Ludicrous Gats: Guns for the Cosmic Era

ZF-1 Pod Gun (The Fifth Element)

The ZF-1 is a multi-weapon popular with mercenaries, bounty hunters, and weapon enthusiasts. The gun is a jack of all trades weapon, overly complicated, and prone to breaking down. While in good repair, and stocked with it's sundry supply of ammo, it is an impressive and versatile weapon.

Base:

7.62mm fully automatic assault rifle, with SmartGun technology and capable of firing smart rounds (this allows for nearly impossible shots to be made). Bone stock ZF-1s are very popular weapons because of this base system.

Accessories:

Chem-Dart launcher, 6 round clip, short range. Can be loaded with tranq darts, lethal poison darts, or other chemical delivery darts. Quiet, and has potential for non-lethal use.

Rocket launcher, 20mm smart rocket with HEAP warhead. Single shot, capable of severely damaging power armor or a droid target.

Net-Launcher, 20mm canister system that deploys a 20mm microfiber net. Can subdue a target, snarl machinery, etc. Single shot.

Flamer, short range flamethrower system. Focused damage. Three shot chemical cartridge.

Cryo-cannon, 20mm liquid nitrogen canister, explodes in a cloud of freezing cold. Can be lethal.

Self-Destruct system, allows for the weapon to be used as an improvised explosive, suicide device, satchel charge, or as a means of disposing of evidence.

The ZF-1 has not been adopted by any formal military forces, as it is too complicated and requires too many different kinds of ammunition to be supported logistically. Controlling the weapon is also problematic, and the large variety of options are not intuitive in use. Casual users will have problems selecting the weapon they want, misfires are common, and the 20mm weapon delivery system is prone to jamming, especially if the rocket is still in place. Finally, the large variety of available weapons means that none of them have a large ammo capacity. Entertainment and action dramas, however, like to use the weapon, especially for villains, as it is large and imposing.

Gravity Manipulator

Also known as the Grav Fist, a gravity manipulator is a temperamental arcanotech weapon. The weapon is bulky, and the graviton (more common name of the Higgs boson) flanges have a claw like appearance. In the hands of a skilled user, the weapon can levitate objects, pick them up and move them around, simulating telekinesis, through moving gravity around them. In the skills of average users, the fist is good for smashing things.

Popular techniques include focusing a gravity sink in the middle of a location and dragging everything into it. The biggest flaw with this attack is that the shooter can inadvertently draw themselves into their own grav-sink, triggering a Higgs Bosun cascade, basically creating a miniature naked singularity. The end result is a tangled mass of shredded flesh, spaghettified metal, and possibly triggering a dimensional fatigue event. Less dangerous techniques involve creating a 'gravity howitzer' and drasically increasing gravity in a small area, general a few dozen square feet. This can crush delicate things, cause structural failure, or even kill. Gravity howitzer attacks have a problem with 'echoes' and like an earthquake, there will be random, weaker, howitzers that hit around the original attack area. Sky-Smashing involves throwing a strong gravity source above something, and then watching as everything and everyone in the area goes fly-falling towards it. This usually involves impalements, or the sudden end of the beam, sending everything in the sky crashing back to earth.

Graviton and Higss-Boson manipulating devices are strongly regulated and militarized applications are banned by the Tycho Convention.

Charger

Also known as the donnerfaust, Thor's Hammer, or a Tesla Rifle, the Charger is a high power, high capacity discharge weapon. It trades range, rate of fire, and accuracy for brute firepower. The Charger is an anti-mech, anti-tech weapon to be used by infantry. The shoulder fired weapon is intended to be used as close range by infantry shooting at things much larger than they are, and thus are not hard for them to hit. The weapon is an overkill against single droids, but a well placed shot can take out multiple machines like a grenade.

In an of themselves, chargers are not that ludicrous. In the hands of the supersoldiers of the Cosmic era, they are much more ludicrous. With augmented strength, the bulky charger can be used as a side-arm or hold out weapon, or be attached to another weapon for a twin-link bonus. Thus, it wouldn't be unexpected to see an augmented brute carrying a heavy machinegun with an underslung Charger attached.

In game terms, a charger is a short range ion/plasma weapon. Damage is dealt through heat and electrical discharge. This will fry commercial and civilian grade machines easily, and even hardened military systems struggle to survive being hit by one. The short range of the weapon and the lack of physical damage limits the usage of the weapon to specialized use.

Neutrona Rifle (Ghostbusters)

A highly specialized particle cannon, a neutrona rifle is one of the few weapons that can directly interact with aphaisic energy patterns. The beam can cause substantial physical damage to it's surroundings with it's proton beam. The beam not only causes fires and intense energy burns, the plasma of the beam rips electrons from the elements it hits, turning what it hits into charred ionic material. The point of impact of the weapon will emit bright bursts of light (from photonic decay) and significant gamma radiation bursts. These weapons are ridiculously dangerous for these reasons.

Their use against aphasic lifeforms remains contentious, mostly since aphasic life and even aphasic energy are still considered fringe science in the Cosmic Era. A shame really, since these weapons would be among the best ways to face something like a star whale or the horrors of the dimensional fatigue event. Neutrona rifles currently only exist in high energy weapons labs and high energy research stations.