The Phase Lance:

The Solean Phase Lance is a rather unique weapon. An improvement over conventional particle beam weapons. The Phase Lance fires a phase-coherent particle stream that is highly accurate even at the large distances common in space combat. The beam itself is actually the result of several collimated energy streams being focused into a single beam. A factor that has a few advantages. The most important is allowing more power from a smaller assembly. All Human and Solean energy weapons use this principle. Starting with the high energy linked laser cannons that brought energy weapons into prominence.

The phase lance starts the generation of the beam with the particle generators. A series of small modules is fed energy and material to produce charged particles. These particles are collected by the particle accumulator and fed to the particle acceleration array. The array accelerates the particle stream to light speed and ejects the stream into a collimation chamber where the beam collimates mere nanoseconds before it is fired from the emitters. Three such streams are generated simultaneously within a typical cannon.

At the same time, a second type of energy stream is being generated. This time a laser beam. Starting with the photon generators, which produce a stream of photons. These photons are fed through a focusing array that narrows the stream into a tight, focused beam, and then fires the laser stream into the collimation chamber. The stream interacts with the particle stream lasing the particles and in the process produces a phase coherent energy beam.

The phase lance is a weapon that is highly effective against armor, and moderately effective against shields. The weapon is a H.E.L type that can support several modifications with both beam and pulsed variants. Possible modifications include Supercharger, Multiphase, rapid-fire, and wide beam.

The supercharger modification is one you should already be familiar with. The Supercharger greatly increases the yield and boosts the recharge rate of energy weapons temporarily. Allowing for a powerful but short burst of heavy fire against a target. This comes at the cost of overwhelming the weapon’s cooling systems requiring the weapon to cool after unleashing the burst before it can be fired again. Overuse of superchargers has been known to cause irreparable damage to a starship’s weapons array.

The rapid-fire modification is a simple modification to the weapon. Where the weapon is configured to fire and recharge more rapidly than normal at the cost of yield. This modification is very popular with light weapon mounts intended to engage lighter spacecraft like fighters and shuttles.

Widebeam is a modification that is fairly self-explanatory. The emitter aperture is modified to fire the beam over a wide area. Most weapons with the modification are designed with variable emitters as wide beams are only useful at short range. It is often used for ground bombardment, but also has its uses in space combat.

The Multiphase modification is related to metaphase weapons technology, but a precursor to it. A multiphase weapon fires in multiple phases at any given time. All H.E.L weapons can support the modification. Each separate energy steam is generated at a separate frequency before collimating. The frequencies of the beam are determined by computer algorithms. Multiphase weapons have increased effectiveness against shields, as they are capable of overwhelming shields more efficiently than single-phase beam weapons.

Phased Plasma Beam Cannon (PPB):

The Solean PPB is an advanced plasma-based beam weapon designed to replace the Phase lance. Developed in 310 SDE they quickly proved superior and replaced the by then aging Phase Lance as the weapon of choice, and quickly became the signature weapon of the Solean Fleet.

The PPB operates on the same basic principles as the Phase lance. A series of plasma streams are generated in parallel, accelerated to lightspeed, and then phased by a laser stream. The result of this is a plasma-based beam weapon capable of striking targets upwards of a couple million kilometers away and capable of dealing significant damage. Making the PPB one of the longest ranged plasma-based weapons known.

The weapon is so powerful that it will punch through low-grade shields as if they were paper barriers, and stronger shields may not fully stop the beam. Like all plasma weapons, the beam has mass and does intense thermal and kinetic damage to the target. PPBs are compatible with several modifications including Superchargers, Metaphasic, Rapidfire, and Widebeam.

Hellfire Plasma Cannon:

The Hellfire Plasma cannon was originally developed as a corvette weapon for the Solean Light Assault Corvette, a ship class that was developed in 322 SDE. It was designed as a mid-range rapid-fire plasma weapon. Perfect for a light craft.

It fires dense plasma bolts contained in a phased flux field that collapses microseconds after interacting with a ship’s hull. Upon collapse, the plasma rapidly and explosively expands. The weapon boasts an impressive fire rate of nearly ten thousand bolts per minute, but only in short bursts. This rapid-fire rate allows it to quickly overwhelm most targets. While it can only fire in short bursts, it doesn’t need a long burst given that in fighter combat firing windows tend to be short.

The weapon’s effectiveness led to larger starship versions being developed. The larger starship versions have more powerful cooling systems and are tuned for a more sustained fire rate at a lower but still respectable fire rate. While lacking the range of the PPB, it more than makes up for it with a higher fire rate and firepower. Hellfires made excellent ship to ship weapons and were especially effective against hulls. It is important to note that they were real power hogs, and as such the PPB was the favored weapon of the fleet.

Photon Pulse Cannon:

The Photon Pulse Cannon was a heavy weapon developed for use on the LPC during the Cylovan Conflict. Intended to serve as an alternative to torpedoes. It fires a dense pulse of photons sealed in a spatial flux field at the target. Each pulse hits with the force of a small nuke, and the weapon has a respectable rate of fire.

The weapon is a mid-range weapon. Reasonably effective against most targets. The weapon is a H.E.L.L system. The pulse can punch through most known alloys short of neutronium in very short order. Has been known to briefly irradiate ships with gamma radiation if their hull lining or shielding is insufficient.