Capships, increasingly slower fighters? Or strategic weapons?

[Dusty Lens]

About Tenacity's idea, that leaves out fighters...both BS and GB are strong against them, so a well balanced combat fleet will not include fighters. Fighters, here, just get pwnt.

I would make GB anti fighter, as tenacity suggested, the BS the artillery platforms with great range (2000-3000), and the cruisers something designed to get inside the BS's guard and tear it to shreds, with short(0-800) and deep medium range weapons(1000-2000). To secure the Cruiser position, the GB should be fragile, easily eaten by a Battleship at short range(0-800) and strong themselves at medium range (600-1400)

This would make cruisers efective against fighters in dogfights, but gunboats and battleships not...fighters would easily get inside a battleship's guard, and the strength of a Gunboat against a fighter would be just outside of a fighter's weapon range...
The problem I see with this is that I personally have no idea how to make minimum effective ranges for weapons...

Indeed. Without the ability to manage turret tracking a weapon designed to be effective at 3000 meters is just as effective at 30. Doubly so, really, as one would need to make such a weapon fire exceptionally fast in order to reach the target before it has dodged the imminent shot.

*thinks* Though I suppose the tracking could be solved on our end, by reducing the firing archs of such a weapon. Heavy artillery with high firing speed and high damage/range that relies upon ship positioning would be balanced nicely on a vessel with extremely limited maneuverability. Turret slots could be added that provide for anti-fighter capabilities, while gunslots provide for cannons much like those featured on gunboats.

Ergo you could have a cruiser/battleship with actual artillery cannons that can make long range mincemeat of enemy targets but would have an effective zone where such weaponry would be rendered useless.