>>44534996
Custom stuff.

Experimental stuff.

Custom Experimental stuff.

>>44535046

This, or items with a history - a rifle that was used to kill a dictator is a little bit more distinguished then one you got at space Wal-Mart.

I mean, it's been 400 years and we still masturbate over Stradivarius violins.
Modern production instruments equal or even better a Strad under certain conditions but there's still no replicas.

>>44535098
>this rifle is somehow better than all the others because it killed a guy
I guess KOTOR did this a bunch, but still.

>>44534996
I have a Sci-Fi setting that touches on this. By the time humanity gets to space, all the other intelligent life has (evidently) killed itself off. And their tech is a lot more advanced than ours (even if it is a few hundred to a few thousand years old).

So in this case, it's because humanity is NOT the ones manufacturing these "magic items." They've reversed engineered laser weapons, for example, but they're still working on the power packs they use as ammunition. So, if you want to have ammo for your neat laser rifle, you're going to have to poke about in some alien ruins or derelict spacecraft. Or buy them from someone who has.

>>44536969
>They've reversed engineered laser weapons, for example, but they're still working on the power packs they use as ammunition. So, if you want to have ammo for your neat laser rifle, you're going to have to poke about in some alien ruins or derelict spacecraft. Or buy them from someone who has.
Your post was cool up until this really retarded bit.

>>44537050
batteries are hard, dude.

>>44537050
If you have an alternative, I'd love to hear it.

>>44537050
Power would be the easiest bit. You might end up with backpack generators but you could do it.
Nah, instead just have reverse engineered bastardised weapons and the genuine article xenotech ones that are all digi-weapon hardlight pocket dimension turboblaster with attached fax modem level of OP. Plus they have integrated power cells/generation.

>>44537087
If the humans understand how the weapons work then they should be able to feed power into them.

I would have human ammo packs that are drastically less efficient and possibly more dangerous (risking bricking or frying the weapon) or less effective (not producing the same level of lethality) than alien ammo packs made for the weapon. Alien materials may use an entirely different power source to feed into the weapon and so are a lot better.

It's kind of dumb that an entire class of weapon humanity is using is fed by scavenged power packs as well but workable in some settings with a really vast scale of salvage.

Another (bigger, honestly) problem is why would anyone bother going to all this effort if humanity is the only thing in space and therefore human-built reliable weapons are going to be usable and effective rather than a clusterfuck of scarcity and inefficiency on getting your hands on some superweapon that is unnecessarily lethal. Unless "more advanced" means horrifically more advanced so that the two are as comparable as a flint spear and a modern assault rifle. In which case the dynamics of your setting have to be pretty fucked, too, and I doubt it would be easy to run the ruins or buy materiel.

Also I bet your advanced laser weapons are exclusively visible spectrum, too.

>>44537227
>I would have human ammo packs that are drastically less efficient and possibly more dangerous (risking bricking or frying the weapon) or less effective (not producing the same level of lethality) than alien ammo packs made for the weapon. Alien materials may use an entirely different power source to feed into the weapon and so are a lot better.

That's... Actually a very good idea. I'll be incorporating that into the next revision, I think. Thank you, Anon.

>nother (bigger, honestly) problem is why would anyone bother going to all this effort if humanity is the only thing in space and therefore human-built reliable weapons are going to be usable and effective rather than a clusterfuck of scarcity and inefficiency on getting your hands on some superweapon that is unnecessarily lethal.

A valid point, which I have two counterpoints to. Firstly, humanity is the only intelligent life that exists as far as humanity is aware. We aren't exactly talking Imperium-of-Man levels of colonization, here. So it's entirely possible that, two or three centuries from the "present day," humanity's going to have to go on a bug hunt.

Secondly, it's not just weapons. There's a sizable market for alien artwork as well, for example. It's just that people are especially interested in things that punch holes in other people.

But yes, you raise exceptionally-good points. After I get finished with this upcoming revision I might just post it to /tg/ for criticism.

Thank you, anon. You've been very helpful.

>>44537367
I think if it's a minor market it totally makes sense. It's where it's humanity-wide that it starts to become improbable everything is scavenged (but not impossible, the use of whale oil is an example of a crazy rush for a resource that it's almost difficult to believe happened).

But yeah have two-tier power packs. If you understand how the gun works then it should be possible to feed power into it even if it's inefficient vs. the intended method.

>>44537432
>I think if it's a minor market it totally makes sense.

Yes. I did say there was a "sizable market" for alien artwork, for example, but that lacks proper context. What I should have said was "there is a sizable market among people who can afford it."

Your average Joe Blow from New Kokomo might be able to scrape together the credits to buy some weird-ass statue made of some plasticy-glass shit if he works for it, but on the whole?

The primary markets for this sort of thing, no matter what it is, end up being the highest bidders: corporations, governments, research institutions, wealth collectors, etc.

Magic items in fantasy boil down to "tools characters use to get a special effect". Or, at least, that's how my players have been treating it for whenever we do fantasy? It doesn't seem that hard to translate to Sci-Fi, really - enhancemnts, customizations and cybernetic grafts of the characters themselves are hard to immediately replace and instantly changes the way the character works. A slowly growing toolbelt featuring different scanners, door openers, listening devices, guns, ammo, explosives and neat tools (this is the future! Holo shield emitters, instant transportation beams, derezzers that remove 4x4 of any material, etc!)

>>44537367
Fun, I'm working on a setting that's essentially the same thing for my next game. Except for an entire universe its a single planet where a couple of hundred years ago there was a great big interstellar war in the orbit of so it's mostly littered with battleships and alien frigates.

Anyway, my point is - as the other anon said it makes good sense to have 2 kinds of ammo; the human used stuff that kind-of mimicks the functionality and the actual alien-derived ammo that manages to actually charge the weapon.

You can even have barely man-portable giant backpack generators used by some people to properly charge their weapons, which gives a neat contrast (and makes it immediately obvious why you'd want to replace that 30 kg monstrosity with a couple of finger sized things you can keep in your pocket )