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This thread is intended to be an attempt at listing a boatload of archaeotech. Things like Volkite Weapons, Spyrer Hunting Rigs, even Gloriana Void Ships.

I'll start it off with Volkite technology:
Basically Martian heatrays. They were designed to superheat a material and force said material to transfer the heat to whatever is underneath it. What does this mean? It means that anybody wearing armour is going to burn alive inside of their armour, while their armour melts around them (even if the armour has heat resistance, like Space Marine Power Armour does). It also has excellent anti-armour capabilities, depending on the form of Volkite weapon. If you were to fire it at an un-armoured infantryman, his innards and outtards would combust together, and he would run around crying like a little girl for half a second before keeling over dead. Some forms, like the Volkite Culverin, fire even faster than a Heavy Bolter, and are excellent for anti-infantry and anti-vehicle combat (enough blasts hit a vehicle to basically melt all of its internal components). Volkite technology reached its penultimate form in Volkite Carronades, which can turn an entire tank formation into molten slag with a single shot (it's kind of like a flamer with its range, but its heating capabilities are well beyond any flamer). If it weren't for the insane difficulty of manufacture, these things would still be standard issue among Space Marines, and would probably have variants mounted on Battletitans.

Depends on how strictly you define archeotech. Is it anything without a known STC?

It's a bit of a fool's errand, to be honest - for example, there's an archeotech grav gun in Gods of Mars, despite the fact that grav guns are common among the Marines.

Archaeotech is anything dating back to the Dark Age of Technology afaik.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Archaeotech is anything dating back to the Dark Age of Technology afaik.

But that includes everything the IoM has. With some exceptions such as storm bolters and the Razorback, all human tech consists of leftovers from the DaoT.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
It's a bit of a fool's errand, to be honest - for example, there's an archeotech grav gun in Gods of Mars, despite the fact that grav guns are common among the Marines.

Aye, this is a futile exercise. For example, the Speranza from the "x of mars" series has


Then, you've got the Jocasta pattern grav-attack and all manner of stuff in the FW Horus Heresy books referenced. You'd need to go through nearly every 40k book as they're mentioned everywhere!

Archaeotech items are, generally, things which date back that still function but the Imperium can no longer produce - and, in many cases, doesn't know how they work.

So a standard Mk.V Godwyn Bolter isn't Archaeotech, but a relic like Dorn's Arrow or Primarch's Wrath probably is.

Volkite weapons are presumably archaeotech because they don't seem to be fielded anymore. Vortex weapons are usually referred to as archeotech.

Also note that "we can't build it and we don't understand it" means that the definition of archaeotech depends on the perception of the viewer.

Pistol-scale plasma weapons are rare, expensive and ill-understood technology from the perspective of an Imperial Noble or Guard officer, but a Mechanicus archmagos probably builds them in his spare time as a sort of intellectual tai chi.

Teleporters are often referred to as 'archaeotech', but the grey knights have access to man-portable systems vastly more advanced than anything the Imperial navy and other chapters ever dreamed of. It's just that no-one else knows this.

 zedmeister wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
It's a bit of a fool's errand, to be honest - for example, there's an archeotech grav gun in Gods of Mars, despite the fact that grav guns are common among the Marines.

Aye, this is a futile exercise. For example, the Speranza from the "x of mars" series has

Spoiler:

Inertia-less drives, the Chrono-weapon, and other lovelies.

Then, you've got the Jocasta pattern grav-attack and all manner of stuff in the FW Horus Heresy books referenced. You'd need to go through nearly every 40k book as they're mentioned everywhere!

The Speranza does not have an inertialess drive, lol.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 zedmeister wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
It's a bit of a fool's errand, to be honest - for example, there's an archeotech grav gun in Gods of Mars, despite the fact that grav guns are common among the Marines.

Aye, this is a futile exercise. For example, the Speranza from the "x of mars" series has

Spoiler:

Inertia-less drives, the Chrono-weapon, and other lovelies.

Then, you've got the Jocasta pattern grav-attack and all manner of stuff in the FW Horus Heresy books referenced. You'd need to go through nearly every 40k book as they're mentioned everywhere!

The Speranza does not have an inertialess drive, lol.

That is not the same as Inertialess Drive.

Inertialess Drive not only allows non-warp FTL, it allows instant cessation of motion and instantaneous redirection of momentum.

It means the a stopping distance of zero.

Note that that's the information stored in the Speranza (whose main machine spirit core seems to be as close to a functioning STC as the adeptus mechanicus have come in quite a few thousand years). The ship itself is not necessarily fitted with one.

locarno24 wrote:
Note that that's the information stored in the Speranza (whose main machine spirit core seems to be as close to a functioning STC as the adeptus mechanicus have come in quite a few thousand years). The ship itself is not necessarily fitted with one.

It's more or less equiped with one, it's just that the AdMech is too stupid to comprehend the fact that a moon-sized Navy Ship/ mobile Forge World made during the DAoT would very likely have massive databanks regarding the construction of the very things it was originally intended to construct.

One of the reasons they don't know exactly what was lost is because they've never recovered an ENTIRE STC database - only fragments and the odd files.

Imagine them finding a pristine iPad full of Facebook, instagram, twitter, etc...

 chromedog wrote:
One of the reasons they don't know exactly what was lost is because they've never recovered an ENTIRE STC database - only fragments and the odd files.

The Admech is trying to do that now.

They're sending billions of Skitarii and bots to try and take a Daemon world for the Omnicopaeia.

It will give them STC data for every device with a psyker component.
It is literally the most important thing ever, and could potentially save the Imperium.
Or at least make killing things way easier.