User:MJ12 Commando

Game Ideas

Aberrant 2.0
Transcendence
Red Mercury: A Oneshot Idea
Genres: Genres In Space
Eidolon
Panopticon
More Than Human
Delta
Alchemicals: First Contact. Essence 5 at chargen, 2000 XP Alchemicals step into Creation and start remaking it into their own image. First time I consider running a sandbox game. :(

Characters

Test Alchemical
Tech Ninja Test
Rexberrant PC
MTAsc Alt

Stuff

Euthanatos 1
Euthanatos 2

Exalted Character for TFS Sandbox Game

Mage: The Waking War

(nMage conversion sketch)

Traditions

Akashic Brotherhood: Favors Mind/Life (the body is merely the seat of the mind, but strengthen the body and you strengthen the mind), weak Matter (it's all an illusion anyways), +1 Composure (the true Akashic Brother must have an infinite wellspring of self-control)
Celestial Chorus: Favors Prime/Spirit (the joy of the One's choir and the ability to sing to angels), weak Death/Entropy (ick ick dark magic), +1 Resolve (may your faith in the One never weaken.)
Cult of Ecstasy: Favors Time/Mind (Passion and joy alter the perception of time and tickle the mind), weak ?, +1 Stamina (sometimes it's all those drugs, sometimes it's staying up doing poetry)
Dreamspeakers: Favors Spirit/Death [Entropy] (talking to the gods? Sure! Talking to your ancestors? Sure too!), weak Space (who needs directions in the Umbra?), +1 Manipulation (spirits are tricksy. So are you.)
Euthanatos: Favors Death/Fate (all things decay...) OR Entropy/Time (fate is in our hands), weak Prime (...so nothing has permanence), +1 Dexterity (with the deftness of a surgeon we remove the cancer from the Wheel)
Order of Hermes: Favors Forces/?, weak ?, +1 Charisma (a mage does not sneak around with lies and half truths. A mage demands your obedience)
Sons of Ether: Favors Matter/Forces (SCIENCE!), weak Entropy (Destiny is not preordained, and thermodynamics is a lie.), +1 Intelligence (SCIENCE!)
Verbena: Favors Life/Prime (nature, red in tooth and claw), weak Forces (lightning bolts are so blase), +1 Strength (tooth and claw. Tooth and claw.)
Virtual Adepts: Favors Correspondence/Forces (Fear the power of the Internet!), weak Spirit (all peyote-fueled hallucinations!), +1 Wits (high wits means you can pretend to be smart on the Internets!)

Conventions

Iteration X: Favors Matter/Forces (engineering!), weak Dimensional Science (what is this subdimensional bullshit?)
Progenitors: Favors Life/Death [Mind] (we truly are gods among men, with the power to heal and kill), weak Space (nice physics treatise. Except we're doing biology.)
New World Order: Favors Mind/Fate [Entropy] (we predict and adjust the course of nations and alter single people.), weak Matter (Subtlety is kind of hard when you're building giant robots.)
Syndicate: Favors Prime/Fate [Entropy] (we deal with true value and probability), weak Forces (you want an implant plasma cannon? Go ask an Iterator)
Void Engineers: Favors Space/Dimensional Science (initiate hyperdrive on your mark), weak Fate [Entropy] (never tell me the odds.)

Nexus

The Explorers of the Xia Dynasty
Concept: Lost Confucian Chinese Empire Explorers

Population: R1 (2 pts)

The crew of the original exploration ship was never large, and although they have had success attracting followers and refugees it has not been sufficient to create a significant populace comparable to the larger powers in the Nexus.

Transumanism: R3 (4 pts)

A combination of cutting-edge genetic engineering and millenia-old martial arts (especially the conceptual and animal styles) has blended past and present. When genetic boosts combine with the learning enhancement techniques, the superhuman physical prowess that was available only to the dedicated and strong of spirit in the pre-scientific age is now available to anyone. The Xia Dynasty can augment the mind, the body, and the soul of its citizenry and expects them to partake of such extensively.

Infrastructure: R2 (2 pts)

Their industrialization has been limited as they have not had significant time to do more than offload Forge Vats and build cities for their followers, but their advanced assemblers have made it possible to keep up with many powers in industrial might.

Growth Potential: R1 (0+1 pts)

Resources are available but slow population growth rates make expansion difficult for the Xia Dynasty's latest outpost.

Military Support: R0 (0 pts)

The crew were originally explorers, not soldiers. Although certainly armed and trained in the use of such their primary mission remains trade and diplomacy, and a minimal navy is sufficient for their use of soft power.

