[apache]

Here is what I think we should do to make ship classes more useful. Based on the theories that the larger the weapon, the less useful it is on a smaller ship, I think we should have to-hit penalties based on ship sizes. These would be assigned to the different mount sizes. For example, large mount weapons would have no to-hit modifier for hulls 300KT or greater, but once you start shooting at the smaller vessels, you get a 50% negative to-hit modifier. Huge mounts would get a -50% modifier on ships less than 600KT. Massive mounts would get a -50% modifier on ships less than 1000KT. This way, you must use appropriately sized weapons to attack different ship classes. Of course the AI would need a major overhaul with this, so it definitely would not be easily done.
Now, something that would be possible with this modification is to extend range bonuses to the larger mounts, but still have the best bonuses on the bases. This way, a Dreadnought with huge PPBs would outrange an escort with normal PPBs, but it would have a very hard time hitting that ship with its big guns.