Projectile, projected, and EM (ship-driven weapons)
Coherent light weapons, lasers tend to exit the ship via either something looking like a focusing lens or concentrating parabaloid reflectors. For lower-powered lasers, these can often be trivially turreted, even on small craft. The actual laser generator may well be in an entirely different part of the ship, making the emitter quite small in comparison to other weapons of similar damage potential (although the generator can be quite large due to the massive nature of the corresponding cooling apparatus). Lasers, especially more powerful lasers, have efficiency problems and produce lots of waste heat, but see continued usage because they are prized for their ability to mostly bypass modern shielding. Due to their heat issues, they tend to fire infrequently and for short periods of time. Effective range tends to be very good - falloff due to diffraction can be assumed to be linear with respect to distance to target.
Beams of particles, ionized, accelerated, and then let fly at the enemy. Range limited by combination of thermal and electrostatic bloom (as quadratic falloff). Effectiveness improved by larger exit velocity (but that requires a bigger accelerator) or de-ionization aka beam neutralization (but that reduces beam coherence-at-exit and exit velocity, although it improves shield penetration). Particle accelerators can be of linear, spiral, or circular basic construction, with length/radius limiting final exit velocity. While they can scale down very well, they can become impractical to deploy as they scale up ( see circumference of LHC). The less energy imparted per particle, the more particles will tend to be in a weaponized beam. Neutralized beams impart damage through kinetic impact, charged beams may also cause secondary effects. The electromagnetic components of shielding are only effective against charged beams, and more effective the slower the beam's velocity.
The business end of a particle accelerator is usually fairly obvious on visual inspection. Electromagnetic coils and/or charged plates will surround a fairly small physical beam opening around an even smaller beam (the space between being the margin of error in keeping the beam from hitting its own accelerator instead of the target). The accelerator itself is likewise composed of a series of distinctively magnetic portions separated by empty tracks of inactive beam housing. For use in space, the inactive portions of the beam housing can be partial or elided altogether. Many of the particle accelerator components are superconducting and sensitive to overheating - they thus often either have sizable coolant loops or dedicated radiators. Linear particle beam accelerators can be generally differentiated from linear projectile motors by the size of the exit hole, the charge-accumulation release devices near the exit (especially for neutralized beams), and by the gaseous, plasma, or about-to-become-plasma nature of the ammunition storage.
Shield-tech, or gravitic, weapons look more than simply odd - they look somehow... Wrong - not how one conceives of a weapon looking. It is not always even clear which direction the business end is pointing unless clearly marked. There is an element in the appearance of these weapons that makes clear the inappropriate nature of the manner in which they impress themselves upon reality. Underneath the hood, gravitic weapons look like the bastard offspring of a threesome among M.C. Escher, H.R. Giger, and Rube Goldberg's works. The Aera try to tastefully cover up these weapons, the Humans try to impose their rectilinear normative, and the Rlaan display them in their natural state - complexity tempting disarray.
Guns. Often, big guns. They can be roughly split into two categories: Weapons that rely on kinetic impactors accelerated to very high velocities, and weapons that lob warheads of various internal construction. The former tend to be long and skinny, while the latter, while still stick-like, are much shorter and fire much more massive projectiles. Some kinetic impactors are actually warheads in their own right (usually in terms of shield-penetration aids) but so long as their primary damage vector is kinetic, weapon construction will look much more like those that sling their solid-slug counterparts than those that punt out their fellow warheads.
Closely related to particle weapons, plasma weapons are more commonly used for secondary effects than for direct damage. While used as direct damage weapons, such devices are either civilian in nature or crafted to fill a regulatory or cost niche. Many plasma weapons are effectively flamethrowers when used in vacuum. Combinations of electrostatic and thermal bloom make them very short-ranged weapons, but, if sufficiently close range can be achieved, the amount of material they put out can overwhelm many standard defense mechanisms. Plasma emitters have also found uses in defensive applications, being used to disrupt laser fire.
Plasma weapons tend to be on the small side for ship-to-ship weaponry, although the largeness of their ammunition reserves tends to make up for the small size of the weapons themselves. Many are little more than overgrown plasma torches. Several varieties are weaponized versions of emergency reactor-venting hardware. This latter class often breaks the standard large gas-tank rules for other plasma weapons and taps the reactor directly. In order to prevent heat-transfer, the path from the plasma chamber to the muzzle will be lined with electromagnetic containment rings. Unlike particle accelerators and linear induction motors, these rings are small, tightly packed, and evenly spaced.
Missiles (self-driven weapons)
Pod-launched rockets (small, single-burn, high-volume dumbfires):
(For inspiration, see: wikipedia entries for Hydra 70 or SNEB)
Small craft that aren't designed to equip large, hard-hitting weaponry can make up for this (temporarily) by mounting external rocket pods. Moreover, the rockets are cheap to launch with respect to reactor energy and heating concerns, so the rest of the weapons can function at full efficiency. Of course, the downside to cheap, small rockets is that you'll run out of them much more rapidly than you'd have run out of bullets, and unlike full-fledged missiles, they won't do much to help you hit your target. Still, if you're a fan of first impressions on limited budgets, they help a lot with your alpha strike.
