New in X3:FL are factories that product beam weapons, and ships that can actually equip them.
Luckily no NPC ships actually does this, otherwise tears of ambitious space entrepreneurs will drown the Egosoft forum.

In case you aren't familiar, there weapons are:

At a glance they don't seem to threaten PPC, the gold standard of capital weapons, at all.

After all, the best of them, PBC (literally laser tower) only does half the shield damage and a bit more hull damage.

Now let's say we are killing an ATF Tyr with a single PPC. The Tyr with 12Gj of shield and 4m hull HP will take a single PPC 258s + 487s = 745s to kill.

How about with a PBC?

It takes 504s + 370s = 874s to kill. That's about 85% the efficiency of PPC. Considering shield recharge I'd say it's about 80%.

Waiiiit, WAAAAAAAAIIIITTTT

hol up

That little bit of hull damage dps almost negates the low shield DPS, becuase X3:AP veterans know hull damage is actually the hard part (unless ramming).

Now, can you hit 80% of your PPC? If not, having PBC is actually better.

ATF Tyr is kinda an extreme example too, its shield:hull being 1:3. Commonwealth/Xenon has a much balanced ratio, like a Xenon K is 6m hull + 8Gj shield, a whooping 3:4 ratio. Our PBC wins by a landslide if we are killing Xenons.

There's just this small thing available to capitals called
Which means for those that can switch into Gauss Cannons, the PPC/GC combo wins by a landslide over our new friends.

But you know what gets completely dogged by beam weapons? Flaks.
Any time you can fit any of the beam weapon anywhere over flaks you should, becuase it's more range, more accuracy, more fire rate, less noise, better everything.

Believe me or not, it starts with M6s. Yes you can have your mobile laser towers.

Goner Truelight Seeker
Surprises no one.

Split Heavy Dragon / Enhanced HD - 4x PALC on top
because energy is a concern (as is cargo space) you should only put PALC there. You can even just completely forgo cockpit weapons for E-cells because your mobile laser towers will do everything better than whatever you put there.

Kogarasu Maru - 2x PBC/FBC on front
It's not enough that the KM is taking the job of both Acinonyx AND Hyperion. Truly the favored son of X3 gods.

Xenon PX - 7x FBC on cockit
Whooaah!
However a little bit of math shows 7 FBC + shields leaves 140 space for fuel. Which is a real shame because the PX can actually sustain 7 FBC firing! Cockpit lasers for bail baiting is bonkers and you should definitely try it out, but as a player ship it's not an option.
Edit: Manually fired FBC is sadly bugged. Very little damage if you are holding the fire button.
Try it if you wanna reach enlightment :)

The Winners

Pirate Carrack - 4x PBC on L/R
Doesn't solve all its problem but that's one hell of an upgrade.

Split Tiger - 2x PALC on L/R
Now has something much more energy efficient against hull than the IBLs. Less cargo space too.

ATF Aegir & Terran Yokohama - 4x/2x FBC on L/R
While Yokohama still sucks because of the cargo space, the Aegir finally has something to take advantage of its huge energy stock.

Yaki Akurei - 2x PBC on L/R
It is now completely missile immune becuase of PBC on L/R and PSG on T/B.

OTAS Astraeus - 2x PBC on L/R/T/B
Its energy regen can only handle about 3 of them firing at the same time.

Xenon Q - 2x FBC on L/R
The Queen of OOS combat continues her rampage. 1 FBC + 1 PSG on L/R is one hella combo too.

Paranid Agamemnon - 4x TBC on L/R
Unlike the Tiger, the Agamemnon already has the unholy PSG to strip anything's shield in 0.2s, so better ways to deal hull damage is much appreciated. TBC is not great, but it's still a more energy-efficient IBL from 1km further away that also never misses. Again you can mix TBC+PSG together for complete missile immunity.
But wait there is more. Usually when you pair PSG with another weapon like HEPT, when the projectile of HEPT hits (and disapears), the shockwave is gone too. Guess what, beam weapon has a continuous projectile, meaning the shockwave stays as a shield against everything.





Argon Cerberus - 2x PBC on L/R
Surprise, surprise, the Cerberus can keep 6 PBC firing at the same time. Meaning it can run it's L/R turrets non-stop while still shooting at other stuff. Who's the boss now, Astraeus?

