Beam Weapons are your big flashy lasers. Accurate, decent range. Decent rate of fire. Pretty sparkles. They hit instantly and fire at a good rate.

Missile Weapons fire lockon missiles at extreme distances. Decently accurate, sniper range, and high power, offset by firing very slowly.

Kinetics are your machine guns. They fire very fast, and attempt to make up for their lacking accuracy by spamming more shots. Your ships need to get in close to make them work however, which presents its own challenges.

All of the types have their uses, and this guide is dedicated to showing how to make things blow up better.

Beam Weapons are your workhorses in the mid to late game, generally serving as your main guns on medium and large ships, which will make up most of your fleets. The entire mantra behind beams is dependability, and this is reflected in their tech tree.

Beams have middle of the road damage, a base fire rate of 6, and a base range of 800. Their accuracy all but assures they hit every shot. This isn't what makes them your main gun however. They reach that status because of all the weapon types, they are the only one that cannot be defended against properly.

The unique augment for beams reduces the effective strength of the enemy shields by 50%, for a 25% loss in damage. This makes them monsters for cutting through medium to huge ships, which are often capable of sporting impressive defenses. Their reach helps with engaging targets and their accuracy allows them to cut down agile ships effortlessly, making them all around valuable additions to a fleet.

Their main downside is that they are optimized around fighting larger ships, and struggle quite heavily against durable swarms, who can survive a laser volley, and use higher damage weapons. You can't disable shield ignoring, so against smaller, glass cannon setups, you will often not be able to kill them in a single shot, while they will be able to lay a full battery of missiles or their own beams into you. Beams also tend to match up poorly against Carriers, whos interceptors are not known for defensive ability.

Shipwise, Beams demand their augments to catch up to other weapons, which limits their use on smaller ships. Small ships can barely manage to get away with using them if they have capacity upgrades, but otherwise can't really bring them to bear. Tiny ships really just cannot use them at all. Medium and large ships focused around hunting capital ships are where your beams will typically find their homes. Generally speaking, Huge ships can stack so much offensive might that you won't need the punchthrough of beams, but if the enemy is particularly determined to not let your capital hunters wear them down, huge beam ships can do their job.

Suggested ship sizes: Small Glass Cannon. Medium/Large in general. Huge if the enemy is stacking defenses.

Suggested time to use: In reaction to enemies gaining larger ships and defensive techs.

Missiles are amazing early game weapons, and solid additions in the endgame. They lag behind in the midgame however, where they cannot properly utilize their strengths.

Missiles do alot of damage per shot, from the longest ranges. With a base range of 1100, but a base rate of fire delay of 8, they always get the first strike, but fire slowly. their massive payload per hit does NOT make them your highest damage weapon, and they should never be used for damage. The longer a target survives, the worse missiles get. They're also very bulky relative to their opposition, which drags them down on larger ships, that can get extra damage out of smaller weapons.

The upside is that small and tiny ships are a factor all game long. They screen for larger ships, and missiles clean them out of the air before they can actually do that. Generally speaking, the smaller the ship, the lower the defenses, with carrier interceptors having almost none. In other words, missiles clear the skies of the smaller advance forces, so that you can bring your bigger guns to bear on the right targets as you get into range. Another advantage of range is that you simply do not need defenses on missile boats, letting you push up their damage as high as it can go. And since defenses aren't a thing early game, missiles sweep the skies.

Techwise, missiles get tech to fire faster at longer ranges, with Rapid Fire Missies, and modules that put emphasis on firing faster. It may seem strange for missiles to actually be one of the faster firing weapons in the endgame, but they don't manage to catch up to the faster kinetics in terms of damage over time. This increased rate of fire does make them better and better at knocking enemy escort ships out of the way of your main guns however, as does their large payloads.

In terms of ships, Missiles do better on tiny and small ships, as well as huge ships. Smaller ships can open up right at the start of combat, and Large/Huge ships see play alongside carrier modules, which spam out tiny ships that can eat up your higher damage weapons if they get within range. Huge ships also start well behind your lines, so having the reach to contribute to the opening volleys is important. Medium ships are horrible for missiles, as they come into play before carrier swarming and have the HP to survive opening missile salvos, as well as being close enough to the front lines to contribute to opening salvos with beams/kinetics instead.

Best on: Tiny/Small glass cannons. Huge as a secondary weapon.

When to use: Early game, when ships are weak, and lategame, when carrier swarms can distract your larger guns.

Kinetics are focused entirely on damage over time potential. They're small, easily massed, and focused entirely on the long game. Getting them into range is hard. Surviving them once they are is harder.

Kinetic weapons focus entirely on fire rate. their base damage is equal to beams, but they fall behind over the long term. the beam augment however reverses this. They have a base range of 600, a base rate of fire delay of 4, and are the smallest of the weapons.

The problem with kinetics, first and foremost, is that they simply have to actually survive every other weapon type firing on them first. This makes them literally useless in the early-mid game, where tiny ships slinging around damage on par with their healthbars is the order of the day. As you move up in ship sizes and defenses, and extend their reach to catch up with beams, they improve massively.

The upside is that pound for pound, kinetics are the most efficient. Once they get their group +range augment, they catch beams in distance, and overpower everything for sheer damage potential. As the game drags on, you will lean more and more towards kinetic firepower on your capital hunters, backing them up with beams for dealing with defenses. Obviously, this reverses if the enemy is stacking defenses in bulk, but kinetics will be your main gun for mowing down escorts. Plain and simple, kinetics are the best gun type for sheer damage.

Techwise, Kinetics capstone is a fleetwide range buff, the only fleetwide capstone. Just one of these, mounted on a huge ship, makes your small ships capable of bringing kinetics to bear. They also get the largest of the range increasing augments, making kinetics exponentially better on larger ships. And of course, you can fit more and more kinetics as the game goes on. You don't need any more range boosts with the potent augments, so you can afford to build in bulk.

Shipwise, bigger ships make better use of kinetics. Kinetics start firing last, so you need to get close, but their high rate of fire means that after the initial missile salvos have cleared the way, they will chew through any remains, then through the escorts and capitals. The final augment lets even small ships, who are at least likely to survive the opening missile barrage, bring kinetics to bear, using them to clean the remaining carrier spawn up and punch nice big holes in capital hunters. They'll still get chewed up trying to use them on enemy capitals superior defenses however, so don't go making them into attackers, that's what beam smalls are for.

When to use: Large/Huge as the main guns. Medium and Small with the final augment on a Huge in the fleet.

What to use against: Anything and everything once you hit endgame. they're simply too good.

These are suggestions for general use. Many many cases will come up that change this. enemies having inferior defenses in one of the categories. Enemies focusing on specific tactics. things like that. This is for a general situation, assuming the enemy is building balanced ships and fleets. If the enemy has supercarriers spamming giant interceptor clouds, kinetics are the only way you'll carve through effectively. If the enemy has billions of defenses and small guns, as well as auto repair, trying to outlast you, kinetics won't cut the armor fast enough and you need beams.

This is only an overview of weapons. Not of ships. There are far too many approaches and potential fleet compositions and matchups to tell you what to use in every situation. This is a guideline, not the spacepope's own gun bible.

I am not liable for damages incurred from the use of terror stars on your own star systems, mechanical failure, nuclear radiation based zombie outbreaks, or lone missileboats destroying your starbase due to poorly placed exhaust ports. Please drink and explode responsibly.