>>98013338
Using 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.

>>98013338
The 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.

>>98013338

I don't. People use ranged weaponry.

>>98013338
I'll give you a clip from Mass Effect that explains why melee in space vessels would make sense
https://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,

>>98013338
Armor 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.

>>98013338
Space 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

>>98013338
All 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.

>>98013338
Seems 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
>>98013421
Space 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.

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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 machines
Nuclear 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 grenades
I'm trying to imagine how that would even make sense.
>small explosions from black powder run the risk of igniting oxygen rich life support systems
Nonsense
>Explosive decompression
Bullets 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 them
JHPs, 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 wildly
see above

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>>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

>>98013338
You 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 idea
Airplanes 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.

>>98013338
For 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.

>>98013421
I 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 better
I 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.

>>98013338
The 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."

>>98013621
Also outside this field the belligerents happily shoot/nuke/RKV each other

>>98013338
Resonance 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 did
The new meta is using lasers when they are okay with mass scale destruction and using melee and artillery in all other cases
IIRC there were cases in the books in which the combination of destructive capabilities and easy transportation of this tech was capitalised upon

>>98013692
Firing at the walls or ceiling of a plane will not make it explode. Airplane travel is also not space travel.

>>98013338
Step 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.

>>98013813
At 40,000 feet the air pressure is only like 20% normal, so pretty close to space.

>>98013785
You 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.

>>98013785
Intentionally 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".

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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

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>>98013338
Asian 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

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>>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.

>>98013561
Of 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 spessmareehn
what corner of the lore have you been reading kek

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>>98013338
Because 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.

>>98013956
could be worse, could be space UK

>>98014000
The UK will never go to space save as pity passengers.

>>98013937
That'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.

>>98013338
Dagger-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.

>>98014039
The 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.

>>98013338
I'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?

>>98013579
Good 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.

>>98013338
How 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 Created
3-GR Weapons created
4-GR projectile sword created
5-GR projectile sword destroyed before reaching target, using conventional weapons (shoulder plasma cannon)
6-GR projectile covered in defensive GR
7-can no longer recieve commands from ship (GR blocks comms, sound still moves through)
8-humanity too scared of AI to give autonomous control
9-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).

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>>98014276
There'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.

>>98013338
Boarding 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.

>>98014373
Are the boarding party making a gentleman's agreement to not damage your ship or something?

>>98014467
Animals 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.

>>98014580
IIRC 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.

>>98013338
Against 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 tips
I 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.

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>>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 value
You 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 goo

How would those shields react to those weapons? Same with flamethrowers, they're technically slow too
What about microwaves?

>>98013882
They aren't nuclear weapons. They're an oopsie. Totally unforeseeable accident that can't be traced

>>98014651
That 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.

>>98014658
flamethrower is a good counter against any such "impenatrable armor" if it doesn't outright cook the victim it will at least choke them

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>>98014658
Also, 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.

>>98014478
If 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.

>>98013338
In 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.

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>>98013338
Could 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

>>98014840
That joke went over my head then but kind of sadistic of you if true.
>>98014859
They 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
>>98013628
And 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.

>>98013515
Boring 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 hog
I 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?

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For the discussion about evacuating spaceship hulls this may be relevant:

>>98013338
Protection 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.

>>98013338
Melee weapons add STR modifier. No modifier is added ranged attacks.

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>>98013338
Easy
In 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)

>>98015665
I 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?

>>98013511
Sucks that people skip over your Kotor mention. I think the personal shields were a really good way to make melee viable.

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>>98014658
Plasma 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?
>flammenwerfer
It 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.

>>98014772
Imo, 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.

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>>98013338
Screamer 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.

>>98015699
pfiuuuu no, I think I found this pic on /tg/

>>98013338
Close 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 forces

Taking 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.

>>98013338
Traditional games?

>>98015840
bloodsports are very traditional games

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>>98015840
>>98015866

>>98013338
Everybody 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 choice
It's that simple.

>>98015699
I'm pretty sure Brom did that art, if that's what you're wondering about

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>>98015927
Just 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/48630634d2591
Magmatter video: https://youtu.be/eI8TPHwt4r0?si=EzRkvX1Dnr0kctXk

>>98013842
According to Jessica
>A lasgun-shield explosion was a dangerous variable, could be more powerful than atomics, could kill only the gunner and his shielded target
the explosions power is highly variable. so their ability in assassination is unreliable

>>98016010
Dune 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 >>98013504
space ship parts are what you are killing eachother for.
shoot guns and you will damage them
armor is harder than ship walls
so low power guns will do you no good.

its also what limits ship to ship engagements
what matters is you get more than you lose

the only time winning is the goal is when somoene desperate has it out for you

>>98015741
Evocative name and pic rel.

>>98015741
That was a good read anon.
Also what style is that pic anyways?
It better not be AI too.

>>98014320
Its 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.

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>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 autism

Thats like going to /x/ and complaining about schizos

>>98017192
Not 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.

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>>98017164
>OP asks why sci fi should have melee weapons as PRIMARY weapons as implied by the examples and pic provided
No? 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 combat
Won't stop being true even 500 years into the future.

>>98013338
Justify a genre that's exactly like fantasy being called something other than fantasy.

>>98017711
It 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).

>>98013338
Man, if only Star Wars and Dune were as good as this anime.

>>98013842
You 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.

>>98016972
Not 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 weapons
What 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?

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>>98017192
The 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.

>>98021022
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.
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.

>>98013338
Why do you keep making this thread?

>>98021181
I honestly cannot even tell if people are extra sarcastic or this fucking stupid anymore.

>>98013338
Was involved in a short-lived scifi gurps game a while back
Basically 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.

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>>98013338
You 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

>>98021022
The 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.

>>98013842
The 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.

>>98014703
And everyone else will be happy for the excuse to nuke you to stone age to ensure that no further "accidents" happen.

>>98013561
>>98013680

Bayonet 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...

>>98013338
Gun control won, so all the spacers have is knives and space ships to ram into things.

