KriegsMeister's Conglomeration of Ideas for Fighters, FAC's, Ships, and Stations

[Steve Walmsley]

But we should really go back to calling them gunboats except without the gun part.

Fighter - Boat - Ship

Because FAC is Fast Attack Craft and the 500–1000-ton range is used for lot of different things. It could be Light Attack Craft, it could be Survey Boat, it could be Assault Shuttle, it could be Bomber, it could be Missile Boat, and so on and so forth.

The word 'FAC' only exists in Aurora in one specific place. The text at the bottom of the ship class summary that refers to auto-assignment category. If you can persuade everyone on the forum to start calling 1000-ton ships 'boats' instead of 'FACs', then I'll add an option to change that single word

[nuclearslurpee]

Steve, a way to work around the usage of a weapon made for a 50 ton fighter to be used and abused by bigger ships can be worked around as:
snip

A much simpler way to create a 50-ton fighter is to add a 0.25-HS Gauss cannon size into the DB. It's a very easy change (Steve could do it in like 2 minutes, if he wants to appease the mini-fighter lobby), and while I will always emphasize that Gauss weapons are quite terrible for anything other than point defense turrets, that is fine as a 50-ton fighter is not expected to be a force of nature anyways. You can get something like the below, which I designed offhand in a fairly high-tech test game in my modded DB, as it happened to be what loaded up, but shows the concept fairly well:

Off-Topic: 50-ton fighter with 0.25-HS Gauss Cannon • show

F-50 class Light Fighter (P)      50 tons       2 Crew       36 BP       TCS 1    TH 15    EM 0
15044 km/s      Armour 1-1       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0.25
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 9%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 1    5YR 9    Max Repair 19.2 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days    Morale Check Required   

Inertial Fusion Drive  EP15.00 (1)    Power 15.0    Fuel Use 979.80%    Signature 15.00    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 2,000 Litres    Range 0.74 billion km (13 hours at full power)

Gauss Cannon R500-4.00 (1x5)    Range 48,000km     TS: 15,044 km/s     Accuracy Modifier 4.00%     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R48-TS16000 (SW) (1)     Max Range: 48,000 km   TS: 16,000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0

Active Search Sensor AS6-R1 (1)     GPS 5     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This design is classed as a e for auto-assignment purposes

And while on the topic, small shield for fighters could work as well. And the idea is: They have to concentrate their shields into a far smaller target than a capital ship. But would require reactors and with a tonnage limit to fighters, it would require players to having to choose what they want, so balance is still kept. And it still not broken because a gauss cannon can shred a fighter just fine. If it hits all 5 shots, is 5 damage. Is probably more than the amount of shields the fighter has.

This doesn't make sense, nowhere else in the game is the presumed size of the mounting ship used as a modifier for the shield generators - you run into "why is this only for fighters?" which we need to avoid here.

The word 'FAC' only exists in Aurora in one specific place. The text at the bottom of the ship class summary that refers to auto-assignment category. If you can persuade everyone on the forum to start calling 1000-ton ships 'boats' instead of 'FACs', then I'll add an option to change that single word

We should call them helicopters just to really confuse people even more. 

[Froggiest1982]

To be honest the only "interesting" point IMHO is that Commercial engines should not have any size restriction. I guess the size was just to make it coherent with the larger components and shipyards.

I'm okay to keep the 50% power instead.

[Agraelgrimm]

Steve, a way to work around the usage of a weapon made for a 50 ton fighter to be used and abused by bigger ships can be worked around as:
1- require a weapon pod
2- It has a limited amount of ammo and has to be either spent or in case of a turret, have a small magazine for that. (unarmored, 100% chance of explosion by hit, single module, only size and ammo for dispenser
3- Make it kinetic, meaning, no energy weapons for that size, just slug throwers.
4- Because of the mechanics involved into making small sized weapons like these, no crew, but the need of a small reactor to keep everything working.

And while on the topic, small shield for fighters could work as well. And the idea is: They have to concentrate their shields into a far smaller target than a capital ship. But would require reactors and with a tonnage limit to fighters, it would require players to having to choose what they want, so balance is still kept. And it still not broken because a gauss cannon can shred a fighter just fine. If it hits all 5 shots, is 5 damage. Is probably more than the amount of shields the fighter has.

