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Not so sure - haven't they just developed anti-matter and were using fusion reactions for most of those ships?

Every ship from the Amzarg (2730) onwards uses M/AM power generation and weapons. I'm not sure what the yield of those guns is, but the larger ones are bigger than a GCS on their own, and so they could probably one-shot any Fed ship.

Plus, we're talking about effective ranges where time is a factor!

The only big advantage the Feds have is agility.

I haven't often gone into the technology in detail, but by 3000 the ships are powered by total conversion power systems (not M/AM) - but these feed into a zero point energy booster which basically multiplies the output.

The power system and the normal weapons are completely separate; the weapons are NOT fed by the power system, nor can the Matter/Antimatter used in the weapons be used to power the engines.

The exception is the planetbuster cannon; the ZPE tech is there because I needed very high energy levels in the engines; that's because the planetbuster weapons are basically a giant great battery that plugs into the engine's power systems; store up a few hours worth of maximum power output, then just let it go in one big blast.

But I didn't want that level of firepower around for normal combat. Hence the planetbuster cannon is so huge and unwieldy that it's only good against big stationary targets at short range. They were also used to end the Tain war, which was considered to be justified at the time but very controversial afterwards; as a result the cannon are rarely carried on normal missions. In this time and place they are basically what nuclear weapons are today; ultimate weapons of last resort that are virtually unuseable unless your very existence is threatened.