Guns

Weapons
I lied, guns aren't them only fun little thangs in this article 'ere. In fact, I'll talk about all them joints you can smoke at 700 rounds/min, or them joints with that blast radius o' 5 meters an' an effective kill radius o' 35 meters.

Listen up, son, man's been workin' on ways to make life easier fo' e'ryone, but that ain't no excuse ta lie crapless on yer back under that ol' tree whilst them zeds munch on yer l'il brutha! Down 'ere, ye gots tha lean, mean un-fuckerup machines that's them NCD gots ta throw at ya! Listen closely, son, that mean l'il bastard ain't gon' give you up, never gon' let you down, boi. Tha .45 colt's been yer old man's best friend fo' two years runnin' straight. I gon' teach teach ya what else we gots ta shove up them zed arses. Got ta guts to play wid them big toys now, boi? Aren't ya a l'il sissy ta play wid them thangs? Na? Ya'll better watch yer step, now. Dem boys down at tha sweatshop dun' know wat they doin'! Tha'll cleanin' dem babies all wrong!

Guns
Guns are the most common weapons in the NCD's arsenal. They may range from pretty-normal, nothing-special guns, such as MP5's and AR15's, to weird, experimental guns straight from the depths of Science Division's labs. Well, some guns originate from the hands of independent engineers, but most of the weirder ones come from Science Division.

Guns are devices designed to project matter or energy over a long range, and typically with high velocities. Projectiles fired from guns normally have seemingly-flat trajectories. These trajectories are evidently parabolic over long ranges (typically several kilometers); however in the urban combat environment of the NCD, this barely matters.

Modified conventional guns
The shortage of conventional machineguns (which were usually raided from armories or scavenged from police and army vehicles) led to the common practice of linking two M16A1's/M16A3's together, such that the recoil of one would facilitate the ejection and loading of the other, thus the birth of the Linked M16 Machinegun or L-M16. Other modifications include decreasing the rate of fire, in light of ammunition shortages and controllability problems, and a reloading aide, as the 60-round capacity of the combined magazines of the two rifles are often emptied quickly. Water jackets are sometimes utilized, especially in District 5 and District 6.

A rather beastly excuse of a modification is the Tripple-barreled .50 BMG Sniper Emplacement, affectionately known as the "Tripple-50" by its users. It was designed and built in Outpost 2 by Leon McAfferty, aided by Director-2, to counter the increasing O.P. threat. In its current form, it consists of three barrels triangularly arranged around a central sniper scope. Bullets are manually loaded into each barrel via bolt-action. Solenoids are used in place of conventional firing pins, as mechanically-linking each one together is impractical. An electronic trigger is used to fire all rounds at once. The Tripple-50B features a fire-selection, which allows each shot to be fired individually. All variants of the Tripple-50 are mounted on a tripod, as it was soon realized by several unwitting snipers that even Double-50 man-portable variants can cause dislocations if the anti-recoil monopod was not used. It is widely known that it would have chambered four instead of three shots, if it weren't for tests that showed that the tripod would buckle under the stress of firing four .50 BMG's.

Improvised guns
Pipe shotguns and pipe volley rifles weren't an uncommon sight during the weeks that followed the initial outbreak. These were produced in small quantities throughout the anarchic cities by survivors who did not have initial access to firearms, but somehow managed to get ammunition. These, however, did not suffice in the following months, as ammunition grew scarce and bandits controlled army and police armories.

Fertilizer guns consist of a thick, heavy pipe, capped at one end (as the propellant chamber), and an attached, longer, lighter pipe, which held the projectile(s). Rudimentary stocks made of wood and cushioned with cloth were often utilized. Fertilizer guns are so-named because of their use of artificial fertilizer (ammonium nitrate) as the propellant, in a form known as ANFO, a commonly used explosive in industry. These would often be used like muskets, with the firing process consisting of lighting a short fuze. Some creative survivors used piezoelectric igniters to emulate a real trigger. If too much propellant is used, the weapon would often blow up in a survivor's face, resulting in many accidental deaths. Even if propellant usage is controlled, the weapon would often not withstand more than a few dozen uses before failing or being ditched. Its unreliability is somewhat offset by its ability to fire almost anything that fits in the barrel, but nevertheless, it is definitely not a popular option amongst survivors.

Director-3/5's Elastic Flechette Rifle (EFR) is the best weapon in this category, being used by the director himself to this day, albeit with several design changes. A lever is actuated to pull back a strong elastic. At the press of a trigger, the elastic transfers force to a thin, pointed projectile -- traditionally modified nails -- and propels it forwards onto the target. Ammunition is extremely cheap for this weapon. Its effective range, however, is only up until 20 meters, at most, although the director's new Mk. II flechettes (with new aerodynamic vanes) allow effective ranges of up to 50 meters in the same weapon.

Other improvised weapons exist that function like Sten guns, with blowback operation, either automatic or semi-automatic, but there are too many variations to document them all.

Post-Apocalyptic Engineered Guns (PAGEs)
The XM17 Lasgun is the state-of-the-art of lacerating-edge post-apocalyptic technology. It is a caseless-munitions firearm that utilizes a thermal energy storage unit to rapidly vaporize a small part of the rear of the projectile, resulting in high pressures that propel the projectile forward. The rapidly-expanding air is often sufficient to push out the vaporized metal, leaving the inside of the barrel clean of any metal depositions. If fired without a projectile, the heat itself is ejected from the gun. It is often intense enough to ignite materials from 50 meters away, but also to melt the barrel only after a few shots. There was one incident where the thermal storage itself was affected and the housing was damaged, and upon failure literally vaporized the user and cooked every militiaman 10 meters around him (the idea was developed and was turned into the infrared grenade). The XM17B configuration prevents the barrel from melting and the thermal storage unit from being affected, thus resulting in a true directed-energy weapon (however the resources required to "recharge" the thermal storage unit are immense, but renewable).

The Pneumatic Flechette Rifle System (PFRS) was designed and is utilized by the residents of Outpost 6, soon standardized and sub-contracted for production for the guardsmen of District 6. It has a longer effective range, and is actually semi-automatic, in comparison with Director-3/5's EFR, but is also noisier. It fires flechette rounds, manufactured by each guardsman in his/her own spare time. The barrels are interchangeable with different diameters, allowing different calibers of ammunition to be used, although likewise, different magazines have to be made in order to accomodate all of these calibers. The air tanks used in each unit are heavy-duty, allowing for higher pressures and therefore more uses per tank, but are also consequently heavier. Air tanks are usually recharged using air compressors, but some high-pressure manual pumps exist for the same purpose.