Most personal weapons are either ballistics or, in the case of mercenary and milspec forces, railguns and gauss rifles. Ships are generally armed with maser banks for ship to ship combat, but capital ships and ships specifically built for assaulting stationary or slow targets may have close-range railgun or gauss ballistics for orbital strikes or broadside attacks. Microwave emitters and electrolasers are a commonly used for riot control and crowd pacification, especially in areas where there is a chance for ballistics to rupture the hull and vent a compartment. There are a very small number of extremely expensive, generally experimental hand-held energy weapons, such as directed particle rifles, but these are considered too costly and too unreliable for general use.

The largest ballistic weapon manufacturers are generally found in and around the Kuiper belt and the inner edges of the outer rim. Energy weapons, being experimental and expensive, are generally the province of navy research projects or corporate R&D.