@Swordsmith
Note: The numbers I gave him were off the top of my head, after midnight. They were intended to demonstrate a point more than to give accurate details. Anyways...
The size and price statements come from his specific idea- a "50' beam, really hot". It might cost less depending on how you choose to interpret that- if it's extremely thin, or only heats by a few degrees, then it'll be much cheaper. But it sounded to me like he wanted a cutting laser equivalent, which is gonna cost a whole lot more, and be a whole lot larger than a vector manip that stops some shrapnel.
Yes, they can come in small sizes, but if you want them to do big things, they get big themselves. And they're
always less efficient at doing something than a conventional tech equivalent, at least at man-portable sizes.
I know that it would certainly be a CON weapon, unless it has some weird angle that it fires from. We've designed AM weapons with a beam effect before, and they used CON when we tested them.
Rules on AM batteries are weird, primarily because they
don't have any. Some AMs exist (like
Bishop's defense ones.) that never mentioned needing new batteries, and some exist that weren't allowed to use any (see Tinker thread, there were a few). In any case, even if Sambo's stated device could use batteries, it would be vastly more cost efficient to get a Cutting Laser. Or even a Raduga.
And lastly, building AMs on the Sword: I dunno about that. We're not allowed to build
any on Heph until we construct the space magic facility, so what's up with the sword that they can make new and unique ones? My guess is that the Sword could make custom AMs because players wanted them, so why not? It certainly can't be because of the ammo material, because it replicates in very large AMs, like the ones that control the Sword's guns. We've gotta have an automanip that big laying around somewhere. Now that we will actually have a facility that makes these things, I doubt we'll be able to buy them from the Armory.
And if we can, we should star mass producing tokens, and buying spaceship AMs from the AM.@Paris
Yes, amps are created in the same facility. Along with
decompensators, I think. But they don't use any of the material that's made in that facility, that every other space magic device uses, and they're nowhere near large enough to make their own. Something's weird, there.
Also, yes, PW has said that humans have no inherent power, but why does space magic require human germ cells, and/or human brain power?