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>>98013338
>How do you justify the usage of melee weapons in a science fiction universe with powerful guns?

Not everyone has guns. End of discussion.

>>98014008
Speaking as a Brit, good. I look out of my living room window at the slow parade of crackheads, losers, fuckups and chavs and despair at the thought of that stagnant gene-pisspot spreading across the stars.
Then I look at the TV and see the spineless, chinless cunts who run the place and actively hope they make it into space. To be quickly kicked out of an airlock, hopefully whilst wearing a suit so they can slowly die of asphixiation as their O2 supply drains.

>>98023156
You say that like anywhere else is faring better. Despite everything happening in Britian, I genuinely shudder to think of what the world would be if America actually manages to dominate any world let alone this one.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/16DMDV4csVc
Britian will be good again, its not beyond saving, if you think youre living in the worst time in history you are sheltered, things were better in your lifetime, it can be fixed.

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>>98013338
backup for when you run out of ammo.
not everyone has access to guns.
armor that is strong enough to stop most guns, but some weapons are strong enough to cut through.
some are a cultural leftover or symbol of office/rank.
they are used in honor duels.
they don't make a big loud noise.
they can be made of non-metal to facilitate smuggling and avoid detection.

but most importantly, its because you're incredibly gay and hate fun

>>98016250
Are you telling me that a spaceship capable of FTL travel is weak enough to hand weaponry? What are you making your ships out of? PAPER?! Mother fucker, we train people to use firearms IN normal SEASHIPS and around important shit. Damaging the inside of a ship isn't an issue.

>>98013338
you're out of ammo
target is not worth bullet
melee weapon has better penetration/DPS

>>98013338
The people who say "no melee wouldn't exist in the future" are at the same level of stupid as people who think "why don't they just bomb them from orbit?" For every combat situation. Or assume spaceships are the only factor in future warfare due to that. (Just ignore carrying capacity differences of a spaceship vs a planet.)
With melee, as brought up you can get away with ceremonial and court situations for a setting just fine as people only will be occupying that part of the setting in the campaign. And assassins sometimes prefer specialized daggers/syrnges to inject people with nuerotoxins over sniping them. I think infiltrator / detective / spy settings (bladerunner my beloved) are likelier to have melee come up than military settings, but the former is what I seem to do more anyways.

>>98013338
Logistics

>>98024043
(I will admit a micro drone can also in theory do the assassination more discretely than someone quietly stabbing a guard like that one assassination attempt in Dune but whatever)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunraku_(film)

>>98024043
>Brings up assassinations
>Melee

No you retard. They're not the same. OP means armies of men going at it with sharp objects despite having guns. And still NO they won't use a knife over a gun. Hell, the only time people use a not gun like weapon to assassinate is only when they DON'T HAVE A GUN OR BOMB OR POISION/ACID. Why you may ask? Because it's fucking EASIER to shoot someone.

So if anything Melee is fucking is only for the cool factor and if a setting is going for cool factor then yeah I'm for it. But yes, you are stupid. Cognates.

>>98024868
The shields tank lots of bullets, so they can close in fast and slash you
Halo said so, that makes it true

In my setting melee weapons have the following purposes
>Status/traditional symbol i.e a commander or other soldiers will just have swords they have and train with. they carry them around for lulz but occasionally use them
>fights last so long without supply lines they eventually settle things with their swords
>all soldiers are basically john wick so if they get too close they eventually disarm each other and fight with whatever miystical space kungfu they know
>melee weapons are collapsible/small and have multiple uses i.e tactical gladius, three section staff that is also a spear and also an IED, beam sabers that are used to melt doors can be used to melt peoples faces and slapped together to deflect projectiles etc
>because its cool
Space ships in my setting can withstand gunfire inside them...like a regular naval vessel, its in the future so to me its dumb not to.

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>>98013421
>explosive decompression
Myth btw.

>>98013692
>You know what Air Marshals use? Guns with normal JHP bullets.
And how many times have air marshals had to discharge their firearm inside a plane while in flight? Now compare that to the idea of two groups of soldiers fighting over the plane. Suddenly that plane will be Swiss cheese and everyone's gonna die once it crashes. But lets say they utilize special bullets designed for minimal penetration. That makes body armour all the more effective to counter bullets.

>>98013579
>>98014259
Very late reply but another thing is that because some factions got something to make melee feasable.
Space Marinesnd Chaos Space Maies still use guns, use shields and/or jump pack
Eldar and DEldar are nimble enough
Tyranids rely on swarming

Plus the best way to fight Chaos Dæmon is melee really. That and fire.

>>98016250

You'd have to make quite some decisions to say people go melee on spaceships. After all, we already don't go boarding ships, since almost two centuries.
(well, pirates do, but pirating in space is an even bigger can of worms)
Anyway in my setting even if a bullet perforated an hole in the hull you would most surely not have explosive decompression. This, and the small confines of the ships make the weapon of election in such case hand lasers at smaller power (which unsuprinsigly are what people use, akin to handguns today). I'd suggest considering flechettes and simply shotgun if boarding happens often - something that would hurt people but not destroy the ship or disable the systems.

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The only reasons to have melee be the primary means of war in sci-fi setting are
>a) lost the technology to make guns at all (post apocalypse setting)
>b) because it's cool, shut up, here's my shallow excuse so now fuck off if you don't wanna accept the premise
Shooting someone with a gun is better by so many metrics the only reason why you wouldn't do it is because you don't have one in your hands right then and are forced to make do with a knife or whatever. Even inside tight spaces, charging someone with a sword or machete is worse than waiting around a corner behind cover to shoot them the second you see them.

It's the same shit with retards crying about muh big main guns on warships (and space warships) because they hate that missiles exist or whatever.