And for commercial ships, it would be nice to have them cost wealth. It would make players try and o Wealth being a thing, while making expansion be more planned. Also, while they are commercial ships, they are state made and state controlled, so they should cost something for the state... (As of now i think of them as a merchant navy of sorts...)

Why could only a small ship mount the above weapon - why not a 5000-ton point defence destroyer that would completely alter missile warfare? Why would this weapon explode when none of the others do? Even if only fighters could mount it, then a fighter swarm becomes the new point defence paradigm.

Well, because it would require a pod, limited ammo, accuracy would still be dependent on tech and racial tracking speed + ship speed.
Such weapon would be around 1 point damage, because its a fighter, not a destroyer. So, for bigger ships it can only really scrape  the armor, and range is still a factor. So a Destroyer would have lower speed, so a problem hitting it, it cannot use a fighter pod, the ammo is limited and needs a hangar to reload, and the range is limited as well.
And as it is, its well within what fighters can do, but it would have less tonnage overall because of smaller weapons systems.

A destroyer would be better off with a Gauss Cannon. And like stated before, those could shred said fighter if it doesnt have enough armor. And the bigger the armor, slower it gets, and etc.
And you could make such weapons research dependent, as it was in V6.

But anyway, its just a suggestion. You had really good points on the others, so i don't see a point in responding to them.

[ArcWolf]

Well, because it would require a pod, limited ammo, accuracy would still be dependent on tech and racial tracking speed + ship speed.
Such weapon would be around 1 point damage, because its a fighter, not a destroyer. So, for bigger ships it can only really scrape  the armor, and range is still a factor. So a Destroyer would have lower speed, so a problem hitting it, it cannot use a fighter pod, the ammo is limited and needs a hangar to reload, and the range is limited as well.
And as it is, its well within what fighters can do, but it would have less tonnage overall because of smaller weapons systems.

A destroyer would be better off with a Gauss Cannon. And like stated before, those could shred said fighter if it doesnt have enough armor. And the bigger the armor, slower it gets, and etc.
And you could make such weapons research dependent, as it was in V6.

But anyway, its just a suggestion. You had really good points on the others, so i don't see a point in responding to them.

In my post that inspired this one i presented a second idea, very much in-line with what you are presenting with 1 major difference. https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12898.msg158453#msg158453

As it stands, if you just down-size the weapon but keep the damage the same, then the damage/ton is far out of balance. In my post Steve mentions an idea he had of weapons that had a chance to do damage ( i assume using a similar mechanic to meson weapons) and i expanded on that.

a TLDR of my linked post: you can fit 3 .5HS Gauss Cannons in the same space and 1 10cm Single-Shot(SS) Railgun. If you give them the same Fire control, they have the same the (roughly) the same accuracy, about 1 hit every 30 seconds. If you make a weapon that has the same accuracy as a 10cm SS railgun, and has the same rate-of-fire (1 shot per 5s) but at 1/4 the size, then your better off putting 4 of these new weapons on the ship instead of 1 10cm SS Railgun.

My Idea in the linked post, on a small scale ie: 1-4 of these new guns would be about on par with a 10cm SS Railgun, but once you get have more then 4 of these new guns, Railguns are better in both space efficiency & damage since it takes into account the space saved by larger reactors that the railguns can use.

[serger]

#1a Rename Fighters as Boats

This point I agree completely.
Aurora really is a narrative building assistant, and so it will be much better if it will not use words, that imply some fixed purpose of small craft you try to build. Especially in early game, those Fighter Factories in some campaigns tend to build anything except fighters.
I'm not a native English speaker, yet it seems that Small Craft and Small Craft Factory are the best words.

The same with missiles. [Guided] Ordnance/Munition Factories and Guided Ordnance/Munition, may be.
Because in early game, where your narrative is forming, those Factories are often build only buoys and probes, not missiles.

#1b Combine FAC's into the Boat category

Not completely agree, yet it's really itching point of strict arbitrary lines, that looks silly - attention disclaimer! - not because a decision to make this line was ill-conceived, but because of the course of things, because it's really a problem in the nature of game development, and it's hard to break a habit of having such strict arbitrary lines after living with them all your life. Yet modern computers give us a way to avoid this problem!

