This is the question.
I'm curious, what kind of weaponry do you prefer?
The upisdes of beam lasers are obvious - they do more damage per second on average than pulse lasers of similar wattage and are easier to use, especially against small craft. They are not perfect though. They are much bigger, require better cooling, and force pilot to keep the target in their crosshair all the time to inflict damage. On the other hand pulse lasers are much lighter (to the point where pulse laser of given wattage takes up about half the space used by one class weaker beam laser), don't depend on efficient cooling as much (except maybe 30MW mining laser) and do all the damage in short pulse requiring pilot to keep the target in crosshairs for only fraction of second.
Personally I favour pulse lasers. They take up tiny amount of space allowing me to fit more additional equipment (like shield generators), give more firepower per ton as it's possible to fit 5MW or 30MW pulse in half the space taken by 1MW or 4MW laser, respectively, and allow for more efficient time sharing between attack and evasion. I also consider them more elegant weapons, though 30MW with it's extremely slow recharge rate is somewhat impractical and works best supplemented with small (like 1MW) beam laser that's used against small craft.
My current, "heavy duty", configuration for making photographic runs is Asp Explorer with MD3, 30MW pulse on the bow providing some serious forward hitting power to take out large craft like the ICs, and 1MW on the aft to deter/destroy pursuers and swat small fighters. For general use, forward shooting 5MW pulse, with or without 1MW beam on the aft is probably the most practical solution.
Of course, in very large craft you can just mount plasma accelerator and obscenely powerful beam lasers on turrets (usually 20MW) and call it a day.
Your thoughts?
I'm curious, what kind of weaponry do you prefer?
The upisdes of beam lasers are obvious - they do more damage per second on average than pulse lasers of similar wattage and are easier to use, especially against small craft. They are not perfect though. They are much bigger, require better cooling, and force pilot to keep the target in their crosshair all the time to inflict damage. On the other hand pulse lasers are much lighter (to the point where pulse laser of given wattage takes up about half the space used by one class weaker beam laser), don't depend on efficient cooling as much (except maybe 30MW mining laser) and do all the damage in short pulse requiring pilot to keep the target in crosshairs for only fraction of second.
Personally I favour pulse lasers. They take up tiny amount of space allowing me to fit more additional equipment (like shield generators), give more firepower per ton as it's possible to fit 5MW or 30MW pulse in half the space taken by 1MW or 4MW laser, respectively, and allow for more efficient time sharing between attack and evasion. I also consider them more elegant weapons, though 30MW with it's extremely slow recharge rate is somewhat impractical and works best supplemented with small (like 1MW) beam laser that's used against small craft.
My current, "heavy duty", configuration for making photographic runs is Asp Explorer with MD3, 30MW pulse on the bow providing some serious forward hitting power to take out large craft like the ICs, and 1MW on the aft to deter/destroy pursuers and swat small fighters. For general use, forward shooting 5MW pulse, with or without 1MW beam on the aft is probably the most practical solution.
Of course, in very large craft you can just mount plasma accelerator and obscenely powerful beam lasers on turrets (usually 20MW) and call it a day.
Your thoughts?
