Weapons
From the Galactic Civilizations Wiki
Weapons are components designed to inflict damage on other ships and starbases.
There are several types of weapons:
Mass drivers are guns that shoot matter (bullets) - best countered by armor. Beam weapons are things like lasers - best defended with shields. Missiles are self propelled weapons that can be shot down by point defense.
The AI players will adapt to your tactics. (So keep a variant of your ship to upgrade to in case this happens)
Beam weapons have a long research path but do pack one of the largest punches in the "doom ray". best to use shields for defense.
Missiles are a tried and true tech. The black hole eruptor deals the best damage... 25! It gets out there and explodes. It's best to use point defenses for defense.
Mass Drivers - These are basically an objects with mass, (science fiction traditionally uses asteroids) but these would be metals or rocks - solid objects and propels them via an electron magnet. This would give it a high speed but hard to aim. This is most like a traditional "gun". Best to use armor to defend. The highest mass driver damage is 16 per black hole generator
Attack strength can be improved on all ships by a percentage due to Race bonus, Mining starbases, Military starbase modules, or specific Technologies. These bonuses will show as increased defense levels compared to components on ships. For example, a 20% Attack bonus will give a ship with 5 Missle strength effectively 6 in combat.
