Poll: Favoured technology for beam point defence.

[Iranon]

At reasonable tech levels, I prefer 10cm Railguns. With very little tech investment, they have a higher output per ton than endgame Gauss cannons.
Putting the considerable weight savings (bulky weapons, turret gear and fire controls) into engines partially solves the accuracy issues, among other benefits.

[Viridia]

I don't think I've ever settled on one definitively. My TATO game had a mix of Gauss-based CIWS and 10cm lasers. Truth be told, I've never even considered mesons for AM-defence, though I'm sure I've used 10cm railguns for it because I've seen that on a few AARs and designs on the forum. It would be quite interesting, I think, to see a design utilising say, counter-missiles at extreme range, lasers at long range, railguns at medium range, and gauss at short range together.

[sublight]

I've always had a soft spot for reduced sized laser batteries, even if they are completely ineffective at resisting sustained AMM fire.

[GreatTuna]

Well, I prefer it mixed. Gauss\100mm lasers for final defense fire, larger lasers for area defense, mesons for PDCs (because they don't have much choice), AMMs for long-range interception. Since they usually stay on the same level, I can't choose on which one I use more.

[Brian Neumann]

I personally like meson's as they are a great backup weapon for close in defense.  While they are short ranged, they still do better than railguns or gauss cannons, and their ability to ignore armor helps when enemy ships get to close.  This is particularly important for jump point battles and battles within a nebula where the ranges tend to be short and rate of fire becomes important.

Brian

[alex_brunius]

I use Gauss turrets with good tracking speeds for everything except very fast dual purpose armed screens (which use railguns).

Even if railguns can get 5 times as much fire rate per ton, nothing beats the reliability of gauss turrets IMO. A beam point defense needs to work well on slower ships as well such as Capital ships and Carriers too, and that is not the case for railguns.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I think that a combination of Gauss and Laser PD are the most efficient while Rail-Guns can be useful in certain situations but not as the main beam PD role.

Lasers are good since they can be used in so many different ways while Gauss are the best against smaller and faster missiles, lasers are better against larger, slower and more armored missiles.

[Vandermeer]

I have never really cared whether they are the best, but I use lasers simply because they fit in the double role of main beam attack(with piercing) and defense, as well as that they can easily be renamed to fit different scifi franchise roles.
For civils however I use a good amount of CIWS, as large ships can easily be covered with these things without any serious cost. For example, a TL5-6 freighter with 20 holds and 50% engines had 50 ciws which only used up 1.5% of the total mass and 4.5% of costs, but defended with 400 shots. With 50% targeting, some loss from targeting speed, but also some win from crew grade, that means around 150-200 missiles get blocked per interval. ...Complete immunization against missiles basically.
I do the same for military mothership role designs.(roughly one ciws per 25kt once they exceed 60kt)

[joeclark77]

Mesons, because they're the only ones that work on PDCs, and because I like to use meson FACs/fighters I will be investing in the tech anyway.  Also AMMs.

[SteelChicken]

I play with different tech types in different games.  I kind of like pursuing rail gun tech, because they can be used as both beam offense and missile defense.   With railguns, you really dont need to do CIWS research spending.

I use mesons for PDC's to skip the atmosphere, and then either laser/CIWS or railgun strategies depending on my mood.

Lasers are fun *pew pew* but by tonnage, rail guns seem to work much better.

[sneer]

considering that sooner or later you will need to face really deep armor enemies I prefer piercing aspect of laser weapons any time
gauss for PD
if enemies were shield heavy rails cound be a good option

[Arwyn]

early tech= railguns. They are hard to beat, high RoF, good damage, and decent targetting and range.

As tech progresses, I go to Gauss and Lasers. As the tech goes up, Gauss RoF becomes respectable, and the tracking tech increases make them increasingly useful. Lasers for the range, and the offense/defense capability.

I have randomed (tech generation) and wound up with Mesons. They do remarkably well, but suffer from the low RoF that lasers do.

[swarm_sadist]

I use meson. Gives your invasion force an extra kick; double bonus for invasion and planetary defence. For all other ships my defence goes: ECM, shields, armour, then CIWS.

Against enemies with a much higher tech level than me I get destroyed.

[sneer]

ciws is not solution for bigger fleet

[Iranon]

I love how varied the preferences are, with good reason for most.

Nevertheless, my own preference is quite clear:
Railguns can outperform Gauss weapons at all tech levels. Main question: "Do I have to make my ships unreasonably fast for railguns to be competitive?"
Initially, the answer is a definite "no, because early Gauss weapons are terrible".
Later, I can't quite justify the research investment into Gauss to gain a legitimate but not compelling option (more efficient if speed isn't valued much in itself)
When the effort to make Gauss weaponry competitive starts to look reasonable, I find I often have reasons other than PD efficiency to go for fast ships.

Lasers and Mesons seem quite weak in comparison, but I've employed them as multipurpose weapon to the near-exclusion of dedicated PD.
Turreted 15cm lasers do something against everything in beam range, and many things extremely well.
Mesons... have specific advantages which I found too specific on ships for the most part.  However, they're a welcome option for PDCs.