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Being bored one day I start going through System Failure .(again) looking at the pictures mostly. The one on page 126 made me stop and look at again. It was just strange what I saw was:

1) The Gunner has a targeting Eyepiece and is smoking a cigar. Wears a vest, no heavy power suit. The way he is holding it makes me think the weapon is about the weight around 10 to 15 pounds. So he smokes, maybe the weapon's discharge smells and the cigar helps covers it up.

2) The gun is belt fed from a Back pack. There is a cylinder on the harness. Possible a cigar holder or spare firing mechanism for the Weapon.

3) The ammo is a little strange looking, their backward in the belt. The front end is flat and the rear is rounded, like large short test tubes. They also look transparent.

4) The weapon looks like it came from a Naruni Showroom, has an oval barrel and that look about it. There is no ejector port so the round is caseless or the whole thing is use when fired. The flare and the beam discharge hints of an energy weapon. Maybe not.


So, what is it?
A piece of stepping stone technology, the next gen Bug Bomb?
A weapon using a solid form of Bug Juice or Repellent?
Is it a standard design?
Who is providing the weapon? (least not use Naruni. OK. Maybe NASA or DARPA.)
How large or small can they be built?
What is the ammo made of?
How many different ways can the shell be made?
Is it a Zapper like shell using weapon that uses a form of BioEnergy conversion, that stores it's payload in a solid form and discharges it as a blast?

Like the last one, Have some ideas, about it. If I can get enough brain power together will post them.

I believe that same pic was used in a HU2 book originally, though I don't have my books with me right at the momment so I can't tell you which one. There are a few pics from System Failure that were originally used in other settings.

If I was going to use it in my games, I would make it an experimental energy weapon. Of course it being electronics heavy one good hit from a bug would fry it.

Could also just be mistakes on the artist's part. Maybe he started drawing with the head, to the bandolier, then decided he wanted a belt fed weapon but the ammo was backwards. He hoped whoever he sold it to didn't notice.

There is a spot on the top of the gun that could possibly be interpreted as a casing ejection port. Maybe the artist just forgot to draw in casings mid-air, or the shot we're seeing is the first one and it's more like a primitive naruni plasma ejector (the kind that use shells), after the shot finishes firing it would eject the cartridge and load the next. Slower than a machine gun speed. Maybe it even takes an act on the wielder to load the next shot, like a pump-action shotgun. So it's a plasma ejector with a pump-action.

But definitely appears to be an energy weapon.

For System Failure it could be a prototype energy weapon, fires bio-energy that hurts the bugs, but since it is in separate ammo can be used more than an organitech weapon which takes time to regenerate shots. Instead ammo is only limited by how much a soldier can carry or a shipment can deliver to an outpost. Maybe they have a prototype organitech plant that grows seeds, and the ammo is made of those seeds. In which case outposts could keep those plants on base to help resupply during quiet weeks when there is little to no fighting.

Who would even buy something like that? But I am working with or around the idea that the picture is just what it is.


Look a the cylinder on harness and the "casing ejection port" they look alike to me. That is why I thinking of it as a firing mechanism.

Yes.


That is one way for the ammo to come into being. That are a few others need, write up my thoughts.


I would hate to be Egghead who designed a weapon like that, unless it has a replaceable firing mechanism. One that be can be quickly replaced on site.

I was think more along the lines of a pre-bug experimental weapon (with only a few prototypes existing), being pushed into service by NORAD due to their extreme firepower or being used by some adventures who happened to stumble across it in an abandond testing facility (maybe Area 51).

1) Or it just looks cool.
2) The back-pack could be a standard caryy-pack with a radio/walkie-talkie.
3) The ammo-belt could be grenades with a belt timer (remember the scene in Aliens, where Ripley rescues Newt from the Alien Queen; primes the belt of grenades & tosses them behind her).
4) Could be true.

1 and 4 Yes.
3 Ammo belt feeds from pack-pack into weapon, not around chest of gunner.
2 maybe.


Lot of 60s to 90s could have worked if...experimental technology might be able to work with Organitechnology power sources and Bug proof control systems. Battlesuits could power and carry rail guns with a healthly amount of ammo. Powered Mechanical Exoskeletons controlled and powered with OTech. Electrical motor vehicles using OTech power systems. Portable Lasers. just to start with.

You know what they say about great minds and all that...

This is the AWV-2 Spartan Armored Walker Vehicle, something I came up with before doing the OCWs.

sorry for the thread Necromancy but the bolded part made me to a double take then had me ROFLMAO

That I fixed it. It what I get for posting at night.
Yes I woke the dead posting as well.
Now if I can just find those notes on the ideas for the weapon(s).
Anyone have any new thoughts about the picture?

HW-1 HELLA Weapon
Taking technology from the High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS) program, which was meant to develop a high-energy laser weapon system (150 kW) with an order of magnitude reduction in weight compared to existing laser systems. And with several long years of research and technological development, by a small team of eggheads that had sequestered themselves in a secret bunker in Michigan, the HELLA Weapon is currently in the field-testing stages.

The HELLA Program eggheads have completed the design of a revolutionary man-portable high-energy laser that supports the goal of a lightweight and compact high energy laser weapon system that will lend itself to the fight to expel the Bugs from our world. A Liquid-cell Laser Module (LLM) with integrated power and thermal management has been designed and fabricated which demonstrates an output power of >30 kW. Each of these LLMs can only be used once and is ejected from the “weapon module” after it is spent.

One of the first things noticed about the effects of the laser emitted from the LLM is that each beam is surrounded by an energy disrupting field that drains the bio-energy from anything that gets within four inches of that beam. This energy is drawn into the beam where it increases the output power (and thereby, the destructive power) of the beam.

Based on the results of the field-testing program (~another 6-8 months), additional laser modules will be fabricated to produce a 150 kW laser that will be tested in a laboratory environment. The 150 kW laser will then be integrated with the existing beam control “weapon module” a laser weapon system with the capability to fry even the most powerful of bugs.

The HELLA is rare and hard to manufacture. Should you come across one, you should return it immediately to the R&D bunker hidden deep in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They may not let you keep it, but you will certainly be rewarded (somehow).

The HW-1 beam control “weapon module” is belt-fed and only weights 4lbs. Each bandolier of LLMs holds 75 “rounds” and weighs in at 150lbs (fully loaded). The system is completed with the use of the ANLOS-EMRI-TVR Adaptive, Night, Electro-Magnetic Resonance Imaging Targeting Laser and Viewing Reticle.

Weight: 6lbs (Loaded); 4lbs (Empty), 2lbs (per LLM)
Damage: 3d6 (initial laser, no boost); +5 for every 10 points of Bio-E absorbed. The beam will drain 3d8 points of energy for every inch it is close to the source of the Bio-E. If the beam hits the source of the energy, the result is not a full drain; however, it does add +10 to the damage from the beam. Note: Use the Bug’s SDC for a good range of Bio-E available from each Bug. (This is not official, but it works.)
Rate of Fire: Single shot, each blast counts as one melee attack.
Effective Range: 1000 feet
Payload: 75 shots per bandolier
Notes: 1) Use of the ANLOS-EMRI-TVR grants the user a bonus of +2 to Strike in any weather, environment, and even through obstacles (within 4 feet). The ANLOS weighs 1.5lbs.
2) An LLM can be used as a grenade if the user has attached a standard M18 Hand Grenade Fuse Assembly to the "Power Up" port. The LLM Grenade does 2d6x10 damage to all powered devices and energy-based creatures within a 10 foot radius.

OK, thinking about it, Beatmeclever. Looks nice tho.