Ships & Modules

Different companies use different conventions even in real life weapons. To expand on the pistol example in the last post, a springfield armory sidearm of similar caliber will typical use a slide that cylindrical on the top part or even doesn't cover the barrel completely, whereas the glock's slide is a rectangular prism and covers the barrel completely (well, except the open bit, obviously). This is for guns so similar in function that they literally use the same ammo and can use the same holster, they're just designed by different companies.

If you move into military-grade hardware where the same company that makes the weapon typically makes the ammo, variations in visible design for weapons that do basically the same thing get even weirder. Shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, for instance, have some wildly varying aesthetics in both launcher and ammo even if you restrict your search to just unguided missiles, which basically all just throw some explosives strapped to some other explosives at something you want to go boom.

So, back to the game context, it's entirely reasonable that the company holding the original design specs (which, if you'll recall your eve lore, can't be substantially altered without bringing the wrath of the whole galaxy down on you) for a 120mm cannon is a completely different company that used different cost-effectiveness criteria in its design work from whoever holds the original patent on the 200. Applies to ammo, too, given we're talking military-grade hardware.



Our modern guns use a geometry where the trigger is under the barrel and the sight is on top because that's how crossbows were designed, crossbows have that geometry because sighting along the top of the arrow is the traditional way to work a longbow and they wanted a design using a similar stance. A longbow is held vertically, giving it that geometry, because its predecessor the manual spear-launcher functioned best in the vertical plane (it doesn't actually make a difference in the bow's case. The spear launcher was developed based on enhancing the way spears are most effectively thrown (overhand).

Modern gun design does in fact trace back to the design concerns of stone-tipped spears. There's no _logical_ reason not to have, say, the gun's barrel slung along your forearm with a trigger near the front and a sight along the side.

(Note: some of that was mildly speculative, not actually an engineering historian by profession)

Side note: The ammo _icons_ are round, there's not actually any graphical representation of the ammo itself in the game, save for the vague steak of light going from your ship to a target. And icons actually traditionally look like some older version of what they represent that's more visually distinct than what they're actually showing. The battery icon on my phone looks like a cylindrical alkaline battery even though it's neither, the microphone icon in most software looks like a studio-grade condenser mic that most studios don't even use nowadays, the icon for scrap metal in-game doesn't look like actual scrap in space, etc.

I believe everyone has just been schooled

Nevermind all of that ... what about different caliber barrels using the same ammo?

I blame Icelandic folk magic.