Competing with the Boomgun's Range

[Aermas]

A Boomgun's range is 2mi which is practically to the horizon, meaning they can shoot anything they can see. Most Rifts Earth weapons top out at 6000ft, excluding missiles. Are their any weapons that can boost a range as far as the Boomgun or even farther?

[ShadowLogan]

Surprising there is a decent list that exceeds 6,000ft, the RG14 has a range of 11,000ft/3.2km

Thunderstorm Heavy Artillery Cyborg's Artillery Cannons (WB17) have a range of 8,300ft/2530m. (the poorest performer in the above 6k group)
CS Firestorm Mobile Fortress (WB11) has a few rail guns with range of 2miles/3.2km
CS DHT (RUE/RMB) has a rail cannon with a range of 2miles
CS Command Car's C-30R Railgun (WB11) reaches 2miles/3.2km
TX-862FC Power Armor Accessory (WB5) has a range of 10,000ft/3km
NGR's Mobile Infantry Strike Base has a Super PB Cannon with range of 10,000ft/3.05km
Naruni's Juggernaut Hovertank (Mercenaries, MercOps, DB13) has a particle beam with a range of 11,000ft/3.2km, along with a Flechette Railgun with a 11,000ft/3.2km range
Taurus Glitterboy's Mortar's can reach 12,000ft/3.6km
AT-1053 Ka-Kuma 'Bot (WB8) has Rail Cannons with a range of 7miles/11.2km
Kittani Dragon Dreadnaught 'Bot (WB2) has a laser with a range of 2miles/3.2km
Mastodon 'Bot (WB9) has a Boomgun (along with the Triax Devesator II in WB31)
X-2020 Rainmaker 'Bot has Projectile Cannon with Range of 20,000ft/6.096km
X-4600 Sharpshooter 'Bot has a Rail Gun with 10,000ft/3.048km range
Neo-Abrams MBT (WB9) has a I-Beam cannon with a range of 11,000ft/3.2km
T-10 Porcupine Tank has a Projectile cannon with a range of 10,000ft/3.05km
GAW's Assortment of Howitzers in MercOps have a range between 7.2-20miles/11.5-32km, and the smaller Medium Mortar has a range of 3mile/4.8km

A wide assortment of ocean going capital ships (assorted) in WB7 and SB4 (SB4 also has a fortification gun at Quebec HQ) also have cannons with matching or superior range

Numerous Spacecraft and other platforms in DB13, DB6, DB3, and DB2 also qualify has have superior range such as:
Proctor-class Interceptor (DB2) has laser (10mile/16km) and gravity gun (5mile/8km)
Scorpion Fighter (DB2) has gravity gun with range (16mile/25km)
Star Ghost Fighter (DB2) has a phase cannon with range of 10,000ft/3km
Kartuhm-Terek (DB2) has a laser cannon with 18km/60k-ft
Dark Slayer MBT (DB2) has a laser with a range of 3miles/4.8km
Phalanxy MBT (DB2) has a laser with 2mile/3.2km range
Silverhawk PA (DB2) has a laser with a 10,000ft/3.05km range
Battleram 'Bot (DB2) has laser with range of 2mile/3.2km and Railgun with 5mile/8km
Jesstra Aerospace Fighter (DB13) has Disrupters with range of 2miles/3.2km

Mutants In Orbit has:
-G14 Glitterboy with a PBC that matches the RG14 Railgun in terms of range
-Mikado 'Bot's VX-20 Rail Gun with 11,000ft/3.2km range
-X-Ray Satellite's X-Ray Laser has a range of 20,000ft/6.1km (which is x3 in space)

The RaiderX/Defender and MAC/Monster Class of Destroids from Robotech (and Macross 2 equivalent) line also have guns that out-class the Boomgun. The VHT's 105mm Cannon shells (in 2E) can also outclass it in range depending on the type of shell being fired.

[Aermas]

This is a really nice comprehensive list, but I meant to ask specifically about man portable/power armor portable weapons.

[glitterboy2098]

for a roughly human sized person, the horizon distance is about 3 miles, while the 10ft Glitterboy does a little better at 3.9miles

so for direct fire weapons, about 10,000ft is about the reasonable range limit. it gets better if the weapon is mounted high up (that 50ft triax box could see out to nearly 9 miles!) or has an elevated vantage point (like being on a mountain side firing into a valley) but those tend to be situational, and few weapons have ranges over a couple miles without having to use serious ballistic arcs anyway. and once you've got that involved, doing 'over the horizon' shots is mostly a matter of being able to do the calculations and knowing where the target is. (basically artillery skillset.. and there have been times in history where tanks got used as indirect artillery. with effective bombardment ranges much higher than their effective direct fire range.)

