How do you justify the usage of melee weapons in a science fiction universe with powerful guns? >hard mode: no rule of coolIn Dune it is because lasers would create a nuclear explosion killing everyone.In LOGH it is an explosive gas that ignites from laser weaponry.In Star Wars it seems to be mostly a cultural thing for Jedi and Sith to keep using lightsabers.In Warhammer 40k it seems to me to be heavy metal rule of cool.
>>98013338Using melee weapons in any setting that has commonly available semi-automatic firearms or better, is inherently rule of cool.Backwards justifications don't change that.
>>98013338The last thing I want to do is shoot a laser gun in my ship while in space and run the risk of killing myself via explosive decompression or shooting something important.
>>98013338I don't. People use ranged weaponry.
>>98013338I'll give you a clip from Mass Effect that explains why melee in space vessels would make sensehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpgxry542M
I like the KOTOR method, shields negate blaster bolts so armies started training soldiers in melee combat. Dune never made sense with the nuclear explosions, as if there aren't suicide troops and remote controlled machines. I think the nuclear aspect was just a sign of the times it was written,
>>98013338Armor advancements somehow overtaking handheld firearms. Not enough to make them useless, just make penetration unreliable enough for melee to not be suicidal. Some unobtanium material you can also have a galactic war about.Then later you can introduce energy weapons that easily overpower that armor and you can do the whole knights/samurai fading to firearms thing again in space.
>>98013338Space ships are pretty fragile and a stray projectile can easily mess something up. Worst case scenario is decompression, but even just breaking something vital when you are in a floating coffin in the middle of void many lightyears away from potential spare parts or repair docks is not a risk most are willing to take. So while on planet surfaces guns are still king, on board it's mostly melee. Especially spears, because they work particularly well in long, narrow corridors
>>98013338All warfare is taking place between gangs of underclass "youths" in a pervasive surveillance state.
The US army went through a period of removing bayonets from issue.It didn't last long.Knife does not run out of bullets or need to be reloaded.Knife also doesn't go "Bang Bang"Knife is a low-cost indispensable utility, which is also, a specialist weapon.In a situation where a firearm's report is a death-sentence, or where ammunition is scarce, men may resort to clubbing one another to death with sticks and rocks otherwise.
>>98013338Seems like you answered your own question in the original post
>>98013338>In Warhammer 40k it seems to me to be heavy metal rule of cool.40k melee makes way more sense than people give it credit for. Like yeah, the real answer for why it's there is rule of cool, but if you examine what sort of units actually do use melee as their primary choice you'll notice that 90% of them have one or more of the following traits:>extremely fast/agile>extremely resilient/heavily armoured>extremely numerous and don't care much about dying >extremely mobile (teleports/jump packs etc.)Basically, they have traits that allow them to overcome the ranged advantage and successfully charge into the enemy before they get blown to pieces And if a squad of proficient melee fighters actually gets into melee range with enemies armed with long range weapons it will almost certainly end up with the latter getting massacred.Furthermore, the fact that such tactics are used in the setting means that many soldiers will be trained in melee and carry melee weapons to defend themselves in such situations, even if it's not their preferred mode of fighting (and factions like Orks or DEldar would be doing that regardless of how effective it is)
>>98013338>energy weapons are all potentially extremely destructive grenades>small explosions from black powder run the risk of igniting oxygen rich life support systems>Explosive decompression>The risk to important equipment, controls, etc is too high, because even if you hit your target, the shot will probably keep traveling and hitting anyone and anything behind them>ricochets are especially dangerous in zero G and with materials being used on highly durable ship interior walls and floors. So no explosive decompression, but no guarantee a bullet doesn't bounce back wildly
>>98013517>>98013421Space ships take constant micrometeorite impacts. The bigger threat to your space ship is the guy boarding it, not a tiny hole in it.And if you still consider it a problem, there's always frangible bullets, and other specialty bullet designs.
In the Forever War, there's a stasis field that prevents anything inside from moving faster than some low value, so melee weapons are the only things that work. It's pretty contrived, but it's not really the central theme of the book.
>>98013511>In Dune it is because lasers would create a nuclear explosion killing everyone.>Dune never made sense with the nuclear explosions, as if there aren't suicide troops and remote controlled machinesNuclear weapons thing was actually a secondary thing in Dune, the primary reason were the ubiquitous personal shields which made conventional ranged weapons mostly useless, stopping any fast moving object. Yes, lasers made them go nuclear, but that was just an extra reason to not shoot shit. If you actually want to just kill those guys without fucking up everything in a few kilometres radius, your only option was melee.
