[BravoKiloOne]

so i have a question, why is it that in sci-fi most weapons are directed energy?

to me a super high power laser, or particle beam seems too easy on a ship that is capable of FTL travel. if you have breached the energy requirement to get a ship up to speeds faster than light why wouldn't you have weaponry that can accelerate a projectile to near light speed?

[Sunfire]

I can think of several reasons:

1. rule of cool: lasers are simply cooler and more sci-fi. They are also more flashy and better visible against the black of space.
2. shields: usually shields are portrait to be more effective against kinetic weapons than energy. So to effectively bring down shields you need energy weapons.
3. physics/travel time/targeting: the Mass Effect gunnery sergeant said it best: Newton's first law is a thing. If you miss... well, you miss. And will ruin someone else's day - somewhere and sometime

But in general most sci-fi settings I know actually use both (energy and kinetic). Some settings also use mostly kinetic (Mass Effect or Battlestar Galactica, for example). But it's less common to only use energy weapons without any kinetics at all.

[Heyallo]

Since we're talking about Mass Effect, I'll leave this here... (apologies for the video title, it's not mine though)

[Sunfire]

I was on my work PC when I wrote that, but I referenced exactly that video. Thanks Heyallo!

[Heyallo]

I was on my work PC when I wrote that, but I referenced exactly that video. Thanks Heyallo!

Welcome Sunfire buddy!

[Petrarch]

Aside from what's been mentioned above, there's a few other things I can think of:

Energy Weapons, so long as there's available power on the ship, won't have ammo issues, likely a factor for one intended to be out on its own or in remote areas for extended periods.

They'd be somewhat easier to aim, particularly at a moving target.

The issue of protection is probably another matter - throughout Trek we generally don't see anyone strapping on body armour before heading out to fight as it seems to imply it's all but useless having it in that theatre. That said, the Borg seemed particularly vulnerable to physical attacks. Then again it could argued that this is a case of idiot ball, as when the drones adapt to energy weapons, it rarely seems to occur to anyone that picking up a chair or a solid pipe and smashing the drones in the face with it actually isn't as bad an idea as it sounds.

The reimagined Battlestar Galactica is probably one of the most effective live action examples of the use of kinetic weaponry and the Battlestar concept itself is probably one of the most efficient capital ship designs since it can defend itself well against fighters and still go toe to toe with other capitals. Most other sci-fi examples tend to be good at one and weak at the other regardless of them being kinetic or energy. Just look what happened to the Big E in Beyond for example.

[Heyallo]

Aside from what's been mentioned above, there's a few other things I can think of:

Energy Weapons, so long as there's available power on the ship, won't have ammo issues, likely a factor for one intended to be out on its own or in remote areas for extended periods.

They'd be somewhat easier to aim, particularly at a moving target.

The issue of protection is probably another matter - throughout Trek we generally don't see anyone strapping on body armour before heading out to fight as it seems to imply it's all but useless having it in that theatre. That said, the Borg seemed particularly vulnerable to physical attacks. Then again it could argued that this is a case of idiot ball, as when the drones adapt to energy weapons, it rarely seems to occur to anyone that picking up a chair or a solid pipe and smashing the drones in the face with it actually isn't as bad an idea as it sounds.

The reimagined Battlestar Galactica is probably one of the most effective live action examples of the use of kinetic weaponry and the Battlestar concept itself is probably one of the most efficient capital ship designs since it can defend itself well against fighters and still go toe to toe with other capitals. Most other sci-fi examples tend to be good at one and weak at the other regardless of them being kinetic or energy. Just look what happened to the Big E in Beyond for example.

It's almost like they evolved their way of thinking like the Asgard did and can no longer think "if pew pew laser no work, HULK SMASH!" lol

[BravoKiloOne]

need to dig through my kindle and find the books but one of the series i was reading used a unique and terrifying form of semi kinetic weaponry, cannons that fired nukes as a packet of tachyons calculated to have just the energy so they would drop back to being tardyons within the enemy ship and trigger detonation (the logic being that ships are not designed to have nukes go off inside the superstructure). maybe not technically a kinetic weapon but more of a hybrid of directed energy and kinetic. granted this was a universe that also used some crazy powerful lasers as well as some not so crazy powerful lasers but lasers that could be tuned for maximum energy absorption by the enemy ships hull....