Ranged Armaments Gaussalloy (and gaussalloy munitions)

Name:
Gaussalloy, Driversteel, Neo-Staballoy

Description:
Gaussalloy is a silvery black metal alloy of depleted uranium, neodymium, iron, boron and rubium, with trace amounts of elements such as dysprosium and praseodymium.

Gausalloy is primarily designed for use in new age armour penetrating bullets, such as sabot rounds. As per its namesake, it is primarily used in advanced gauss munitions, either in the form of ball bearings, bolts or conical magnetic bullets.

Outside of its use in munitions and special tool use such as drillbits, gaussalloy is near useless as a structural material. It is fragile when scaled up to structural sizes.

Abilities:

• Munitions Grade. Gaussalloy is specifically made for use as heavy incendiary sabot munitions, making it very effective for armour piercing bullets.
• Incendiary. Gaussalloy munitions are incendiary, further increasing armour piercing potential in an oxygen rich atmosphere.

Conditional Abilities:

• Zero-G. In low/zero gravity environments gaussalloy rounds can achieve incredible speeds, allowing them to cover large distances in a near instant and with minimal drop off.

Limitations:

• Structurally Unsuitable. Due to its cost and general fragility, gaussalloy is unsuitable as a structural material, such as for armour or reinforcement.
• Costly. Gaussalloy is rather quite costly, meaning most munitions made with it will tend to use large machined slugs to keep price low. Advanced gaussalloy cartridges and shells do exist, but are incredibly expensive.

Situational Limitations:

• Heavy. Individual gaussalloy rounds are heavy compared to other cartridges. Although not noticeable on an individual basis, it quickly builds up when more rounds are introduced such as in box mags or ammo belts. A magazine of gaussalloy rounds will weigh roughly 30% more than a similar magazine of normal gauss or ballistic rounds.
• Kicks like a Mule. Weapons firing gaussalloy rounds will have immense recoil on account of the rounds velocity and weight.

How does it work?:
The reasoning behind its diverse metallic combination is twofold. The uranium and rubium provide great weight and durability on impact, allowing the bullet to maintain high speeds and high weights whilst allowing it to survive piercing a target. Meanwhile the neodymium, iron and boron are the primary components of a potent ferromagnetic alloy, making gaussalloy innately very magnetic.

Like conventional staballoy, gaussalloy is pyrophoric, meaning it ignites spontaneously in air when fired. This gives it a partial incendiary effect, enhancing its impact. It is also self sharpening on impact, making it very likely to continue traveling through a target if it pierces.

Flavour Text:
The very first iterations of gaussalloy dates all the way back to 2500, having been forged by some of the first “modern” pirate gangs as an inexpensive way to weaponize nuclear waste material from their inefficient shipboard fission reactors. Although primarily used as a method of waste disposal, gaussalloy proved to be incredibly effective against even military grade vessels, which made many of the soon-to-be civspace nations nervous of this development. As such, many nations rushed to develop their own gaussalloy munitions, all whilst claiming they were the first to develop it. Historical records count at least 15 unique instances of “the first gaussalloy”.

Even today, the formula for gaussalloy remains mostly the same as it did over 500 years ago, with only minor refinements made to the amounts of trace elements.

Attainability: Open

Tags: [Military]

Category: Ranged Armaments

Weight: 17 grams per cubic centimeter.

Durability: 8

Flexibility: Poor, tends to fracture rather than bend.

Thermal Conductivity: Poor.

Electrical Conductivity: Poor.

Average Price: 0.45 Px / in^3.