>>98013582>energy weapons are all potentially extremely destructive grenadesI'm trying to imagine how that would even make sense.>small explosions from black powder run the risk of igniting oxygen rich life support systemsNonsense>Explosive decompressionBullets are less dangerous than micrometeorites>The risk to important equipment, controls, etc is too high, because even if you hit your target, the shot will probably keep traveling and hitting anyone and anything behind themJHPs, Frangible ammo, ect>ricochets are especially dangerous in zero G and with materials being used on highly durable ship interior walls and floors. So no explosive decompression, but no guarantee a bullet doesn't bounce back wildlysee above
>>98013606>Space ships take constant micrometeorite impacts. Yes, from the outside. Inside probably has plenty of important shit that you don't want to break by accident. So shooting during boarding actions/mutinies would still be a bad idea
>>98013338You don't need to justify it, at all. Melee is never going away and will never not be useful. I don't know why predditors think its trendy to 'um ackshually' about how realistic melee weapons are as if its somekind of gotcha. A million years from now post-human spaceman will still probably have a spade multitool that makes for a handy makeshift battleaxe in addition to his pistol that shoots tiny black holes or whatever. If you want to have a whole unit of troops specialized in melee, why not? Its not like generals have ever listened when someone pointed out what they're doing is retarded.
>>98013658>Yes, from the outside. Inside probably has plenty of important shit that you don't want to break by accident. So shooting during boarding actions/mutinies would still be a bad ideaAirplanes have important shit on the inside too.You know what Air Marshals use? Guns with normal JHP bullets.Killing the guy trying to kill you is way more important than making sure you don't damage some small part of the plane.
>>98013338For 40k the headcanon is powered weapons are able to penetrate better and the lightsaber-like qualities of cutting through armor on an atomic level is hard to miniaturize in projectiles for whatever made up technobabble reason and so are reserved for special rare types of rounds. They are also easier to land since they can power a bigger surface (applies to chainswords as well). Also for superhumans like SMs they can sometimes require to fight huge hordes of enemies or be left behind enemy lines without support, at which point conserving ammunition becomes a concern. And for normal humans they might find themselves being overwhelmed and the frontline being in sustained melee combat for long periods of time. Also the fact that it's a grimdark dystopian setting means factions like guard likely find themselves undersupplied and having to resort to desperate measures quite often.Also many of the superhuman characters are described as being so anime character fast that closing the distance to a ranged combatant might not be so hard half of the time and the difference of pointing your sword at them and pointing a gun and firing might be negligible.
>>98013421I bought into this premise for a space cyberpunk session. My PC brought a utility knife and then got shot in the face.Never again.
>>98013713>For 40k the headcanon is powered weapons are able to penetrate betterI dunno why they go to these lengths when you can put the most sophisticated helmet ever made by man on someone and a blow to the head with a lead pipe would probably still kill them instantly. That would even drop a spehss mereen unless he's got a tiny pea brain surrounded by some weird inertia cancelling gel like a woodpecker.
>>98013338The dune explanation always made me mad. You just made yourself an easily transported wmd and just refused to create or adapt warfare around that.
>"My ship's forward shielding can deflect space dust travelling at ten percent the speed of light and that little green man weighs a whole forty pounds, so of course I'm going to saturation fire both him and my own oxygen recycling system with mass reactive explosive rounds. Punching him in his little green face would be primitive and realistic."
>>98013621Also outside this field the belligerents happily shoot/nuke/RKV each other
>>98013338Resonance fields shake apart anything going faster than a swift slash or stab. Also means swords break a lot due to constant vibration. None of that matters as much as it would seem because a spray of aerosolized metal to the eyes is still blinding. I know it's contrived, but I like combat masks and visors along with guns and swords. It also makes sense with the nonsense physics of my setting.
>>98013746>just refused to create or adapt warfare around that.Except that's exactly what they didThe new meta is using lasers when they are okay with mass scale destruction and using melee and artillery in all other casesIIRC there were cases in the books in which the combination of destructive capabilities and easy transportation of this tech was capitalised upon
>>98013692Firing at the walls or ceiling of a plane will not make it explode. Airplane travel is also not space travel.
