Actually, projectile weapons - mass drivers in most hard sci-fi - are pretty good small-scale weapons in space compared to directed-energy weaponry. They are comparatively tiny, taking up only a fraction of the weight and space laser weapons of equivalent damage potential would (it's only a hundred years hence ). What's more, since it would require a lot more armor to protect against the kinetic energy of a mass driver than it would take to dissipate the photonic energy of a laser beam (again, assuming extensions of existing/theoretical tech), and a bullet can deal equivalent damage drawing on a mere fraction of the energy required to operate a laser, mass drivers would seem to be the more efficient weapons - particularly in the vacuum of space, where there would be no drag to impede the velocity of a projectile, and hence no diminishing of its kinetic energy over distance.
). What's more, since it would require a lot more armor to protect against the kinetic energy of a mass driver than it would take to dissipate the photonic energy of a laser beam (again, assuming extensions of existing/theoretical tech), and a bullet can deal equivalent damage drawing on a mere fraction of the energy required to operate a laser, mass drivers would seem to be the more efficient weapons - particularly in the vacuum of space, where there would be no drag to impede the velocity of a projectile, and hence no diminishing of its kinetic energy over distance.
