UPDATE: here's what I have so far.

I have to say i agree with you. Before wormhole i played Battlefleet: Gothic and it had rules for broadsides, but they weren't torpedos, it was pretty much a weapon that had a firing arc on either side of the ship. It made for a really interesting game mechanic.

Many an epic battle was had when 2 enemy capital ships came up across each others sides and just opened up. Due to the fact that the broadsides range wasn't that long it resembled pirate ship battles.

So something like that would be easy to implement.

I would just add another weapon to something like the hammerhead's card with the 'broadside' property, meaning it can only be fired through the ships broadside firing arcs.

Lance Battery
Broadside 90*
RNG: 8"/6"/4"/0"
DMG: 6

I like it, but I chose to use the missile-style broadside for a couple of reasons. #1) range doesn't really mean much in space aside from (missile) fuel capacity -for manuevering- and (energy) beam attenuation. I put a range limit on my missile tokens because that's the distance through which they can be steered to target. Been thinking about using a 'free flight' rule after the control range. That is to say, after the bside reaches range it goes straight-line ballistic off the map edge. However, that would entail some other minor rules that I haven't worked out. #2) missile tokens are extra pieces to build ( ) but allow for something (let's say nearby fighters) to have a chance of shooting them down. don't have a rule for that yet, either, but I like the idea. **Although... the beam broadside / attenuation idea is interesting... mebbe a light 'shotgun' effect on fighters outside of bside range? Hmmm... Darn you for giving me ideas