Space Fleet: R1 (1 pts)

Although insufficient for large scale conquest operations, the Explorers' space fleet is sufficient for defense and trade.

Diplomacy: R2 (2 pts)

Explorers are not true diplomats but their occupation (encountering new cultures and assimilating them into the empire) requires some level of diplomatic tact.

Espionage: R2 (2 pts)

Similarly, they are not spies, but the Emperor's Eyes often use them for information, and as such they have learned a bit of what is valuable and how to protect what they do not want exposed.

General Advancement: R2 (8 pts)

The particularly ideologically-fixed may mock the blending of mysticism such as martial arts, spiritualism, and Feng Shui with cutting-edge science as crass, but often enough they forget the 'cutting-edge' in the term.

Unique Technology: R3 (4+1 pts)

The combination of mystical tradition and scientific might has provided many unique fields of technical development to the Xia Dynasty, from weapons which disrupt Qi to the physiological science of martial arts development and various other advancements in the harnessing and disrupting of external and internal alchemy.

Emergent Technology: R3 (6 pts)

Alchemical Nanomachinery based on the Elements of Earth and Metal build the powerful vessels and systems of the Xia Dynasty's vessels, and the exploration ship Wei Lin was stocked with many of these Creation Engines. Similarly other cutting-edge emergent systems such as the powerful Prayer Servers of the vessel and the Immortals, men who have given their bodies for immortal godlike ones, show their empire has a mastery of many emergent advances.

Magic: R3 (4 pts)

The Xia Dynasty lasted from before the invention of gunpowder to a true spacefaring power, although conservative streaks and its own success have proven obstacles in many cases to timely adoption of untested developments. However, its inherent conservatism also prevented it from abandoning what worked, even when they found that machines could do much the same thing as magic could. Martial artists, alchemists, and sorcerers all exist in the small outpost of the Xia Dynasty in the Nexus, more often than not technologically capable as well as mystically.

ExWoD

Disclaimer: I am a horrible person.

Judgement

Everyone had their own plans on how to shape reality. From the creatures of the Wyld, to the denizens of Creation, anyone with power wishes to inflict their view of what is real on the world. Some meant well but created dystopias or became corrupt along the way, sacrificing principles in the name of pragmatism. Others were always in it for themselves.

Ever since the First Age of man, this has held true. Those with power seek to change Creation irrevocably. Some wish to reclaim it. Others wish to destroy it. There are those who would wish to see it trapped in amber forever, fossilized. These forces and their inevitable collision mean the doom of man, and the end of the world.

It has been five ages since the Solar shards were cast down into the Jade Prison. Four Ages since the Prison itself was reconstituted in a desperate gamble by the Gold faction, the apex of well-meaning ideas gone wrong. Several more since the Dragonblooded themselves were corrupted, the Lunar shards reclaimed by Lytek, the Sidereal ones repurposed. It has been eons since Creation itself was bent and twisted upon itself, melding the elemental poles, expanding one to cover the Earth. It has been centuries since anyone knew what the elemental poles were, abandoning the silly mysticism of such stories to the reassuring logic of scientific discourse.

It is unfortunate, for perhaps if there were more who knew, desperate decisions would not have to be made.

Prison Break

The Neverborn and the Yozi are trying one last desperate gamble to destory the world or reclaim it using their own shard-powered underlings. The Technocratic timetable suggests that within no less than four months, the chances of the survival of Earth drop to less than fifteen percent. The Traditions themselves concur, but they are too absorbed in the war to do anything. What gods remain capable of acting are too weak and broken by Consensus and the Avatar Storm to do much, except possibly one action.

One action that will damn Creation or save it. Shattering the prison and the cabinet, allowing the Exaltation Shards to travel free. Using what power remains to breach the Gauntlet and the Storm. Perhaps the Exalted can pull a victory out from impossible odds, as they were made to do.

Or perhaps their cursed nature, past animosity, and differing agendas are the very reason that Creation is doomed. No matter which, the tales will be epic.

The Exalted

When the Exalted shards were put into storage, mystical weapons of mass destruction judged too unstable and too dangerous to roam freely, they were used to create lesser beings that could protect Creation from external threats. The Fera, Magi, and Hunters derived from the three Celestial shards.

The corruption of the Dragon-Blooded by the Ebon Dragon created the Kuei-Jin. Vampires themselves were designed as agents of the Neverborn, although they have forgotten their purpose, many of them preferring instead to play their little dominance games with mortals. No matter. The Neverborn have ways of making them work to their advantage.

The Hunters

The essence of the Solar Exalted was always difficult to lessen, and any attempt to do so would have to be err far on the side of weakness. Hunters are that result.

The Changing Breeds

It would have suprised the Wyld-worshipping Garou that they were originally used as a weapon against what they believe in. Of course, it also surprised them that all their attempts to save Gaia tended to backfire spectacularly when that much should have been obvious. As guardians of Luna's mate, Gaia, and stewards of humanity, they have fallen far.

The Lunar Exalted may do better where they have failed.

The Avatars

The one hundred Sidereal shards were used as the cage that held reality together against the tide of the Wyld until their lessers were constructed. These creatures were diminished in power, but the breaking of Sidereal shards into the thousand-faceted things that were Avatars removed them from their rut. Still affected by paradox, but far less burdened by the limitations and inflexibility of their original powers, the Avatar Shards were intended to be a bulwark against the Wyld, mobile reality engines fused to human souls.

Nobody expected that a flaw in their design would create the Awakened. Nobody expected that some of them would fall to the Neverborn or the Yozis, serving the destruction or reclamation of Creation. Even fewer expected that it was possible that these weakened shards could be damaged by the Wyld, and none of the Celestines thought that it would be possible for the strengthening of reality to go too far.

Perhaps the might of proper Sidereal Exalted is needed in such a situation.

The Machine

The dead god Autochthon was not entirely dead-not enough to become the Engine of Extinction. Not enough to have his presence lost. And he still cares about humanity, even as his new servants wish to transcend theirs. A handful of members in Iteration X have been enhanced into Demiurges, a desperate move showing just how desperate the times have become, as the weakest and most inventive Primordial has never, until now, given his power to anyone who could manipulate Essence. Even in the guise of hypertech, industrial pistons and brass bones replaced with synth-myomer and primium, they are still the champions and servants of humanity which walked the Realm of Brass and Shadow ages and ages ago.

Control believes that they can be used as a weapon to stem the chaos. In a way they are right, but the nature of the Alchemical Exalted makes them heroes, and their free will cannot be washed away nearly as easily as that of a machine, a mortal or even a mage. Some may disagree with the steps the Union is taking. Whether they act to change this from the inside, or go off on their own to serve a more... human-run cause, or decide to band with the other newly Exalted in a desperate attempt to stop the destruction of all existence is yet to be seen.

No matter what they do, even if they stay loyal, their actions are unlikely to be the quiet, subtle adjustments that the Union prefers, but the time for that has passed.

Sphere 2 Silliness

Technology

Transgenic

Medical

Infectious Medichines

The use of medical nanotechnology is common throughout the Sphere, even in relative backwaters such as the League, but a few powers with extensive cybernetics research and development have made variants which are both stable and self-replicating, allowing ubiquitous coverage with no cost.

Requires: Transgenic Tech 10

Effects: +Infantry Damage Control

Broad-Spectrum Antimorbidity Drugs

Broad-Spectrum antidisease drugs are designed around genetically modified hunter-killer microorganisms that can create a variety of antibacterial and antiviral countermeasures. These drugs are effective against all known and most unknown infectious agents to an extreme degree, provide protection even against internal diseases such as allergies and cancer, and can stay in a person for months on end to protect them from further problems.

Requires: Transgenic Tech X

Effects: +1 Healthy Tertiary Trait

Combat Drugs

Combat drugs are a combination of stimulant, analgesic, aggression enhancer, and antipsychotic. This potent cocktail can allow trained soldiers to accomplish extreme feats of endurance and strength with no loss in combat focus. However, this brief spurt of superhuman capability comes at terrible long-term costs to mind and body, and even if this damage might be curable many have judged it not worth the costs. These drugs might be illegal throughout much of the Sphere, but if you're out of ammo and facing a charging Series VII, you'll wish you had some.

Requires: Transgenic Tech 15

Effects: Unlocks Combat Stimulant System (+1 Enhanced Physical, +1 Enhanced Reactions)

Field Emergency Surgical Kits

The ESK is a completely automated system with the imprinted skills of a small hospital and with enough medical nanomachinery and general-purpose stem cells to autonomously repair all but the most grievous of wounds. An ESK, although expensive and single-use, can provide care equivalent to a full-scale hospital in the field.

Requires: Infectious Medichines, Transgenic Tech 25

Effects: +Infantry Damage Control

Cybernetic

Ubiquitious Augmentation

Chrome is the new black in your nation, and everyone wants to show theirs off.

Requires: Transgenic Tech 40

Effects: +Transgenic Points

Superhuman Capability

It's easy to take someone to the peak of (trans)human ability with "dry" augmentation. However, taking them significantly beyond requires a lot of research and practice in reinforcing a body so that it can perform at highly superhuman levels. Without implementing extensive physiological reinforcement, squishy bits will break when a cyborg tries to use their full potential.

Requires: Transgenic Tech 10

Effects: Cybernetics can take Enhanced Primary Stats over 6

Exotic Abilities

Eye lasers, cyberarm weapons, VDNIs, spider-legs, neural-controlled tentacles, and other fun stuff!

Requires: Transgenic Tech 15

Effects: Unlocks a bunch of exotic stuff.

Universal Smartlinked Weapons

Aim and fire at the speed of reaction-boosted thought. Just don't march into your superior officer's office with a loaded weapon if you've got one, please.

Requires: Exotic Abilities, Transgenic Tech 15

Effects: +Infantry Accuracy

Biometal Integration

"Biometal" is a material used in cutting-edge cybernetics which can mimic the biological signals that living flesh gives off. Although more expensive than untreated materials, biometal implants fuse flawlessly into a body and require no further surgical or pharmaceutical assistance to embed.

Requires: Transgenic Tech X

Effects: -Cybernetics Cost

Self-Healing Cyberware

Mature nanotechnology applied to cybernetics allows them to heal alongside the body, allowing soldiers who would normally need their implants fully replaced to allow them to heal instead.

Requires:

Effects: -Infantry Repair Costs

Civilian

(as with all preliminary tech sketches, there are no absolute or relative values set for the bonuses given). All numbers are tentative as fuck.

Environmental

Imago System

Augmented Reality Systems have been common for the last 150 years to the point of ubiquity, but only a few worlds have implemented a massive AR network that connects the entire populace in a world not quite virtual and not quite real.

Requires: Civilian Tech 15, Electronics Tech 20

Effects: +Morale, +Spy Defense

Implant Surveillance

Some powers require their citizens to have cybernetics which can feed off of their own senses. These implants may be a convenience but they can also just as easily become an invisible method of oppression.

Requires: Imago System, Civilian Tech 20, Transgenic Tech 30, Electronics Tech 15

Effects: +Spy Defense

Total Data Sharing System

Life is just one big peer-to-peer network. Why shouldn't you be able to share thoughts and skills as easily as you can share music and videos?

Requires: Imago System, Flash Neural Induction, Civilian Tech 30, Electronics Tech 30, Transgenic Tech 30

Effects: +Population Efficiency

Municipal Macrolife

It is argued that with the immense amount of networking of certain powers, the polity itself becomes a self-aware entity in its own right, an emergent form of macrolife that shows rather interesting behavior.

Requires: Implant Surveillance, Total Data Sharing System, Civilian Tech 35, Electronics Tech 30

Effects: +Morale

Education

Improved Neural Induction

Although neural induction has been used to rapidly train bioroids for decades, the process causes significant damage to the brain's ability to learn and is proven to reduce creativity, making it an extremely hard sell. An improved version of neural induction can allow flash-learning without these problems, increasing the availability of personnel to fill extremely high-skill jobs.

Requires: Transgenic Tech 20, Civilian Tech 10

Effects: -Research Cost

Flash Neural Induction

Neural induction allows a flash-grown clone to learn skills in weeks or month, but sometimes even that isn't fast enough. Flash neural induction allows skills to be literally learned in minutes. Although these skills are exclusively in the purview of short-term memory and must be extensively practiced or they will be forgotten in a matter of hours or days, it is still an extremely useful training aid, cutting down on the time and effort it takes to train military personnel at least.

Requires: Improved Neural Induction, Electronics Tech 25, Transgenic Tech 35, Civilian Tech 20

Effects: -Infantry Training Time, -Infantry Cost

Subliminal Indoctrination

The subliminal messaging fad died out in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but the early conspiracy theorists had a grain of truth underlying their fabrications. Powers which understand the human mind well can create such subliminal messages in their education, creating subtle, invisible indoctrination that turns every member of the society into a potential informant.

Requires: Transgenic Tech 25, Civilian Tech 15

Effects: +Spy Defense

Psychological Aptitude Screening

Although screening for genetic aptitudes has become commonplace on many worlds, screening people's psyches for what they'd actually be good at is somewhat more difficult, but means that it's somewhat easier for citizens to find jobs that they will be satisfied with and productive in.

Requires: Civilian Tech 20, Electronics Tech 15, Transgenic Tech 10

Effects: +Morale

Leadership Quantification

We haven't quite obsoleted the need for motivational speeches and the human touch with our cold unfeeling mathematical equations, but we're getting there. Improved civilian leadership makes people more willing to follow your lead, and improved military leadership has self-explanatory effects to military effectiveness.

Requires: Psychological Aptitude Screening, Civilian Tech 30

Effects: +Command, +Morale

Economics

Unified Economic Theory

Unifying macro- and micro-economics into one coherent and viable theory, this unified theory can predict the actions of single people and expand flawlessly to predict the action of nations.

Requires: Social Variable Simplification, Civilian Tech 10

Effects: Increased population Wealth Bonus (0.6 instead of 0.5/unit?)

Self-Healing Markets

The holy grail of lassez-faire economics has finally been achieved via a combination of extended lifespans and ubiquitous computerized market forecasting-a market that can in fact respond quickly and self-correct to issues that would normally result in market failure.

Requires: Unified Economic Theory, Civilian Tech 20

Effects: Reduced penalties from blockades.

Dynamic Market Forecasting

Improvements in the forecasting of market response to government intervention allow additional effectiveness to be wrung out of stimulus bills and tax cuts.

Requires: Unified Economic Theory, Civilian Tech 25

Effects: Wealth Effects are more effective

Sentient Econometrics

With the use of weakly superhuman savant intellects and improved algorithms, predictions in economics can be refined to an accuracy expected out of the hard sciences rather than the soft sciences.

Requires: Dynamic Market Forecasting, Ethical Calculus, Civilian Tech 35, AI Tech 30 OR Intellect +4 & Transgenic Tech 40

Effects: +Wealth Infrastructure

Psychology

Memetic Quantification

In-depth analysis of human psychology has granted an understanding of how humans react to advertisements and propaganda, allowing your power to push its citizens further with less dissent, and with the ability to predict where dissent will rise up,

Prerequisites: Civilian Tech 10

Effects: +Morale

Social Variable Simplification

Economists have tried to create a model of the consumer for centuries, and psychologists have tried to create a model of social groups for just as long. However, these models have suffered from either inaccuracy or overcomplexity. As even small errors in these models can lead to economic or societal problems, refinement of the models has only recently provided ones that are nearly 100% reliable for the power in question.

Prerequisites: Memetic Quantification, Civilian Tech 15

Effects: Morale and Wealth Effects are more effective

Psychodynamics

Psychodynamics is the newly invented science of modeling individual reactions to mental influence as well as gross psyche alteration. The ability to shatter a human psyche and rebuild it into a weapon as deadly and artificial as a combat frame is an extremely valuable addition to an intelligence agency's capabilities.

Requires: Social Variable Simplification, Civilian Tech 20

Effects: Increased Spy Effectiveness

Group Efficiency Engineering

As one reduces the scale of these models, further inaccuracy crops up, and the margin of error increases. Slimming these models allows one to accurately model the behavior of smaller social groups, increasing productivity with no cost in societal dissent.

Prerequisites: Social Variable Simplification, Civilian Tech 20

Effects: +Wealth infrastructure

Ethical Calculus

Creating an accurate mathematical model of individual human behavior has been something of a "holy grail" in psychology. Although modeling human behavior can be brute-forced by the creation of an upload and a realistic simulation, only recently have scientists in the Sphere come close to creating a simplified yet accurate model of individual human behavior.

Prerequisites: Group Efficiency Engineering, Civilian Tech 25

Effects: +Morale, +Diplomacy

Prestige Units

Naval

Super Battleship

Mobility: -1

Evasion: -1

Armor: 12

Structure: 10

Hits: 100

Space: 500

Engineering Coefficient: 25

Hull Coefficient: 20

Hull Expansion

+50 Spaces

Technical Descriptions

Armor

Belted Armor

Standard armor is a combination of a brittle ablative layer, amorphous (noncrystalline) metal, and carbon nanotube weave for spall lining. Spaced and angled for shot deflection, standard armor gives excellent penetration resistance and protection with moderate mass and low cost.

Depleted Uranium Armor

Depleted uranium armor reinforces the amorphous metal in standard armor by 'sandwiching' depleted uranium layers inside, increasing its ability to protect against enemy attacks and reducing the chance of an attack that penetrates of retaining sufficient force to deal critical damage. However, DU armor is fantastically heavy and ships equipping it are notoriously sluggish.

Belted Iridium Armor

Osimium-Iridium alloys have been used for situations where hardness, wear, and temperature resistance have been critical since over 350 years ago, but it is only with the advent of spaceflight and modern materials science which has allowed extensive fabrication of such alloys to use in armor plate. Belted Iridium Armor uses amorphous iridium plating laminated with lightweight polymer for spall catching, making it even more penetration-resistant than DU-reinforced armor with no additional mobility penalty.