>>98013338Step 1: castrate the boarding party's gun selection to stuff like plasma guns in Babylon 5, aka stuff that kills dudes, but doesn't punch holes in the hull.Step 2: do NOT castrate the armor and whatever you have that works as a shield.Step 3: give shields the slow-moving object vulnerability, armor has gaps and weak spots already as it is.The result is prevention of either side from overwhelming the other with sheer firepower, and having to resort to a time-honored tradition of shanking cunts up close.When you board a ship, the assumption is that you'd rather not damage it too much, for whatever reason, otherwise you'd have just blown it up from afar, with no risk to your men.Similarly, this also removes most of the grenades, save for breach sealant-dispersing, flashbangs, and other low-power or repurposed utility stuff.Chemical warfare is also largely ineffective, partly due to prevalence of sealed space suits and emergency air supply, and partly on the account of it poisoning the entire ship's atmosphere.
>>98013813At 40,000 feet the air pressure is only like 20% normal, so pretty close to space.
>>98013785You could drop a canister with a laser and shield into the atreides or harkonnen palace that activates at whatever altitude and end the entire thing book 1. These are noble houses bickering and they don't use the wmd that you could just walk in once. Hell, you only need the laser gun because everyone has shields. You don't have to be close, either. Set up a laser on a hill outside the palace and tie a long rope to the trigger and looney tools your enemy away. The only time it was used that I can remember was in the prequels.
>>98013785Intentionally setting of the laser-shield reaction is basically suicide bombing, which in hidsight would be a fitting tacting for Fremen as "the sand people guerillas".
Just having melee weapons strong enough to deal with or be in equal footing with guns is more than enough like lightsabers or chainswords. You dont need to jump hoops to try and explain why guns are completely obsolete in your setting while still having some characters walk around with a badass melee gadget
>>98013338Asian Landladies.
>>98013338>How do you justify the usage of melee weapons in a science fiction universe with powerful guns?Because it's cool you joyless cunt.
>>98013842>you kill your enemies >but you ruin any infrastructure or riches you might have taken from them>also since using nuclear weapons is a massive taboo all other royal families and the Emperor team up to blow you to pieces and make sure you'll never recover
>>98013338>How do you justify the usage of melee weapons in a science fiction universe with powerful guns?Because shooting a gun inside a space ship breaks the space ship.
>>98013561Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are "The Marines were right again."
>>98013842>The only time it was used that I can remember was in the prequels.it does come up near the end of original series too
>>98013732>lead pipe would drop a spessmareehnwhat corner of the lore have you been reading kek
>>98013338Because there will never be a point in history where sticking sharp, pointy things in someone doesn't work
>>98013338>How do you justify the usage of melee weapons in a science fiction universe with powerful guns?Everyone lives in Space California and the powerful guns are heavily regulated.
>>98013956could be worse, could be space UK
>>98014000The UK will never go to space save as pity passengers.
>>98013937That's just physics, as far as I know the alterations they undergo don't include anything that would protect from fatal brain trauma. Their armor isn't designed for it either, or the helmet would be fixed to the chest piece so the armature takes all the impact instead.
>>98013338Dagger-type weapons still have use cases due to in-orbital or in-space station and infiltration activities. Infiltrators and assassins still need close range weapons to surgically kill a target before they can react (ideally). Snipers and silent ranged weapons aren't always usable for a given situation. In actual combat, melee weaponry is not used and other options like kamikaze trap drones or tripmine detonators also exist for guerrilla defenses. Melee only makes sense if you can get to such close range without being able to be targeted, which is not a typical situation and entirely terrain/environment dependent. Melee materials can be nanite laced molecular daggers, so it is like a more violent injection of a deadly venom for the target than a typical stabbing. And the material has to be one that gets past barriers/armor or it just is a small injury they can regenerate from after getting the time to react and blast you.
>>98014014>That's just physics, as far as I know the alterations they undergo don't include anything that would protect from fatal brain trauma. So you don't know the lore very well.That's fine, but you should probably lead with that to avoid confusion in the future.
>>98014039The only thing I can see is the Sus-an Membrane, which offers no actual protection at all from brain trauma. If you're referring to the reinforced bones, well I have bad news for spehss mereens. That just makes impacts even less survivable.
>>98013338I'm thinking about this more from a Spaceship point of view but shooting any kind of weapon inside, especially if you're taking more of a hard science approach, would be dangerous in more ways than just causing decompressions. You could damage sensitive electronics, or ricochets and fragmentation might bounce around uncontrollably. Boarders might prefer melee weapons if they aim to take control of the ship. Maybe something close to submarine CQB? With weapons that look more like an Ice Axe?
