Firearms of the Future
Colony Alpha presupposes the widespread use of pulse weapons in its future setting.
Pulse Weapons are similar to the contemporary firearms of the 20th century except they employ an electronic pulse, similar to a spark plug, to ignite the projectile’s propellant. The ammunition is caseless. The propellant is often a solid mixture of explosive nitroamine that is cast onto the rear of the projectile. When the electronic pulse ignites the propellant the bullet is fired from the firearm. The recoil of the firearm kinetically charges a supercapacitor, which supplies the power for the electronic pulse spark.
Lasers?
Why are there no lasers? With the advent of superconducting materials and solid state batteries powerful lasers were able to shrink in size until they could be carried by a normal person. However, since a laser beam is made up of massless photons its is easily scattered and absorbed by environmental conditions. Thus they were not considered suitable for defense and warfare.
Using Firearms
Any character may pick up a firearm and use it without a skill. All firearms have a base damage of 1 Body which must be called when the weapon is fired.
All firearms are either Sidearms (pistols) or Longarms (rifles). This information, as well as what type of ammunition a firearm uses will be marked on the firearm’s Weapon Tag. The Weapon Tag must be affixed to each firearm to make it game-legal. New characters may choose what ammunition fits this weapons. Once selected, the ammunition may not be changed.
Firearm Rule Summary
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Types of Ammo and Firearm Tags
The bolded abbreviation of each ammo type, below, must be displayed on each dart. We recommend writing the ammo type on the Nerf darts in Sharpie.
Each firearm will also have a weapon tag. The weapon tag must be attached to the actual weapon and covered in clear glass tape. If a weapon tag is ever removed from a weapon, that weapon has broken in-game.
| Pulse Weapon Ammunition |
| 5.56mm (This stands for 5.56x45mm DU-hexogenT4 caseless round) |
| 7.62mm (This stands for 7.62x35mm DU-hexogenT4 caseless round) |
| 10mm (This stand for 10x24mm DU-hexogenT4 caseless round) |
Ammunition Tracking
In order to easily track ammunition that players have, everyone will be issued Ammo Cards. These cards have 20 bullet icons on them. Players should write the calibre of bullet on the back of the card. Players should then circle the number of bullets they have. As bullets are gained players should circle more bullet icons. As bullets are expended or lost players should X out the icons.
If a player needs extra cards, please feel free to contact staff. At the end of the event players should record how many bullets they have left of each calibre onto their character cards.
An example Ammo Card is show below.
Smartlinks/Biometric Locks
Most firearms of the future are smartlinked to a person’s unique biometric signature. They will not fire if handled by anyone other than the person whose biometrics are registered for the weapon. It takes 5 seconds to register a biometric signature to a “blank” firearm, or for the registered person to de-register his/her biometric signature. The only other way to compromise a registered smartlinked weapon is to hack its core memory.
The presence of a biometric lock needs to be written on the firearm’s weapon card. The biometric lock also needs to be indicated on the firearm with yellow duct tape, yellow reflective tape, or yellow lighting on or near the handle/trigger of the firearm.
Damaging Firearms
Any firearm hit with a “Break” skill will be destroyed. Additionally, any non-fragile weapon can usually be destroyed by a continuous 5-count of attacks, either with a melee weapon or shots from a firearm or a combination of both. Fists cannot be used to break weapons, but some claws can. Interrupted 5-counts must be restarted in order to break the weapon. Some weapons may be impervious to damage in this fashion.