Discovery Freelancer: Air/Land/Water Warfare Thread

[Wildkins]

My limited forays into ground-based stories (usually around Leeds) have left me with a few assumptions:

1) Likely, most service weapons are going to be based off of laser/plasma technology, given how effective they are in space and how long we've had the technology and the ability to miniaturize it.
2) Vehicles can vary wildly, and it depends on your wish to go with the "rule of cool" or not. Mechs in a limited capacity are certainly an option, although I strayed away from them during my tinkering with Royal Flush, in favor of the good old treaded assault vehicles. Given that we likely have hovercraft technology, I'm sure you could come up with light assault vehicles or the like that utilized such technology, but keep in mind that most modern militaries would likely also employ heavier vehicles using more traditional systems, as they're probably more reliable and less likely to have problems out in the field.
3) Atmospheric craft would probably still be developed independently from spacecraft, if only because the theories behind the two vessels are wildly different (Sure, Star Wars shows us X-Wings taking off from planets and being able to handle atmospheric combat just fine, but beyond some F-4 Phantom level aerodynamics of "put enough engines behind it and it'll fly", I highly doubt its in-atmosphere effectiveness). Spacecraft would probably work well enough in-atmo, but things like helicopter analogues (probably now powered by some high-power jet engine or something) would still be present, especially for logistics.

Watercraft aren't really something I've dived into (wow nice pun m8) but similar rules probably exist; weaponry would be based off of plasma/laser technology, probably using designs for minimizing radar and sensor efficiency (a la https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer). Oh, and a caveat to 1) - any super long range weaponry (sniper rifles, primarily) would probably be using ballistics of some kind, either a traditional slugthrower or something akin to a Gauss rifle. Laser/plasma weaponry for something meant to be visibly covert is probably out of the question, given the fact that every round is essentially a super-bright tracer that would give away your position.

ed: Oh, and yes, everything on Atomic Rockets is great to read if you're diving into SF writing, although it is a bit lacking for this specific scenario.

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