Having seen the last episodes of "The Expanse", I was wondering if beam weapons could be modified in a way, that the shots are actual objects (like rockets), and that could put them over the 5 seconds range limit, so they could become a little "rangier" than at the moment. Not much, maybe they loose quite an amount of energy when going into their second cycle, and at most into a third. But I think, warfare could benefit a litttle from this... .
Expanse spoiler:
Or it could enable those nice railguns with which Earth destroyed the MCRNs first strike capability. But that would mean that they become very, very costly to fit into Aurora... .