>>98013579Good post. I'd only add that there is a a morale-breaking aspect to it which is a big deal in 40k. Realizing your enemy is so hardcore that they're willing to charge you and cut you in half with chainswords or being jumped by superfast spooky wailing elv ayys with swords would have a very demoralizing effect, for humans but also to any alien with any sort of self preservation. This would likely apply to other settings as well.
>>98013338How about this idea i had in mind for a long time for mechas: Gravitation reflection fields (GR for short in the setting).GR is a forcefield capable of reflecting or redirecting solid projectiles, lasers, and electromagnetic waves. This GR stuff was used on Armour and requires consistent large sources of energy, it can also be used offensively to cause damage and pierce through other GR.Then the process goes like this:1-GR invented 2-GR Armour Created3-GR Weapons created4-GR projectile sword created5-GR projectile sword destroyed before reaching target, using conventional weapons (shoulder plasma cannon)6-GR projectile covered in defensive GR7-can no longer recieve commands from ship (GR blocks comms, sound still moves through)8-humanity too scared of AI to give autonomous control9-GR drones no longer useful.10- Knights in GR armour and holding GR swords become the main form of combat on a level less than a ship cannon (which just overpowers the human-sized GR field and obliterates the person inside it).
>>98014276There's a simpler and probably easier way to make impenetrable meme armor that increases the prevalence of melee weapons. You'd need to be able to mass produce it in bulk to have an interstellar civilization anyways.
>>98013338Boarding actions. Close quarters, lots of narrow corridors, doorways, and other choke points for defenders to set an ambush, lots of sensitive equipment inside the ship you don’t want to shoot.
>>98014120>That just makes impacts even less survivable.Real life hunting experience against animals with very thick skulls tells me otherwise.
>>98014373Are the boarding party making a gentleman's agreement to not damage your ship or something?
>>98014467Animals don't have colossal fragile brains, for a lot of very good evolutionary reasons. I assume you were using soft tips, which have a tendency to glance on bone as the jacket tears off if its not a head on hit, or if it is to crumple and shatter instead of cleanly penetrating. The kinetic energy channeled into the brain in either case, penetrating or not, would be far greater swinging a lead pipe as hard as you can, even more so if the skull was particularly hard and dense to the point it doesn't cave because then it absorbs none of it. This is why I made the woodpecker comparison, they are built specifically to survive this sort of trauma repeatedly and in rapid succession. If you suppose the spehss mereens brain remained the same size as his skull grew in the mereenification process and the cranial fluid became more foamy like a woodpecker's, then yes they would pretty easily survive severe bonks to the head and even continue to function. Even if you barrel stuffed them with an LMG and held the trigger in.
>>98014580IIRC there are instances of marines surviving headshots with no helmet from conventional gunpowder weapons so it's safe to assume there's something done to make them durable in that sense.
>>98013338Against certain types of enemies, close combat just becomes inevitable. You probably wouldn't see any humans using swords against other human infantry, but maybe you would bring a plasma sword or whatever when your enemy is deploying hordes of expendable clawed monsters that have thick hides, no pain receptors and no fear of death.
>>98014580>I assume you were using soft tipsI was using a Kar 98k rifle stock with a steel buttplate.>The kinetic energy channeled into the brain in either case, penetrating or not, would be far greater swinging a lead pipe as hard as you can, Kinetic energy isn't a wounding mechanism. The kinetic energy in a typical 30-06 caliber hunting round is about the same as in a typical football tackle.
>>98013338>>98013621>In Dune it is because lasers would create a nuclear explosion killing everyone.>In the Forever War, there's a stasis field that prevents anything inside from moving faster than some low valueYou know how in Fallout there are plasma guns? You can see the projectile going your way and even dodge it, but if it hits you it can melt you into gooHow would those shields react to those weapons? Same with flamethrowers, they're technically slow tooWhat about microwaves?
>>98013882They aren't nuclear weapons. They're an oopsie. Totally unforeseeable accident that can't be traced
>>98014651That uh, doesn't tell me what kind of ammunition you were using.>>98014651>Kinetic energy isn't a wounding mechanism.I guess in the sense that gravity doesn't kill you, the ground does, or something.