>>98025264

This is dependent on the objectives of the boarding action and how you picture the ship.
When we boarded ship, after the discovery of cannons at least, we either wanted to disable the crew or wanted the cargo after disabling the crew. Question is
a) how will the trading be done? Merchant vessels are a thing, how are they bulit, and are they manned?
b) does it make sense to disable the crew face to face? Spaceships will be very complex and delicate, maybe it's simple to kill all the electronics at distance with particle beams and then take the ship, repairing it.

Anyway structurally spaceships are not gonna like planes, I think. Either a truss with tin cans or a more solid "bullet" for the hull. Don't picture the sollecitations of a plane in the atmosphere - and so those engeneering solutions and problems are not gonna be similar. First thing that comes to my mind is that a gunfight on a plane could disable steering systems, but unless you fuck up royally the (presumably segregated) engine a spaceship will just continue on its vector even in this case. Which would... probably not be the best thing to achieve with the boarding, but no "we're all gonna crash" situation.

>>98025438
Modern SF authors and amateur worldbuilders just need to realize they are mystery novel writers not fantasy novel writers. Set up the rules at the start, and then explain what the fuck is happening because of those rules through the narrative, aka exploring the consequences of the rules. This simple trick works for everything from heists to war stories and was the standard for the entire golden age of SF.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sawCJESqqeU
Vid related as mood piece.

>>98013338
I both make sci fi settings and actually play games, and they often include melee weapons, so here's how I do it. Note that these aren't just speculation, these are factors which actually get players to take melee kit in settings where automatic weapons are available.

#1: Melee weapons are concealable/easier get into places. Some settings will let you carry a sword around but not a gun, and most settings will let you slip a knife into your pocket. This also applies to situations where a melee weapon is viewed as lower on the escalation ladder than a gun. A stun baton may not be as powerful as a laser pistol, but drawing your service pistol doesn't look as good on that police report.
#2: Melee weapons have special characteristics that make them more useful in niche situations than firearms of a similar legality class. This requires a bit more explanation. In a purely military environment, if everything is going according to plan, nobody is gonna be using melee realistically (you don't have to make a realistic setting, but I prefer to). But if melee weapons have a few special characteristics, I tend to favor outsized armor penetration for their legality class, then they can serve a niche where comparable legal pistols and semi-autos struggle.
#3: Theres some factor that prevents you using full power firearms (probably being on a fragile spaceship) but would allow you to swing around a similarly deadly monoknife or chainsword.
Players don't tend to gravitate around melee weapons, but there will usually be someone, often me, who decides to build around them because its cool and can catch enemies who are expecting guns off guard. For context, all these games were played in GURPS 4e, primarily using Monoweapons and Vibroweapons as melee options.

>>98025438
I'm sure once we start 3D printing ships in space out of space concrete and space steel, they can be all 40k stone churches that can have tanks blasting at each other inside of them. But as it is, space ships today and in the near future are gonna be pretty light because each pound you get into orbit is gonna cost a small fortune. If your objective is to just fuck the ship up, you can do it from the outside. If you're boarding, you clearly have some other mission that doesn't include rendering the ship inoperable or inhospitable. Not to forget that ships probably have all sorts of pressurized containers on board for fuel, air, and whatever else they might need. Even if they won't blow the whole ship apart, they can push it around (off course, into something, etc) as gasses shoot out. Not to forget that shooting bullets through the hull can go and hit your own ship.

Also, if you're defending your ship, you probably don't want to shoot it up. What good is it to live through an attack and slowly die as you drift out into space on a ship that's broken and leaking? It's not like you can just pull up by the side of the space road and call AAA.

>>98013338
Materials tech has evolved to a level where armor is impenetrable by bullets.

>>98025515
>once we start 3D printing ships in space out of space concrete and space steel, they can be all 40k stone churches
Even if you build it all on the moon (no atmosphere, lower dV cost to escape orbit) you don't stop wanting to be less massive man. It costs mass to move mass. It's like how even with the best most meme-y optimal drive you could imagine, it would still be better to have stages and not be SSTO (you either get the benefit of using less propellant for the same payload, or more payload for the same propellant as an SSTO).

>>98025377

Also don't wanna sperg over it but why do people want melee so much? I mean, yes, rule of cool, not gonna question that.
But: in Dune the idea was to have renassaince duels (and.... beduin fighting in camps, or something like that). In SWs jedi use weapons because muh elegant weapons for a civlized age.

Why exactly do you want melee fights, when gunfights CAN be cool? I'd ask myself that.

>>98025515

The problem is that puncturing the hull is gonna give you at least 15-20 minutes with a small cramped ship. So the "we're all gonna suffocate" is not the best explaining for the melee trope.

>Also, if you're defending your ship, you probably don't want to shoot it up.
Well, yes, your missiles and ship lasers are for that. If not, shotguns and flechettes (with critical systems too hardened for those damaging them much, hopefully) sound better to me because honestly swinging a sword in a spaceships seem... not the safest option for not damaging any system.
I guess armor might be the WB answer for THAT, but let's say I'm not too convinced. Armor is clumsy, the fight is gonna be quick.

>>98025547
>Why exactly do you want melee fights, when gunfights CAN be cool? I'd ask myself that.
As I understand it, with melee you can have duels with choreography. With gunfights, you don't get that same poetic 1v1 test of skill, staring into your opponent's eyes. Of course HEMAfags will rightfully point out that the kinds of duels you get in games/movies/books/stageplays are totally sensationalized nonsense and a realistic melee duel is over in a handful of exchanges and has no cool choreo either.

So clearly the problem is that Hollywood produced flamboyant slop but people grew up on that and so prefer it because its what they know. John Wick was popular because it's basically a video game inspired montage movie, again giving people what they know and is comfortable for them.

>>98025438
Personally, I’ve been thinking of “why melee in a boarding action” being less about accidentally destroying the ship so much as treating the ship itself as something valuable to steal, and wanting to minimize the needed repairs in order to maximize the profits gained from selling it off. If it and the crew are heavily protected enough, then maybe the tradeoff is worth avoiding the potential damage to your own ship that would result trying to do it cleanly, or you could try subterfuge instead of combat, or pass it up for an easier target.

