[Commander Zane]

There you go, exactly what I also said. So don't go cracking around saying that they're useless.

[General Battuta]

I still want to know what this 'beam cannon' you're talking about is, Zane.  A laser?  I'd like some technical details - I'm fairly conversant in the technology, I'd be curious to learn more.

Any articles?  A name, at least?

[Commander Zane]

From what I remember it's called a Neutral Particle Beam.

[Tamlin]

Herra: it's no nick, man, it my name .well second name. I think "Mike" would be pretty boring and calling myself chef which I hear eery day sucks. So my imagianation is with my "Hippy" parents

[Herra Tohtori]

Fascinating. Thanks for replying, I was just wondering...

[Scooby_Doo]

Course beams are great... but what happens when shielding starts blocking beams? Your going to want to have backups.

[Commander Zane]

True, but there's still stuff to look at when making an energy field powerful enough to absorb something like a charged beam.
And if anyone says "magnetic deflection" for missiles, don't even bother, I find those too impractical.

[General Battuta]

Well, that's what armor is, Zane.

After all, what we think of as 'solid' matter is only that way because of electromagnetic repulsion. 

[Scooby_Doo]

Phase shields and phase torpedos.... sidewall shields and sidewall torps...  torps with the ability to sync with the shields.  Something like sidewalls would make beams virtually useless.

[General Battuta]

...except for the part where that's sci-fi technobabble, not anything remotely based on real physics. 

Heck, by all rights it should be easier to sync a beam with shields than an entire torpedo.  (Granted, that's technobabble too, so if you like the idea of shield-penetrating torps, more power to you!)

[MarkN]

Cruise torpedos sound a likely dvelopement as it is the one location where topedos have and advantage over beams, in that they can be very long ranged, the only problem of course is that they would be easily shot down without a subspace drive, and to expensive for most engagements with one. however, if you have a few torpedo bombardment ships (probably converted old cruisers), and a faster torpedo, they would be useful in some situations.
However, I think that a better use for such vessels would be as fighter carriers that stay out of battle, but allow the destroyers to do away with their fighter bays, and carry even more weapons (or just a reasonable number, in the case of the Hecate class).

[TrashMan]

I'd love to see some shipkiller missiles almost the size of a fighter used in juggernaught combat.  Big, slow, and armored.  It'd be so much fun to fly interceptor duty against those. 

I think bombs are slow because, uh...they have to be carried on bombers, and...engines are big.  Maybe they don't have the mass to mount better drives?   

Freespace engine systems have always been wonky. 

There is one problem with big missiles - you can't make them armored for now (AFIK)
I made some pretty powerfull and big missiles for the Archangel and they might not be armored but they still manage to pass trough the enemy defense in 50% of cases... Of course Shivan AF defense if weak in most cases....

[Scooby_Doo]

Course this whole thing is technobabble LOL

Actually photon/quantum type torp would be very effective.  Too fast to be intercepted.  You could target enemy beam turrets with them. I dunno about range though.

[MarkN]

I seem to remember photon torps being rather unmanouvrable and so very difficult to hit precise locations. There again the creators of Star Trek never went much in for technological continuity...

As for ranges, this varies between original trek (enormous), and next gen trek (around 8km(16 ship lengths)).

Back to FS...

A weapon that was fast enough not to be intercepted would probably be fast enough not to need a guidance system.

Saying that, I have had the idea of a cap-ship that would aproach the enemy, get into a broadside position and open fire with lots of Tempests.

[Mobius]

Uh? Are talking about dive warheads with no guidance systems? They're far better than a swarm of Tempests.

[MarkN]

Uh? Are talking about dive warheads with no guidance systems? They're far better than a swarm of Tempests.

Depends on how many tempests.

[Mars]

As for ranges, this varies between original trek (enormous), and next gen trek (around 8km(16 ship lengths)).

I seem to remember that the Galaxy class was 600 meters long

[Turey]

* Turey thinks that all ships size Cruiser and up should be resricted to two types of weapons: Beams and Flak. LOTS of Flak.

Isent that the Aelous?

Your point?

Aelous is one of the best cap ships, IMO.

[CaptJosh]

As for maneuverability of photon torpedoes, watch the death of General Chang and his fire-while-cloaked B'rel class bird of prey near the end of Star Trek VI.

[Depth_Charge]

As for maneuverability of photon torpedoes, watch the death of General Chang and his fire-while-cloaked B'rel class bird of prey near the end of Star Trek VI.

To be or not to be.............*BOOM*