>>98014658flamethrower is a good counter against any such "impenatrable armor" if it doesn't outright cook the victim it will at least choke them
>>98014658Also, how come these shields have infinite energy but the guns don't?
>>98014712>That uh, doesn't tell me what kind of ammunition you were using.Yeah I wasn't using ammunition.I bludgeoned a hog to death with the stock.It took a LOT of smacks to the head.I didn't count, but more than 20.
>>98014712>I guess in the sense that gravity doesn't kill you, the ground does, or something.The point I'm making is that Kinetic energy isn't responsible for damaging things.It's like 1 step better than judging a bullet's deadliness by measuring how loud it is.If kinetic energy wounded people, rounds like 5.7x28 and .22 magnum would be way more popular.
>>98014478If you’re bothering to board a ship instead of blowing it up at range, it’s usually because you want to keep the ship intact to begin with. Think about it like this: if they do shoot up the machinery in the process of successfully capturing your ship, it’s their property now, and all the damage they caused is now their problem, not yours. The better condition the captured ship is in, the more valuable it is.
>>98013338In The Forever War, the humans and aliens use a physical field that reduces the speed of light or something to a relatively low speed. It makes ballistic and laser weapons not work, so they just try to pierce eachother’s protective suits so that their nervous system gets shut down by the field.
>>98013338Could do it like Dune, where it would guns would just kill everyone so they opt to avoid using them, or have a setting with some technology that fascilitates it, like you probably wouldnt use guns on a space ship. I wanted to play around making a setting based on Napoleonic era warfare but allows for factions that also use bows like natives or something. How does this sound>there is technology for personal shields and there is shielding technology>the shields are very powerful from the front, so line battles are the way of warfare now>the most effective way to break the shields is to muscle through them with overwhelming firepower to burn out their energy by hitting them with consistent heavy damage up close, while firearms like "Muskets" are good for banging shields steadily like a drum, bows and crossbows can hit them repeatidly much faster but weaker, and can also overwhelm and burn the energy of the sheild this way>melee is used because armies are marching up to eachother already, and rather than opting to break the shield through exchange of ranged fire they just advance into melee where its now a measure of skill and numbers than of the shields and who has the more advanced ranged weapon>now everyone is developing melee armies and fighters so they can just get around the shield breaking phase of combat, but that aspect of combat still exists>there now exists in setting lots of duelists and swordsmen as well as demand for conventional armour contingents alongside their shielded ranged contingents
>>98014840That joke went over my head then but kind of sadistic of you if true.>>98014859They don't necessarily have more just because they're faster, you're thinking of velocity. Kinetic energy is calculated with mass and velocity and it is what ultimately kills you when a lead pipe is involved. Capillaries in the brain burst, death or incapacitation from hemorrhaging isn't always immediate but for humans it almost always is because of how big and bloodthirsty the brain is.
>>98013338>How do you justify the usage of melee weapons in a science fiction universe with powerful guns?its cool>hard mode: no rule of cool> whats 2 + 2, dont say 4
>>98013511>>98013628And this then created a warrior honor-culture, where fighting was done by infantry killing each other and not mass orbital bombardment or something like that, because the Spacing Guild's monopoly prevents that, too. This is mentioned in Herbert's last Dune book which takes place far in the future where they do use suicide laser troops on shields and wreck planets with orbital bombardments.
>>98013515Boring and trite.
>>98014983>That joke went over my head then but kind of sadistic of you if true.It is my deeply held personal belief that there is no fate too cruel for a feral hog.Judge me as you wish.I mainly brought it up because I distinctly recall thinking while it was happening:"Wow, this son of a bitch is still fighting, even though a human would be 100% mush by now."It's skull took a long time to crack, and even then it was still up and trying to get away.
>>98015119>feral hogI heard about the hogzillas tearing everything up in certain parts of the US, hybrid vigor from some breed of invasive russian boar. Looks like a domestic pig until you get closer and realize it definitely isn't. That kind of hog?
For the discussion about evacuating spaceship hulls this may be relevant:
>>98013338Protection was geared towards thwarting sci-fi weapons like projectile firearms and laser/plasma weapons, so a new niche has opened in the form of melee weaponry that can brute force its way past the coating of the armor. Crushing weapons would be particularly effective, as they always have been, the force of the blow sending wounding shockwaves through the armor.
>>98013338Melee weapons add STR modifier. No modifier is added ranged attacks.
