The "Quick Question about C# Aurora" thread with its discussion about the beam weapon range limits has given me an idea for handling beam weapons fire outside that increment.
I mean, we would all like to be able to fire at ranges over 1.5m km, even at tiny tiny chances to hit, the only issue is one of displaying it on the main map, if I am not mistaken? If that is the problem, then how about simply *not* displaying it? What I mean is, you create 'projectiles' for lasers the same way you do for missiles. They have a speed, they home like missiles (bear with me), they never change target and they dont go dumb when the ship that fired them dies. And then, you don't show these projectiles to anyone. Not the person who fired them, nor the people who they are being shot at.
Its homing property is simply an abstraction of the quantum hoops the firing ship jumps through to predict where a target is going to be in 10 seconds time. At larger time intervals (1minute plus) I can see how this can become shaky, but as these shots should only ever hit at a maximum of 20 - 30 seconds (4 to 6 ticks) out, I think there should never be any grossly impossible situations. Lorewise, you could fluff it as one ship's computer learning the other's randomization algorithms (and using large area attacks, as in the original Starfire). You could even make heading changes destroy all incoming beam fire (human decisionmaking invalidates learning the ship's evasion pattern to predict its future position) if you dont want the potential immersion breaker of "how could that ship have known to aim there when I didnt even know I was going to be there!".
For detection, you can make the ship that fires them experience a 'heat bloom' with higher thermal signiture the moment it does so that the victim can know they are being shot at even before the shot hits.
This has the advantage of unifying beam and missile behaviour into one set with mechanics, with the only difference being whether or not to actually display the projectiles.