In the real world, 'small' weapons serve a specific purpose. Anti-personnel, for instance or being better at shooting up speedboats. You don't use, say, an anti-ship missile launcher for that or the new upcoming railgun technology.
In this game, however, that doesn't seem to matter. The larger the weapon, the more damage it inflicts. You can use any 'class' of the same weapon and they all do the same thing. So, in that respect, as there's no other difference, you might as well simply have them being able to load bigger weapons.
This was why many of us found the decision to give the Federal Corvette those two tiny hardpoints such a bizarre thing. It seemed like they should have be two medium hard-points, instead. Smalls served no real purpose on a ship of that size.
Hopefully, FD will eventually make missiles and torpedoes as lethal as they should be. Then we can have turrets or vertical launch systems for shooting out dozens of them at a time, just like real warships do. Right now, swarming huge Anaconda-class ships with small fighters, like vultures, tot ear them up is a completely viable strategy. In the real world, this wouldn't happen: It's what the Iranians hope to do against the US Navy, but they'd never be successful because there'd be dozens, if not hundreds, of missiles all heading their way at long range (not just from the ship, itself, but its escorts and on-board helicopters).
So, if we get anti-fighter missile turrets and/or VLS cells, a flight of Vultures or Vipers would have very little chance against a true warship. They'd have to learn proper tactics and band up with other types of craft. Again, just like in reality... And a lot more fun and rewarding, as a result! Even better if we can change the configuration and type of each missile rack, so that they can be specialised for different purposes. Those of us who remember the old flight sims, like '
F-19' and the '
Jane's US Navy Fighters', will remember how deciding on different load-outs could be a lot more fun than it might seem, because you were rewarded with optimal results if you tailored them right (and, of course, just get average results if you didn't want to be fussed and went with the default load, instead). In fact, I seem to remember '
TIE Fighter' and the various 'Wing Commander' games doing that, too! It always made you feel like you had more control over the assignment ahead.
Right now, combat in ED is very arcade-like and dumbed-down. Just look at ECM!
The hype for the product makes a big deal about how you're free to do as you please, so long as you take account of consequences, but actual combat is the one area where that philosophy breaks down easily. If reality were like ED, you could take on an aircraft carrier with a speedboat - and not only get back to port, but win! Giving us the kind of options above would force players to pick their battles more wisely.