>>98013338EasyIn any context where:1- You can attack/be attacked by surprise at a very short distance (typically: in an urban environment, but it can be an alien jungle)2- You don't have the possibility to have access to the most powerful weapons. For example, because it's forbidden, or may attract too much attention (if you are participating in shady/criminal activities) or because of limited ressources (post-apocalyptic world, or survival situations)Melee weapons become a perfectly viable choice again. So basically: everywhere except a battlefield. Hell, even in modern battlefields you have a few occasions to get up close and personal, which is why some troops are still drilled in the usage of bayonets.Bonus point:3- (optionally) have units/characters/creatures that have either:- Even a limited ability to limit the stopping power of a few bullets (xenomorphs, cyborgs..)- Are fanatic/crazy/unfeeling enough to risk death without flinching (WWII Japanese soldiers, crazed drug-fuelled gangers, robots, hive mind bug alien drones...)- Have melee combat as part of their combat doctrine (basically, if you are highly trained to use a sword in close combat, and you are equipped with one, you are more likely to use it in close combat, probably)
>>98015665I have been trying to find that French Alternity book.Random pictures are used as background by other books. But I don’t know where they come from.Do you?
>>98013511Sucks that people skip over your Kotor mention. I think the personal shields were a really good way to make melee viable.
>>98014658Plasma shots are high-energy projectiles. Presumably, the shields would absorb and disperse that energy, to the point where said plasma shot leaves a first-degree burn at most when it hits.That said, doesn't Dune have some special shield-penetrating projectiles that slow down to not bounce off the shields?>flammenwerferIt would likely stop the flammen, but the heated air would still fuck up the guy inside. It does mean you have to get close enough for that, however.One could argue that shields don't stop fast-moving objects, so much as they stop high-energy objects, be they bullets, plasma shots, or a swinging blade moving a touch too fast.Naturally, this cunt-punts the axes and hammers, but, if there's a mass manipulation tech available, as implied by flying cars & shit, you could handwave it away with it.I.e. using it to "lighten" the weapon before it penetrates the shield, then returning to original, or increased mass before it makes contact with the target.That or you give the hammerhead it's own shield that merges with the target's, which is also a way to explain why you need to be within strangling distance of someone to kill them.>>98014772Imo, the best explanation is that it's self-charging, siphoning the energy of deflected projectiles to strengthen itself and recharge batteries.Such explanation also permits overloading the shield through concentrated fire, forcing the user to shut it down or risk the generator exploding on them.
>>98013338Screamer fields.They're basically really, really advanced radio jammers that interfere with advanced technology. They're mostly blocked by shield generators, but those are only found in spaceships, very bulky defense bunkers, or warmechs. The stronger, more violent and chaotic the screamer, the more it can effect, even overpowering some shields.Alien invaders liked to use exotic, baroque tech with a lot of floating parts, force fields, automatic aiming.Human defenders learned to create, "iron cockroach," mechs, vehicles and battle armor of stupid simplicity in design that project Screamer fields, bringing the odds down to their own level.It's not hard to find the source of a screamer field, but activating a field as part of an ambush, and witnessing a horde of dirty, ragged humans with knives bum-rushing confused aliens trying to turn back on their neural rifles was a frequent occurrence in the Second Earth War.
>>98015699pfiuuuu no, I think I found this pic on /tg/
>>98013338Close combat remains a serious issue in any conflict, even in worlds without complex defenses.In order for a ranged weapon to completely supplant close combat weaponry in all cases it needs to be the following:- Small enough to be concealed and handled in close quarters; any weapon with a length greater than four inches must be able to be lethally applied across its length without harm to the wielder; otherwise an assailant may be too close to be attacked if they advance with a knife.- Completely silent, emitting no detectable light, reflection, noise or radiation of any kind, otherwise in a special stealth operation it will be a liability compared to a literal knife painted black.- Functional for an arbitrarily long time with neither batteries, nor cartridges being in any appreciable scarcity. It would be best if this time was at least two months or more, but possibly may work with a timeframe of a week.- Intuitive and cheap enough for use by irregular forcesTaking the maxim of "Any defensive technology must be an order of magnitude stronger than an offensive development to fully negate its threat", any material science sufficiently advanced to create armor that protects against a knife is sufficiently advanced to produce a knife that can overcome that armor. With joints, closures and overlaps remaining necessary to have armor be worn, these vulnerabilities remain to simple blades and points, and no defensive technology yet produced (and likely none ever produced) will be practical and comfortable enough to be worn at all times.Put more shortly: Until mankind stops dying when you stab him below the clavicle, the knife and similar weapons will always have its place on the battlefield.