What I can suggest about small craft definition - is to add for them a mandatory component, something like Landing Gear, which size will grow as k*(craft size)^2 or even k*(craft size)^3, so it will be just inefficient to make large small craft designs.
With such mandatory component it will be no arbitrary line, yet meaningful distinction between small craft and ships will remain.

As for Bridge component - I'll just make it the same as other C&C components: giving bonuses (or bonus multipliers), that are growing with crew size, yet not mandatory above some ship size. Any player will have an option to build large vessels without bridge - they'll just will have poor operation times and/or maint life (yet such a design can be a good choice in some special conditions). Any player will have an option to build small vessels with bridge - they'll just will have poor payload.

#2a Remove the Size Constraint for Commercial Engines

I like a suggestion to give up commercial ships' direct commands. Let AI command them, and if you want to have some ship under your direct command - well, it is then your job to pay attention to it's maint. At least it can be an option at the game level, the same as to switch maint off completely.

[Steve Walmsley]

Steve, a way to work around the usage of a weapon made for a 50 ton fighter to be used and abused by bigger ships can be worked around as:
1- require a weapon pod
2- It has a limited amount of ammo and has to be either spent or in case of a turret, have a small magazine for that. (unarmored, 100% chance of explosion by hit, single module, only size and ammo for dispenser
3- Make it kinetic, meaning, no energy weapons for that size, just slug throwers.
4- Because of the mechanics involved into making small sized weapons like these, no crew, but the need of a small reactor to keep everything working.

And while on the topic, small shield for fighters could work as well. And the idea is: They have to concentrate their shields into a far smaller target than a capital ship. But would require reactors and with a tonnage limit to fighters, it would require players to having to choose what they want, so balance is still kept. And it still not broken because a gauss cannon can shred a fighter just fine. If it hits all 5 shots, is 5 damage. Is probably more than the amount of shields the fighter has.

And for commercial ships, it would be nice to have them cost wealth. It would make players try and o Wealth being a thing, while making expansion be more planned. Also, while they are commercial ships, they are state made and state controlled, so they should cost something for the state... (As of now i think of them as a merchant navy of sorts...)

Why could only a small ship mount the above weapon - why not a 5000-ton point defence destroyer that would completely alter missile warfare? Why would this weapon explode when none of the others do? Even if only fighters could mount it, then a fighter swarm becomes the new point defence paradigm.

Well, because it would require a pod, limited ammo, accuracy would still be dependent on tech and racial tracking speed + ship speed.
Such weapon would be around 1 point damage, because its a fighter, not a destroyer. So, for bigger ships it can only really scrape  the armor, and range is still a factor. So a Destroyer would have lower speed, so a problem hitting it, it cannot use a fighter pod, the ammo is limited and needs a hangar to reload, and the range is limited as well.
And as it is, its well within what fighters can do, but it would have less tonnage overall because of smaller weapons systems.

A destroyer would be better off with a Gauss Cannon. And like stated before, those could shred said fighter if it doesnt have enough armor. And the bigger the armor, slower it gets, and etc.
And you could make such weapons research dependent, as it was in V6.

But anyway, its just a suggestion. You had really good points on the others, so i don't see a point in responding to them.

I am a little confused here. Why would only a fighter be able to mount the 'pod'?

If you have a weapon that does 1 point of damage and is much smaller than other weapons that does one point of damage, even if the ammo is 'limited' (as it can be reloaded), then it becomes a much more powerful weapon than the larger equivalent for both offence and point defence.

You need to come up with an idea for a 'fighter weapon' that is smaller than the current options, including the 1-shot railgun, yet can also be mounted on larger ships and for the same HS equivalent has the same or less combat power relative to the larger weapons for both attack and defence. So far the only realistic option is nuclearslurpee's 4% accuracy gauss.

[Steve Walmsley]

I'm not a native English speaker, yet it seems that Small Craft and Small Craft Factory are the best words.

If there was consensus on the forums, I could live with changing fighter factories to small craft factories and use 'small craft' instead of 'fighter' on the class summary categories. I think those are the only two places where the word 'fighter' actually appears in the game. Everyone will still call them fighters on the forums though, so it might be confusing for new players.

I really don't like 'boat' as potential terminology, as real world FACs are almost always a few hundred tons while an Ohio class SSBN at 18,000 tons is referred to as a 'boat'. I know we have a 'boat bay' component, which is a small hangar, but that has been in Aurora since the Starfire Assistant days (as it carried over from Starfire). If we went with the above change, that should probably become the 'small craft bay' or maybe just 'small hangar bay', although it doesn't have the same ring to it.

