My first ever combat ship, need serious help!

[macks]

As far as meta gaming goes, is the ideal laser warship something with a lot of 100mm/150mm lasers or something with higher tech large lasers that dont fire as often? Especially since I always dump a lot of resources into capacitor recharge and laser diameter/range.  I really like lasers and I don't care for missiles at all.  What sort of PD laser works best, like should I ever put more than one laser in a turret or does that help at all? And does it matter what size the turreted laser is?

[Gabethebaldandbold]

[Edit: didnt realize there were 2 pages, was probably somewhat obnoxious and condescending, sorry]
Different calibers of lasers are better for different roles, big guns for killing big things, small guns for killing small things. there is no one caliber that is truly better, and you gotta know what you are expeting to face.
You will need diferent ships for different roles, and these will require varying calibers of lasers, so the more options the better. YOU WILL NEED THE BIG CALIBERS
lasers are not the best weapon for point defense though, that job has always been the Gauss Cannon's.
Puting more weapons per turret results in a bit more punch per size, say a single weapon turret is HS7, a quad turret might be size 26, saving you 2 HS. I think they also have more hit points, but dont quote me on that. less redundancy though, so depending on the ship, you might not want to do that.
and if you are ever in doubt, you can always check the forums

[Barkhorn]

Lasers can be good for layered point defense.  Lasers make up your outer layers, gauss is your inner layers.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I have played a few multi-faction campaigns in VB6 and my experience running multiple factions is that you want roughly three different weapon systems to have a good dynamic setup of weapons and choices. You can choose just one and become really good at it but the benefit of multiple weapon system is generally stronger from my experiences. It also does not take three times the research to have three weapon systems as many important technologies share research... such as capacitors, power plants, sensors and fire-controls. Using three types might increase the overall cost with 50-100% in total over using only one system, that means you will at most be one tech level ahead... sometimes not even that.

Lasers are though a very strong option if you go heavily into one type of weapon because they can be decently used in all categories. They have powerful spinal weapons, long range, good damage and penetration and can be effectively used as PD. If I were to use only one type then I think that Lasers are the strongest weapon of choice.

Beam weapons are although at a huge disadvantage to someone who use both beam and missile weapons. Missiles can be very difficult to defend against as they have the advantage of range and can be delivered in overwhelming attacks. Fighting against technologically superior who is using missile weapons is extremely difficult if you only have beam weapons.

Missiles on the other hand is extremely expensive which is something many forget. If you can effectively engage an enemy with beam weapons and win it will be far cheaper on your economy. But... at the same time... it does not matter if you have to expend twice the amount of resource if it means that you win your engagements and you have the economy to support it in the long run.
There is obviously also some ethical and philosophical parts to this which the game does not really account for as that is entirely part of role-play. If you can attrition the enemy to expend more resources in using missiles than he destroy beam ships for you, eventually you will win if both of your economies are equally strong. But from a moral point of view it might not be a tenable strategy doing that as only the side using beam weapons are really loosing crew and leaders by the thousands while the other side don't, but that is why Aurora is such a good game, that is up to you the player to decide how moral, politics, ethics and philosophies interact with what happens in the game.

[RaidersOfTheVerge]

Vanluven-Mccune 35,0cm C10 X-Ray Laser (4)    Range 600 000km     TS: 8 000 km/s     Power 32-10     RM 70 000 km    ROF 20       
Hrivnak Armaments Company Quad Heerdt Ordnance 12cm C10 X-Ray Laser Turret (4x4)    Range 280 000km     TS: 15000 km/s     Power 16-40     RM 70 000 km    ROF 5       
Siler & Gerardo Beam Fire Control R300-TS16000 (50%) (1)     Max Range: 300 000 km   TS: 16 000 km/s     97 93 90 87 83 80 77 73 70 67
Pilling-Maltba Electronic Systems Beam Fire Control R600-TS15200 (50%) (1)     Max Range: 600 000 km   TS: 15 200 km/s     98 97 95 93 92 90 88 87 85 83
Masek-Coghlan Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R40 (2)     Total Power Output 79    Exp 5%
Masek-Coghlan Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R40 (2)     Total Power Output 79    Exp 5%

Dorow-Fletes Electronic Systems Active Search Sensor AS134-R100 (50%) (1)     GPS 24000     Range 134,6m km    Resolution 100

So unless things have changed from AuroraVB, the maximum tracking speed of non-turreted weapons is the speed of the ship.  The 600k km fire control with the 15. 2k km/s tracking is wasted on the 35 cm lasers.  It could be useful to improve the hit chances of the turreted lasers however.  A possible better use of space would be a second Siler FC so your turrets can track a second target.  Also note that ECCM installations can only be assigned to 1 FC at a time.  Lastly, depending on your situation and preferences, the 135m km search sensor may be serious overkill on a beam ship.  A [fast] scout with the long range active search sensor can spot for short range ships, but does take more fleet coordination.  IMO all combatants ships need some active sensor, but not necessarily that much in excess of its weapons.

[LoSboccacc]

a small passive sensor fac with active search missile in a hangar can also save some of your experienced crew when you find something you really don't like (if you left a jump tender on the other side of the point, that is)