Well, then if more thoughts = more problems, let me jump into the fray too!
Why should the size of the vessel limit the size of mount? If the ship designer wants to have a huge-mount, why does it matter if the ship is greater than 1100kT (for example)? As long as the ship is larger than the final kT size/weight of the weapon, it should be fine. Obviously the answer is that the only way to link the mount size to the level of technological advance in non-gold was to have a ship size requirement. But in gold, you can introduce mount types through the tech tree.
My suggestion is to jetison the anacronistic handcuff (ya like that aliteration? wait, was that aliteration? did I even manage to spell aliteration correctly?) of
total ship mass to mount requirement altogether. Instead, have a new field of study that allows for better and better mounts, all of which can be placed on ships of any size. That said, I'm sure that some of you out there have already done this in your mods (deathstalkers mount mod perhaps?)
This will give small ships yet another repreave.
I do however think that whacky-impossibly large amounts of damage, increased range and all that should still exist for the larger mounts. I think that mounts should be a big advantage, I just don't think only large ships should have access to them. (the lowered accuracy thing from proportions is a good idea though).
[ December 04, 2002, 23:09: Message edited by: jimbob ]