I had this nifty (albeit not particularly original) idea for a ship that has a really impressive main cannon, using a beam weapon in Nova that was, say, about 8-10 pixels wide for the central beam. So I put gave the beam a width of 5 (since, according to the bible, this field is actually the radius), and all that happened was that where the corona started was offset from the center of the beam by that amount; the solid-color beam core was still only two pixels wide. So I tinkered further, and eventually have come to the following conclusions:

1. A non-lightning beam has a two pixel wide solid-color core, with semi-transparent corona effects offset orthogonally to each side by the amount specified in beamwidth.
2. If a beam is fired from almost ontop of a target, the end effect of the beam can extend backwards past the firing location, creating the impression that the weapon fired backwards.
3. Due to beamwidth (for lightning beams) and corona locations (for non lightning beams) being offset orthogonally (that is, only vertically or horizontally), beams wider than about 4 pixels look really bad when firing at, say, a 45 degree angle.

Can anyone shed any light on these peculiarities?

(side note: it is possible to some extent to ameliorate all three of these problems, by making the beam fire from under the ship, and giving the vessel several side-by-side firing points w/ a simultaneous fire beam weapon to give the illusion of a wider beam than the engine naturally supports.)

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If you made a forward shooting gun with no innacuracy and a spďn that looked like the cross section of a beam. And gave it a really high speed (the maximum that practicality allows) and tweaked the firing delay so that there were no gaps you could make a beam weapon that is far wider than the engine normally allows. (you would need to alter the sprite to fit the ship's weapon glow so the beam does not appear to originate from outside the ship.) This only works with a ship with a low turning rate but most ships with a massive beam cannon are huge battleships so this is not a problem. You also need to create a bööm recorce for the explosion that is big enough to disguise the end of the beam or you will get an ugly square end. Make it a flak type weapon so that the end of the beam is allways hidden.