the fact that FIGHTERS have a weapon that bypasses shields to me seems to mess with the whole idea of Fighters. TEC and Advent Fighters are effective vs Seige Frigs, LRF, and other SC, and thats all they should be (im of the opinion they also shouldnt be effective against SF and LRF, but thats a different matter).

Wave Cannons would be a good idea for Vas Bombers... but it makes sense that the Vas Bombers carry Phase missiles... so instead put either Waves or Pulse Beams on Fighters, replace whatever weapon the Migrator has with a Wave Cannon, swap out some of the Cap ship weapons with wave cannons... the Vulkoras should definitly have some, if it doesnt have already, and perhaps add more banks to the Kortul. Also... im not sure what weapons the two Vas Utility Cruisers have, but swap them out with Waves and Pulse Beams respectively... should even things up a bit...

The problem is, that TEC use light Auto Cannons on their Flak Frigs, and Advent use Lasers on their Flak Frig. Both weapons are fairly 'dainty' (insofar as they dont feel like you are firing a 120mm shell at a Cesna Light Plane) while still having the range and RoF and speed of projectile to be feasible as an Anti-SC weapon. As it stands, we dont even know what wave cannons are, how they work, the manner in which they cause damage, and at the very least, their appearance makes them unsuitable to be used as Anti-SC weapons.

Pulse Guns are too inaccurate and Pulse Beams are do OVERTIME damage unless im mistaken, which would make them inappropriate for Anti-SC combat. SO, logically speaking, its either Waves or Phase Missiles, and like we said, Waves just dont look good =P

I do think Vas Phase Missiles are too overly used. In the Mod im making, i find i tend to put more emphasis on Phase Missile Banks than on say, Wave Cannons or Pulse Guns/Beams.

Just a question, i havent playes Vasari in ages, but the Skivruskas Ruiner... does it have any weapons other than dropping mines? if not... maybe give it a single light/medium wave cannon also? Just an idea, im indifferent either way

If we're really discussing which units should have which weapons installed, here are my two cents.

I believe bombers should keep phase missiles.
There is a heap of reasons why they need that advantage.

Fighters could have a two/three-flash beam weapon (a ripoff from the EGG's side beams, two or three quick flashes).
I don't think fighters could work with pulse cannons or waves. These projectiles move too slow, you would never see what they're actually hitting. It wouldn't fit.

Sentinels having phase missiles is silly in my opinion. Their main targets never have shields to bypass, so they get no damage boost until discharging missiles or NME warheads.
Sentinels should not have pulse cannons or Waves either, for the very same reason fighters shouldn't in my opinion. These projectiles move too slow to fit for a rapid-fire anti strikecraft unit. Moreover, it would make them Garda/DefVessel clones, which is not necessary here, as far as I'm concerned.
Like Figthers, I also think the Sentinels could have pulse beams resembling the ones on the EGG, firing short bursts of two or three beams on its targets, from each bank. You could even keep discharging missiles in effect as it is, it wouldn't be total nonsense if an upgrade to beams could cause them to ricochet to other enemy ships. It would look awesome in my opinion, even though the name discharging missiles would have to be reworked.

Orkulus offers a wide range of opportunities.
Disintegrator Arrays could be made heavy wave cannons instead, or Beams like on a Kortul.
The Pulse Cannons could be made waves and desintegrators - beams.
Finally, Phase missiles on an Orky could be turned into heavy wave batteries or massive beams.
Orky doesn't REALLY need a fix (maybe except disintegrators becoming beams... that would look so awesome... Pulse beams are truly beautiful, particularly the EGG's ones, I just can't believe they are not used anywhere else in the game!). 
The Orky is, however, the third in the list of obsolete phase missile users (after fighters and flaks) that should be stripped off of phase missiles in favor of Beams or Waves.

Excellent topic, N3Rull, and I generally agree with your analaysis

For starters, Wave Cannons should have 3 upgrade levels. Something like - Level 3, 5, and 8). The Egg and Enforcer (if I'm not mistaken) should not be the only ships to use Wave Cannons. Another ship, such as the Subverter maybe, would benefit from them.

