So like in mass effect?

>>65105304
I'm trying to avoid that style

Make up some stupid reason like
> Holtzman shield from Dune
> Minovsky Particles from Gundam
Or that laser, plasma or energy guns are some how a taboo or there was some tecnology downgrade from a nuclear war or something like that.

Yes, to some extent. Like look at rocket launchers or grenade launchers compared to regular firearms; or hell even drills or chainsaws or leaf blowers. They're all still designed for the ergonomics and form factor of a human in spite of dramatically different operation, like having a pistol grip roughly the same locations and a foregrip being somewhere in front of it, and often somewhere to put your shoulder with the center of gravity of the gun between it and the front grip. So they might not look like a AR15 in 500 years, the grips will be in the same place and you can work back from there.

>>65105301
>Would kinetic firearms that resemble late 20th-21st century guns still be used in 26th century?
Unlikely. Modern (as in since industrial revolution) guns have had incredible longevity (Mosin, PKM, M2 browning) because the basic recipe has remained the same: metal case with propellant, bullet inserted in the front end. It's likely that a paradigm shift will change that before the 26th.

From recent history until today you can see trends, like the bullpups of the cold war, trying to get as much velocity as they could in a shorter package, resulting in what seems to be the current trend: higher pressure with shorter barrels, with suppressors attached. Visually, bullpups are very distinct from short carbines with suppressors.
Suppressors are getting weirder. Traditional baffles are going away, and some of the new designs are very bold (Millbrook). Also, weapon designs are very much related to what you intend the design to be made with. Stamped guns will look a certain way, machined-from-forging guns will look another way, and extruded receiver guns will also look specific. The reason it's been so hard to make AKs in the US is that we never had the heavy stamping capabilities that AKs and PKMs were designed to be made with.
Additive manufacturing will probably change that again in the near future, 3D printed guns (plastic or metal) will start looking a certain way soon once people figure out how to best exploit additive manufacturing.

I see no reason why you'd need to carry a rifle if drones and micro-missiles get miniaturized enough to be body worn for personal protection. As for warfare, just use robots. Why use meat popsicles when you can send waves of robots against waves of robots.

Maybe in your universe 26th century manufacturing is almost all 3D printed stuff and the cheapest things to print are all old 21st century guns that don't have copyright protection.

AR-15

>>65105301
They could be. It's not uncommon for effective tools and weapons to persevere little-changed throughout history.

One thing you could do is take vintage designs like the BAR or SKS and reimagine them in sci-fi terms. For world building flavor you could even explain that the weapon traces its lineage to 20th century designs.

>>65105301
>kinetic firearms
You've got some minimum hardware:
>a barrel out the front for the projectile to accelerate from
The barrel could be exceedingly short, perhaps a coilgun would be rather short and bulky from the coils surrounding the barrel. But you still need a hole and a tube in the front.
>magazine and feed system
Needs to connect to the barrel breach/chamber. The magazine or belt doesn't have to be in line with the chamber as a carrier on the bolt or other mechanism can move the round from the top of the magazine backwards or forwards to the breach area. Theres a really cool WW1 machine gun that does this.

>grips that fit hands
Pistol grips are pretty effective. Handgrips that fit hands or gloves. Trigger could be more button-like or butterfly trigger. The trigger can be somewhat smart that allows a hair trigger without worry of negligent discharging.
>shoulder stock
Not needed if we have an Aliens smartgun waldo system, which would be the smart way of doing it.
>optics
Can be HUD/helmet or brain integrated so looking down the scope is unnecessary.
>autostabalization and aim assist
smartgun waldo or some gimbal to aim assist the user. Does not need to be a wide angle, could just correct by 4MOA or less. USMC have an antidrone smart scope that will fire their rifle at the exact millisecond that their weapon is lined up to hit a flying drone. There's a deer hunting civilian scope that does the same thing that has been available for a few years.

I find it hard to believe that 26th century weapons would not have aim and trigger assistance and suspect they would be HUD integrated and people are not looking down sights. Laser sights would probably not be common and lasers would be used as an active rangefinder or weapon. Passive rangefinder would be the norm much like how IR and NVGs are primarily passive and using an IR searchlight is only for cases where the passive mode is not sufficient.

Robots identify targets, aim and fire a lot faster than humans.

