Standardize Weaponry

[Hielor]

If standard civilian weaponry does the same as normal faction weaponry I doubt people would buy code name weaponry. If code name weaponry is left with stats making it better than all other weaponry, the weapons dealers will see a sharp rise in business. Do we leave it like that or do we standardize code names too? Thus removing their 'special factor' and merely making them another civilian weapon?

Assuming the level 9 weapons were standardized against each other, codenames could still do more damage. They're an option to everyone, so there's nothing inherently imbalanced about them--they're just rare and expensive.

I doubt that everyone uses codename weapons just because the level 9 weapons they have available to them are worse than some other guy's factions guns--I imagine that most people do it because the codenames are better than their guns. Even if all fighter weapons were balanced against each other, there are still other classes of ships to attack that you can gain benefits from using codenames.

This in no way limits diversity. It in facts increases the diversity as each and every weapon type would have a version of each refire type. Meaning more weapons for each faction. Some factions already have multiple guns to their names though.

Then there is always the fact that weapons would still do more or less damage depending on the shield type of your enemy, thus particle, neutron, laser etc are still factors, right?

This. There are enough possible choices available when you consider refires and weapon damage type, without needing to make some faction guns worse than others.