As it stands now, beam weapons seem somewhat pitiful, and quite immersion-breaking to me. Just the name "beam weapons" describes a... well... beam.



As in, a solid stream of light and/or particles, that moves at the speed of light or even faster in the case of higher techs.



Does it bother anyone else that kinetics travel consistently faster than "beams", which are really, really distressingly slow-moving pulses of brightly colored energy?



How much cooler would it look to have actual beam weapons lancing out between fleets, with slower-moving kinetic shots and even slower missiles streaking back and forth in between? As it is, all my ships is launch slow-moving groups of stuff at the enemy. Some of it is white stuff that moves really fast and gets most of the kills since it always hits first (sub-light kinetics), some of it is yellow stuff that takes quite a while to reach the target (really slow missiles), and then there is purple/blue stuff that moves almost as slow as the missiles, and I'm left scratching my head as to why those would even be called "beam weapons".



I think ES should take a page from StarDrive, and have "energy weapons" which deliver discrete pulses of energy, and then "beam weapons" that shoot actual beams.



Variety is good! But even if there's no way to see creating a fourth weapon type (use the average of deflectors and shields for the pulse weapons, maybe?), I still think beams should be made to look and function like beams.

well i agree that beams should travel faster then kinetics ( or massdrivers)



but i prefer the Star Wars variant of *lasers* over the Star Trek Phasers imo phasers are just not epic enough compared to a Capital ship which fires hundreds of short bursts.



i like the pew pew pew more then the *no idea how to describe* sound.

I like the EVE Online versions. You have long range Beam lasers, which put out beefed up versions of phasers (With different colors based on the crystals you use to affect your range/damage!), and short range Pulse lasers, which are slightly smaller beams that strike in short, several-shot bursts. It makes for a very cool effect, and I was always sad when the situation wouldn't let me use them. ES could do something very similar! The tech level would control color, and the Range would control the pulse type: Long range could have a look similar to the current one, only longer so it actually looks more like a beam, Medium range would get a nice solid beam from your hardpoint to their hull, and short range would be the pulse effect.

Agree with OP. "Beams" now look like shit. Not enough dakka in battles. Not epic.