I notice all of your armed fighters had missiles. What about beam type weapons?
As with the existing fighters, beam weapons are not very useful because beam fire control tends to be larger than missile fire control, a reactor is required and the beam weapons themselves are quite large. In Starfire, the fighter lasers were completely overpowered and far more effective than their ship-based counterparts in terms of power vs mass.
I guess one option would be some type of slow-firing weapon along the same lines as a slow firing missile launcher but you would still need the fire control. A reasonable 1 HS fire control using the current Templar tech would be possible using 50% for range and 1.5x for speed.
Fighter Fire Control50% Accuracy at Range: 12,000 km Tracking Speed: 4800 km/s
Size: 1 HTK: 1 Cost: 27 Crew: 5
Chance of destruction by electronic damage: 100%
Materials Required: 6.75x Duranium 20.25x Uridium
Development Cost for Project: 270RP.
That would allow:
Sepulchre class Fighter 375 tons 48 Crew 84.6 BP TCS 7.5 TH 36 EM 0
4800 km/s Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 3
Fighter Ion Engine (1) Power 36 Efficiency 100.00 Signature 36 Armour 0 Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres Range 1.2 billion km (2 days at full power)
10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (1) Range 24,000km TS: 4800 km/s Power 3-3 RM 3 ROF 5 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fighter Fire Control (1) Max Range: 24,000 km TS: 4800 km/s 58 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor (1) Total Power Output 3 Armour 0 Exp 5%
The reactor has enough power to maintain the 5 second rate of fire so although the fighter is slow and only effective at point blank range, it has a lot more staying power than the missile fighters.
Its possible that beam weapons could be reduced in size for a much lower rate of fire, although I don't think that you could get the same savings as you could with missile launchers because the reload mechanism is probably a much greater part of the launcher than the recharge mechanism on a beam weapon, especially as the power source is external. However, bearing in mind that beam weapons are usually faster firing anyway, lets assume that a beam weapon could be reduced in size by 25% for a drop in 4x increase in rate of fire and it could be reduced to 50% of normal size for a 20x increase in ROF (this compares to 50% reduction for 5x increase in ROF for a missile weapon). This gives us cut-down versions of the 10cm and 12cm lasers that are both 2 HS. As the 12cm is more powerful, I'll use that. I'll also only use a visible light laser as range is not really a factor given the fire control limitations.
12cm Fighter LaserDamage Output 4 Rate of Fire: 135 seconds Range Modifier: 2
Max Range 80,000 km Laser Size: 2 Laser HTK: 1
Power Requirement: 4 Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 0.15
Cost: 6 Crew: 10
Materials Required: 1.2x Duranium 1.2x Boronide 3.6x Corundium
Development Cost for Project: 60RP
I have added 0.1 HS and 0.2 HS options for reactors. Even the basic Pressurised Water Reactor provides enough power so I will go with the cheapest option.
Mini-PWRPower Output: 0.2 Internal Armour: 0 Explosion Chance: 5
Reactor Size: 0.1 Reactor HTK: 1
Cost: 1 Crew: 1
Materials Required: 0.25x Duranium 0x Neutronium 0.75x Boronide
Development Cost for Project: 10RP
These improve the fighter to:
Sepulchre class Fighter 300 tons 27 Crew 66.4 BP TCS 6 TH 36 EM 0
6000 km/s Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 2
Fighter Ion Engine (1) Power 36 Efficiency 100.00 Signature 36 Armour 0 Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres Range 1.4 billion km (2 days at full power)
12cm Fighter Laser (1) Range 24,000km TS: 6000 km/s Power 4-0.15 RM 2 ROF 135 4 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fighter Fire Control (1) Max Range: 24,000 km TS: 4800 km/s 58 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mini-PWR (1) Total Power Output 0.20 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Very different to the missile armed fighters but I guess it could be considered an assault fighter as its combat power over time is vastly superior to the missile armed fighters. The offset is that it's slower and needs to reach point blank range
Steve