Currently, pieces of equipment are not distinguished in any way from each other. There is therefore no difference between an endgame cannon, the starting laser, or a powerful missile launcher, any can be mounted on any ship in any number of hardpoints. This means that the player can put together extremely unbalanced builds, such as full missile boats which can pretty much wreck any other ship with zero effort.
To-do list:
Add "tier" attribute to weapon data indicating a rough "level" of that weapon
Add "tier" attribute to each hardpoint in shiparch data, representing the maximum allowed tier of weapon in that hardpoint
Edit equipment dealer logic to test maximum allowed tier in a hardpoint before letting the player mount equipment to that hardpoint
Add "class" attribute to weapon data indicating the type of a weapon, for instance, laser gun, plasma gun, missile, etc.
Edit logic determining whether a weapon is laser or kinetic for the sake of applying stat modifiers, which currently just tests the energy requirement of that weapon, to use class instead
Currently, pieces of equipment are not distinguished in any way from each other. There is therefore no difference between an endgame cannon, the starting laser, or a powerful missile launcher, any can be mounted on any ship in any number of hardpoints. This means that the player can put together extremely unbalanced builds, such as full missile boats which can pretty much wreck any other ship with zero effort.
To-do list: