Smart Explosives! Specifically, claymore mines.

How it works is that since all prisoners aboard Tartarus have a tracking implant, these mines would have a small sensor that detects this implant. So essentially, would greatly reduce the chance of friendly fire. This sensor could also be used for other types of mines. No more stepping on your own mines! So you could lead enemies into traps and have them thinking that there aren't any hidden explosives. The only thing is to make sure you aren't too close to the enemy. Otherwise, kebewm

Dinosawer wrote:

Cha0zz wrote:Neutrino Optimised

*dies*

:V

I couldn't think of anything else to fit the "N" so I took a "sciency" word

another suggestion:
Infantry Weapon: Unconventional?

Weaponised Nanites:

• Ammo:Consider it infinite
• Requirements: ? unconv +0?
• Rolls: unconv vs endurance
• Description: These are basically the nanites from the nanite-sealed suit but in a more aggressive form. They are sprayed on the enemy in a sort of mist, attacking the enemies organic tissue.
  Unlike the nanites from the nanite-sealed suit, these nanites are not able to reproduce indefinitely because they are not optimised for the immune system of the host. After 2? turns the nanites fail to replicate and die. During these 2? turns the nanites will cause a substantial amount of damage and pain to the target.
  • Nanites can replicate for about 2? turns on the target.
  • Nanites cause considerable pain and damage to the target.
  • Damage is not localised and can even be internal if the target inhales the nanites.
  • Wounds caused by the nanites won't bleed.
  • Nanites are sprayed as a mist, don't spray against the direction of the wind!
  • Don't touch an enemy that is under the influence of the nanites!

After some discussion about robotics, here we have some quick and dirty proposals to make it better:

Retractable Flail

A plasteel ball with sharp spikes and depleted uranium core on a 20 metres-long carbon-nanotube chain, this terrifying weapon does exactly the same thing as its Medieval counterpart - it crushes, destroys, breaks and shreds the living shit out of your enemy, while making you look truly evil. Unless you know what you are doing, leave it at home. Retracts for transportation.

Cost: 3 credits?
Rolls Robotics and Manoeuvrability.
Requires +1 robotics
20 m reach!
Heavy ball won't penetrate the armour, but it'll most certainly produce a shockwave strong enough to damage internal systems.


Inertia Amplification Spear

A long telescopic spear with a Kinetic Bumper on its end. Allows to bring all the goodness of the usual Kinetic Bumper to your enemies without having to scratch the paint on your hull.

Costs: 3 credits.
Etc etc.


Plasma Lash

A compact thermonuclear reactor that drains small amounts of anti-matter from your engines to start the fusion, it produces super-hot plasma that's usually found deep inside the biggest stars. When channelled outside through the solenoids inside your robotic arm, it disperses rather quickly - but not quick enough, leaving a 5 metres-long cloud of plasma that can melt its way through almost anything. We'd made it into a proper weapon if you idiots didn't accelerate forward while letting the plasma escape, melting your own ship.

Costs 8 credits
Requires Robotics +2
Rolls the usual Rob+Man
Melts and vaporises stuff.

I have one too!
My RMBLR from earlier can probably be reworked to robotic for 5 or 6 creds. Aside from that:

Atomic hammer
This weapon might look like a weird glowing hammer at the end of your robotic arm, but in reality it's one of the most devastating technologies we have available. The hammer is rigged with a material that creates an enormous electromagnetic wave on impact, effectively breaking all bonds between atoms in whatever you hit.
In short, you hit something with this thing, it gets pulverized to dust, armour or no armor.
Price: 9 creds
Req: 3 or 4 robotics
Normal rolls

Infantry
Small Active Radar Scanner (SARS):

• creds: 0
• Requires: Robotics +0
• Ammo: Comes in a 3-pack, replenished upon return to the tartarus.
• Rolls: Robotics (robotics is rolled each turn to see if the device stays active)
• Description: A small radar shaped magnetic device that will stick to metallic surface.
  This can be thrown or put down.
  It will reveal an area with a radius of 3m? but can't look through covers.
  • Reveals an area with a radius of 3m? on the map (including enemies, etc.)
  • Can't look through cover
  • Can look through clouds, mist and darkness.
  • Can't look through chaff.
  • A roll is needed each turn to see if it stays active
  • Scanners can be picked up again and re-activated at your ship

((Maybe a ship based big brother would also be nice))

Ship weapon: Robotics:
Compacted Ionised Cesium Knife (CICK)

• Creds: ?
• Requires: Robotics +2, replaces two robotic arms
• Ammo: Internal battery good for 2minutes of activity, recharges from the ship's generator (slow)
• Rolls: Robotics + manoeuvrability vs (manoeuvrability/engines + engines/durability)?
• Description: This fine device replaces both your robotic arms with rods, these rods will emit a thin mist of super-heated Caesium-ions, the ions are held in place by a magnetic field induced by the rods. This effectively creates a knife-shaped field of caesium-ions in-front of your ship. The Caesium ions are highly reactive and will destroy any matter that they come in contact with and if they can't destroy it they will most certainly melt it. This is main use for this weapon is to ram an enemy ship head on and slice right through it (without any damage to your own ship).
  • Will slice lightly armoured ships clean in two without damage to your own ship.
  • Will severely damage highly armoured ships but since you don't slice through them you might risk to damage your own ship if you're going fast.
  • Can safely be used to create breaches in ships as long as you don't fly into them but rather push the knife through it.

