Chemical Kinetic Weapons
Traditional firearms utilising combustion to launch projectiles from a barrel are still the most common form of small arm in the Outer Systems. They are relatively cheap, easy to maintain, and require no electricity to function. As such, they are ideal for civilian use and for the militaries of poorer states, who cannot afford the cost or logistics footprint of magnetic weapons. While they are generally of comparable power to magnetic weapons, the fact that their bullets must contain their own propellant makes each piece of ammunition larger and heavier, resulting in smaller magazine sizes and each soldier being able to carry less ammunition.
Magnetic Kinetic Weapons
Magnetically-powered kinetic weapons such as railguns and coilguns make up the majority of advanced militaries' small arms. While they require significant amounts of electricity to operate, making them considerably heavier than traditional firearms, their ammunition is much small and lighter, meaning that more ammunition can be carried by one individual, and magazine sizes can be much larger. While they are ideal for most military purposes, they are more expensive, higher maintenance, and heavier than traditional firearms, and they must be powered on before being used, making them less useful for self-defence and less-advanced militaries.
Railguns are the most common type of magnetic weapons, owing to their simpler design and higher rate of fire, making them more effective standard issue weapons. Coilguns consume more energy, are higher maintenance, and more expensive, but can be more powerful and accurate, making them useful long-range or anti-vehicle weapons.
Lasers
Handheld laser weaponry is comparatively rare, owing to its high cost, high maintenance, and narrow field of use. Lasers are relatively ineffective against armoured targets (though pulsed lasers mitigate this somewhat), have short effective ranges in atmospheres, require a source of power, and are fragile compared to traditional weapon systems. However, since they do not fire projectiles, ammunition is not a concern, nor is recoil. They are therefore useful for suppression of enemy positions, as although they are quieter and less visible than kinetic weapons, they still present an obvious threat, as objects around their targets are melted or incinerated. They also have uses in non-atmospheric environments, such as damaged spacecraft or airless planetoids. In such cases, they have much greater effective ranged than other weapons, making them useful for spaceborne marine forces. Laser small arms are rarely used by civilians, and even wealthy states only equip a small minority of their troops with them.
Gyrojets
Even less common than lasers are gyrojet weapons: firearms that launch miniature rockets, rather than firing conventional bullets. The basic design dates back to the mid-20th century, but has never recieved mass adoption, owing largely to the heavier ammunition, and the slow acceleration of the projectiles compared to other weapons making them less accurate at short ranged. However, there are some advantages to the design. The fact that the projectiles propel themselves means that computer-guided smart ammunition can be used in a vaccuum, whereas other smart projectiles rely on fins to redirect themselves once fired. They also have less recoil than traditional firearms or magnetic weapons. These factors make them useful for combat in microgravity and vaccuum, resulting in their use by marine forces throughout human space. They are also sometimes used by civilians for self-defence purposes, partly because they can be even lighter than traditional firearms when carrying small amounts of ammunition.
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