>>98015737>Plasma shots are high-energy projectiles.The orange stuff you see when you fire a modern day firearm is plasma. Its just a really dumb way of saying 'super hot gas.' If it reached a high enough temperature then contact with any matter, including air, would cause an explosion with yield on par with a nuclear bomb. This occurs naturally in the form of super lightning, which is so high energy we can't even replicate it and blows up people's houses. TL;DR plasma weapons are nonsense garbage, even more so than laser weapons.
>>98013338Traditional games?
>>98015840bloodsports are very traditional games
>>98015840>>98015866
>>98013338Everybody is overthinking it (besides 40k).>humans are squishy>melee-proof armor has existed for centuries, for logistical reasons it has never achieved universal adoption in armies and never will>melee weapons are more effective than ranged weapons within a certain range>therefore, against squishy enemies at close range a melee weapon is a legitimate choiceIt's that simple.
>>98015699I'm pretty sure Brom did that art, if that's what you're wondering about
>>98015927Just looked and it's from the Alternity GM book.
I think beyond repurposed tools, it makes sense to have melee weapons which enable grappling, which will always be useful in space. I've been thinking of amorphous smart weapons which can coil around enemies and form cutting edges or constrict but this could also involve things like hooks or axes with spikes for dragging enemies along. Shields might also be useful, and can be used to bash the enemy or be fitted with other weapon systems like active countermeasures or small launchers of some kind.If you want proper exotic weaponry check out magmatter, a matrix of bound magnetic monopoles. A magmatter weapon would pass through regular matter and cause nucleon decay, converting mass to energy along the cut path. It's also only slightly less dense than the atomic nucleus, so you could probably only tip a weapon with several cubic microns of magmatter before it became too heavy to practically yield. Magmatter is also very strong (slightly less than the strong nuclear force) and rare (you have to look in gas giant and star cores to find trapped magnetic monopoles) so melee weapons are a dumb use, but if your setting has no monopole production industry you can treat it as an irreplaceable artifact.Magmatter page: https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/48630634d2591Magmatter video: https://youtu.be/eI8TPHwt4r0?si=EzRkvX1Dnr0kctXk
>>98013842According to Jessica>A lasgun-shield explosion was a dangerous variable, could be more powerful than atomics, could kill only the gunner and his shielded targetthe explosions power is highly variable. so their ability in assassination is unreliable
>>98016010Dune was pretty retarded, lets face it between Frank and Tolkien, Frank lost big time. Imagine pouring everything you had into a setting just for people to take its best elements and kitbash it into Tolkien's format ages after you published so much critique shitting on them. There hasn't been a greater case of post mortem mogging in history than Tolkien over Frank Herbert. The new shit ass movies arent helping either. David Lynch didn't even want to make an adaption of Dune and his was still worlds better than this garbage.
>>98013338>338▶>>98013419 >>98013421 >>98013499 >>98013504space ship parts are what you are killing eachother for.shoot guns and you will damage themarmor is harder than ship wallsso low power guns will do you no good.its also what limits ship to ship engagementswhat matters is you get more than you losethe only time winning is the goal is when somoene desperate has it out for you
>>98015741Evocative name and pic rel.
>>98015741That was a good read anon.Also what style is that pic anyways? It better not be AI too.
>>98014320Its not just impenetrable armour, the goal of my GR nonsense is to introduce a human element into the combat and remain meaningful/serious. A machine is always better than a human, a drone is always more effective. But if drones cant be used, and AI is too risky, then humans are the only ones capable of using GR to the highest effectivity possible.This also doesnt completely remove guns, as non-GR armours do still exist for drones, and most people dont wear GR. So it ends up being like a knights shield. Originally the Idea was for Mechas to make sense in war. GR solves this by creating a defense that requires a human pilot, and can engage in melee. Other weapons are still kinda effective by overwhelming the GR (it needs high energy to even produce GR, it is not reasonable to cover an entire spaceship in GR, since it needs comms to be active and it needs to be able to send out attacks.
>ITT: OP asks why sci fi should have melee weapons as PRIMARY weapons as implied by the examples and pic provided>90% of posts are autists talking about why a knife is still kept today in the kit for a normal soldier
>>98017164>comes to autis/tg/uys>damn thats a lot of autismThats like going to /x/ and complaining about schizos
>>98017192Not him, but autist here, and you're wrong. If it was autism, we'd have stuck on topic of primary weapons, it's not autism that led us astray, it's contrarian retards who don't value consistency.