>>98025585

>>98025576

Well, I can picture a sergileonesque thing with lasguns as much as with firearms. Granted, that might be just me, I admit I never got the fuss about guns in dnd either.

>>98025585

Actually in high space (no repairs in sight) could make sense.

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>>98013338
-Damage types, for the simple fact you're better with an axe than with a handgun if you want to tear open a wooden door. Let monsters be wild with their resistances and have explosives, lasers and normal guns be the best way to murder humans and normal warfare.
-Poverty, like in real life.
-Logistics, for dungeon crawls you want weapons that don't run out of ammo too. And ten foot poles.
- Muh honor.

>>98025179
if your species has a high ATM need, it can be an actual issue

>>98025547
>The problem is that puncturing the hull is gonna give you at least 15-20 minutes with a small cramped ship. So the "we're all gonna suffocate" is not the best explaining for the melee trope.
And after 15-20 minutes, after you've shot up your space ship and repelled the invaders, what now? You got a crippled ship that you might not even be able to repair.
>If not, shotguns and flechettes (with critical systems too hardened for those damaging them much, hopefully) sound better to me because honestly swinging a sword in a spaceships seem... not the safest option for not damaging any system.
I guess armor might be the WB answer for THAT, but let's say I'm not too convinced. Armor is clumsy, the fight is gonna be quick.
I'm not really advocating for medieval combat in space either. Just pointing out that "just shoot the bastards, your ship be damned" is not always the answer to everything. Even if we can think of the most effective way of dealing with the opposition, be it blinding them with laser pulses, gassing them, microwaving them, or whatever, there's also to consider "what's fair". We don't allow exploding bullets, chemical weapon, etc. to be used in war against people and even if something's not banned by international (or interplanetary/interstellar) agreements, people on the field might take it to their own hands to expense justice on any enemy using weapons they don't like. Human psychology has to also be considered.

I could imagine (early) shit-to-ship combat looking more like WW1 trench raiding, with a little bit of everything from short range firearms and body armour to improvised close combat weapons. Once the most effective tactics start to form, we can begin to form appropriate gear and tactics for such operations.

>>98026670
Doesn't really apply to humans does it?

>>98027053
Does once we're boarding their vessels.

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>>98026889
>shit-to-ship combat looking more like WW1 trench raiding
>>98027058
>boarding their vessels

There is no sensible reason for this to happen?
I suggest first coming up with a reason why militaries would board each other in a wet navy today or in the near future, and then figure out if that still applies in the additional complexities of the high frontier. Because we don't bother doing it at all anymore and just frag each other since 1940. If you do come up with an excuse you are still going to get a niche, niche, niche slice where this *might* happen rarely because one specific set of circumstances encourages it. Which means no formalized, specialist approach. You'd just do normal CQB, because that's already a widely trained system of breaching and clearing. I'd suggest stations are the only reasonable target for this kind of action, guess you should look at how SEALS train and fight.

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>>98027148
You can fight onboard space stations as well and those you might want to capture intact, like how we'd like to capture ports rather than just bomb them to smithereens with cruise missiles. Besides, who said anything about military on military action? Even today pirates assault freighters and security forces board merchant ships.

>>98026889

>You got a crippled ship that you might not even be able to repair.

I'd say that depends, electronics could easily be repaired in many cases even after a critical failure. Most surely some bullets puncturing the hull ARE patchable.
(that being said, I'm the resident skeptical about boarding in space in the first place, so...)


>Even if we can think of the most effective way of dealing with the opposition, be it blinding them with laser pulses, gassing them, microwaving them, or whatever, there's also to consider "what's fair"

Lasers/missiles as a war crime is interesting but I think you'd have quite an hard time making people believe chopping spacers is worse than obliterating the ship. Indeed if anything in our times bombing a military installation is more accepted than some more "personal" shit like exploding ammo.

>>98028619
>I'd say that depends, electronics could easily be repaired in many cases even after a critical failure. Most surely some bullets puncturing the hull ARE patchable.
Shooting inside of a ship can lead to more than just a few severed cables and holes to patch. Apollo 13 had one oxygen tank blow and it took a lot of people and effort just get them back from between the Earth and Moon.
>Lasers/missiles as a war crime
I'm not saying shooting (laser) guns at another ship is a war crime. I'm talking about infantry combat inside ships and installations that doesn't rely on kinetic firearms. Laser pulses that blind people, microwave weapons, and chemical agents (all stuff we have today) that are effective at incapacitating people while causing minimal damage to materiel. We were fine with putting .30 caliber rifle rounds and bayonets through people, but wrote rules about using exploding and expanding bullets, jagged bayonets, chemical agents, incendiary weapons, etc. on soldiers.

Besides, we can expand this to combat on planets with inhospitable atmosphere as well. Taking a colony (relatively) intact can be better than blowing it up and building a whole new one.

>>98028747

I assume if people board a ship they're ready for it to have a "timer" for decompression/environmental systems gone critical. As in, the boarded ship will have no breathing atmosphere in some minutes.
If you can't manage that, don't board it.

>Laser pulses that blind people, microwave weapons, and chemical agents (all stuff we have today) that are effective at incapacitating people while causing minimal damage to materiel.

Ah, I see. Well, could be, but the boarders would just use shotguns (relatively safe against systems, incapacitating for crew) or something similar to that, I think>>98028747
>Taking a colony (relatively) intact can be better than blowing it up and building a whole new one.

Can't really see that going on by just boarding. A colony is HUGE! The defenders will have time and means to put on a resistence, at least with rifles or something.

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>>98013338
>In Warhammer 40k it seems to me to be heavy metal rule of cool.
Acthually, 30k kind of addressed that and I honestly like this explanation. Marines use primitive weapons because they are associated with the pure and primitive violence in humans' minds.

