I've always wondered, and somehow the things I've read about ship turrets and cannons/guns never stuck with me. Making me confused as to what types of weapons there are. And what would all these types of weapons look like? I found a wiki that appear to list the numerous types of weapons, but what would they look like I wonder? Ballistic weapons below: Ballistic repeaters/Gatlings: High fire rate, low projectile damage Ballistic guns: Medium fire rate, Medium projectile damage Mass drivers: Low fire rate, High project Energy weapons below: Laser repeaters: High fire rate, low projectile damage Laser cannons: Medium fire rate, Medium projectile damage Neutron guns Low fire rate, High projectile damage Tachyon cannons Extremely high velocity, long range (from: https://starcitizen.tools/Ship_Weapons) I am curious to learn how energy weapons are best represented in game, visually. I wonder if it could be a good idea to at least make such weapons look very different from a ballistic weapon with a barrel. The simplest way, would be to add a thingy at the end, just like with Star Wars ships, however there are so many variants to energy weapons that perhaps it would make good sense to have four different looks to those four types of energy weapons. Presumably, ballistic weapons would have some kind of barrel, in order for having some means to build up an explosive power before the projectile leaves the barrel, that require some length of barrel to exist, else the energy is lost shortly after the projective is fired out through a stubby barrel.