Double-Bonded Lunar Titanium Armor

The latest material to come out of the EU's Cordis Material Science Laboratories, the composition of double-bonded Lunar Titanium armor is highly classified. What scientists in other powers believe is that the material is not even titanium at all, but a composite material making extensive use of cutting-edge high-strength/weight ratio materials such as amorphous diamond. Nevertheless the armor provides superior overall protection to even iridium armor with no power draw and far less mass premium.

Laminate Armor

Misleadingly named (as standard armor is already a laminate material) laminate armor was inspired by Velan drone design, using nanofabrifcation to create an armor consisting of hundreds of millimeter-thick sheets of varying materials. The extremely thin layers, although individually weak, create a protective barrier which is stronger in terms of strength-to-weight ratio than standard armor material, but somewhat more vulnerable to catastrophic failure-a projectile which successfully penetrates is more likely to cause critical damage.

Anti-Beam Laminate

Reverse engineered from Nephilim armor, anti-beam laminate uses thermal-conductive layers to rapidly redistribute the shock of an energy weapon attack away from the impact point, reducing an energy weapon's penetrative ability. However these thermal conductor grids are significantly more vulnerable to weapons fire than the original filler.

Polarized Laminate

By using electroreactive "smart" materials, an armor can be built that changes state in response to being powered, hardening in response to enemy fire. Replacing the lightweight polymer sheets in laminate armor with these electroreactives provides superior protection, while retaining the conductive fibers of anti-beam laminate (now used for power supply as well) allow it to still resist penetration from energy weapons. Although the armor now has a significant power requirement, it has equal protection to standard laminate armor and superior resistance to energy weapons such as plasma cannons and mega particle weapons.

Bistate Polarized Laminate

Bistate polarized laminate armor uses superior smart materials which can change state much more quickly and effectively to not only resist enemy fire, but to shed energy against penetration in a way that reduces potential damage. Against ballistic weapons the armor can flex and bend elastically to further reduce penetrating damage, while against energy weapons the armor can absorb and reradiate energy outwards. However, in terms of resisting actual penetration, bistate laminate is only the equal of polarized or conventional laminate armor even if it does retain the conductive layer which mitigates the penetrative ability of MPBs and other high-penetration energy weapons.

Phase Shift Laminate

A technical development from electrical reactive armor, phase-shift laminate armor incorporates electrically charged layers alternating with nonconductive layers, becoming a large capacitor. Any kinetic penetrator that pierces the first layer contacts the second layer, closing the circuit and dumping a massive amount of energy into the penetrator. The penetrator itself is generally melted or vaporized by this action, greatly reducing its penetrative ability. However phase-shift laminate is no more protective than standard laminate armor against energy weapons.

Trans-Phase Laminate

Trans-phase laminate uses superior conductive layers which help to mitigate damage from both energy and ballistic weapons that do penetrate.

Variable Phase Polarization Laminate

Quite possibly the pinnacle of non-theotech armor material design (debates between Variable Phase and Lunar Titanium proponents are generally heated at best) variable-phase armor works by generating a plasma window inside vacuum-filled gaps in the vessel's armor. This pocket can be energized further to damage kinetic penetrators, or in its low-power state, serves to absorb and diffuse the focus of all energy weaponry. By using a low-density, largely nonphysical component as its primary method of stopping enemy fire, variable-phase armor is extraordinarily lightweight, and any attack that penetrates the armor itself is likely to be heavily diffused and unlikely to penetrate to critical vessel areas.

Railguns

Rhenium Integration

The limits to railgun power are based off of both power draw and peak acceleration. Standard rails, using steel-jacketed tungsten or DU slugs, cannot be given significantly more power without melting the power lines or the electromagnets. However, several asteroid belts in the human Sphere have become sources of rhenium, allowing extensive use of superconducting rhenium alloys in critical components such as the power feeds and electromagnets. With superconducting power feeds and temperature-resistant superconducting electromagnets, lethality and efficiency are increased over previous designs.

Gauss Accelerator

Although rhenium integration solves one of the problems, the other problem of peak acceleration exists-when one problem is fixed, another becomes the limitation. This problem can be solved by making the barrel longer, but this increases the vulnerability of the weapon to enemy fire. Famous EU engineer Johan Eckbert, though, sketched out a prototype railgun design which used spiraling "rails" in conjunction with shield systems to allow a hundred-meter long barrel to be contained in a ten-meter long turret. In fact, to make costs manageable, the electromagnets in a gauss accelerator are actually both less expensive and less powerful in an absolute sense, although the increased length more than makes up for it in terms of both cost and power. The only limitation on railgun firepower at this point is barrel wear and shield systems.