>>98028811
Daemons are in a vast minority of shit being fought in 40k though, but yeah, it's just one of many reasons for why it works. On top of
>>98013579 and >>98014259

>>98028807
>I assume if people board a ship they're ready for it to have a "timer" for decompression/environmental systems gone critical. As in, the boarded ship will have no breathing atmosphere in some minutes.
Fighting in a vacuum doesn't make ship systems less vulnerable to bullets ripping through them. It can make the risk of fire less likely.
>Ah, I see. Well, could be, but the boarders would just use shotguns (relatively safe against systems, incapacitating for crew) or something similar to that, I think.
Reduced penetration also means body armour becomes more protective.
>A colony is HUGE!
Depends on the colony. And point is that you'd have fighters fighting in a pressurized environment that you don't want to destroy with explosives and indiscriminate gunfire.
>The defenders will have time and means to put on a resistence, at least with rifles or something.
Which brings us back to whether or not they'd have them (why would you ship rifles to a colony that you don't want people shooting up?) or whether or not they want risk destroying the stuff that's keeping them alive. I'm sure molotov cocktails are a good way to deter boarders during the age of sail, but you risk burning down your own ship.

>>98028880
>Fighting in a vacuum doesn't make ship systems less vulnerable to bullets ripping through them.

Uh, it certainly doesn't, but I was just saying that assuming (as I do) swords are no gonna be used, you're gonna probably use shit that COULD if not puncture the hull make systems go critical, so you gotta prepare for that.

>Reduced penetration also means body armour becomes more protective.

This is dependent on how cramped you pictture the ships and how quick you imagine boarding, methinks. Don't think even if we boarded submarines we would use armor nowdays, or at least I lean more towards this scenario.

>Which brings us back to whether or not they'd have them (why would you ship rifles to a colony that you don't want people shooting up?) or whether or not they want risk destroying the stuff that's keeping them alive.

True, but I mean, if the colony is unarmed you wouldn't "board" it anyway. Just menace it from orbit, if they don't comply... you present yourself armed and that's it.

>>98027192
Why the fuck does this happen?
Retards reply to your post and cannot be accused of not reading because they present your own point as their own and act as if they have gotten one over on you. This bot and shill infested website is unbearable at times.

>>98028978
Have you ever read a reply without assuming it's trying to counter everything you said, instead of expanding on it or adding to it?

>>98028811
Yeah, a human seeing a Space Marine rush to them with big ass swords does wonders to their minds.
Namely cuz Space Marines are too human for their gigantism. And the fact they don't suffer the flaws of gigantism.

>>98016419
>It better not be AI too.
At first I thought it was art from the Metabarons comic, but it's Japanese cover art for Code of the Lifemaker. Both existing long before AI

>>98029025
My favorite phenomenon on this board is when someone is agreeing with someone else and trying to expand or reinforce their argument, but the other guy views everything as an attack and starts yelling at the guy agreeing with him

>>98028811
It sort of breaks down a bit when you find out the BEST weapons is some of the archaeotech that the Dark Angels have locked up which does stupid things like "kills the Warp-soul of the target on impact" which makes anything Warpy permanently cease to exist along with any memory of it existing, including for the guy who just shot it.

>>98013338
Between people in combat armor, personal shielding, wanting to keep the raided ship intact enough to strip and sell. Could see the idea of having specialize melee weapons that might even not kill their enemies but just incapacitate them to have prisoners. (As they can be used as a bargaining chip, ransom them off if they're a VIP, even enslaved.) Leaving the ships free of major damage and used to be carry more items before being sold or strip for parts.

>>98031868
They are failing what improve teaches, that there is "yes and" as they go in expecting arguments of the "no but" and the usual realismhog "umm actually" sort to the point they think you're one of those.

>>98014658

Maybe not exactly what's being asked, but Dune does have projectiles which are "anti-shield" by virtue of being self-propelling darts which push their way slowly through a shield, but they're kind of shit and so not used very much (unless we're talking the Dune Awakening video game, in which I'd say that shields are presented as being weaker than they are implied to be in the books, for game play balance reasons).

On that note, I don't think flamethrowers are touched on anywhere in the books, but in Awakening they do seem to ignore shields, I guess because as someone says, they'd surely heat up the air inside the shield still? Shooting one drops your own shield, though, as I guess otherwise you'd end up with burning fluid stuck in your shield with you, so I suppose if you ever find yourself as a house trooper in the Dune universe facing down an enemy with a flamethrower, hope you have a conventional projectile weapon to shoot him with when he drops his shield in order to werf his Flammen!

>>98015737
>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.

Could make some sense in the context of Dune, I mean what's the average speed of an air molecule? If shields blocked based on speed, rather than energy, breathing could become difficult! I find myself wondering, what happens if some relatively high-mass, very high-velocity railgun round or similar hits a shielded target. The shield blocks the projectile from hitting the target's body and turning him into jam, fine, but is the poor guy thrown off his feet as the projectile's momentum (or at least much of it) is conserved by the shield around him? A bruh moment, truly.

>>98032031
I see kind of how Gojo's Infinity works. You have some AI sensing everything around you and anything it doesn't deem a threat actives the shielding.

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>>98013338
Melee when trying to capture a ship.

The old Traveller wargame Azhanti High Lightning included explodable electronics and control panels (green) and heavy engineering equipment (red) in the ship deckplans. Missed shots and blasts had to be rolled for to see where they went, often with a good chance of causing equipment to explode. As each explosion had a blast radius, there was a good chance of a chain reaction spreading from square to square, gutting the entire deck and killing everyone onboard. It meant that most combat in delicate locations in which the attacker/defender was trying to keep the ship intact, such as the engine room, bridge or weapon decks, usually consisted of combat with melee weapons (blades, swords, bayonets, halberds, etc) and low power firearms (autopistols, snubpistols, etc) to avoid destroying the ship that both sides are trying to defend/capture intact.

If the attacker/defender was trying to destroy the ship though, it made it pretty easy to do so, just run in, fire of a high power weapon or lob a grenade into that computer/engineering room and job's a good un.

