[quote=Brovo]
Or you know. Equal and opposite reaction. Whatever material you make the laser gun out of that can sustain that heat at its most potent and concentrated (the gun barrel) you just... Coat your ships in. And now enemy lasers are useless. And that is completely ignoring conservation of energy. Also, to explain the formula in layman's terms: The further the laser travels, the more enegy will dissipate into surrounding space, since it is a weapon of pure energy, this means it has a restrictive maximum range. Oh, and this is ignoring the fact that if you can build up that much energy, contain it, and fire it, you are equally capable of simply deflecting it. :p
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Idunno, based on current technology, it almost seems like a waste NOT to outfit your fleet with solar/stellar/whatever capacitors and laser weapons. Even if only as defensive units.

Ultimately the choice in weaponry boils down to what's easy to build, and we don't know what that would be. Uranium is hard to find on earth -- maybe we find an asteroid or two full of fission materials, and then you'd almost be stupid NOT to make tons of bombs. Space combat is inherently attack-oriented (or at least I'm treating it that way, because that's how air power works, and how the energy equations play out). Sooner or later someone builds an Ironclad warship and changes the whole philosophy; same thing could happen in space strategy I guess. The take-away is, it's much easier to destroy things in space than it is to build them -- there's just so much energy at play. The 'unstoppable force' in space is much more 'unstoppable,' and the 'immovable objects' aren't 'immovable' enough. It seems to all add up to a very aggressive kind of warfare, and it seems (to me) like the kind of environment that only really supports one top-dog. Less like WW2-era dogfighting, more like modern BVR.