[Bremen]

Since this topic keeps coming up, I don't really have much to say, but I do want to add that I'm really happy with Steve's decision to not make weapons magically smaller/better because they're on a fighter. Way too many games decide to give "rocket pods" or whatever to fighters that magically do a ton of damage but somehow aren't an option on big ships. If the decision were ever made to buff fighters I'd prefer to see it done in some way that flows naturally from the mechanics instead of fighters just being better because they have a different designation.

[nuclearslurpee]

Since this topic keeps coming up, I don't really have much to say, but I do want to add that I'm really happy with Steve's decision to not make weapons magically smaller/better because they're on a fighter. Way too many games decide to give "rocket pods" or whatever to fighters that magically do a ton of damage but somehow aren't an option on big ships. If the decision were ever made to buff fighters I'd prefer to see it done in some way that flows naturally from the mechanics instead of fighters just being better because they have a different designation.

It's actually interesting to compare 50-ton fighters (with the modded 0.25-HS Gauss component) to the standard 500-ton 10cm railgun fighter that is generally considered the most efficient design you can build (outside of missile bombers, which would be apples/oranges to compare).

Neglecting fire control effects, 10x 50-ton fighters with, say, ROF 5 Gauss at 4% accuracy would deal on average only 2.0 damage per 5-sec increment, while the single 500-ton railgun fighter deals 4 damage per 5-sec increment. However, the 50-ton fighter swarm is harder to kill completely due to having a lot more effective HTK than the single 500-ton fighter - if you are defending with 15cm lasers, for instance, you can probably kill the big fighter in just 1-2 hits while you need to score 10 hits to kill the swarm fighters, and since your ship probably doesn't mount a lot of extra fire controls you will have to score those hits in several rounds of fire. Probably the most effective weapons would be AMMs in this case, since you can destroy the entire swarm at a decent range pretty easily. Of course, this doesn't make the railgun fighter obsolete; not only does it benefit from better tonnage efficiency in various ways (better range, sensors, BFC, engines, ...) but since it still puts out more hits per ton it is a better anti-missile defensive fighter if you use it as part of your PD screen. So the choice between large, efficient fighters and small swarm fighters that can be difficult to kill completely is an interesting decision and not very trivial.

Basically, just using the existing mechanics and adding that very small Gauss component which follows all of the existing rules for Gauss weapons (again, an easy DB edit for anyone who wants to playtest it, if Steve does not want to add it in just yet), I think fighters have some interesting mechanics to play around with without needing any very big changes.

[Bremen]

Since this topic keeps coming up, I don't really have much to say, but I do want to add that I'm really happy with Steve's decision to not make weapons magically smaller/better because they're on a fighter. Way too many games decide to give "rocket pods" or whatever to fighters that magically do a ton of damage but somehow aren't an option on big ships. If the decision were ever made to buff fighters I'd prefer to see it done in some way that flows naturally from the mechanics instead of fighters just being better because they have a different designation.

It's actually interesting to compare 50-ton fighters (with the modded 0.25-HS Gauss component) to the standard 500-ton 10cm railgun fighter that is generally considered the most efficient design you can build (outside of missile bombers, which would be apples/oranges to compare).

Neglecting fire control effects, 10x 50-ton fighters with, say, ROF 5 Gauss at 4% accuracy would deal on average only 2.0 damage per 5-sec increment, while the single 500-ton railgun fighter deals 4 damage per 5-sec increment. However, the 50-ton fighter swarm is harder to kill completely due to having a lot more effective HTK than the single 500-ton fighter - if you are defending with 15cm lasers, for instance, you can probably kill the big fighter in just 1-2 hits while you need to score 10 hits to kill the swarm fighters, and since your ship probably doesn't mount a lot of extra fire controls you will have to score those hits in several rounds of fire. Probably the most effective weapons would be AMMs in this case, since you can destroy the entire swarm at a decent range pretty easily. Of course, this doesn't make the railgun fighter obsolete; not only does it benefit from better tonnage efficiency in various ways (better range, sensors, BFC, engines, ...) but since it still puts out more hits per ton it is a better anti-missile defensive fighter if you use it as part of your PD screen. So the choice between large, efficient fighters and small swarm fighters that can be difficult to kill completely is an interesting decision and not very trivial.

