Wall of fire - A weapon which basically ignites the space in front of it (well... in front of the turret it's launched from). I'm thinking a torpedo that launches at fighters then releases a huge mass of flak in every direction. Very damaging to fighters and bombers, can destroy them depending on how far they are from the torpedo when it goes off.
A Fenris with Trebuchets - long range anti-bomber ship. Suddenly perhaps not so obsolete. As long as the AI knows what to do with them.
Anti-fighter ship - Like one of those ships which are built around a single huge beam cannon, this one has a (or a set of) ultra-AAAs (or even better). When positioned correctly, these things would do a lot of damage to fightercraft. To go up against one you'd have to break formation and try and circle it.
Shotgun - Like an Archer (BP) except does high shield and hull damage, and you might get closer to 100 shots then 64. Not insta-kill but still does a
lot of damage. Especially good against bombers.
Anti-bomb restricted weapons - These weapons do incredibly low damage, but they still do enough to take out bombs. Long range, rapid fire, high velocity primary. Long range, heat or aspect seaking, high velocity secondary.
Mine - Yes,
another one (our mines are different). This one one is a missile that starts off with zero speed, then after a few seconds, activates as a heat seaker and flies off to hit that pesky fighter behind you.
Ultra-AAAs on an RBC.
EMP burst - A missile which immediately (as soon as it's launched) explodes with an enormous EMP shockwave but doesn't do any damage.
EMP Meson bomb - You know how in that mission where you pilot a Karuna (which I don't know how to win), the GTVA launches a meson bomb into the field of engagement. Well, how about it has a strong EMP to it and doesn't do hull damage. Just knocks out shields and subsystems, that way you can spend marine lives boarding enemy ships... wait...
Big anti-fighter beam - This beam is really big. Freaking enormous, probably a greater radius than a LRBGreen. But it does minimal damage, maybe only as much as an SGreen. It fires at fighter/bomber wings when they warp in. DIVE, DIVE, DIVE! Or at least just have the occasional huge weapon targeting fighters and bombers, cause if a bomber just happens to be right in front of that mass driver with several of it's friends, and they're all about to or have launched bombs which will likely take out that mass driver, I'd fire at them. Or does that already happen...
Goddamn bat missile - This missile is either trebuchet powered or an insta-kill. Launched rarely, they have a range of a couple of kilometres but a lifetime of several minutes. They home in on you and you have to keep avoiding them or get a countermeasure into them. Maybe have a poor maneuvarability to speed ratio so they often fly straight past you, these missiles are like the ones in movies.
Ion cannon - You know in The Empire Strikes Back. That big ion cannon takes out a star destroyer for a few moments so that the transports can get past it. Something like that (probably SEXP'd with a "play dead", but being able to table it would be nice). Rule of cool says to (impractibly and not worth it) make the target have those arcing electrical stuff when ships are at low hull integrity also get them when temporarily disabled by or hit by electro-weapons, but yeah, probably impractible.
Swords - A very short range but also very destructive primary. Yeah, I said it.
Asteroid Fun - Bury a mjolnir in an asteroid. Bury a helios, or even a meson bomb (probably something between the two actually) in an asteroid. Bury a few slammers in an asteroid so that if/when it gets destroyed by passing hostiles, it detonates and releases a swarm of sub-munitions. Proximity charges which blow the asteroid off of sentry guns, maybe with the proximity detector in the centre of the minefield or just on the sentry gun. Asteroids with turrets on them. Reinforced asteroids that still fly at escorted ship but have HP that (almost) suit their size. Maybe set up a Xanatos Gambit where you have a battle in the path of a comet or realistically fast and large asteroid, so you jump out as soon as it comes by and hopefully it crushes a few enemy ships.
Machine Gun - All primaries are kinda like machine guns, but this one has modern day fire rates. Same sort of DPS as a subach though. Maybe have have an ammo limit if you bump the DPS up to kayser level.
Swatter - A ship only as powerful as a cruiser or corvette. But it has the habit of jumping in (or out) into enemy fighters and has a large, flat panel on it's nose to help. Dive indeed.
Node installation - inspired by that jump gate in INFR1, around the most important nodes and entrances to capital systems you put a really big installation. Armed with very big guns to take on very big ships, as well as small ones. Stupendously expensive, but a very impressive blocade which won't fall in 10 seconds to a Sathanas (maybe closer to a few minutes, unless you put
really big (BFGreen/LRBGreen) guns on it).
Kinetic weapon turrets - They were in INFR1, annoying as hell.
Mini-drones - Tiny, pilotless, fighters. With short range weapons not much better than Avengers, but with a very good speed & maneuvarability to size ratio. ie, goddamn bats. They just fly around, maybe launched by ships that don't have fighterbays or just launched like secondaries, and slowly tap away at your shields because they're too small to bother fighting or just waste time while you try to hit the things. Maybe get destroyed the first time you hit them, or have a shield that can withstand 1 shot, and a hull that can withstand 1 shot. Weaponry can range between balanced, hull, shield and energy leeching.
Superlaser - Can't find the trope for it so I don't know what to actually call it. No its not a one hit kill weapon, but its got that cool beams hitting each other and resulting in a beam that's really powerful. Could do it with SEXPs (can you fire a beam at a position? Or would you have to put an invisible ship at there. Then create a beam at that position that fires at another ship. Now that is likely impractlibe, but it looks cool. Ah-ha!
Here's the trope.
Spread gun - Like a flak gun, but fighter strength and on a fighter. You might need limited ammo to balance and make it realistic.
Time bomb - This missile hits an enemy ship. Waits for a few seconds, then explodes. Wait, this has no purpose. Why would you make a weapon like that? Well... maybe it burrows into the ship and overloads the reactor, or sets off the magazine or....something. Nah.Big interceptors - These are ships, without cap-weapons, and very good anti-fighter and bomber coverage.
Meat shield - Big ships with very heavy armour, but little weaponry that are, relatively, cheap. And who's goal is to draw fire from other ships to themselves. Which they can do to poor enemy tactics, or by physically getting in the way of hostile weapons. They can cut off hostile ships from the battle so that their side has a greater ratio than if the meat shield wasn't there. Sort of like the firepower, hull strength and size of a great war era orion, but a
lot cheaper (corvette cost?).
Parasitic Bomb - A weapon which, once it hits, doesn't explode, but lands on the hull and commences to fire a powerful laser straight into the hull. Stack enough on a ship and that's some serious damage that doesn't stop till a fighter can blow them off. I have no idea how you'd make that.
