I'm not talking about aiming, I guess that could be confusing.  I am talking about something that the starbases have, they can have like one bank attack more than one target at the same time and then can even have that upgraded so that one bank can target and attack even more ships at the same time.  So, I know a capital ship can have multiple targets but I am suggesting that its banks can eventually have two targets each.  So, for example, the Kol's bean can only attack one ship at a time, one it reached like level 10, that weapon is part of the last 1/4 group to be able to attack two ship so it will now be able to attack two ships at the same time.

You have seen the TEC starbase fire a ton of beams, right? lol

I see what JDoe is talking about. this would bring down dps per target and you could keep it within fire arc but it would be a neat feature that you can turn off and on (say split beams between to LF in front of you versus concentrate on cap)

then keep the feature off

good idea, but each of those starbase beams is coming from one emitter (if you zoom right down to it, it looks like a 4 pronged, box like fork right?)

so each prong of that fork is an emitter, which is why each of those beams can attack a different target.

im not sure if this is what you mean or not, but i dont think the Kols beams should be able to target more than 4 targets at a time, i mean, how exactly are you splitting the beam to target each ship? its like splitting a bullet in half so it kills 2 people a few meters apart...

then again, im not sure if you mean that or not, if not fine, forget i said anything =P

im not sure about this... Starbases have alot more damage potential than capital ships, so splitting their firepower between targets is more viable. with a cap ship, you may need 2 or more banks to take down a target with any effeciency... idn, i have another thread going else where that talks about buffing the crap out of caps in general so their firepower is more befitting of a capital ship, so if that was implemented, then sure, splitting firepower between targets could be viable

I am not just talking about the Kol but rather allowing all ships to do this...but on the Kol there are actually four beams, not just one big one, they are 4 linked beams and if you want it could be changed so that they attack in pairs, like the bottom pair attack one ship and the top attack another so not exactly like splitting a bullet...more like upgrading from one barrel shotgun to a double barrel shotgun.

Also, I was just suggesting allowing the beam attack from the kol to attack 2 separate ships, not each individual beam attacking two...thats why I said the pairs just now.

I am just thinking of a way to improving caps since they seem too weak at the higher levels.  So like this would allow the one autocannon at the back of a kol to act like two of them, having separate targets.

I don't know how this was so messed up because i never talked about reducing damage, perhaps I wasn't clear enough.  I will read this whole thread after I post this but this is going to be my attempt to show you what I'm talking about and hopefully its understandable because the Kol example was only for visual purposes.  I was suggesting this sort of change as being some sort of high level research upgrade or only happens to capital ships at higher levels.

So, the change, for example, would work like this:  Up to level 6, all capital ships work just as they do now.  When a capital ship, lets say the Sova, goes to level seven, 1/4 of its turrents get a sort of upgrade so now they can attack two ships at the same time at FULL power.  So they are NOT splitting the damage they do, but its like you added another laser gun to the ship.  The Sova has 10 laser batteries, 25% of them get the upgrade at level 7 so 25% acts like you added an extra 2.5 laser guns to the ship so it seems to have 12.5 laser batteries but actually 2.5 (sorry about decimals) of them are able to attack two things at once at full power.  Each level upgrades the other 25% until all of the weapons on the ship is upgraded.  So now, it acts like it has 20 separate laser batteries, but visually, you will probably still just see 10, but each one will act like two separate ones.  This was the whole original idea.  Hopefully, it is understood this time.  And yes, it would look a bit weird on the advent, but whatever, lol.  One big thing I would want is that the extra turrents don't focus fire on ships...like, they just fire at something that isn't being fired on from the same ship.

So, there was an idea that someone thought I was saying which I sort of do like...being able to toggle the capital ship so that its guns fire all over the place, I sort of like this idea so it can take on even more ships at the same time, sort of interesting, even though that was not my idea.

Now that I've had a bit of time to think more about the idea instead of explaining it, lol, I thought of a different way to change things.  Of course all these changes are only for capital ships but I've thought how each weapon can act differently or how it could work for race.

For Weapons:

Missiles: Either fire double the missles or does double damage.(I like double the amount fired)

Beams: Either fires at double the rate or does double damage. (probably double damage)

Autocannon: Acts like two separate autocannons.

Other energy weapons (lasers, plasma, wave, pulse): Acts like two separate guns.

For Race:

TEC: All capital weapons act like two separate cannons.

Advent: Rate of fire doubles.

Vasari: Amount fired OR Strength doubles.