Basically, just using the existing mechanics and adding that very small Gauss component which follows all of the existing rules for Gauss weapons (again, an easy DB edit for anyone who wants to playtest it, if Steve does not want to add it in just yet), I think fighters have some interesting mechanics to play around with without needing any very big changes.

I look forward to seeing how the fighters in Steve's test game work out in their first big fight (I'm aware they've already had some minor ones). I think beam fighters are a little on the low end of the power scale right now but I certainly don't think they're unplayable.

[nuclearslurpee]

I look forward to seeing how the fighters in Steve's test game work out in their first big fight (I'm aware they've already had some minor ones). I think beam fighters are a little on the low end of the power scale right now but I certainly don't think they're unplayable.

I think they are lower on the power scale, but not at the "terrible" end with the meson cannons, more in the "specialized" middle next to plasma carronades and HPMs. Beam fighters do have a couple of strong niches. One is as a strategic firepower option to complement a carrier+bomber fleet, as you can rotate a wing of beam fighters in place of bombers to provide extra point defense without having to build entire new PD escorts, or just as a low-tail option to eliminate vulnerable targets (civilian shipping, etc.) without expending valuable ordnance. Another is as a counter against beam-heavy fleets that rely a lot on heavy and/or slow-firing beam weapons, since small, fast fighter swarms can take advantage of the mismatch against enemy fire controls in this situation. And of course, there is always the classic rapid-build JP defense fighter when you just need to scramble some defenses in a hurry without retooling your shipyards.

[Kristover]

I look forward to seeing how the fighters in Steve's test game work out in their first big fight (I'm aware they've already had some minor ones). I think beam fighters are a little on the low end of the power scale right now but I certainly don't think they're unplayable.

I think they are lower on the power scale, but not at the "terrible" end with the meson cannons, more in the "specialized" middle next to plasma carronades and HPMs. Beam fighters do have a couple of strong niches. One is as a strategic firepower option to complement a carrier+bomber fleet, as you can rotate a wing of beam fighters in place of bombers to provide extra point defense without having to build entire new PD escorts, or just as a low-tail option to eliminate vulnerable targets (civilian shipping, etc.) without expending valuable ordnance. Another is as a counter against beam-heavy fleets that rely a lot on heavy and/or slow-firing beam weapons, since small, fast fighter swarms can take advantage of the mismatch against enemy fire controls in this situation. And of course, there is always the classic rapid-build JP defense fighter when you just need to scramble some defenses in a hurry without retooling your shipyards.

Similar experience here.  My Beam Fighters tend to do well as commerce raiders, hunting down damaged stragglers, and occasionally as additional muscle when larger beam ships go toe to toe.

[Bremen]

Since this topic keeps coming up, I don't really have much to say, but I do want to add that I'm really happy with Steve's decision to not make weapons magically smaller/better because they're on a fighter. Way too many games decide to give "rocket pods" or whatever to fighters that magically do a ton of damage but somehow aren't an option on big ships. If the decision were ever made to buff fighters I'd prefer to see it done in some way that flows naturally from the mechanics instead of fighters just being better because they have a different designation.

Actually, I gave this some thought, and I do have one option for maybe buffing beam fighters a bit. And that would be to change the formula for engine cost.

Right now, IIRC the engine cost is directly scaled with engine power, which includes the performance modifier. So an engine with 200% performance (and massive fuel use) costs twice as much as the same engine with 100% performance. Since fighters tend to use very high powered engines as a very large percentage of their tonnage, this makes them very expensive for their size.

Now, a 200% performance engine probably should cost more than a 100% one, but I was thinking the scaling maybe shouldn't be so linear. Or perhaps the scaling should take into effect both power and to a lesser extent fuel use, so that improving your fuel efficiency tech would slightly increase the cost of engines like increasing the tech level does. That wouldn't actually make fighters better, but it would make them more expendable. Though it would also make missiles cheaper as well... which come to think of it is going to be an issue with most changes that try to organically give advantages to small ships, because missiles are effectively very small ships for most game mechanics.

