Combat in the future follows the logical conclusions of various obvious trends in warfare.
Lensers
Linear direct fire energy weapons known as lensers are popular, as they can quickly toggle between functionality as a camera and a laser weapon. This allows among other tricks, being able to fire from cover without exposing oneself as much as with a regular firearm. Lensers can fire electromagnetic beams of varying wavelength, with the most powerful being gamma rays. In space, good gamma lensers are nearly undetectable as they lack a muzzle flash or sound. However, in an atmosphere, thermal blooming will create a visible and audible beam of superheated plasma along the path of the gamma lenser’s gamma ray stream. This makes them vulnerable to counter fire. Lower power beams such as lasers are less penetrating and can be used as the situation requires. In certain modes a lenser can deliver an electronics disabling electromagnetic pulse, or even cause a human to faint through electromagnetic overstimulation of the brain, which is a useful non-lethal technique.
Seekers
Indirect drone devices often carried as grenades or launched as missiles are known as seekers and are semi-autonomous, homing in on targets as directed by their controllers before attacking with lensers, radiation bursts, kinetic ramming, or detonating explosively with their onboard antimatter battery or micro black hole. Seekers can be cloaked and/or carry shields. A common tactic with seekers is to accelerate towards a target and then switch on shields to allow a powerful kinetic ramming attack that the seeker can survive and repeat.
Cloaking
Historical armour was eventually replaced by camouflage, and the eventual development stemming from that is that standard infantry of the future are equipped with cloaking devices that can effectively conceal both sight and sound. A particularly advanced implementation is based on phasing, which allows avoidance of even weight-based traps. Phasing involves shifting to a different dimension of space, and so a soldier must leave phasing in order to interact with the world again, meaning that they must decloak to attack, rendering them vulnerable at that moment.
Shields
A shield protects the wielder from attack. It does this by surrounding them with a lattice of tiny drone anchors at each vertex, which can, on a moment’s notice, connect to other anchors to form a solid plane of special matter between them. The planes block or reflect any particles or projectiles such as seekers attempting to move through it. Normally, while trying to hide, the shield is kept down, with specific facets of the shield only activating to intercept a particle or projectile that is detected. However, once engaged, its common to keep most of the shield up as a form of cover. Specific facets of the shield can be deactivated, creating a window to the outside that a wielder can fire weapons through. Shields generally appear like a translucent white surface and can be used to push or even ram targets. Shields block light and matter from both inside and outside, but usually when active are set to flicker at nanosecond intervals, allowing sufficient light to enter and exit to allow partial transparency without allowing most attacks to penetrate. Thus, from the inside, the world appears noticeably darker and often greyish. Attack from Lensers can potentially bypass a shield before it is activated because the speed of light attack is too fast to detect and intercept. Phasing can also bypass a shield, potentially allowing seekers to attack those inside.
Reality Manipulation
The Mind Activated Global Interaction Command (MAGIC) system allows its wielder to bend reality to their imagination, but only up to a certain distance away via localized reality control fields. This is extraordinarily powerful but has one key limitation. The wielder must be aware of a thing to control it.
Temporal Intelligence
Time travellers are particularly dangerous as they often record the details of the battle and are then able to send this information back to themselves earlier, allowing them to know things that would otherwise be difficult to sense or detect on the first pass alone. This often gives them a decisive advantage.
Anti-Stasis Field
Sometimes referred to as hyperreality fields or pocket dimensions, this is when time is stopped for everyone but those inside the field.
Battle Pod
An example of an effective combat drone is the battle pod. This appears like a floating sphere about the size of a basketball. It has a lenser as well as a shield, and carries a small squadron of seekers that it deploy. Despite its small size, a battle pod is a deadly weapon and can take down entire platoons singlehandedly if they are not sufficiently advanced.