Damage Types in Sci-Fi Research

I've found myself kinda lost and made a small research about it and i've came up with a few types, maybe i'm right about it...or not. All i know is that if you ever use Magnetism and a type you're screwed cuz everything is somehow related to magnetism, i had a hard time here as i've probably butchered stuff. A friend of mine is a physics teacher but he doesn't have time to give me a hand at all...we don't have time even to play PnP rpg anymore...i miss this guy :c

• LASER - From forces that emits light spectrum as their source and are not related to movement and are also focused. They may change size of mather.: heat, cryogenic, lasers.
  
• IMPACT - Related to movement or explosives: blunt, grenades, melee weapons in general.
  
• MASER - Radiation, sources that can be related to energy itself but are not focused.
  
• ORGANIC - Can be related to bleeding or toxin produced by organisms.
  
• MENTAL - Affects the mind and senses of somebody.
  

I don't know if there are more types.

There are four fundamental forces\interactions (from strongest to weakest): strong nuclear force, electromagnetic force, weak nuclear force, and gravitational. You can use these as your classic fire, water, air, and earth thing.


You can also use exotic and quantum matter\energies for your game. You can even use dimensions and dimensional shapes; the whole idea that we see things in a sort of quasi-3D perspective, which is closer to 2D, could be used for skills and things. Have someone who can view things in the fourth dimensions or even higher, seeing entire objects from all possible angles. Could have some sort of "magic" system based on it: Dimensional Geometry. :D


There's some very whacky stuff in the universe, don't restrict yourself to our current understanding of how things works.

Radiation to cover lasers and microwave-type stuff, plasma for super-heated matter, kinetic for super-propelled matter, biological for toxins/poisons/virus type things, and psychic for the pseudo-magical. 

What Carduus said, with one exception.


"Energy" covers your energy, your maser and your impact, they are just different kinds of energy.


Radiation is your Maser


Kinectic is your Impact


but... your Energy is Thermal, not Plasma. Plasma is a state of matter, not a form of energy.


There is also Electric.


Taking a look at wikipedia because I'd be editting this forever from my memories, I suggest these:


Kinetic - for abilities involving motion


Chemical - for abilities about chemicals, biological or not


Ionization - although not necessarily right, most electric and magnetic known energies are a byproduct of ions, so...


Thermal - abilities involving heat


Radiant - other kinds of radiation, including light


Gravitational - this is mostly more for dual-types, since most abilities involving gravity will also involve kinetics, but it could be nice for speed buffs/debuffs?

Actually i did a mistake, i wanted to write "Laser" and not "Energy".


Both Laser and Maser are thermal as far as i know but their purpose is different...i was checking x-ray methods and then here i am.


Damn kitties are making me crazy D:

I see, that makes more sense.


I edited my last post, added my own suggestions.

I think i'll go with cuz sorting will look right - Replace these stuff

Kinetic - Impact


Chemical - Organic


Ionization - 


Thermal - Laser, Maser


Radiantion - Maser


Psychic - Mental


EDIT: A friend of mine recommended me to also add Quantum cuz of time manipulation stuff.

Even with Sci Fi, I would recommend thinking about what the intent of the attack is from an in-universe perspective.


A laser would cause damage through intense heat.


A maser seems to use radiation to generate EM waves in the micro-wave/radio-wave frequency and might not make an effective weapon.


Organic attacks like poison usually cause damage to living tissue and cause death by organ failure/blood issues but wouldn't work on robots.


Organic attacks like a corrosive acid may work on both living beings and robots.


Thermal attacks can include "beams" designed to cause damage through intense heating or cooling (like fire and ice).


Electrical attacks can cause damage just by running high voltage/high amp current through a target.


Ionized plasma could have electrical components like EM fields that wreck robots, but otherwise cause damage through heat.


Radiation would likely be a slower poison-like effect as it slowly kills of living cells, but high energy gamma rays can also wreck stuff.


