Ship size vs. weapons

[apache]

Just want to mention some things.
1) There is no such thing as ballistics in space (vacuum, no gravity effects). All standard weapons will travel straight until they hit something else. I believe the range of weapons in the game is taken to be a range at which most ships cannot easily dodge them, rather than the point at which the beam dissipates or the particle has gone astray, since the beam will never dissipate, nor will the particle go astray.
2) The comparisons with naval units are not totally valid, but they do have merit. The idea here is that the smaller ships can get to areas that make the bigger mounted weapons much less likely to hit them.
The field of fire of any weapon is always limited by ship design. The naval comparison notes that a PT boat can get under the field of fire of a BB's guns. In the same vein, it can get behind the ship, putting it beyond the reach of the forward guns.
So make a few assumptions that the larger mounts have areas where they cannot fire because A) the target is too close, or B) there is a field of fire area which a small ship can 'hide' in and not worry about the big guns being able to rotate/elevate to fire at them.
Perhaps more advanced design which would allow you to place guns with fields of fire would solve this problem. This way you could decide how many guns face forward and how many face rearward. If you happen to be running from your opponent, you would not be able to shoot your forward weapons.