[ShadowLogan]

This is a really nice comprehensive list, but I meant to ask specifically about man portable/power armor portable weapons.

The list was initially generated and sorted in a database and would have included man-portable/power-armor weapons if they met the criteria. Now I don't have all the Rifts Books, so there might exist hardware in some of those books that I don't have (and wouldn't be in the database).

It should also be noted that:
-the Glitterboy Power Armor is per text considered a borderline Robot Vehicle
-weapon systems can move around between classes, and while not unique the Boomgun is known to be mounted on (at least) x2 Robot Vehicles, so in theory you could do the reverse with some (if not all) of the examples that don't meet your criteria
-projectile weapons (rail guns or conventional) are going to have recoil to manage, which could be found to be best handled outside of the Power Armor/Man-portable realm (we see this in the Glitterboy given the purpose of the pylons to help manage the recoil)
-there may be technical reasons (in-universe) that prevent the practical production/use of beam weapons in the Power Armor/Man-portable arena in that range category as it also occurs in the even higher-tech PW setting.

[Grazzik]

Well, I thought that maybe the curvature of the earth at that distance might have an impact on energy weapons assuming their beam travels in a straight line. I'm bad at math, so I turned to ChatGPT to give an answer to the question: Assuming the average curvature of the earth, how high must an originating point be for a beam of light to reach a point 4ft from the surface of the earth from 2 miles away?

According to ChatGPT, the answer is 9.07ft. So, that means any energy weapon to reach that far (assuming beam integrity is maintained) would have to be mounted on a tall FC cyborg, power armor or a raised platform. Infantry on the move would not be able to hit a man-sized target that far away without an advantageous terrain.

[glitterboy2098]

Well, I thought that maybe the curvature of the earth at that distance might have an impact on energy weapons assuming their beam travels in a straight line. I'm bad at math, so I turned to ChatGPT to give an answer to the question: Assuming the average curvature of the earth, how high must an originating point be for a beam of light to reach a point 4ft from the surface of the earth from 2 miles away?

According to ChatGPT, the answer is 9.07ft. So, that means any energy weapon to reach that far (assuming beam integrity is maintained) would have to be mounted on a tall FC cyborg, power armor or a raised platform. Infantry on the move would not be able to hit a man-sized target that far away without an advantageous terrain.

you realized chatGPT doesn't actually do the math right? it just strings words together based on probability and samplesets. which is why it turned in a nonsensical answer that doesn't fit the math.

but there are calculators out there to work out horizon distances based on height. (and target height doesn't matter here.. if you can see it you can shoot it with a LOS weapon, this literally accounts for the curvature here, see the math in the calculator page) literally

using http://www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm to get a 2 mile range you only need a little under 3ft of vantage/firing point (3ft gets your 2.1 miles), a 5ft "firing from the shoulder" on a human sized suit gets you 2.7 miles, 10ft tall gets you 3.9 miles, 20ft tall gets you 5.5 miles, 30ft gets you 6.7 miles, etc.

[Grazzik]

you realized chatGPT doesn't actually do the math right? it just strings words together based on probability and samplesets. which is why it turned in a nonsensical answer that doesn't fit the math.

but there are calculators out there to work out horizon distances based on height. (and target height doesn't matter here.. if you can see it you can shoot it with a LOS weapon, this literally accounts for the curvature here, see the math in the calculator page) literally

using http://www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm to get a 2 mile range you only need a little under 3ft of vantage/firing point (3ft gets your 2.1 miles), a 5ft "firing from the shoulder" on a human sized suit gets you 2.7 miles, 10ft tall gets you 3.9 miles, 20ft tall gets you 5.5 miles, 30ft gets you 6.7 miles, etc.

I was actually kinda curious if anyone would challenge it on here, since you can't swing a dead cat these days without hitting some tech consultant claiming it's the next big thing.

Good link, thanks.

[hup7]

There is the BRL-3 (WB09 p82) With a 5 mile range and 2d4x10 damage - however it is "alien" tech (Arkhon).

I am sure there is a portable short range missile launcher in one of the books but wasn't in the few I first checked. No doubt someone will have ripped off and copied the BRL-3 by now.

There is a "technically" portable Medium Range missile launcher (SB Mercenaries p105) WI-40M. The missile has a cut down 10 mile range and the whole thing weighs 120 lbs.

Get a TW and Temporal Wizard together to make a missile launcher that uses extra dimensional space...

[glitterboy2098]

i wouldn't count missile and rocket launchers like the BRL-3 or the manpad MRM, since missiles have always had those long ranges. its energy weapons and railguns that get saddled with the boomgun limitations.