I see two primary weaknesses of this design.
first is range. Given the tech level of your other components, 192kkm beam range is rather short. A 256kkm fire control is within your reach, although this could easily be handled via a refit.
Second is dat MSP. The damn thing might break on the way to its assigned sector or on the way back. I would sacrifice an armor layer or some of the fuel to add additional engineering spaces.
My unimaginative scientists have been chided and have been tasked with improving the range of our laser weaponry.
These 1st generation warships are meant only for local defense of systems that contain colonies able to maintain and resupply them. With that said, I don't doubt that it's meager MSP allotment will create some problems until addressed.
Still not convinced about that weaponry, not just the FC aspects.
Using 4x4 Meson Cannons 'mostly for point defence' is suspect when Railguns are so efficient on a moderately fast ship. Little or no additional research is required, and volume of fire instead of high tracking speed means we don't need sophisticated fire controls to be effective.
4x4 Meson Cannons make more sense as general purpose weapons - only mediocre point defence, but reliable damage dealers. But that's tricky too, as then we need to consider synergy with our long-ranged weapons.
If someone crosses into Meson Range, our firepower is split between medium-sized lasers that'll scratch the paint badly but can't be expected to burn through defences in a single shot, and peashooters that ignore defences.
This is wasteful. Equal-sized laser turrets would take better advantage of existing armour damage, and have considerably longer range so we could slave them to the long-range fire control for enhanced capabilities at range. Since unturreted and turreted guns are only one size apart and the larger cannons have the same RoF with your capacitor tech, unifying everything including fire control would be better still.
Getting truly long range with Mesons is expensive and we don't gain damage potential in the bargain. Fitting lasers to a primarily-Meson ship for cheap shots is fine in principle, but I struggle to find an implementation that wouldn't be better as something else.
I see the main appeal of Mesons mainly for things other than mainline combat vessels: fighters, fast snipers (especially against certain spoilers), support for boarding actions, PDCs where other beam weapons would be ineffective...
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Whether the MSP situation is a problem depends on many details... as it is, it seems a serious limitation but not an unreasonable one given the intended use.
A missile research expert has finally joined our academic team so railguns may be an option in the near future. Since I'm concentrating on defense at the moment, she's currently working on gauss cannon related research.
The meson cannons were chosen for a number of reasons. I want to experiment with beam based weaponry and the expertise exists to do so. They are more for additional offensive firepower, especially when multiple targets exist, than for missile defense at this time. They can also be used for planetary defense. Research into meson based fighters is in full swing and will likely be a focus in our tactical planning.
I really appreciate the feedback you all are providing.