Weapon Balancing

[ForteMP3]

Well, once again, while I have my own ideas on this, I figure second opinions never hurt. I thought that I should get some ideas from other shmuppers on how to best balance the weapons of Cavadius, primarily in determining how much damage they do. Obviously, this would also determine the overall health/HP of enemies (aside from popcorns, of course =P). Anyway, the format I'll be using for weapons is as follows...

Also, yes, I did use Gradius Gaiden's weapons as an influence in these, since Gaiden offered some of the best weapons of any Gradius game.

And if you're worried about a classic weapon not showing up, don't worry, that's what Weapon Edit is for...

-WEAPON-
Info:What the weapon is, how it fires, etc.
Rate of Fire:X Steps (A step is also a frame, using 30 FPS as the base framerate. Fractional values mean X shots are fired every step, instead of one shot every X steps)
Speed:X Pixels per second
Power:X points of damage (There's no modifiers like defense. What you see is what it does)

-NORMAL SHOT/3 WAY-
Info:Regular shot, used when Double/Laser has not been activated. 5 onscreen max. Also used as the projectile for Three Way, 6 shots can be onscreen for this.
Rate of Fire:3
Speed:10
Power:2

-2 WAY MISSILE-
Info:Salamander styled 2-Way, goes along surfaces.
Rate of Fire:Variable (Cannot fire until current missiles are destroyed)
Speed:5 (In air) 7 (On surface)
Power:3

-LASER-
Info:Your standard Gradius Laser. Aligns with ship until it's released from it (By releasing fire button or if laser reaches max length)
Rate of Fire:1
Speed:12 (NOTE:Relative speed of player is taken into account to keep laser properly aligned)
Power:1 (Low power is due to the fact the laser is several individual pieces fired as a stream. The low power is offset by the projectile count)

-RIPPLE LASER-
Info:The Salamander classic! Like normal shots, 5 onscreen max.
Rate of Fire:3
Speed:10
Power:3 (Not sure if they should be as strong as a normal shot, or a bit stronger, honestly)

-DISRUPTOR-
Info:Somewhat modified version of the Gradius Gaiden weapon.
Rate of Fire:10
Speed:N/A (Weapon is a beam that instantly covers the area)
Power:2 (Weapon causes continuous damage while targets are in the beam's area of effect)

-HOMING MISSILE-
Info:Homing missiles...What else do you need to know?
Rate of Fire:N/A (Same as Normal Missile)
Speed:7
Power:1 (Low power due to fact it's a homing weapon)

-ROUND LASER-
Info:The underrated weapon of Jade Knight. Expands around ship. Limits onscreen normal shots to 3.
Rate of Fire:N/A (Must wait for current 'beam' to dissapate before another can be shot)
Speed:N/A (Shot does not move. Expands at a fairly quick speed though)
Power:4 (Call it incentive to try this weapon out)

-PULSE LASER-
Info:A fan favorite, the rapid fire pulse laser!
Rate of Fire:2
Speed:15 (Decided to make it a bit faster so it had something over normal Lasers)
Power:3 (May adjust this)

-SPREAD BOMB-
Info:Not quite like the original. It travels a short distance ahead and explodes.
Rate of Fire:N/A (Must wait for existing shot to be destroyed)
Speed:5 (Also has a limited range)
Power:2 (Might tweak this, depending on how long I make the detonations. They wouldn't be any longer than 1.5 seconds, if that)

-AUTO AIMING-
Info:Similar, but not identical to the Gradius Gaiden original. Tracks nearby enemies and fires at them regardless of location. However, it also limits your normal shots to 3 onscreen at a time.
Rate of Fire:4
Speed:10 (Limited range)
Power:2 (Essentially, a support weapon more than anything else)

-GRAVITY BULLET-
Info:Similar to the Spread Bomb, but a lot faster, no range limit, and their explosion duration is considerably shorter. Annoying Gaiden "feature" where having a bullet hit an explosion from another bullet caused that one to explode too will not be present. Up to three can be onscreen.
Rate of Fire:3
Speed:10
Power:3

-PHOTON TORPEDO-
Info:More of a mix of the Photon and Flying torpedoes, actually. They fly out from the ship's sides (fixed distance) then quickly fly straight ahead, piercing through weak enemies and exploding on stronger ones.
Rate of Fire:N/A (Torpedoes must be destroyed before more can be shot)
Speed:10
Power:2

That's the list. I realize some of this may not be so easy to think about without a playable demo (One's coming soon, I hope...) I'm mainly trying to think in terms of relative power here:IE, how much stronger one weapon should be than another.