>>98027148
>Why board?
Modern wet navy ships and subs tend to sink when shot up, making them unboardable, so it rarely happens.

Spaceships though don't 'sink'. Unless vaporised or they smack into a planet or sun, they would tend to hang around in space forever, still travelling on the vector they had when their engines quit. Each could be a massive source of resources (ammo, fuel, spare parts), new technologies, intel, prisoners, propaganda and (if repaired) even an addition to your own fleet.

In low level space warfare, you could have situations where the ship needs to be taken intact - Terrorists, Kidnappers, Pirates, Customs Officers, Special Forces, etc, might want to enter the ship and take control of it without destroying it.

>>98013338
Why did pirates continue to use melee weapons after muskets were invented?

>>98034471
It is Because they're a bunch of loathsome and savage scurvy brains who couldn't even fathom aiming a musket properly, let alone properly stocking it and engaging in an honorable duel at the peak of noon.

>>98034529
That's a fair point.

>>98034471

Because every navy did.

>>98034471
everyone did, but that was with single-shot black powder muzzle-loaders, not scifi lasers etc

>>98024916
The Make guns hit harder!

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No one did it better

>>98035063
>gets invisible
>has a shield
>his weapon gives no fucks if you are wearing titanium armor

>>98034727
in that case OP could have his laser guns be single shot as well, thread solved

>>98035063
Gay day-glo tuning fork. Even Marathon did it better.

>>98035337
if your futuristic energy weapons average three shots per minute and have an effective range of ~100m (up to 250ish when deployed en masse), what reason do people then have to not just use conventional ballistic weapons, which have offered superior performance since the late 19th century when smokeless powder and metallic cartridges became viable?

>>98035435
All it would take is armor really. Assuming your setting is post scarcity in the manufacturing sense, outfitting troops with quality armor effective against all small arms would be trivial. We could easily do that today but we don't because we're quagmired in this planned economy prussian nightmare world.

You'd see everything from catch poles to hammers and halberds come back very quickly. In fact I'd wager it would fit very nicely into this new paradigm of low intensity warfare focused on small mechanized units instead of tank battalions.

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>>98013658
This is a nonmilitarized science vessel, Anon. If boarding or opposing force is a potential threat, you design ships to have manifolds and bulkheads and reinforced compartments.
Think Battleship, not ISS.

>>98013338

Utility, resource management and in general for whenever a given group, faction, world or even time period cannot afford anything too fancy outside of selected groups.

Is far more easy to issue a knife, a sword or an axe, maybe with some useful upgrades for materials and the necessary tools to maintain them, than iddue a precious hi-tech weapon that may be the end of an expedition.

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>>98035387
Marathon doesn't have a sword

>>98036081
>Fakegrog outed as a fakegrog
In other news, water is wet

>>98013873
Not an argument

>>98014014
>alterations they undergo don't include anything that would protect from fatal brain trauma
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Creation_of_a_Space_Marine#Ossmodula
They have extra dense bones and have subdermic armor.
Fulgrim famously survived a assasination attempt because of his incredibly thick skull (heh)
https://youtu.be/VXUowwX3et4?si=uVE1ehe6cN8ZSRsP

>>98014014
>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.
Mk2 Power Armor actually did do that.

>>98016250
>armor is harder than ship walls

Then what the fuck are you going to do with melee weapons? And if you've got powered armour or a light sabre so you can get through this armour then you're back at the reason why you're not using guns in the first place.

>>98022140
Anecdotally, I remember some anon saying that in some desert war the enemy surrendered when they heard a Western officer shout "fix bayonets" even though the sand people had the Western forces outnumbered.

>>98013511
>>98015707
KOTOR genuinely nailed it.
>Energy shields block enough shots that it's incredibly viable to run in and melee
>But it doesn't block so much that shooting people with a gun is pointless
>Also you need to turn the shield on, so surprise quickdrawing someone is still possible.

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>>98037450
Also Larraman's Organ (greatly increased healing) and to some extent the Sus-an Membrane (able to enter suspended animation to survive grievous wounds).
>>98037492
Melee weapons can be inserted into vulnerable points, such as joints, gaps between plates, etc. more reliably and/or you can't miniaturize the energy sword technology enough to make them work as bullets.

>>98014616
Yeah, one got shot by a pistol(I think it was Nathaniel) and it was nothing to him.

You need a bigger caliber if you want to hurt them

>>98013338
>LOGH
>not using gauss weapons
Reminder that LOGH is trash masquerading as good anime.

>>98037490
Probably noncanon as it was always ignored in model and art presentation.
Might be a coin toss between gw dropping that lore bit through removing mention or putting out a lore explanation.

Even in Lensman, which had some of the most OTT weapons in all SF, including throwing antimatter planets and black holes at people, transporting planets through hyperspace just to crush your enemy between two planets, and an entire solar system turned into an electrical circuit for a heat ray, the Space Patrol still carried AXES.

>>98040801
>Reminder that LOGH is trash masquerading as good anime.
You could just say "LOGH is anime" and no information would be lost

>>98022140
Stabbing people with a pointy object or cutting people with a sharpy edge will always be viable.

ITT OP is a stupid cunt

>>98038051
You have to be trolling because no one is that stupid. You do understand that the amount of force coming out of a CHEAP 7.62×51mm NATO has plenty of force to knock you on your ass if you got hit DESPITE wearing some of the best armor you can get. Plus, you're not going to get hit by one bullet, but usually several to a dozen bullets are at once, causing a ripping effect in the armor, hitting the body. And this is at Max ranges, this isn't considering CQC ranges, where armor is really there to give you a better chance at getting treatment for getting shot. Not blocking the bullets.

In a future setting, that doesn't have lasers or whatever but they did figure out how to make better powder (Which we are currently doing) and replace all the heads with Tungsten Steel. Then we won't need lasers or some shit. That would FUCKING DESTROY all forms of body armor. You'll be in massive exo-mech suits that everyone can easily see from a mile away to just have enough steel in between you and the Tugsten bullets. And even then, if you're mass-producing Normal Ammo with Tungsten, then we can really mass-produce AP 50Cal that would rip Mech-Suits to bits.

