Beam Emitter
Type	Main Gun
Available From	ARG ANT PAR HOP TEL MIN ALI DUK TRI RIP VIG
Fitted To	Small and Medium ships
Role	Anti-Fighter
Required License	Military License (+10)

In-game Description

The Beam Emitter is a highly specialised anti-fighter weapon, notable for its high accuracy. It discharges high-velocity beams which hit their target almost immediately. However, somewhat counterintuitively, it achieves this instantaneous accuracy by restraining the energy that the beam puts out. Since the beam is not as intense as the projectiles fired by many of its contemporaries, it only inflicts damage gradually, which exposes the pilot to a counter-attack. Because of this, and the fact that the weapon inflicts more damage the nearer it is to its target, the Beam Emitter is mainly used on nimble fighters which are able to get up close and out-manoeuvre their target when necessary.

The Mk2 variant tries to rectify the weak damage output somewhat by ramping up the beam's intensity, but this comes at the cost of the weapon overheating more rapidly.

Tactical Overview

The Beam Emitter fires, suprise surprise, a beam! This comes with certain advantages but also some big disadvantages. However, there is quite the potential with this weapon. 
This is a weapon of extremes.

The damage output is very, very low, and destroying anything with this weapon will take a long time. It is only effective against fighters with the lightest of protection. 

The tracking speed is also somewhat lacking and slow. Fast dogfights will result in your beams wildly swirling around, trying to compensate for the rapid manoeuvre , and won't deliver a lot of damage. The Beam Emitter requires smooth and precise flying to be effective.

Now for the good stuff. This weapon is extremely heat efficient. The only variant that effectively can overheat is the Small Mk1 version, as it fires a constant beam with the reload time being equal to the beam duration. All the other variants never overheat unless used in large numbers. When the beam stops firing to reload, the heat dissipation kicks in and generally manages to get rid of all heat until you use four or more Beam Emitters. Overheating is essentially not an issue with this weapon.

This extreme heat efficiency can result in quite a respectable sustained damage output with which you can keep melting down your targets. Still, anything larger than a Heavy Fighter will take some time.
Of particular note is the Medium Mk2 variant, which actually has a pretty high damage output. Four are enough to destroy Xenon N or M in a single salvo from long range.

But now, for the one thing that turns the Beam Emitter from an okay, niche weapon into quite the powerhouse that has to be feared on the battlefield.
Modifications.
Specifically, Slasher. With Slasher, it is possible to increase the damage of the Beam Emitter to 300%. This can result in the Medium Mk2 achieving a whopping 471 damage per second. The decrease in heat dissipation is not much of a problem due to how heat-efficient the Beam Emitter is. With Slasher applied, just three Medium Mk2 Beam Emitters can already break the shield regeneration of a Xenon K. Not to mention how quickly it melts fighters.

Specifications

Construction Cost

Universal Build Method

Closed Loop Build Method

Terran Build Method