Editing C-Basic Beam Warship Tutorial (section)

===Turrets===
Now, those of you paying attention to the tracking might be wondering why I asked you to make a 12,000 km/s fire control system if this bucket of bolts has no chance of going at anything like that speed? Good question! That is why we have turreted weapons. A weapon mounted in a turret has a tracking speed equal to the tracking speed of the turret rather than the speed of the ship. So we had better put our 10cm laser in a turret. Open the F2 window, go to the Research tab and select Energy Weapons. Instant the tech for Turret Tracking Speed 2000 km/s and Turret Tracking Speed 3000 km/s. Now go back to the module design window and click Turret Design at the bottom. 

The top right of the Turret Design Window shows the best technology available for both fire control speed rating and turret tracking speed. The Turret Calibre and Type section allows us to choose the type of beam weapon and whether this will be a single, dual, triple or quad turret. The Turret Components section allows us to choose the desired tracking speed of the turret and any armour for the turret. We won't bother with armour for this turret but we do want to change the tracking speed. Before we do so, note that the Rotation Gear % is 33%. This is how much space is required for the turret itself rather than the weapons it will mount. Better Turret Tracking Speed technology will reduce this percentage. A turret will require rotation gear of 10% if the Desired Tracking Speed is equal to the Turret Tracking Speed technology. Because the desired turret tracking speed is currently set to 10,000 km/s, which is 3.3x the turret tracking technology speed of 3000 km/s, the percentage is also multiplied by 3.3x and therefore becomes 33%. Change the desired tracking speed to 12,000 km/s so it will match the fire control system we designed earlier. Note the rotation gear percentage increases to 40% (because 12000/3000 x 10% = 40%). You don't need to remember the formulae. Just remember that higher desired tracking speed = more turret rotation gear and that improving the turret tracking tech will reduce the amount of rotation gear you need. 

Once that's done, also select a twin turret, since those are fine for our purposes (and a bit more weight-efficient). Once you've done that, our turret should look like this:

 Twin 10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret
 Damage Output 3    Rate of Fire 5 seconds     Range Modifier 30,000
 Max Range 90,000 km     Turret Size 8.16 HS  (408 tons)     HTK 2
 Power Requirement 6    Recharge Rate 6
 Cost 42.00    Crew 16
 Maximum Tracking Speed: 12,000 km/s
 Development Cost 458 RP
 
 Materials Required Duranium  17.00 Boronide  6.2 Corundium  18.8

Most of this information is similar to that for a normal laser, except for turret size and max tracking speed. Also the damage output has 3x1, with the 1 representing a single weapon in this turret. Note that the turret is 8.16 HS (hull spaces) compared to only 6 HS for the two standard 10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Lasers. This 8.16 HS comprises the 6 HS for the lasers and 2.16 HS for the turret rotation gear (6HS x 40%, reduced by 10% for being a twin turret). 

The power requirement is now 6, because the two lasers each need 3 power to fire. However, the recharge rate is now also 6, because each of them can be charged independently. 

The damage output is now 3x2 because there are two lasers in the turret each capable of 3 damage. The power requirement has also doubled to 6. However, because there are 2 lasers, each with its own C3 capacitor, the power recharge per 5 seconds is also 6. Since we plan to mount four total 10cm lasers, you might also consider a quad turret, to save a bit more weight. But the weight savings is fairly small (from 816 tons to 792 tons), and that will also be a more expensive research project, and less flexible if we want to mount it on other ship designs in future. Plus, a bit of redundancy in our weapons is nice to have, if we can get it. 

Once this turret is designed, go back to the F5 Class Design screen, and let's add all the weapons we'll want. Add a second 15cm laser, remove the non-turreted 10cm laser, and add two of the turrets in its place. Let's also add our power plant, so that we can fire these weapons. That lets this ship kill enemies, but it still needs to be able to find them. At this point, add our two active sensors, our passive EM sensor and our passive thermal sensor (one of each).