Who fucking cares about getting into the fucking gaps. My normal gun can still rip clean through the chest plate.

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>>98045443

Op here been enjoying the genuine answers.
Admittedly in retrospect I should have worded my post like “after rule of cool how do you justify it in universe” or something similar.
Sorry about that.

>>98034529
According to the book Sea Rover's Practice pirates were known for being fantastic shots, at least to the extent it was possible to be a good shot with a musket.

>>98045443
Nah, I'd win.

>>98013499
I love how so much of this board is dedicated to bragging about what a boring uncreative loser you are lol

>>98046546

The idea that using just ranged weapons in scifi is "uncreative" is.... interesting, to say the least.

>>98025576
hemafags also admit that in a duel to the death you'd be a lot more careful to commit to blows which would likely lead to longer duels, wouldn't likely look that much more cinematic, but it'd last longer likely

>>98025515
>>98025542
why are aircraft carriers built so large if that's the case?

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>tfw if we ever get to space faring civ shit we'll only have drones fighting drones with unmanned ships except for transportation between planets and the maverick f-16 shit of "a man always have the x factor a robot won't" will have died in fucking 2060 or whatever with no human soldiers existing in 2100 nor ever again and all future ppl will laugh at how dumb ppl were as they'er fucking their android gf who has racked up 600 confirmed apex drone kills on the robot wars on mars and wondering how anyone could think humanity could ever keep up and would ever want to go back to a time of human assets murdering each other

>>98046579
Because they're not in space...? You do understand that sending stuff into space is fucking expensive, right? Unless you got infrastructure out in space, everything a ship needs has to be sent up from a planet's surface. Fuel, food, crew, repair material, etc.

>>98046608
I thought we were under the assumption that it was built in space, and you talked about needing mass to push mass, and I thought of aircraft carriers as a comparison. Can't you dedicate like half the surface of the ship for vertical farms then or something lmao? Or space elevators Is there any theoretical possiblity of fusion engines or some infinite energy bullshit or some Inception-style gravity tech to get around big rocket make big hunk of metal move?

>>98046621
I literally started my post by stating that until we can make ships in space, we're limited to terrestrial supply lines.

>>98046638
im sorry, im nta you were talking to earlier in your chain, i just showed up as a tourist and was curious but im tired andnot bothering to read it all, dont bother replying anymore to this fool of a man

>>98046601
>he thinks to himself as he's lulled into a virtual reality coma while his cybernetically augmented body is being piloted by AI into battle

>>98046695
>"im making him a hero" the ai thought, "man's about to die like the spartans in his vr dreams, I'll synch up the ar elements to make him be like a supermartyr at thermopyle, it's gonna be great, god I'm so merciful and magnanimous, just like the sci fi books my llm module was trained on talked about, now this is sapience, god I'm so conscious" *runs meatbag bomb into darpa corpse harvester with lights off 0 consciousness

>>98013658
This is pure stupidity. Current spacecraft are vulnerable because every gram counts when try to get something into orbit. So, spacecraft are going to be fragile things. In almost every scifi setting, the tyranny of the rocket equation is something that no one worries about anymore. So, there is zero reason for ships to be built like twentieth century spacecraft.

>>98046848
>it's stupid to use reality as a basis for a thought experiment because 99% of other scifi omit such details
At that point we can just ignore everything else and go with "they use future swords because it's cool".

>>98046856
I am not saying that there are no reasons why someone would carry dedicated melee weapons like swords instead of say knives that are a melee weapon and a general tool. Troops trained to use dedicated smoke, IR blockers, etc. while they rush in with melee weapons. Extended missions where you might want to use melee weapons to deal with low level threats like animals where you cannot carry infinite ammo. Missions involving stealth have traditionally use melee weapons. Settings where firearms are limited for one reason or another. So PCs and NPCs are armed with sidearms and someone lets a person with body armor and a melee weapons still constitute a reasonable threat.

>>98013338
>How do you justify the usage of melee weapons in a science fiction universe with powerful guns?
No ammo or battery, being in close quarters, highly explosive materials close by (painted red as per regulations), stealth mission, the powerful weapons are lasers so you need to whack the mirror armors, spaceship's atmosphere is now a specialized concoction that selfcleans and regenerates breathable air while also recharging equipment but is reactive against future firepower so you may shoot ONCE and maybe kill trade (explains sissy stunguns on board & why ships explode in space). I wouldn't want a gunfight inside the equivalent of a submerged submarine but you do you.

>>98046848
This is like saying every country should have only fielded fully armored soldiers in the medieval age or saying there is no tactically use to light vehicles.
There is a limit to what industrial capacity can do and sometimes lighter and less armored and more maneuverable is better. Not to mention that you cannot armor literally every single part of a ship and there could be other angles like in LotGH with Seffle particles

>>hard mode: no rule of cool
Going retard mode straight form the start I see.
>In Dune it is because lasers would create a nuclear explosion killing everyone.
QED

all war is actually prentive war.

while everyone is out their doing the logistics for the 24th billion AI domino chain reactions of war crimes.

brave civilians , just start fighting each other out, with the closets stuff they can get economically , to make sure that the calculations are caotic enough were it would not be economically fesable to have a war.

>>98052497
Are you having a stroke?

>>98013338
Considering that every human war featured melee combat in some form you'd have to justify NOT having it in your setting.

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>>98013338
Velataris

>>98013338
Generally rule of cool is the best first reason and then it is better to tack on in universe reasons why.
The best one I can think of is in universe super rare materials that make good armor but somehow are also weak to the same material if sharp enough.
This means the perfect ship hijackers are made with minimal damage to the ship from the boarding raiders besides breaking in and maximum chance of psychological threat of being painfully cut to death meaning high chance of surrender by crew because common guns can’t penetrate the super rare material made armor.
At least that’s how I would do it.

