Ammunition

Weapons often employ electrical charges (typically stored in batteries), cartridges of ammunition, or individual missiles. A weapon’s capacity measures what size battery it uses or the number of cartridges it can hold, and its usage is how much ammunition it uses with each attack. You can use launchers to fire their corresponding missiles, which must be loaded individually. Reloading a weapon or inserting a new battery (including ejecting a spent cartridge or battery if necessary) takes a move action.

Weapons that use standard ammunition (charges, darts, mini-rockets, petrol, rounds, scattergun shells, etc.) are sold preloaded. For weapons with other forms of ammunition (such as grenades), ammunition must be purchased separately.

Cartridges
This type of ammunition includes bullets (often called rounds or shells), bolts, darts, mini-rockets, pellets, and other physical projectiles with any necessary casing and propellant. Cartridges are typically either contained in a multi-cartridge magazine or loaded into the weapon individually; a weapon is assumed to come with enough magazines that you can load spare ones for reloading the weapon in battle. If you buy more cartridges than can be held in a single magazine of your weapon, the purchase includes additional magazines of the same capacity, up to the number needed to fit all your cartridges into magazines. The same rules apply to petrol for flame weapons.

Rounds are standardized by weapon type. For example, small arms all use the same size of round, but you can’t use a small arm round in a longarm. Most projectile weapons fire one cartridge per attack unless they have special firing modes that shoot multiple cartridges in a short time.

Darts
These light metal shafts each have a pointed tip and a reservoir to hold toxins or other appropriate substances that are typically liquid or viscous. While most combatants rely on darts to deliver toxins to enemies, particularly desperate or overworked field medics sometimes employ darts to conveniently deliver antitoxins, healing serums, and other beneficial drugs across a crowded battlefield. In these cases, medics often practice to improve their aim to ensure that this strategy is effective when employed.

Explosive Ammo
Explosive ammo is used with projectile weapons and is available for most projectile weapons and other weapons that fire darts, as noted on Table 1–8. A weapon firing explosive ammo deals its normal amount of damage, but half of this damage is fire damage and grants the weapon the knockdown critical hit effect. If the weapon already has a critical hit effect, the knockdown critical hit effect is added and considered part of the weapon’s normal critical hit effect. If the weapon normally already has the knockdown critical hit effect, it instead gains the push (5 feet) critical hit effect in addition to knockdown, and this considered part of the weapon’s normal critical hit effect.

Flechettes
Flechettes are small, dart-like metal projectiles.

Mini-Rockets
These long, tapered shells hold combustible material as well as a chemical propellant.

Nanite Canisters
Nanite canisters contain microscopic mechanical devices programmed to perform specific tasks. In weapons, they are typically tasked to dismantle as much of the target as they can before they are deactivated, but nanotechnology also has a wide range of peaceful uses.

Petrol Tank
Petrol is a highly flammable blend of hydrocarbons that is used in flame weapons (and petrol is occasionally used by desperate adventurers as fuel or for other various utilitarian purposes). A petrol tank snaps easily into the housing of weapons that are specifically petrol-powered.

Phasing Rounds
This ammunition is tipped with quantum-variable molecules, allowing it to phase through many materials prior to impacting with its target. If you take a move action to aim and then fire on the same turn a weapon with phasing ammo (including doing so with a sniper weapon), the attack ignores any cover the target has with a hardness equal to given value or less (hardness 10 for 7th-level rounds, hardness 20 for 14th-level rounds). The rounds literally bypass the cover, doing no damage to it.

Rounds
Cased rounds are housed in magazines, which can be fitted into the appropriate weapon.

Scattergun Shells
These cartridges are packed with small metal spheres that scatter when the cartridge explodes.

Charges
This ammunition powers energy or projectile weapons using charges stored in batteries. Since each energy weapon varies in intensity, stronger weapons use up more charges per shot. You can restore a weapon’s charges by attaching it to a generator or a recharging station (see Professional Services on page 234) and thereby recharging its battery, or by swapping out its battery for another fully charged battery.

Recharging a weapon’s battery from a generator takes 1 minute per charge restored, and using a recharging station takes 1 round per charge, but swapping out a battery takes only a move action. Most batteries can hold 20 charges, but some high-capacity versions made of rare materials can hold more (see Table 7–9: Ammunition).

A weapon’s battery cannot be recharged to hold more charges than its capacity. A weapon that holds a high-capacity battery still works when a lower-capacity battery is inserted into it, but if a battery has fewer charges remaining than the minimum number required to fire a shot, the weapon doesn’t fire.

In addition to weapons, batteries can be used to power a wide array of items, including powered armor and technological items.

Missiles
This special ammunition is loaded and fired one at a time, and it includes explosive rounds fired from launchers. Attacks with missile weapons often have the explode special property (see page 181).

Flares
Usually made of magnesium, flares burn brightly and can deliver some heat. You can ignite a flare by hand without the need for a flare gun. A lit flare burns for 1 hour, and it can be wielded in melee combat as an improvised weapon that deals 1d2 fire damage.

Missiles
Missiles are heavy, snub-nosed munitions with devastating explosive power. A missile’s damage when fired from a missile launcher (such as an IMDS missile launcher) is listed in its entry in Table 7–9: Ammunition on page 179.

Plasma Missiles
Compatible with any weapon that can use missiles as ammunition, plasma missiles deal additional damage beyond even their analog counterparts, and come with an increased price tag to match. Ionized plasma missiles are the most common, while stellar plasma missiles and HED (high energy density) plasma missiles deal increased amounts of damage.