High tech weaponry

High-tech weaponry in Cyberpunk is a mixture of conventional, advanced, and cutting-edge design.

Firearms still use gunpowder charges to propel their bullets. Caseless ammunition is rapidly replacing fixed cartridges as the technology becomes more stable and reliable. Electro-Thermal-Chemical (ETC) weapon systems, in which the propellant is superheated by an electrical charge to increase velocity, are currently too large and bulky to use in small-arms but are used in auto-cannons and large-caliber artillery. Crude Gauss guns firing metal or alloy projectiles are available, but are too bulky and complex to be issued to regular forces.

Advances in materials technology has produced monoblade and monowire melee weapons that have edges that are sharp on the molecular level. Vibroblade weapons, in which the blade is imbued with an energy field that vibrates the molecules at high-speed to create an extremely sharp edge that cuts by itself, are not yet available.