>>65105350
>printed guns (plastic or metal) will start looking a certain way soon once people figure out how to best exploit additive manufacturing.
FDM has walls, skin, and infill all of which can have tuned geometry and voids in between. In some ways they weave and curve each line of extrusion that can result in a very lightweight part with a complex void while still maintaining amost the same strength as if the part were solid.

UV resin and metal sinster need a way for the resin and metal powder to drain from the interior which limits the internal geometry slightly, but still allows for a very complex part that would be difficult to machine and assemble using other methods. Much of the same lightening principles apply.

What it means is 3d printed parts can be very bulky for their weight while maintaining very good stiffness and strength.

For 3d suppressors, nozzles and other gas systems the ideal shapes for fluid flow can be selected maximizing efficiency and avoiding turbulent, unwanted or restricted flow areas that would reduce performance or would be susceptible to deposits that need to be cleaned.

>>65105301
>26th
You'd need a VERY good reason to justify the technological stagnation, some suggestions would be-
>enforced stagnation
Essentially all weapons development is forcefully ended and humanity collectively agrees not to make things more killy.
>technology backside
WW3, some natural disasters or other events rekt civilization and we're just now regaining 21st century technology.
>lost or distant colony
Can be a combination of the first two, but mostly they didn't get or weren't able to have advanced weapons.

>>65105562
>FDM has walls, skin, and infill all of which can have tuned geometry and voids in between. In some ways they weave and curve each line of extrusion that can result in a very lightweight part with a complex void while still maintaining amost the same strength as if the part were solid.
Yeah no shit, my point still stands. There is a step beyond "making solids and infilling them properly": external or internal ribs, unmachinable curved surface transitions, etc..
All current FDM guns look bulky because they're overengineered (in this case, the proper term would probably be "underengineered"). Topology optimization and generative designs are a thing that FDM could do, but they don't, because they're not worth the effort. Yet.
We're at the step where people are still trying to make FDM guns more rugged and reliable, not the "optimized for additive" step.

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>>65105370
>3D printing
At least on the low tech side it'd probably be the goto for frontier rebels and colonists
>open source, economized, low-maintainance guns in cheap calibres
>repros of culturally popular 'vintage' stuff in 26th century calibres

>>65105301
>I'm trying to design weapons that don't look like generic sci-fi guns
Come up with need for it and form requirements based on it.
Specify available technology and manufacturing process.
Design them inside out, everything outside protects the insides.
Sturdy shouldn't be bulky, it's suppose to handle expected stress.
Reliable doesn't mean it's simple, it's just cleverly wrong proof.
Object must have a purpose, why-check everything constantly.
Nothing exists in void, firearms is the smallest cog of war.
Rule of cool will manifests itself naturally only via the deeper insight.

>>65105301
Well the M2 Browning definitely would still be in service. No idea about any others.

>>65105301
Kinda depends on definition of resemble.
By physics AR resembles Brown Bess.
By mechanics AR resembles M1 Garand.
By ergonomics AR resembles AK.

Physics:
Combustion, but better:
More/smaller projectilles and more energetic propellants with less residue. Most rounds are mostly powder by volume, but if you have a propellant that is 10x more potent then modern day this is inverted. What you get is significant increase in capacity - for 5.56 rilfe this would be around 6x, for 9mm pistol 2-3x. Even cased with brass, those rounds would be significanly lighter than modern ammunition due to lower powder volume.

Alternative combustion:
1.Liquid proplelant stored separetly from bullets - gun looks like PCP airgun or has a connection to backpack. Gun can regulate muzzle velocity for every shot. Combination guns are more ammo efficient than with solid propelant since propelant can be shared between multiple chambers.
2.Rockets - lightweight and low recoil guns that can punch above weight - imagine shooing .50bmg out of AR. It is less ammo efficent and at point blank might lack kinetic energy.

Electric accelarators in general:
Source of power doesn't have to be located on the gun or anywhere near projectiles. Muzzle velocity can be varied on per shot basis. Battery can be shared with direct energy weapon.

1.Altenative gas expansion:
Electro-thermal - Instead of using chemical energy to create expanging gases eletricity is used.Unlike combustion, muzzle velocity is limited only by material strenght of barrel and available energy. Could be used as a hybrid booster with combustion.

2.Railgun:
Barrel doesn't have to spherical (but unlike many media depictions has to be enclosed) so it could use weird 2d flechetes.

