I’ve decided to reserve this effect for some big patch much later. If I stick it in now, I’ll rush it and it won’t be teh awesome. Doing it later will mean the gfx can be better, and I can make sure it’s well balanced. Right now, it will be a single module weapon though, just one with multiple hardpoints. I coded it to shoot a normal beam, or to switch to this fancy system if the beam has more than one hardpoint…
So if you put a superlaser on every hardpoint…
KABOOM!
Your ship, or the enemy’s??? 
well,if there is gonna be something like an extremely strong laser,which would kind of take the role of “artillerie” in the game,it should be expensive,strong enoguh to blast a cruisers shields down or something of that magnitude,and it should require multiple weapon slots on a ship,for example 6 slots,so you could only place one laser on a ship and make it an dedicated long range weapon.
and to avoid the ridiculous look of an superlaser firing backwards,it should have a kind of firing ark,so that the cruiser the laser is mounted on would have to point his tip at the enemy he wants to attack.
I do like it very much. However, I would very much like it to be optional. Would it be a problem to include it somewhere in the options menu?
I’m thinking “wave motion gun” from Star Blazers, if I remember the series correctly, it was a uber powerful weapon but to fire it had to drain power from other systems and then it left the ship “adrift” for a few minutes after firing. Gratuitous enough?
the enemy’s… or, if the enemy has one, than yours…
I think any super-laser should have the same kind of effect as the fortress based “Thor Hammer” weapon from the Legend of the Galactic Heroes anime. Here’s a video of it in action. Be sure to watch the video for a minute or so until it shows the effects of the shot on the enemy fleet (at 9:25).
Could there be such a thing as… Too gratuitious? If there, is, then a beam that’s (much) wider than a cruiser might just be it xD
True, but the electric arcs along the beam are a nifty touch.
How about having a prism-module? If there is a prism-module on a ship, all beam-style weapons fire directly at the prism. The prism redirects all the beams, and fires them as one.
Beams the size of cruisers sounds like a winner to me.
I think it’s pretty cool.
It would be good to make it extra damaging, to balance you could make it only possible to combo the three lasers if the target is dead ahead or something, make the mobile ships have an extra little advantage, or force the ship to drop its shields for a few seconds before and after.
I’m with the above poster in this, the combined lasr-thingy looks pretty nice
agreed comrade! 
I’m not a fan
GASP but why not?
HERETIC!
Yeah – don’t like the star wars effect, and it looks wrong when firing at an angle (i.e. not exactly where the ship is facing).