While the heavy metal slugs and flechettes thrown by projectile weaponry tend to be more damaging, the lack of recoil for non-Heavy energy weapons makes them more accurate, granting them a +1 bonus to hit rolls.
Energy weapons are very popular on more advanced worlds, as a soldier can carry far more ammunition in the form of energy cells than they can carry bullets. Range and accuracy are often superior, though the infrastructure necessary for maintenance and repair of these weapons is substantially higher.
Rifle-sized energy weapons count as two items of encumbrance.Thunder guns are named for the basso vibrations caused by their operation, a sound that can be felt as far as thirty meters away from an operator. This two-handed weapon uses grav plates to create rapid, randomized disruptions in a target that increase the chance of complete structural collapse. If a thunder gun hits a target with an unmodified hit roll of 16 or higher an extra 1d10 damage is rolled. This bonus damage always applies to inanimate targets.