3.Coilguns:
Projectile is levitated inside of barrel. This means that they can be fed into barrel and accelarated at a different angle they leave. Single barrel could also accomodate variety of calbers (ex. 2mm flechettes, 12ga buckshot, 40mm grenades).

>>65105301
>Would kinetic firearms that resemble late 20th-21st century guns still be used in 26th century?
That is so far deep into Singularity territory that it's all totally arbitrary. On our current path Humanity in its present form will probably be gone long, long before another 5 centuries pass. Best case scenario is probably something like we maintain a current-human level mindscape for those who wish to inhabit it, and the post-human gods are benevolent and off doing their own stuff in the Galaxy but totally fine maintaining a few matryoshka brains as Universe 2.0 for people. The rules then become by definition semi-arbitrary.

Alternatively if we have some sort of tremendous collapse before everything can go totally exponential then we can still exist but now you're in some flavor of post-apoc or the like. Which again you as the writer can just make up however you like.

Obviously if we simply get wiped out, well that's that. You could write that story too but doesn't sound like what you're after.

So tl;dr: focus first on good world building for what even exists at that point in a realistic way. Create a good path that leads from here to there. THEN you can organically have stuff from out from that. Embrace the deus ex and focus most of creating a work that's enjoyable and well written.

>>65105301
well, lets put it this way.

what does a firearm from 500 years ago look like?

>>65108387
a brownbess is pretty different from an ar. hell the ar from adoption to cutting edge now has changed.
basically its all dependent on what people are wearing in addition to the gun.
traditional rifle layout stays the same through ww2 with boltactions since theres no armor.
m16 no armor bigass open truckbeds and open jeeps
gwot m4 start to get armor and vehicles now you need adjustable stocks and shorter guns to fit in hummers.
if we are in space in the 26th century it will be alot different to be used in spacesuits cause of gloves at a minimum though the internals will be a fucking ak/m4/glock encased in plastic. just some generic cube with shit stuck to it so you can hold it.
even if its not in space like some fullbody anti radiation or pollution suit would change how you hold a gun.

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>>65108482
Almost there, but kind of missing the point.

in 500 years, designs will most likely be as far removed from what we use today, as they are from those of 500 years ago.

lets look at the example of "in the year 2000", a series of predictions of what the world will be like in the year 2000, printed as illustrated cards in 1899.

here's on example.
now the basic concept - a flying gunship is entirely feasable. but the design execution is of course, comically naive.
and any prediction of a firearm in the 26th century being an AK or M4 is just as naive.

>>65108353
Physics cont.

4.Centrifuge: Projectille are ejected from spun up centrifuge rather than accelerated along barrel. Gun is bulky to accomodate centrifuge but short since it doesn't have a barrel.

Mechanics:
Combustion conventional cased or caseless design could be quite similar in this regard to modern guns.

Alternative combustion:
Polygonal ammunition (Dardick) - polygonal rounds can be used in rather bizzare single chamber - mutlibarrel configuration.
Solid state/superposed loading - no moving parts and insane ROF but some reloading limitaions:
Metal storm (preloaded designs) - original designs used barrel clusters but it could be used with single barrel and revolving cylinder. Depending on the design either entire ammunition block is reloaded, individual barrels or chambers.
Metal storm (inductive) - rounds are internally caseless design (think some russian grenade launchers) they can be loaded individually loaded.

Hybrid solid-state:
Nothing stoping you from using tiny solid-state amunition blocks as rounds.

EM guns are limited to using recoil for self loading, but they don't need locked chamber and could also use superposed loading.
Power source might be embedded into projectile itself, part of a magazine, separate on the gun or connected to gun by cable.

Ergonomics:

Pistol grips are staying.

Aiming systems on the gun might be for backup with aiming being done through wearable/implanted display.

Current magazine position prioritizes reloading speed (conventional) or barrel length (box bullpup). With higher capacity and lighter ammon it might not matter that much and magazine might be moved to position that prioritizes capacity - horizonally top mounted.

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>>65105301
got this idea.. basically a rifle that takes many AR parts, but uses two P90 magazines, that can be swapped the lead position of depending on if you're a left hander or not, so one mag is always available for spray and pray when you're reloading (gun favors one mag depending on mag stagger setup)

i have thought about how to best do this in a manner that isn't complex and the answer i've landed on is using a system similar to the Vesely V-42 would allow it to always feed from the frontally placed mag.