[Agraelgrimm]

Steve, a way to work around the usage of a weapon made for a 50 ton fighter to be used and abused by bigger ships can be worked around as:
1- require a weapon pod
2- It has a limited amount of ammo and has to be either spent or in case of a turret, have a small magazine for that. (unarmored, 100% chance of explosion by hit, single module, only size and ammo for dispenser
3- Make it kinetic, meaning, no energy weapons for that size, just slug throwers.
4- Because of the mechanics involved into making small sized weapons like these, no crew, but the need of a small reactor to keep everything working.

And while on the topic, small shield for fighters could work as well. And the idea is: They have to concentrate their shields into a far smaller target than a capital ship. But would require reactors and with a tonnage limit to fighters, it would require players to having to choose what they want, so balance is still kept. And it still not broken because a gauss cannon can shred a fighter just fine. If it hits all 5 shots, is 5 damage. Is probably more than the amount of shields the fighter has.

And for commercial ships, it would be nice to have them cost wealth. It would make players try and o Wealth being a thing, while making expansion be more planned. Also, while they are commercial ships, they are state made and state controlled, so they should cost something for the state... (As of now i think of them as a merchant navy of sorts...)

Why could only a small ship mount the above weapon - why not a 5000-ton point defence destroyer that would completely alter missile warfare? Why would this weapon explode when none of the others do? Even if only fighters could mount it, then a fighter swarm becomes the new point defence paradigm.

Well, because it would require a pod, limited ammo, accuracy would still be dependent on tech and racial tracking speed + ship speed.
Such weapon would be around 1 point damage, because its a fighter, not a destroyer. So, for bigger ships it can only really scrape  the armor, and range is still a factor. So a Destroyer would have lower speed, so a problem hitting it, it cannot use a fighter pod, the ammo is limited and needs a hangar to reload, and the range is limited as well.
And as it is, its well within what fighters can do, but it would have less tonnage overall because of smaller weapons systems.

A destroyer would be better off with a Gauss Cannon. And like stated before, those could shred said fighter if it doesnt have enough armor. And the bigger the armor, slower it gets, and etc.
And you could make such weapons research dependent, as it was in V6.

But anyway, its just a suggestion. You had really good points on the others, so i don't see a point in responding to them.

I am a little confused here. Why would only a fighter be able to mount the 'pod'?

If you have a weapon that does 1 point of damage and is much smaller than other weapons that does one point of damage, even if the ammo is 'limited' (as it can be reloaded), then it becomes a much more powerful weapon than the larger equivalent for both offence and point defence.

You need to come up with an idea for a 'fighter weapon' that is smaller than the current options, including the 1-shot railgun, yet can also be mounted on larger ships and for the same HS equivalent has the same or less combat power relative to the larger weapons for both attack and defence. So far the only realistic option is nuclearslurpee's 4% accuracy gauss.

Ok, the reason why you are confused is because i havent been able to explain my idea in a good way. Part of that is my limited english. So i will try my best here.

The concept im trying to put is: We already have pods that has to be put in a fighter in order to use a auto-cannon, light bombardment and it can also be used to put a missile in it. So i am suggesting a tiny weapon that would fit in those pods, damage on scale, from needing 2 hits to make a damage to 1 hit per damage, in which case it would be a rather big gun needing a big pod.
The ammunition would be to scale it, so when it hits a hangar bay, it would need another weapon to be mounted on the pod. To prevent a swarm of 50 ton fighters, the weapon system could be a 25-75 ton plus the pod. That would make a need for a bigger engine and etc. So we would end up with a 150ish fighter.

I was also suggesting a rather small range for such weapon. In my mind, im trying to make something close to a in-between a Autocannon and a Gauss Gun, but since the least amount of damage possible is 1, it makes a little harder to achieve that, unless the trade offs are range, weight, ammo, etc. Idk if its possible to use armor rating to reduce the damage made by the weapon. If possible, it would make it a good trade off, since it would be harder to use against larger ships even with a swarm of those ships.

And the reason why it would be used only for fighters is that im suggesting of being able to be used only on those pods. And since a larger ship than a FAC cant use fighter pods, as far as i know, it would limit things for this platform. And again, accuracy depends on speed, since it cant be a turret, so it would be a waste on a bigger ship.

Having said all that, Nuclear's suggestion is the simplest to do. All the things are already there, no testing needed and no adaptations aside from the size and accuracy of a gauss cannon.