Momentum Transfer Rails

The M-T "railgun" is no longer a railgun, but a inertial transfer system using similar principles to the Mercurion Drives that ZOCU uses. The geometry of the system is entirely different though, as while Mercurion drives impart motive force on the drive system (and by extension the vessel it is attached to), Momentum Transfer Rails are intended to do the opposite, imparting motive force on something that is not the drive system. With a theoretically infinite acceleration rate, limited only by power input and projectile tensile strength, a M-T rail can be built much shorter than a conventional design, although it is somewhat less efficient. Although early trials were disappointing, Rheinmetall researchers cracked the necessary geometry in 2187, successfully accelerating a 3-gram ceramic projectile to 6 km/s, and the EU DSF is rumored to be doing field trials on such systems, although information is sparse.

Pulse Weapons

Synchronous Acceleration

Conventional pulse weapons were generally linear accelerators, making them simple to manufacture and maintain, although limiting their destructive power. Cyclotrons were judged too expensive and too vulnerable to be used to build military weapons around. However, with Eckbert's breakthrough idea of cyclical rails (a decade earlier than shield technology could allow practical use of the concept in railguns), PACT scientists realized that his architecture made an excellent basis for a damage-resistant, military-hardened particle accelerator weapon, and a few ZOCU powers have had similar designs. Complaints about the difficulty of maintenance of these new weapons have been, as usual, ignored.

Supercollider Augmentation

A pulse weapon, although more accurate than a railgun, is far more sensitive to damage, and must be run with a much higher margin of safety. Integrating superconductive rhenium alloys into the design of a pulse weapon increases its efficiency drastically, improving the amount of power which can be fed into a weapon as well as how efficiently it uses this power, allowing truly fearsome outputs without risk of weapon destabilization.

Adaptive Focus

One issue with charged particle beams is that they attract or deflect each other-rendering long-range shots impossible, forcing pulse weapons to use neutral particle beams even if charged particle beams are far more efficient. Delta-dust based quantum-computing systems however, have allowed the charged particle beam to make a surprising comeback. These computers allow the prediction of long-range divergence paths by charged particle beams due to fire from both allies and enemies to an extremely high degree of reliability, increasing range, accuracy, and hitting power. On the other hand, the power savings from the cyclotrons are more than made up by the power-hungry computing network. USASF test platforms have found this weapon effective although large-scale deployment is unlikely to happen for years.

Lasers

Adaptive Optics

The problems with focusing a weapon at the ranges common in interstellar combat, while still having a "turret", are non-trivial. Lenses, although simple, are easy to damage by a laser weapon capable of doing significant harm to an enemy warship, and although mirrors are easy, the systems required to allow effective focusing at any range are nontrivial. Improved adaptive optics allow the removal of the mechanical systems and heavily reinforced lenses necessary for earlier laser weapons to be effective, replacing them with flexible mirrors and phased-array optics. These weapons have far fewer moving parts and can focus much faster, improving effective range and accuracy.

Heterodyne Lasers

A complex combination of geometry and electronics provides a focusing system allows heterodyne lasers to produce wavelengths normally only possible under extreme circumstances. No longer is a X-Ray or gamma-ray laser only possible by the use of excessively large and fragile equipment or the detonation of a nuclear weapon. This improvement increases the penetrative force of a laser weapon against armor materials, although efficiency suffers from it.

Optimized Photon Pulses

Photon Pulse Weapons use improved computer systems and fully smart optics to optimize wavelength and pulse characteristics for the target at hand. With the ability to rapidly switch pulse length and power, a photon pulse laser is capable of drilling through hull using extremely short-duration low-energy pulses, then causing severe damage to internal systems with long, high-energy pulses without missing a beat.

Ships

Aegis

The Aegis cruiser was designed as a vessel with fast strategic speed but had minimal tactical speed to carry a higher weapons complement. Using a large complement of naval cannon, the Aegis was more than adequate against most larger drone forces, and its armor, although minimal, could ward off the strikes of light drone weapons. Standard armament was 12 electrothermal cannon, backed up by a pair of multipurpose missile launchers. Later an interim refit for fighting heavier units took advantage of the vessel's modularity and responsiveness to expansion, replacing the entire weapons complement with anti-ship and anti-aerospace missiles, turning the Aegis into an "arsenal ship" designed to support frontline combatants with heavy missile fire at extreme range-as although the Aegis had an immense amount of firepower it had nearly no survivability against antiship weapons.

Although an obsolete design, its high tolerance for expansion and modular hull design made it an easy and cost-effective design to extensively refit, and there are a few powers which use modernized variants almost unrecognizable as the original vessel.