Missiles (self-driven warhead delivery systems more maneuverable than a strike craft):
You cannot outrun them (in normal space), you cannot outmaneuver them (indefinitely), but you can confuse them and outlast them. The long-range introduction of choice for most strike craft (Rlaan excluded), missiles are a relatively expensive, relatively limited-quantity resource. Most missiles are a compromise between performance, sensor package, warhead size, and overall expandability(expense). Their form is often familiar - on smaller missiles, a mult-faceted, but largely rear-facing thruster array, on larger missiles, a combination of rear-facing thruster array and maneuvering thrusters, and on the other end sensors and warhead. However, in vacuum, aerodynamics can be more readily dispensed with, and packing considerations may trump aesthetics, producing a wider array of shapes and proportions than seen in-atmosphere. With short burn times, there is no need for radiators or other cooling mechanisms. There are no shields and no armor, except perhaps a pittance on the warhead itself - and that more for safety during transport than to protect against anything in-flight.
Torpedoes (Long-burn missile weapons with maneuverability similar to or less than that of a strike craft):
While missiles have to catch strike craft, torpedoes are designed to hunt larger, less maneuverable prey. They are designed to be launched from a distance and pursue their prey doggedly until detonating or destroyed. They almost universally mount very expensive sensor packages, and will sometimes even boast weak shield emitters to guard them against engine wash during prolonged chases. Their drives, unlike missiles, begin to resemble those of ships in miniature, and some indeed use the same engine assemblies used in drone craft or autonomous probes. The potentially long duration of their flights means that torpedoes will tend to unfurl simple radiators once launched, and while primary thrust is usually all rear-ward, some forward-facing maneuvering thrusters are not uncommon.
Mines and bombs (self-powered weapons with negligible maneuverability):
Mines are of maximal use around jump-points, where sensors will have little time to detect them before they can trigger. In open space, even the best stealth systems cannot keep a mine hidden indefinitely. Mines are most effectively deployed in debris fields, rings, or where other active sources will overshadow their presence. Mines are one of the few spacecraft for which it makes sense to bother painting them black, as they will operate in minimal thermal mode until active (most other craft being so visible due to their engine output that attempting to elude visual detection is irrelevant). Bombs are warheads without dedicated delivery systems, taking whatever momentum they have from the craft that launched them. Orbital deployment devices fall in this category, as do ballistic mines.
Capital Missiles (Large-scale, extended burn warhead-delivery craft with size and drive complexity comparable to that of strike craft. Usually include limited in-system FTL capabilities):
Capital missiles are almost as large, as complicated, and a fair fraction of the cost of in-system strike craft. With full-fledged drive systems (often including in-system FTL drives capable of at a limited number of uses) and reactors, they can be speculatively deployed beyond reliable sensor range, and much of the cost of the missile is in its targeting computer, often a Pseudo-AI expert system. Capital missiles tend to carry massive warheads, although sometimes they also carry harassing weaponry, blurring the line between drone and missile, or area-effect anti-strike sub-munitions. The designs of capital missiles are heavily influenced by the corresponding designs for strike craft of the factions using them, although considerations on packing and expandability are clearly taken into account. Capital missiles usually mount shields, and may either have or be EW platforms. Kinetic capital missiles are also in existence, usually lacking FTL drives, heavily armored, filled with heavy metals, and deployed against immobile or relatively immobile targets, such as stations or asteroid bases.
Other
For those interested in piracy, the ship itself is a prize superior to its cargo. Moreover, negotiated extortion tends to work better when the object of value is at once unlikely to bolt from one's possession and unlikely to be so damaged as to incur wrath over negotiation. In such circumstances, weaponry designed explicitly to disable is preferable than attempting to disable a craft through precision application of otherwise lethal ordinance. Similarly, those whose job includes interdiction and incarceration, but who are not, through law or other strictures, permitted or predisposed toward dealing out actual deaths, will carry such weaponry in order to make clear their life-affirming intentions, even if the results are messier and more complicated. These weapons range from the exotic (multi-agent epoxies) to specialized variants of more familiar weaponry (charged particle, plasma weapons, and low-intensity lasers being the most common).
Unpiloted craft, either slaved to a central controller or semi-autonomous, they are not weapons as such, but weapon platforms. They are ships in miniature, lacking long-ranged drive systems, or FTL capability. They are parasite craft, utterly dependent on their mothership for transport, supply, maintenance, and (usually) direction. The longer they are designed to be actively deployed without returning to the mothership, the more they resemble actual strike craft. Frequently found in a role much like that of ancient guard dogs, many drone craft are deployed for security purposes to protect civilian interests. In the military realm, the Rlaan are the heaviest users of drone craft, perhaps compensating for their non-use of missile weapons. They are not alone in using combat drones, however, with the Andolians making particularly noted use of such weapons.
Weapon Description Template
-- Still to be sorted --
<Beam name="Whiplash" mountsize="capship-heavy">