Torpedoes = 3
railguns = 2
Lasers = 2.5
Meson Spinal Mount or Quad Turrets = 1 or 4
Microwave = 1 or 4
Plasma Cannon = 0
The Plasma Carronade's while they are generally heavy hitters are not enough heavier than the lasers at anything over point blank range. This makes them the worst weapon in the collection. The meson weapons are either the best or the worst. If your ships have any speed advantage, or the enemy is within range then they just rip them appart. If they don't get into range then they are only usefull at keeping enemy ships from closing. This can be important as at close range the railguns will rip a ship appart very fast. Torpedoes are good for long range fire, and once your capacitors are up to a five second fire rate they do supprisingly well. Their only drawback for a WP battle is if the enemy is at point blank range, then their damage output is somewhat low.
Microwave weapons have the same problem as meson's with their range. If they get a chance they can blind ships fairly fast, but it only works against races that do not protect against their damage. Even a couple of levels of protection means that half your shots are going to be wasted.
Lasers are the sort of all round usefull weapons. They do reasonable damage at close range and can reach out farther than the torpedo. It will not do as much damage as the torpedo at long range, and at close range the railguns will be doing heavier damage. If a race does not want to put lots of reasearch into beam weapons then they are an exellent weapon choice as it can do just about every mission to some extent.
Railguns are the other short range weapon. At heavier sizes they will reach maximum beam range, but thier damage is going to be low for the rate of fire.
Overall my favorite beam weapon package is Meson for point defense (10 or 12/15cm with 5 second fire rate) with torpedo's for long range fire. What I really like about the torpedo's is that the smaller weapons can still reach out to max range which makes them a usefull weapon on smaller ships. Most other beam weapons require larger sizes to reach longer ranges. When I have fought myself (3.x versions) the combination works well. If an enemy closes to make full use of their close in weapons damage the mesons turn them into swiss cheese. If they stay at longer ranges the extra firepower of 1 torpedo per escort adds up and usually makes the difference. I do not know how the computer will handle the combo.
Brian