Mental type attacks could include both psychic-like attacks on the mind (perhaps depleting some kind of mental focus or energy) or even hacking to affect the minds of robot enemies.


Kinetic is obviously using a projectile or other weapon to deliver kinetic force directly to an object to smash it or pierce it depending on ammo type.


I guess it mostly depends on what your enemy types are (human, alien, robot, etc.) and what you want them to be weak and strong against. A lot of attacks do similar things so you could give distinct classes different types of attacks that are functionally the same - i.e. one class could use Plasma as their source of "Heat" damage while another uses a laser rifle, and yet another class would get an acid splash which causes an exothermic reaction that releases a ton of heat.

As long as whatever you associate the types with fit the definition of the types (ie, I am 93% sure a lead knife is not a laser) it won't matter too much in the end what those types actually are (apart from the fact that, for example, a lack of the IMPACT type means no explosions).

I mean as long as you match the definitions of the types with your in game skills/weapons/ect then you are pretty good to go imho no matter what those types actually are.

I would avoid lumping the categories too much unless you're extremely advanced sci-fi (Star Trek or better).  I tend to focus on categorizing damage types by their defenses rather than the attacks.


Science isn't magic.  What protects you from extreme Heat doesn't necessarily do justice against extreme Cold.  Both are merely temperature changes but you can't have a damage type that relates to all temperature unless your level of technology has effectively rendered you resistant to all temperature changes.


I agree with several of these though, just from the basic sci-fi principles.  Here's my recommendations.


THERMAL - Intense heat, lasers, possibly microwaves, anything based around temperature increases.


CRYO - Intense cold, attempts to freeze, solidification gels, even that carbonite stuff from Star Wars.


ELECTRIC - High voltage electricity messes up all kinds of computers and bypasses normal energy defenses.


BIOLOGICAL - Poisons, viruses, toxins, that leech attempting to burrow into your brain, if you can defend your body from outside organisms then you're capable of fending off most of these things.


KINETIC - Armor is armor, forcefields reject matter and waves, anything that tries to inflict forceful attacks would fit here and be protected against by the counters.  Projectiles, sound waves, explosions, whatever they may be will be offset at least partially by a good old ballistic vest.


PSYCHIC - Only things that shield your thoughts can prevent mind attacks.  Any sort of telepathic assault would fit here, along with possibly fear gazes or horrifying entities and even the good old Vulcan mind touch.  Can't hurt your psyche if it's being well protected from outside influence.


PLASMA - As others have pointed out, plasma's kind of the extreme side of matter and usually gets its own category from kinetic because of how superior it is against mundane kinetic defenses.  You need something specifically designed to counter plasma attacks to ward off this type of damage.


CORROSIVE - Acids, alien spit, natural gas, oxidation, anything that eats away at the structure and integrity of your body or gear would fit here.  You require some sort of defense that is wards off attempts to melt away your cohesion.


RADIATION - As it bypasses most defenses by just ignoring the existence of matter, it needs its own sort of category.  It doesn't quite fit Thermal or Biological dangers as the effect it has on the DNA is quite serious.


I wouldn't use things like Chemical because you can just determine what sort of chemical reaction is taking place and pick a better category.  Everything in the universe is already a chemical reaction anyway.

I'd like to go against this argument a bit, since the damaging part of temperature change is the exchange of thermal energy in itself, which is why extreme cold burns and the same materials are used to isolate something against both types of temperature exchange, both in nature and artificially...


But then I remembered that, as much as the exchange's damage is the same, the result is just as damaging, like extreme cold causing hypothermia and freezing materials like some liquids, or even just making metals brittle, while extreme heat melting materials like plastics and in extremes even metals...


And if you make a system to check if they are used in sequence, alternating heat and cold weakens almost anything. Few exceptions, thermal shock is used in culinary.


The process is the same in the end but, as was pointed, the end result may have many different responses...

