Type-44 rifle

The Type-44 (44式自动步枪), also known as the 44-Shiki, 44-Shi, or in Aoyaman slang, Double Death) is a Aoyaman selective-fire, gas-operated assault rifle widely proliferated in Yamatai, primarily in Aoyama. Its official name is the 44-shi Zidong Buqiang.

Design on the Type-44 was completed within three weeks in 2144 by Beifang designers. The rifle was designed to be rapidly mass-produced solely with 3D fabrication for military and civilian use, unlike other weapons which generally require non-3D fabricated parts in addition to fabricated components. Beyond Beifang's own subsidiary factories, the digital schematics and production rights for the Type-44 were sold openly online to corporate and military groups by Beifang. Consequently, over time the schematics for the Type-44 became heavily pirated, available widely for free and allowing civilians and criminals to 3D-print their own rifles.

Even after over four centuries the model and its variants remain the most popular and widely used assault rifles in the region because of their substantial reliability under harsh conditions, customisability, ease of use and wide availability. It is impossible to know how many guns are in existence, but it is estimated that there are over 16 billion Type-44 variant rifles in existence, produced by some 120,000 largely unaffiliated factories and an unknown number of private producers. The Type-44's digital schematic is also one of the most digitally pirated data in history.