>>98017164>OP asks why sci fi should have melee weapons as PRIMARY weapons as implied by the examples and pic providedNo? Of those examples 2 are niche cases where ranged combat is still the primary choice outside of specific situations (boarding a ship when blowing it up isn't preferable, adherence used by a handful of people within the galaxy with a specific powerset to allow melee to combat ranged). One is a rule of cool concession but even in 40K, very few armies use melee as a primary beyond the average Tyranid. And one is kind of a truncation of how the Dune universe works because Atomics aren't the go-to for more reasons than just melee. And there are a number of ranged weapons designed to circumvent shields. The point was simply to justify whether or not melee could be justified. And it turns out that saying>A knife is better in close combatWon't stop being true even 500 years into the future.
>>98013338Justify a genre that's exactly like fantasy being called something other than fantasy.
>>98017711It is basically science fantasy, all we are doing is providing an in-world reason why people don't just shoot them instead. Because if the option is available, shooting spears at people is always better than using them.Its just world-building with the hopes of making a consistent world that doesn't collapse the second you think about it (it will still collapse the more you dig into it, just like all fantastical worlds).
>>98013338Man, if only Star Wars and Dune were as good as this anime.
>>98013842You could also just use an actual nuke. Dune noble houses are defined by being the ones to still have nukes. It is written directly into the setting that they can all MAD each other and that's why none of them use the nukes, which for the record are much more consistently destructive than the laser/shield combo. Sometimes the laser/shield reaction doesn't set off the full blast. A nuke always does.
>>98016972Not trying to be a jerk but this just sounds like the plot of a macross movie from the 2000's with hilariously dated notions of how effective future AI and drones will be. I wouldn't worry about how realistic it is at all. Just do what you want to do.>>98017270>primary weaponsWhat the hell is this even supposed to mean? Like carrying around a melee weapon so big you can't stow it and just have to hold it like a pike?
>>98017192The thing that gets me is the circling of the drain of the same reasons "dune shields! Black powder doesn't exist!"Is it really so hard to just come up with a cultural reason like living in a place where the ruling power has the guns and if someone pulls you get swiss cheesed but if a bunch of idiots slice each other to pieces with knives the ruling power shrugs its shoulder.Hell, you can even think of imperial court type situation where nobles and their secondaries can't carry actual weapons but it just so happens the lady can take her hair pins and shank some skank noble lady or some dude using his fan like a metal club to beat someone to death.
>>98021022Is it really so hard to just come up with a cultural reason like living in a place where the ruling power has the guns and if someone pulls you get swiss cheesed but if a bunch of idiots slice each other to pieces with knives the ruling power shrugs its shoulder.This is completely unbelievable and would never have in real life.
We already live in a universe with powerful guns, and SURPRISE! we still have knives.OP is pants on head retarded.
>>98013338Why do you keep making this thread?
>>98021181I honestly cannot even tell if people are extra sarcastic or this fucking stupid anymore.
>>98013338Was involved in a short-lived scifi gurps game a while backBasically the gameplay mechanics informed the setting and dodging bullets was just a thing people could do. Ultimately it was like real life where a soldier was trained in both marksmanship and hand-to-hand, just that rushing guys down at short to medium range was reasonably viable.
>>98013338You can't just shoot the other guy or send drones after him, sooner or later you gonna ahve to send someone down there and actually occupy whatver, and when time is calculated as heartbeats, you got to act fast or be dead, melee makes the job, look at WW1, all those modern guns, still stabbing and clubbing eachother
>>98021022The problem is what if you want opposing factions with differing cultures to fight a war to death? Then not using the best available tool becomes silly.
>>98013842The laser-shield interactions are highly unreliable. You could blow up the shield. You could blow up the laser. You could do neither.Plus, you know, they have ACTUAL WMDs for when they need them. Paul even uses them in the first book.
>>98014703And everyone else will be happy for the excuse to nuke you to stone age to ensure that no further "accidents" happen.
>>98013561>>98013680Bayonet action at least once every six months during operations in Afganistan and Iraq.Some midwit with a degree in military science from Reddit will always comment about how melee weapons are outdated and how combat in the future will never have any...
>>98013338Gun control won, so all the spacers have is knives and space ships to ram into things.
