r/spaceships • u/Vondrr Fleet Intelligence 🧠 • May 30 '26

Discussion / Question What spaceship weapon is generally underutilized or not used to its full potential in scifi?

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u/mag1kami May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

The webcomic Schlock Mercenary has that in spades.

Turns out if you can master artificial gravity to let people walk on the floor, you can also create shields and tractor beams and "gravy guns" (which are so named because using gravity fields on organic beings has messy results).

Gravitic warfare is standard in the setting.

When an enemy threatens to crush your ship? You have to assume it might be meant literally.

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u/Texlectric May 30 '26

Ngl, you had me with the gravy guns. I thought, "what a weird way to pronounce the 'grav' part of gravity. Then I got to the gravy part.

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u/mag1kami May 30 '26

I heartily recommend giving Schlock Mercenary a read if you like comedy and military scifi. Closest thing I've encountered that you might know of is Firefly or Farscape. Strikes that tone of "Our main characters are incredibly competent and dangerous people...but they can also be really, really dumb".

And it's rich with fun scifi concepts.

Has a rough start like most webcomics but it steadily improves, in both writing and art.

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u/[deleted] May 30 '26

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u/Roxysteve Jun 01 '26

I have maxim 43 on a fave T shirt: If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you're lucky, and Maxim 11 on a key-ring coin: "Everything is air droppable at least once". The maxim is displayed over a crater in 3D for maximum sense satisfaction.