The Starship Armory · Chapter 7
Kinetic Weapons
Weapons that throw something solid: shells, slugs, and fragments. Their damage type is Ballistic.
| Strength | Screens do nothing. Low Heat and Power. Long reach at the heavy end |
| Weakness | Magazines. Armor stops them in full, less Pierce |
| Stopped by | Armor, and the rare gravitic deflection field |
Ammunition. Every kinetic weapon has Limited Ammo. Chapter 3 has reload weights and costs.
Ground weapons in this chapter are marked Ground.
Pintle Gun
Door gun, cupola gun, anti-personnel mount
Light 12 — 3 Long 0 0
2500 Restricted Ballistic Personal Scale, Auto-Fire, Pierce 1, Limited Ammo 10
A heavy machine gun on a ring or a pintle, fitted to trucks, skiffs, and the hatches of larger vehicles. Personal Scale: its damage of 12 is at personal scale, so it is deadly to people and scratches nothing with Armor. It takes no hardpoint on a vehicle of Scale 2 or more.
Light Rotary Cannon
Rotary, chain gun, point-defence gun
Light 3 — 4 Short to Medium 1 1
6000 Common Ballistic Auto-Fire, Point Defense 1, Recoil, Limited Ammo 40
A multi-barrelled cannon firing a stream of small shells. It is the commonest ship weapon there is, because it is cheap, runs cool, and shoots down missiles. Recoil matters only to small craft: on a hull of Scale 4 or more, ignore it.
Autocannon
Assault cannon, strafing gun, 30-mil
Light 4 — 4 Short to Medium 1 1
9000 Restricted Ballistic Pierce 1, Recoil, Limited Ammo 20
A single-barrelled cannon firing heavier shells more slowly. It gives up the rotary's rate of fire and its point-defence role for a shell that gets through light armour. The usual main gun of an armoured car, a gunship, or a strike fighter.
Flak Cannon
Burst cannon, proximity gun, scattergun
Standard 4 — 5 Short 1 1
14000 Common Ballistic Scatter, Anti-Fighter, Point Defense 2, Limited Ammo 24
Fires shells that burst into a cloud of fragments. Against anything with Armor 3 or more it deals 2 Hull. Against missiles, drones, and unarmoured craft of Scale 1 or 2 it deals 6: that is Anti-Fighter. Freighter captains fit it first.
Railgun Battery
Rail battery, coilgun, linear accelerator
Standard 5 — 3 Medium to Long 1 2
22000 Restricted Ballistic Pierce 1, Recoil, Limited Ammo 16
A magnetic accelerator throwing a solid slug. It has no warhead and needs none. It reaches farther than any other Standard weapon and screens do nothing about it.
Tank Gun
Main gun, hull cannon, smoothbore
Standard 6 — 3 Medium to Long 1 1
30000 Military Ballistic Ground, Pierce 2, Blast 2, Slow-Firing 1, Limited Ammo 30
The turret gun of an armoured ground vehicle, firing shaped-charge or long-rod shells. Slow-Firing 1 is the loader; an autoloader removes it for 10,000 more. Ground: it is built for a planet's surface and cannot be fitted to a spacecraft.
Siege Howitzer
Field piece, self-propelled gun, heavy mortar
Heavy 8 — 4 Long to Extreme 1 1
60000 Military Ballistic Ground, Indirect, Blast 5, Inaccurate 1, Slow-Firing 1, Limited Ammo 20
Artillery on tracks or repulsors. Indirect: it fires over hills and walls at a target a spotter can see. It cannot attack inside Long range, and it cannot hit anything that is flying.
Heavy Mass Driver
Spinal driver, slugthrower, hull-cracker
Heavy 9 — 3 Medium to Long 2 2
90000 Military Ballistic Pierce 2, Armor Breaker, Recoil, Slow-Firing 1, Limited Ammo 8
A long accelerator firing a slug the size of a ground car. It is usually fixed forward along the keel. Armor Breaker: damage left over after Armor is beaten spills into systems. Slow-Firing 1 is the reload; a crew member's Reload action, or 2 Boons from the attack, readies it at once.
Capital Mass Driver
Keel gun, planetary driver, the long gun
Capital 16 — 3 Long to Extreme 2 3
450000 Military Ballistic Pierce 3, Armor Breaker, Recoil, Slow-Firing 2, Signature Bloom 2, Limited Ammo 4
The main armament of a kinetic-doctrine warship. A single hit disables most ships of Scale 4 or less. Its four rounds come from naval depots and nowhere else, and firing it lights the ship up for every sensor in the system.