AUTHOR'S NOTE: These revisions are being proposed as a pair in order to reduce the impact of any additional step or two in difficulty mentioned by Madman in Discord in regard to utilizing a revision to actually make a working weapon. As such I ask that votes are for both or neither, since that would undo the whole "split across two revisions for difficulty reasons" thing. It also attempts to actually give the thing a name. I'm also writing it as if we've gone robots not because I'm a piece of shit but because some of the argument against robots was the lack of personality and whatnot. If someone wishes to rewrite these more to fit boring humans then go ahead, but it's just the fluffy bits.
Proposal: MSR-1 'Trephine' Resizing and Readjustment
The first issue with the Trephine was the assembly unit's attempt to increase the size of the proposed round past designated parameters, heavily impacting both the power draw of the weapon as well as it's stability and reliability. After a few sessions of debugging the assembly units were deemed fit to go back to work on the Trephine R&R.
This project is meant to recreate the mechanical components of the Trephine, namely the frame, stock, trigger mechanism, and rails that are actually spaced 12mm apart within a plastic barrel housing. The ring-sabot is also redesigned to carry the 10mm sharpened, finned rod through the barrel and is meant to break away once it exits the weapon. There is space for the superconductor and integrated circuitry, but those are part of a different overhaul. A trigger installed on the weapon's foregrip will provide power to the rails when held.
Overall the weapon boxy but not cumbersome, and should be fairly light-weight save for the magnetic rails.
The rounds themselves are composed of tungsten-tipped hardened ceramic. This should penetrate softly-cased units with relative ease, and should inflict significant damage on the internal components of uncased targets.
Proposal: MSR-1 'Trephine' Recalibration
The second stage to rebuilding the Trephine is recalibrating the electronic components. With the reduced size of the round (and the use of a lightly magnetic metal in the round itself) we are able to make a smaller superconductor battery to be housed within the stock of the weapon. Power flow is properly regulate to the magnetic accelerator rods, and can be precisely controlled by the weapon's operating unit. With the sabot no longer requiring a massive explosive discharge to break away from the round, we're able to tone down (read: completely remove) the fireworks addition provided by the malfunctioning units.
The weight of the superconductor battery and related installed electronics should provide some balance to the front-heavy frame of the Trephine.
Standard Testing Procedure also now states that all munitions not currently loaded in the weapon being test-fired shall be stored outside of the room testing is to occur in. This should prevent our Testing Units from incurring critical damage from this extremely preventable circumstance in the future.
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I just want to note that this gun fits very well with a, say, metal-based species who have no experience fighting anything other than things made with some sort of shell. Imagine a bunch of face-melted Terminators coming at you with these things, man.