((picture to clarify how it looks))

(())

Since it's a fun thing but only the GREASE and the MkIII seem to have one, while it could be handy for not just the character builds that get those ships:
Ship AI
  Price: 3 creds
  Requirements: +1 aux, doesn't need an aux slot as it's installed in your cockpit
  Description: We call it an AI, but I sometimes think it's more intelligent than you dimwits. In fact, we should replace all of you by these things - except they can't hold a rifle. Too bad. Anyway, this thing allows you to multitask better and lets you do all those things you couldn't because you have only one brain.
  More details: Allows you to do two things at the same thing, provided you give the AI the order right before. Handy for people who want to use multiple weapons simultaneously, are too lazy to learn to use their turrets themselves or who want to nap or play the horn while someone else flies their ship. Rolls your stats and skill for everything it does. Can have trouble doing complex stuff, might need an aux roll for those. Tends to take orders literally.

---

I'll be honest, I just want Tal to have the opportunity to make Saoirse jokes.
THINK OF THE JOKES TAL
THE JOKES

Robotics perhaps?

Sabotage Drones (Basic and Premium):

• Ammo:2 or 3 (1 or 2 for Premium)
• Requirements: Robotics and Aux on 0 (+1 for premium), as well as a free robotic wrist
• Rolls: Robotics vs intuition (And Hacking with -1 modifier vs enemies Computer for premium)
• Description: It's a simple Drone, equiped with a few small sheets of metal, a blowtorch and magnetic arms (Basically Unit in mini and remote-controlled). It's shot from a small construction on the Wrist of your robotic arms, wrapped in a small protective container that latches itself on the target and deploys the real drone. The drone can then be remote controlled from your cockpit to fullfill simple sabotage acts like welding those pesky rocket bays shut. Or frying the computer of your enemy. The premium-Drone also comes with a set of Hacking-Equipment similar to those you use in your CASKET. If you manage to get the drone to latch itself on the enemies computer, it can act as a Hypersonic-station for you.
  
  • Is used via manual controls and camera feed. No fumbling with PSI but simple controls in your Cockpit.
  • Can be hacked after deploy, but the Enemy has to know that it's there first.
  • Can be retrieved after use, but has to be reinserted into the launch-bay manually
  • The Premium-Variant shuts down other functions when activating the Hacking-mode. So no more moving or burning.

I started going through the new suggestions, but then realized that I was just systematically going through, giving stuff careful thought, and vetoing every suggestion. I'll have to do it again when I'm not feeling quite so cynical.

I suggest you finish your current list and then look through this stuff when you're waiting for us to finish our tartarus sidequests and stuff. And don't worry about the high end robotics, nobody is gonna get those now yet anyway. I'll make a "to be reevaluated later" list on the armory to add page this afternoon.

Some ideas for exotic infantry, which is getting fun but could use more stuff (especially the amps - at 4 PSI there's not really choice, just "pick everything"). I tried to give options for both support and combat Exotics.

"Normal" exotic:
Plasma lash
  Ammo: internal generator, one use per minute
  Requirements: none
  Description: A small magnetic field amp barely capable of moving big, heavy objects, it becomes quite deadly when coupled with a superheated plasma generator. The resulting plasma lash burns away flesh, melts electronics and looks really cool. Generator is good for 10 seconds of action, after which it needs to recharge for about a minute. Please don't use it for sex games.
  More details: Don't try to use without the appropriate skills, can backfire severely otherwise.
  Rolls: Attacker's Exotic and PSI against defender's Maneuverability and Intuition

outlander invented this one, I think it's less silly than the fthagn tentacle and more actually useful

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Amp cartridges:
Warp amp unit
  Ammo: none
  Requirements: ?
  Description: A very weak version of the ship amp, albeit more accurate. Doesn't get you anywhere close to c, but lets you splatter enemies against a wall if they're dumb enough to run towards one, or lets you fly forward like the Flash if you use it carefully. Field not large enough to accelerate more than 1 person. Might have trouble with heavy things.
  Rolls: Attacker's PSI Unit and Exotic vs defender's Intuition and PSI Unit

