powered enhancements could be made to an axe, gauntlet or hammer, though.

[SgtStens]

I don’t see why you couldn’t integrate a taser with a melee weapon, thereby adding additional stun capability.

[kevin.granade]

The ‘power fist’ or ‘power axe’ etc are probably from warhammer 40K, which means they have a ‘disruption field’ around them that does damage at and near their impact site. How that actually works is never explained as far as I know. I’m pretty sure the rationale is that WH40K grew out of warhammer, a fantasy system, and they wanted magic swords in the SciFi setting too.

[Valpo]

41 millenium … technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable to magic anyway. Probably not in the cata timeframe.

[The_Lone_Badger]

The only way I can think of to have a powered, armour-piercing archery weapon would be some kind of multi-limbed steel crossbow with a ludicrously excessive draw weight such that the only way to load it is with an electric motor driving a hydraulic piston.
It would work like the Charge Rifle - when you press ‘fire’ the first time it starts drawing UPS power to draw the arms back, and when you press ‘f’ again it fires an all-steel bolt at excessive velocity. Longer charging gives greater punch (up to a maximum), but don’t leave it under maximum strain for too long or you risk the arms shattering and riddling you with steel shrapnel.

For even more armour-piercing use a CVD machine to make diamond-tipped bolts for it.

[troll_from_behind]

Maybe they add afterburners into arrows in not so distant future to increase the speed?

[The_Lone_Badger]

There’s enough technobabble in cataclysm already that Raiden’s ‘High-Frequency Blade’ wouldn’t be too far out of place. Probably in a mod.

[Wally-kun]

Pneumatic weapons seem like they’d be pretty effective. It would operate somewhat using the same mechanics to have a suit of armor amplify your strength; build upon the forces being acted upon it - slam a hammer into something and the hammer itself activates a mechanism that delivers the force by a magnitude of some odd amount. Magnifies its own impact force. Probably uses electromagnets, or some sort of hydrolic system. Or both.

[i2amroy]

Maybe they add afterburners into arrows in not so distant future to increase the speed?

We’ve already done this. It uses a focused explosion force similar to rockets to dramatically increase the projectile’s speed, as well as allowing the use of smaller, denser, unfeathered projectiles more similar to crossbow bolts. Due to the much greater speed, said projectiles usually do much more damage than the arrows of old, and are much harder to dodge, as well as requiring much less training to use. We’ve fairly universally decided that the official english name of this new, explosion-powered projectile-throwing device will be a “gun”.

Pneumatic weapons seem like they’d be pretty effective. It would operate somewhat using the same mechanics to have a suit of armor amplify your strength; build upon the forces being acted upon it - slam a hammer into something and the hammer itself activates a mechanism that delivers the force by a magnitude of some odd amount. Magnifies its own impact force. Probably uses electromagnets, or some sort of hydrolic system. Or both.

This could actually work, but you’re talking about an absolute best force efficiency of 50%, since half of your force would just work by pushing the hammer away from whatever you just hit. And something like that would basically require the use of some type of explosives in the hammer head, nothing else would really be able to deliver the force you would need at the speed that you need it (and such a device would probably play hell with the hammer’s structure). Essentially what you would be doing is putting russian rocket boots onto the end of a stick and hitting people with it.

[Kryxx]

Could we get an upgrade path on the spear guns?

Where you modify it and wear an oxygen tank as a backpack (with encumbrance), to increase the range. I’m not even asking for damage increase. Could be minor if you want on the surface and more damage underwater.

I’m just talking about making the underwater spear guns useful on the surface with a bit of engineering and luck

It would be a cool thing to have a use for the tanks also. Maybe a method of refilling them too. Then make it mounted for vehicles.

Put in Air compressors on vehicles, and spear guns launchers. An easier more renewable source of ammo and weapons that makes some sense.

[Zero]

Compressed air could be a new fuel/energy type.