Aegis cruiser (1x Cruiser)
Stats

Mobility: 1

Evasion: 1.5

Armor: 4+6 (10)

Structure: 5+1.5 (6.5)

Hits: 20+12 (32)

Internal Space: 110

Power and Propulsion (-8 Space, +0 Power)

2 Fission Reactors (-2 Space, +16 Power)

1 fusion thruster (-4 Space, -8 Power)

2 Jumpdrives (-2 Space, -8 Power)

Armor and Defenses (-12 Space)

3 Belted Armor (-12 Space, +6 Armor, +1.5 Structure, +12 Hits)

Weapons (-90 Space)

4 Medium Naval Rifles (-40 Space)

8 Small Naval Rifles (-40 Space)

2 Strike Missile Launchers (-10 Space)

Weapons (Aegis ADCAP Refit) (-90 Space)

12 Anti-Shipping Missile Launchers (-60 Space)

6 Anti-Air Missile Launchers (-30 Space)

Aegis (Magnate Refit)

A few Aegis designs were refit into capable although not exceptional modern combatants by Magnate worlds. Although still with relatively thin hulls, DU-laminate armor makes them a lot more survivable. Their original greatest weaknesses, their near-nonexistent speed and lack of AA capability, were removed by a near-total overhaul of their armaments and an expansion of hull size. With a reactor rating 500% that of the original vessel, the Magnate refit is significantly more capable.

Aegis Block II cruiser (3x Cruiser)
Stats

Mobility: 0+4-1 (3)

Evasion: 1+2-1 (2)

Armor: 4+6+4 (14)

Structure: 5+3 (8)

Hits: 20+18 (38)

Internal Space: 130

Power and Propulsion (-26 Space, +80 Power)

8 Fusion Reactors (-8 Space, +120 Power)

4 fusion thrusters (-16 Space, -32 Power)

2 Jumpdrives (-2 Space, -8 Power)

Armor and Defenses (-16 Space, -32 Power)

3 DU Armor (-12 Space, +6 Armor, +3 Structure, +18 Hits, -1 Mobility)

1 Scattering Field (-4 Space, -32 Power, +4 Armor, +4 AP, -1 Evasion, -1 Sensors)

Weapons (-88 Space, -48 Power)

4 Medium Naval Railguns (-40 Space, -32 Power)

2 Burst-Modal Small Naval Railguns (-10 Space, -8 Power)

4 Burst-Modal DP Cannon (-16 Space, -8 Power)

4 Strike Missile Launchers (-20 Space)

1 Vulcan PD (-2 Space)

Building Craft Around Ship Weapons

This is assuming that a Mobile Armor's x4 means that 1 space on a craft is 4 or more space on a vehicle, which is almost certainly untrue but that's why I'm putting this here instead of on a Sphere 2 page. Used a x5 multiplier because it's nice and even.

Not A Glitter Boy

Assault Frame, 4x Expansions
Speed 4+4 (8)
Agility 4+5-2 (7)
Evasion 3+3.5+.5 (7)
Armor 10+6+2 (18, 2 AP Protection)
4 Hits Component Space: 12 + 16 (28)

Power and Propulsion (Space -14, Power +21)

7 Fusion Reactors (Space -7, Power +28)

4 Thrusters (Space -4, Power -4, Speed +4, Agility +2, Evasion +2)

3 Verniers (Space -3, Power -3, Agility +3, Evasion +1.5)

Defensive Systems (Space -7, Power -8)

6 Armor (Space -1, Armor +6, Agility -2)

1 Flash Field (Space -1, Power -8, Armor +2, AP Protection +2, Evasion +.5)

Weapons (7 Space)

Antimissile Gatling (-2 Space)

Mecha SMG (-5 Space)

External Carriage: 12 + 8 (20)

1 DP Cannon (Space -20, Power -10)

Flakbot 1.0

A far more reasonable design. Probably League.

Assault Frame, 1x Expansion
Speed 4+4 (8)
Agility 4+6-2 (8)
Evasion 3+4 (7)
Armor 10+6 (16)
4 Hits Component Space: 12 + 4 (16)

Power and Propulsion (Space -10, Power +0)

2 Fusion Reactors (Space -2, Power +8)

4 Thrusters (Space -4, Power -4, Speed +4, Agility +2, Evasion +2)

4 Verniers (Space -4, Power -4, Agility +4, Evasion +2)

Defensive Systems (Space -6)

6 Armor (Space -1, Armor +6, Agility -2)

External Carriage: 12 + 2 (14)

1 Flak Cannon (Space -10)

1 Antimissile Gatling (-2 Space)

1 Alpha Sword (-2 Space)