Congratulations, Recruit! You have been inducted into the honored group of weapon operators, handling the most dangerous technology the ship has to offer and using it to put down everything from Syndicate warships to space pirates to crazy UUCP bear-ships. This guide will tell you everything you need to know about the ship's weapons, how to maintain them, and how to operate them in the heat of battle.

These railguns accept 400mm teflon-coated tungsten rounds (or occasionally other ammunition invented by the boys and girls at R&D in concert with your friendly neighborhood Ordnance Technician), which they launch via magnetic acceleration coils at terminal velocity in order to punch through the hull of enemy ships and open them up to vacuum. The Railguns are kept in the Munitions Bay, with several crates of ammunition nearby and more available through the Automated Ammo Factory. Each railgun can hold up to ten pieces of standard ammunition in reserve plus one 'special' round. Each Railgun uses 500 kW per shot at the moment it fires. Your job as a Munitions Technician will be to make sure the guns are loaded, and are properly oiled and calibrated. As the Railguns fire, they will gradually lose oil from the reserve tanks attached to them, which it will be your job to top off using oil from the Chemistry department; furthermore, magnetic shear will gradually draw the weapons out of calibration, which means your shots won't hit what they're supposed to and may eventually start damaging the Railgun instead of your targets.

The AMS is an automated missile launch system that can be set in either Anti-Ship mode (target ships, particularly designated ships) or Countermeasure mode (target inbound projectiles). It will fire autonomously but requires reloading to keep firing. The AMS lives in the Munitions Bay and is loaded with the same missiles loaded onto fightercraft for compatibility. It can hold up to fifty missiles at a time. You should be able to mostly forget about these things as long as your missile factory, below, keeps conveying missiles into the loading bay.

The workhorses of the typical NovusCorp combat vessel, phase cannons modulate a plasma beam with a field jacket to ensure they can burn through shields and quickly strike at the hull and armor of a craft. The Phase Cannons share two rooms with the MAC Torpedo Tubes. Phase Cannons require a power supply of roughly 200 kW per cannon, and each bank can hold up to eight cannons at peak performance, if properly charged. If the Bridge is overwhelmed with problems, you - yes, you - can actually aim and fire the phase cannons by using the controls in their respective rooms, and can install captured phase cannons if those pesky Engineers are too busy with Atmospherics building an automated phoron loading device for the shield generator and FTL drive.

MAC Torpedo tubes fire torpedoes, simply put; torpedoes can be assembled by the Ordnance Technician or purchased from reputable space stations, and are distributed between the Torpedo Tubes and fightercraft. Torpedoes require little in the way of power (25 kW per tube), and the tube can hold five torpedoes at a time in its magazine. In addition to needing to be oiled and calibrated every so often, you also have to replace the actuator when it burns out every so often. Don't worry, it's not too difficult to remove.

Oh ho, you're loading the BIG guns. These weapons require bags of gunpowder to boost the speed of launch of the projectiles; you'll need lots of gunpowder, plasma accelerant, or other exotic materials to get your deck guns firing as fast as possible, but fortunately there are very few things that can go wrong, at least as long as you don't do anything stupid with fire near the magazine or gunpowder bags.

The Superliminal BSA is a massive machine, typically a spinal cannon on most spaceships that can use it, which can accelerate a bolt of concentrated quark-gluon plasma to superliminal speeds, tearing clean through targets and annihilating everything in its path. It was developed from Bluespace Artillery cannons used for space station defense, and improved to the point where ships with massive power supplies can annihilate large ships or strike targets from great distances. The power supply is within the Munitions Bay, and your job will be to ensure that it is always charging for another shot. To input this power, simply go to its console, set a desired amount of incoming power, and enable charging. It requires 10 MW for one shot, so unless your ship is seriously overpowered don't expect to use this too frequently.

This builds standard missiles for loading into the AMS and the fightercraft. You shouldn't have to touch it too often, aside from repairing it if an enemy manages to blow it up or manually transferring your arsenal (preferably with a tug) in the event that the conveyors stop working.

This automatically churns out more Railgun ammunition, which you can then fetch and prepare your Railgun to fire.

This 'nuke 'em from orbit' weapon is generally not the Munitions Technicians' problem. Besides, you have enough problems.

Flak cannons fire a large amount of proximity-detonated ammunition at incoming torpedos and missiles. They excel at defending against these forms of weaponry, but they have very limited range. Operating them is as simple as inputting a new box of ammo into the rack on the wall. You may be called to reload these weapons during or after a firefight, especially if the Munitions Bay is getting crowded.

Gauss guns fire 300mm Teflon coated tungsten rounds. Unlike other ship weaponry, these are not controlled by Bridge Staff using the tactical console and are typically manned by Munitions Technicians when they are available, or whatever crew happens to be able and willing to operate them. Gauss guns require no maintenance, and can be loaded by one person via an ammo box at the base of the turret while another person operates the turret. To man gauss guns, buckle yourself into the gauss gunner chair and you'll rise into the cockpit above. To fire, click on the overmap to fire a powerful short-range burst. Gauss guns eat through ammo quickly, and you'll ideally want someone below deck keeping you loaded at all times. Loading tungsten rounds is as simple as placing them in a crate, click-dragging it to the loading rack, and sending it in for reloading. Additional slugs can be acquired from a nearby Gauss ammunition dispenser that can be upgraded by science to produce slugs at a faster rate.