Those previously mentioned are also just low sci-fi damage types.  In a high sci-fi setting, technology has ways to counter many of these to the point that non-atomic manipulation is harmless.  Ways of handling radiation, biological assaults, natural forms of death itself, electricity and temperature burns, all potentially shielded and corrected by automated systems.  What you get in those RPG settings are various forms of subatomic ammunition, each with an extremely different effect.


Vibration - Firing streams of particles that accelerates the atomic frequency of the body can cause a chain reaction that burns it out of existence like a disintegration beam or explode from too much amplitude.


Disruptor - Particle stream that breaks the bonds between molecules and essentially turns you into the very elements you're constructed of.  The target mostly turns into a gas and a pile of goop.


Antimatter - Complete and total annihilation of the very matter you are formed of, erasing foes from existence by utterly destroying them.


Plasma - Death by thermal transfer via an extremely hot, extremely excited state of matter that melts or evaporates any solid matter it touches.


Hyperkinetic - Hitting something with super accelerated electrons, neutrons, or protons has tremendous kinetic energy transfer and almost no room for defense as the particles and impact area are far too small.


Phasing - These weapons can change the resonance of matter, transforming it effectively into energy/radiation and allowing it to pass through other matter.  Very devastating if your heart was suddenly out of phase with the universe.


Temporal - Damage sustained to one's place in space-time can cause matter to be pushed from its proper place in time, dimensions, and reality itself which often results in a very messy death as the target is literally ripped apart by existing in two places at once.

Maybe look at something like Star Trek Online or Space Empires too.  STO has things like Phaser, Disruptor, Anti-Proton Beam, Phased Polaron Beam, Photon Torpedo, Quantum Torpedo, Plasma Torpedo, Chroniton Torpedo, etc.  SE has things like incinerator beams, graviton hellbores, meson blasters, etc, and specialized psionic, crystaline, temporal and biological weapons.  SE doesn't have damage types like an RPG would, but it has weapons like ionic disruptors which specifically target engine components or phased polaron beams that ignore normal shielding but not phased shielding, or point defense weapons which can damage fighters and seekers but not ships or planets, or anti-proton beams that do more damage at close range and less damage at long range.  GURPS also has sci-fi campaign settings you could look at.  



I can think of:
Kinetic


Heat


Freeze (or Anti-Heat, Absolute Zero, Exothermic, etc)


Electron/Electrolaser


Acid/Alkaline


Bio-Virus


Cyber-Virus


Waveform/Sonic/Seismic


EMP


Plasma


Photon (In sci-fi, consider also photonic molecules)  


Ion


Radiation


Atomic (like an actual atom bomb or something that destabilizes or aggravates nuclear forces)  


Inertial (or Anti-Inertial, a weapon or power that modifies the properties of inertia)


Neutron/Neutrino


Entropy Wave


Disintegrator (something that breaks down chemical bonds or atomic structure)  


Graviton


Anti-Matter


Dark Matter


Dark Energy


Quantum (whatever sort of sci-fi technobabble you want)  


Strangelet


Exoticle (Exotic Particle, similar to a strangelet or strange quark but make up your own rules) 


Hyperspace/Wormhole/Warp (something that causes space-time to distort)  


Phasic (i.e. makes things out of phase)  


In terms of game design, I would try to think about what you are using them for.  Like, is it a matter of humans using photon weapons while space-elves prefer plasma weapons and space-dwarves prefer graviton weapons?  Would it be something like robots are susceptible to EMP and cyber-virus but not diseases or radiation, or humans are susceptible to psionic attacks while space-elves are not?  Do elements cause special status changes, like Heat attacks causing burns or radiation causes cancer?  How do you protect yourself from different elements, do you wear a dark-matter proof suit or adjust your shield frequency to compensate for the effect of disintegrators?  Would using equipment cause you to become weak to certain elements, for example, if you're using powered armor, would it make you weak to EMP attacks or can a heat beam be disabled if hit with a freeze ray?  How does a player sense what will be susceptible to something like inertial or photonic weapons?