Split Panther - 2x PALC on L/R, 4x T/B
Not to be confused with the Panther Raider. Both exist in the game. This is an M7D with only 1Gj of shield, but a strong laser energy recharge. Huge win for a drone ship that absolutely hates missiles or friendly fire.

Yaki Kariudo - 2x TBC on L/R/T/B
Ditto above. Weaker energy compared to the Pather but triple the shield.

The Losers

Split Panther Raider, Argon Griffon Raider, Boron Thresher, Paranid Deimos, Teladi Shrike & Tern, and all the unmentioned M7Ds. They did not light the beam.

The Winners

OTAS Boreas - 4x PBC on L/R/T/B
Not much help against other M2s, but much more of a bully against smaller ships now.

Split Pteranodon - 8x cockpit/L/R, 4x rear
If you wanna see a starwars-lite mobile laser gun ship, put PALC everywhere and let it loose. Set up PPC/PALC autoswitch to better handle missiles & fighters. It suffers from huge blindsides all around, so autoswitching into beams is a unique trait you must take advantage of.

Xenon K - 8x PBC/FBC on L/R, 4x TBC/FBC on T/B, FBC on rear
Now that's interesting. The K suffers from the lack of cargo space but now you can, and I recommend, go 24 GC on the main guns, with PBC and/or FBC on flanks and autoswitch. With GC not competing for energy, the K is all of a sudden a fast & powerful destroyer now.

Yaki Akuma - 8x TBC on L/R
Not enough to fix its problems, but better against fighters now.

ATF Tyr - 12x FBC on L/R
Now that's something! If you dare to forgo the woefully volumic PSP on L/R, that's 1680 cargo space saved! FBC does 1/3 the shield damage compared to PSP, but 35% more hull damage. I don't think you actually lose anything, maybe even gaining advantages against commonwealth/Xenon capitals. Pretty big win like the Xenon K.

ATF Valhalla - 12x FBC on L/R
Who would win, a buffed terran mothership, or a jump gate?

Terran Osaka - 8x FBC on L/R
The Osaka doesn't have the incentive to save cargo space like the Tyr. More option for autoswitch is always nice however.

Pirate Brigantine - 8x PBC on L/R/T/B
Great option for autoswitch. Missile immune if it wants to be.

Paranid Odysseus - 4x TBC on T/B
Can pull off the TBC+PSG combo on T/B.

Xenon I - 8x PBC/FBC on L/R, 8x TBC/FBC on top, 6x on bottom
The king of M2 gets another huge buff. Like I said, beam weapons over flaks is a huge upgrade whenever, wherever. This is even more significant on the I because of its jaw-dropping laser recharge. Imagine 26 PPC on main guns (autoswitch with FBC), PLUS 8+6 TBC on T/B, PLUS 3 missile launching tubes. Truly the war machine.
Upon testing, 26 PPC/GC vs 26 PPC + 16 FBC (front can't mount) has similar performance. On top/bottom tho TBC are actually better than FBC because that 5.6km/s projectile speed is actually huge against fighers.
GC is not better than FBC as a switch option because 1) range is 4.8km vs 6.63km, 2) at 4km-ish away, the first projectiles take 13s to travel there. That's 13s wasted.

The Losers

Split Python, Boron Ray & Megalodon, Argon Titan, Terran Kyoto, Teladi Phoenix.

Option 1: set up factories to produce them the old way.

Option 2: Strongarms' homebase Rhonkar's Trial has 1 PALC fac and 1 unique combo fac that produces TBC and FBC.
They are always short on food tho, so you may want to quickly get your rep into just positive with them (try agents), supply with food, and steal the products via cargo bay hacker. They would never get removed by GOD so no worries.

Option 3: Black market.
Which is completely broken. When you dock a ship at a trading dock/stock exchange you get the option to go into black market (from the docked ship's menu). Sometimes you get rare/capital grade weapons.

The fastest way is producing/buying a bunch of M5 raider variants, upgrade their speed, and tell each of the ship to dock at the trading dock of a different sector. You can hide these M5 and only unhide them when necessary. All beam weapons & rare weapons like the PSG can be bought in bulk this way.

Option 4: sometimes discovery reward has one of the beam weapons as an option.

I hope you find these changes exciting and are ready to launch the game to experience something new. Remember there's no "meta" in this bloody single player game and whatever you fly is the best ship in the universe. Cheers!