combat that don't make sense

[Pocus]

ok, thanks.

slightly diverging from the topic, I will dare, in all my glorious newbiness ask this question:

are all beam weapons capable of spreading damages on several units? I see that some weapons are capable of shooting down 3-4 of my fighters at once (not only PD).

[Alneyan]

Multiplex components allow a ship to fire on up to 5 targets at once (planets can fire on 10 targets in a given turn, if memory serves). So, a ship with 5 weapon components can fire on 5 different targets.

[Q]

Pocus said:
ok, thanks.

slightly diverging from the topic, I will dare, in all my glorious newbiness ask this question:

are all beam weapons capable of spreading damages on several units? I see that some weapons are capable of shooting down 3-4 of my fighters at once (not only PD).

A group of fighters is treated as one target and the individual fighters in that group like components in a ship for the combat damage calculation in SE IV. Therefore if you fire at a group with weapons that do more damage than one single fighter has hit points you can destroy several fighters or even the entire group with one sigle shot.