i totally agree with your statement about being able to learn from the vangaurd, most of my battle cruisers weapons systems are derivatives of the weapons on the vangaurd, and other ships built by macey, but i like to have a variety of weapons on my ships, my most recent ship has 5 different types of weapons, from srbs to seperatrons on redial decoplers (my favoriet), to lv-t based missiles, to rcs smart torpeadoes, to torpedoes. each weapon has a different use, for example lv-t smart missiles can be used as long ranged weapons , capable of rendezvousing with other ships in completely different orbits, to hitting targets orbiting moons, i once even got one to work as an interplanetary capable salvo, but your timing has to be perfect. and rcs probes work great for orbital bombing and anti fighter, srbs for capital ships, and seratron/radial decoupler missiles for precision strikes and they are the best fighter based weapons i have seen so far, they can even be re-loadable if you are willing to put in the effort of the most tedious docking of your life. i usually just make all my fighters ssto's so i just land them and launch new ones, but many people have problems with space planes, especially ssto's. And an added advantage of mountaing your weapons on the exterior of your ship, is the intimidation factor.
