For the purpose of these questions I'll put the weapons in three groups, lasers, the TL 9 caseless weapons, and the TL 10 Gauss rifles.
1. Match Grade Ammo: Lasers I suppose are out of the question on this one, but is it reasonable to say that the slug throwers in Ultra Tech could have match grade ammo? Match grade ammo as described by GURPS includes two important manufacturing ideas, the slugs themselves are precisely machined, and great precision is taken with the exact number of the grains of powder.
Obviously, Gauss weapons don't have to worry about the powder, but the caseless weapons might. Not exactly "powder" of course, but the same precision could be taken with the exact mass and shape of the propellant blocks.
Both Gauss and caseless weapons however could have the precisely machined slugs.
I think that the answer has more to do with what the already pretty high Acc of the weapons represent. Is match grade ammo something you need to spend time on and purchase separately, or is it already included in the base Acc of the weapon? TL 9 and 10 manufacturing processes are probably good enough that something that TL 8 would consider match grade, a TL 9 or 10 manufacturer would consider average even in mass production. Then you get a new question in this unending string of questions, if the TL 9 or 10 standard is equivalent to TL 8 match grade, can you then make something even more precisley at TL 9 or 10 that makes enough of a difference for GURPS to consider it worth of an Acc bonus? Sure, you can probably keep making these things more and more precise as you go up in TL, to the point where you're deciding the location of specific atoms. But at some point you're going to get diminishing returns.
2. Match Grade barrels: This has essentially the same list of questions as the first case. Sure, maybe you can more precisely machine the barrels for the weapons, but does it make enough of a difference to matter? For lasers I'm guessing that the answer is no, but maybe someone will surprise me. (As a side question, is a match grade barrel part of making something Fine or Very Fine, or can you do both?)
The TL9 caseless weapons seem like they're the best contenders, if only because TL9 is not too far ahead, and the weapons at least resemble modern ones.
1. Match Grade Ammo: Lasers I suppose are out of the question on this one, but is it reasonable to say that the slug throwers in Ultra Tech could have match grade ammo? Match grade ammo as described by GURPS includes two important manufacturing ideas, the slugs themselves are precisely machined, and great precision is taken with the exact number of the grains of powder.
Obviously, Gauss weapons don't have to worry about the powder, but the caseless weapons might. Not exactly "powder" of course, but the same precision could be taken with the exact mass and shape of the propellant blocks.
Both Gauss and caseless weapons however could have the precisely machined slugs.
I think that the answer has more to do with what the already pretty high Acc of the weapons represent. Is match grade ammo something you need to spend time on and purchase separately, or is it already included in the base Acc of the weapon? TL 9 and 10 manufacturing processes are probably good enough that something that TL 8 would consider match grade, a TL 9 or 10 manufacturer would consider average even in mass production. Then you get a new question in this unending string of questions, if the TL 9 or 10 standard is equivalent to TL 8 match grade, can you then make something even more precisley at TL 9 or 10 that makes enough of a difference for GURPS to consider it worth of an Acc bonus? Sure, you can probably keep making these things more and more precise as you go up in TL, to the point where you're deciding the location of specific atoms. But at some point you're going to get diminishing returns.
2. Match Grade barrels: This has essentially the same list of questions as the first case. Sure, maybe you can more precisely machine the barrels for the weapons, but does it make enough of a difference to matter? For lasers I'm guessing that the answer is no, but maybe someone will surprise me. (As a side question, is a match grade barrel part of making something Fine or Very Fine, or can you do both?)
The TL9 caseless weapons seem like they're the best contenders, if only because TL9 is not too far ahead, and the weapons at least resemble modern ones.
Match grade ultra tech ammo and match grade barrels?
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