[quote=Freeshooter92]
Well, I said 'their' own ship. Sorry, it is a group thing. And I'm afraid that energy weapon is very high end. Thing is, energy weapons in this setting are quite large, more akin to cannons. For instance the smallest energy weapon is the Gungnir Laser Destroyer, which is roughly the size of an M60. I'm thinking more of a grimy kind of Sci-fi, more industrial, less 'Ipod.' As for railguns, they aren't man-portable. In fact, Browning M2s are still in use! Sometimes, you can't beat the classics.
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You, uh, do realize Gauss rifles are real and already as powerful as your typical airgun, right? Yeah, they're a bit awkward when effective in combat, but most of it is the barrel and magnets. Gauss guns work using electromagnetism to propel a bullet at very high speeds, depending on the number of coils you have. The barrel has wire coiled around it to create electromagnetism (hence why they're also called coilguns), and the more coils you have, the more powerful the gun.

Here's an actual fully automatic Gauss gun in action. This guy also explains the science behind it much better than I have.
[youtube]TWeJsaCiGQ0[/youtube]

If you really, really don't want us to use "energy weapons", then there's still a way to allow us to use Gauss guns to start with and not have us using energy weapons. The gun only uses electricity and electromagnetism to propel a projectile, but doesn't actually shoot energy at a target. The actual damage still comes from a projectile. It's only considered an energy weapon because it uses electricity as a power source.

While they would be awkward to use when practical in combat today, I'd imagine that with this RP being set in the far future, they'd completely replace firearms as the standard. Yeah, the M2 would be used as you said, but most would go with a coilgun over a firearm since there's far, far less risk of explosion and the fact that, by this time, they'd also be far more powerful.