Hypovelocity Launcher Infrastructure (Personal, Portable, and Fixed variants + equipment to use with them)

With the Boost rings potentially having an artificial version (evidenced by having an ingame asset spawnable with commands), why not put that kind of tech to use in a simple, aimable launching tool? In fact, it could even be made into three different tools for three different payload sizes!

Now, this will potentially be a broad, complex concept as it is intentionally designed to be easily added on to over time. Due to this, I’ll only be detailing the first of the three different HypoVL platforms in the main post, and the comments will be open to everyone for myself and others to expand on the concept(s) and offer commentary, and is where I’ll also write the remaining two platforms. That said, please refrain from making my funny little item launcher into a full on destructive weapon. If this gets into the game and someone makes a mod for the ingame version, that’s one thing, but I explicitly intend on this being used as a nonlethal deterrence tool, with enough adaptability for unorthodox utility uses as well (and a little harmless tomfoolery, perchance).

Now for the three main platforms: The small, personal HypoVL Handheld Platform, the slightly larger HypoVL Heavy Platform, and the surface-affixed HypoVL Cannon Platform. All three are able to load an assortment of items, which isn’t limited to creature countermeasures - anything that fits into a given platform’s chamber is fair game, even if there’s no good reason for it to be launched. All three display what is in the chamber, too. Objects smaller than a given chamber can be launched from it just fine, whatever the lore justification behind it is doesn’t matter to me.

The Handheld Platform is a one-handed tool, primarily intended to be used as a ranged deterrent, and uses a singular small, high-efficiency-low-strength boost ring, allowing a single integrated battery (one of the HypoVL’s crafting components) to power it indefinitely in terms of gameplay; lorewise, the system is simply efficient enough to make a single charge last just barely longer than its moving components are expected to.

The Handheld HypoVL can be loaded (and unloaded) like any other battery operated tool, however its loading selection UI doesn’t cycle through your batteries. Instead, it cycles through load selection options: Quick, Manual, and Config. Manual is pretty self explanatory: choosing it in the reload UI will then open your inventory and have you choose a valid item to load the tool with. Not every item in your inventory can be loaded into the Handheld Platform, as it has a smaller chamber. Only smaller items can be launched from it, like flares, some raw resources with small profiles like copper, etc.