Pulse Cannon - same thing

I think they are on the port side...

Up the boost or lower the tier.  Pick one, either one would work.  Its just that we already know that Enforcers need a buff in just about every way...

And don't put them on the Skirmisher.  That would make Pulse Guns even more useless.  As they stand, they don't do anything.  Each race has a signiture weapon.  The TEC have Missiles, the Advent have beams, and the Vasari have PM's.  Lasers lines up with lasers which lines up with Pulse Guns.

Really, Pulse Guns need a bigger boost than Wave Cannons do...  PG's are really only used on LF's which are useless...  The problem is, the Vasari have one extra weapon type.  The other races just have lasers, but the Vas have both Pulse Guns and Pulse Beams to cover that one spot.  That is the real problem here.  Knock out one or the other, or make the upgrades benefit both.  For the sake of lore, pulse guns would just be super short bursts of light that act more like projectiles than a beam.

In other words...

Move Wave Cannons down a level and boost their effectiveness by 5% or so...

Change Pulse Gun/Beam into something better.  I understand the point of it, but having different research for something that fills a limited role is worthless.  Hence the reason no one ever buys this unless they intend to make a Kortul army or have money to burn on a buff that only really ups the DPS of Eggs and Kortuls.

Maybe you could change the research so that the PG upgrades benefit that weapon type by 10% a piece and 2.5% for Pulse Beams.  That way, PG's go up by 40% (a much needed buff anyways) and PB's would go up 30%.  That might make it more worth our while...

Plasma, and Wave cannons serve the same function.  The Kortul's forward Wave Cannons are devastating and bring enemy capitals to their knees quickly (not to mention disabling abilities).  The Egg has them, the Vulkorus has them on the side, the support and carrier caps have them for broadsides.  They all use them, just like the Advent and plasma.

In all reality, WC's likely are a form of plasma, but that is beside the point...

So, move it down which makes it cheaper and buff PG/PB's.  Fewer uses means you need a bigger buff to make them worth the while.  Sure PG upgrades are at tier I, but no one gets them.  Make them worth it.  And read the last paragraph of my previous post for something else you could do...

that's exactly the WRONG thing to do. Right now the Vasari are already that.

And Vasari don't have Pulse Lasers. They have Pulse Guns.

Well, not for the PB's, just the PG's would go up to 40%.  The PB's would go up to 30 (which is still a nice boost).  

I'd say PG's on fighters (or on interceptors in my mod).  You could always put two types of weapons on the fighter/bomber...  Fighter gets PG's and the Bomber would get WC's...  Of course, the PM's on the fighter would have to be nerfed, but oh well...  That would be more realistic anyways...

It was a joke. And my mistake on pulse guns, sorry.

Though seriously, wave upgrades need to be dropped far lower onto research. Only affecting capital ships and one combat unit is too few units for a tier 4 upgrade. Even lowering it down to tier 3-4-5 would improve wave greatly.

just for the record, each race actually has 4, and Vasari actually has 4 and a half...

TEC: Missiles/AutoCannons/Lasers/Beams (and the Ogrov ICBMs, but they dont really count)

Advent: Beams/Lasers/Plasma/Psionic Burst (the SB weapon)

Vasari: Pulse Guns/Pulse Beams/Waves/Phase Missiles plus the Orkulus Disintegrators. given, they are rather specialised, but so are TEC Beams and Advent Psionics.

Another note, is that TEC Colony Frigs use AutoCannons, while Advent Missionaries use Lasers and Migrators use Pulse Guns, and TEC Flak Frigs use ACs, while Advent use Lasers and Vasari use PM: Another example of how unequivical the weapon balances are, TEC use their main hard-hitting weapon alot more than the other two races.

What is really needed is more ships so they can be given weapons that are currently underused... (thats a half-joke btw. its not a solution, but it goes a ways to assuaging the problem)

they have the highest anti-module damage of the orky's weapons