I did and he's a BIG help!!
Two thumbs up, Orpheus!!

good to read something from you, stargate
made any progress lately? if yes I would like to see it sometime...
get the damn ships to open fire with thier main guns like the warlock's 2 front GOD laser cannons,
well that is an easy one...
go check whetever you have activated the "all ships beam-freed by default"-flag in the Missions Specs editor -- that should switch all beams on all ships in the mission to ON
alternatively you can also set up Events using the "Beam-Free"- or "Beam-Free-All"-Operators
EDIT: I forgot about the third solution - the "Fire-Beam"-Operator-- but that is just for firing one shot at one target
('cause beams in terms of the orginial FS engine were always "overkill"-weapons they set to off by engine default)