>>98055938
What’s the lore justification for them having axes?

>>98061293
Boarding actions.
The power-ax is for cutting through bulkheads, and armored void-suits.

>>98013338
1. Surroundings you don't want to shoot or that force extremely close distances
2. Shields requiring you to stab around them
3. Circumstance preventing guns or making usage impractical
4. Superhuman physicality that make projectiles reliably dodgeable or weaker than stabbing really hard
5. Melee weapons ARE powerful guns
6. Rule of cool

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>>98013338
On Barsoom it is incredibly dishonorable to use guns.
Still guns are common.
Three out of four scifi universes listed are directly or indirectly heavily inspired by barsoom.
Why didn't they take the nudity?

>>98013855
“There’s another master here” ass justification

>>98060596
>Generally rule of cool is the best first reason
Its not. I think its pretty gay because what most people think is cool simply is not. The majority doesn't decide what's cool and what isn't, that's reserved for the outliers where counterculture is cultivated. Then eventually adopted by the normie when some celebrity or popular influencer says 'hey anti-tank rifles with halberd bayonets are pretty awesome' and suddenly every gun longer than four feet has a halberd bayonet on it now. Its no longer cool and just stupid. Star wars and 40k are very good examples because chainswords and lightsabers were at one point cool, but are now obnoxiously stupid having been latched onto by the masses and declared 'rule of cool' shoehorns.

>>98063174
>Chainsword
The most basic 40k weapon ever, only hyped by people who would use the Stargate meme with it and the Lighting Claw, when the latter is much more efficient
>Lightsabers
People spend more time downplaying them in their Mandalorian wank as if the guy who had the Darksaber didn't lost to Maul. But then again, what do you expect from the masses?

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>>98063416
Forgot the pic

>>98063174
Oh wow look an actual unironic hipster

>>98063516
Wow look a faggot.

>>98063528
That's what I said

>>98063416
>>98063463
I’m quite sure lightsaber resistant armor existed before mandalorian and even then it didn’t look that resistant like he used a spear and it looked like it was heating up and if pressed for long enough would melt.
Even then I’m pretty sure lightsaber resistant material is very rare in Star Wars.
I’m not sure entirely to be honest.

>>98064528
Beskar is resistant but depends on HOW much you use. The less the armor has, the less it will resist.
Cortosis can short-circuit lightsabers briefly but the material is a nightmare to work with, as it can explode and when unrefined is very ionized. Legends stuff like KOTOR came up with the sword that used cortosis fiber to give it some resistance against Lightsabers.
The TRUE Lightsaber proof material is Phrik. I have not heard of it being broken or destroyed, not to mention it's malleable and can be combined with other ores. The Magnaguard used it on their staves and Palpatine's Lightsaber also was made with Phrik.

>>98064620
This stuff is also in extended and canon?
I have a feeling Disney has been trying to downplay the Jedi for a bit.
But I think George Lucas was trying to in the prequels but fumbled it.

>>98013338
Sci Fi combat like 40k should be mostly about space battle and control. Fighting conventional slog wars and melee combat is fucking stupid. Even today, it's hard to ever find a reason to use anything melee when you can just send in a drone.

because the corridors of ships will be really tight, like in a submarine. there will be guns, but hand to hand fighting will happen, so it's best to have something.

any talk about guns damaging the ship are stupid because everyone will be wearing pressure suits anyway and you'll be shooting the big guns anyway. infantry/marines would only be there to capture disabled ships or capture emplacements after the big guns soften them up.

>>98071295
40k is British dark science fantasy with heavy metal album on the side since the 80s, not American war drama chris kyle style, with middle eastern village
I swear you fuckers want 40k to be less 40k, go play something else damn.

>>98072466
Yet the OG game was bright and satire like a glam rock band

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>>98072492
Yeah, that is also good

as humans we have a primal attraction to smashing things with stick
but smashing thing with sick is outdated and will never be relevant again
sure there might be a rare moment in the hi tech future where you get an opportunity to smash thing with stick but it will be rare
smashing thing with stick is rule of monke just accept it

>>98064528
In the RPG, a lightsabre's strength depended on the ability of the weilder to manipulate the force. A noob could barely cut anything with one, while a master Jedi or Sith could easily chop through bulkheads. Not sure if it is canon in the recent films though.

>>98013338
My explanation is just Dune style shields. They can be shorted out by sustained impacts and you can get around them with lasers (if the shields stopped light it'd be impossible to see while wearing them) or specialized slow-moving projectiles (or fast projectiles with sensors that slow down using some air-brake before impact) but if you come around a corner and one guy has a gun, and the other guy has an axe, and both have shields, the guy with the axe is 100% going to win.

With defensive technology like that, In close quarters like on ships, or in urban combat, having melee weapons or at least bayonets makes perfect sense.

In the same setting I also just nixxed Drones with an obvious technology. Jamming is big, and every side will just air drop in thousands of car-battery sized auto-lasers that target anything that looks like a fiber optic cable all over the battlespace. They're useless against guys in armor, so they don't even bother targeting them, they just cut drone cables. This way the war HAS to be fought by manned vehicles and men or by fully autonomous drones which nobody is willing to use after The Incident.

>>98072706
>In the same setting I also just nixxed Drones with an obvious technology
Just say shields block signals or cause horrible interference. That's all you need, really.
>but then how would comms work?
Antenna-like bits sticking out and serving as an occasionally convenient vulnerability?
A comm relay that sits on both sides of the shield and works as a laser bridge through shield?
Quantum-something communication?

Arcana imperii did it well.
A VERY expensive alien produced material that only exists in limited quantities exists and makes for exceptional armor. People make xenoglass into everything... including plate armor. Most small arms are only good for delivering blunt impact against it, so if you want to kill the wearer, you're down to hitting them with an elephant gun, or getting a sword into their gaps. Conflict is mostly in space, so infantry are mostly boarding or counter boarding, where the ranges are tight and a man with a longsword running into your flight ops center is a very serious problem.