Thanks for all the great comments! I'm working on weapon, shield, and movement scripting in the game I created the Palatine for, but once I'm complete with that I'll make the registry changes for a Vesta Class Pack. I'm still looking for someone interested in scripting the ship for Bridge Commander, though.
In the meantime, I need some opinions on weaponry. The two Mark XII phaser cannons located just above the forward torpedo launchers are only mentioned in one Star Trek novel (Mere Mortals). My quandary is that I'm not sure what type of weapon this is:
The description in the book that refers to the weapons firing refers to deep thrumming sounds that reverberate throughout the entire ship and phaser "blasts", which I think leans more to a beam-style weapon (ala the phaser cannon on the Galaxy-X in All Good Things). In addition, the beam weapons on the NX-00 Enterprise are called phase cannons.
Meanwhile, STO uses the term phaser cannon for the type of pulse phaser we see the Defiant using. This also seems to be the general direction that many websites are going as well.
So, should the Mark XII phaser cannons spit out powerful beams or shield-breaking pulses?