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Null field amp unit
  Ammo: none
  Requirements: ?
  Description: A weak version of the ship amp. Let's you shut off all electronics in an area of 5 m across for about 30 seconds, which has the nice side effect of disabling a fair share of weaponry. Can hit multiple enemies if they're dumb enough to stand close together. (without roll penalty)
  Rolls: Attacker's PSI Unit and Exotic vs defender's Intuition and speed

This might need balancing. It's a powerful effect, but offset by the fact that it's not lethal and doesn't turn off everything, just stuff that uses electricity. The idea is to delay the attacks for part of a turn, too, not turn them off entirely, hence 30 seconds. Also, they can just move out of the affected area

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Stasis field amp unit
  Ammo: none
  Requirements: ?
  Description: Based on stolen MIMIR tech, this amp makes a bubble in which 95% of kinetic energy is dampened, meaning whoever you hit with it is practically frozen in place for a minute. Doesn't prevent all movement and they can still shoot you, but they'll have a very hard time actually aiming.
  Rolls: Attacker's PSI Unit and Exotic vs defender's Intuition and speed
Basically what those mimir doods hit us with. Don't think we brought one of these back, but eh

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Heavy Amps: more powerful than normal ones, but they need 2 cartridge slots
Gravity amp unit
  Ammo: none
  Requirements: ?
  Description: A lot more powerful than the mass amp, but also a lot less accurate. Create gravitic shockwaves, singularities and fields at will, let your enemies fly, crush them and show them your psychic power really is not to be messed with.
  Rolls: Attacker's PSI Unit and Exotic vs defender's PSI Unit and Durability

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Neural Connector amp unit
  Ammo: none
  Requirements: ?
  Description: An infantry version of the ship amp. Why shoot your enemies if you can make them shoot each other instead?
  Rolls: Attacker's PSI Unit and Exotic vs Defender's PSI Unit and Charisma

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Infantry: tool:
Layer Scanner

• Ammo: N/A
• Price: ?
• Requirements: +0 Robotics; max amount of infantry weapons is limited by your strength.
• Rolls: Robotics
• Description: This small pocket scanner is able to scan alien equipment up to the finest details, it makes a layered composition image of the internals of the weapon and uses that to analyse the workings of the weapon allowing you to easily figure out how to handle it. As an added bonus it can also determine the internals of rocks samples, closed pods, etc. As long as it is small enough to fit in the scanner you can see what it looks like on the inside.
  • If used to scan an unknown weapon, it allows you to use that weapon without the need for a knowledge roll.
  • Can determine what is in small containers without the need to open them (this includes detection of booby-traps)
  • Only useful to scan relative small items, don't try to scan a crate with it, it won't fit.
  • Gives information about the (internal) structure of something, not about the composition, for the composition you need your PDA's XRD.

Infantry: Tool:
Inorganic Object Teleporter

• Ammo: internal generator good for one use per turn
• Price: 1cred
• Requirements: A cargo pod, doesn't take any inventory space.
• Rolls: Robotics or computer
• Description: Do you always find your rucksack to be full off stuff? Are you to lazy to go and deposit your loot into your ship? Then this is the device for you! The Inorganic Object Teleporter allows you to teleport small loot objects directly to the cargo pod of your ship! Gone are the travel times to your ship! This thing can teleport about everything as long as it's not breathing and small enough.
  • Teleport your loot to the cargo pod of your ship
  • Trying to teleport a living creature will kill it.
  • Only relatively small things can be teleported (max. size would be as big as a pistol)
  • If you use this to teleport the head of a human the brains will explode making it useless for information extraction later on.

Infantry: armor:
BoarBear coat

• Ammo: N/A
• Requirements: N/A
• Rolls: None
• Price: 2creds
• Description: This coat is made from Boarbear fur. Not only will it keep you warm in even the coldest environments but it will also give you a decent protection against bullets. Unfortunately during the process of refining the fur it becomes quite flammable, so it's probably best to keep it out of the way of any ignition sources.
  • Gives you immunity to cold, cryogenic sprays etc.
  • Protects as well against weapons as light armor does.
  • When it catches fire it will almost instantly light the whole suit.
  • You get sweaty in warm environments, people don't like smelly sweaty people so that's a -1 on charisma in warm environments while you are wearing the coat (maybe, not sure)

BAIS ( Basic Areal Insertion and Support ) Dropship Slug Thrower

Trigger, I do like the idea of a dedicated infantry support vehicle, though I'm not too sure about the balancing.

Black--Snow wrote:Trigger, I do like the idea of a dedicated infantry support vehicle, though I'm not too sure about the balancing.

Positives:

Great at Atmospheric Flight
Good support for infantry
Can hold a lot of loot
Can hold several troops
3 Weapon Hardpoints
Maneuverable

Negatives:

Much easier to kill
Only one Auxiliary hardpoint
Ineffective in space
Larger