how many weapons are going to be except the most common (spears,firearms)

like the lazer guns in star wars fir example?

Can you please rephrase that so I can understand the question?

There will be however many the player and the AI make? Are you asking about weapon researches? If so, please see the research web.

Why would you automatically assume that all races would have fire arms? What if the culture isn't as interested in chemistry as we were? Spears I understand, but not fire arms, as a common weapon. To answer your question however I believe it depends on how many we can program or how complex the weapon tech editor is.

Falthron: Well, if you have projectile weapons and know fire, firearms are a logical next step. If there is anything preventing widespread use of firearms, it would be scarcity of resources.

OP: There are going to be many, many weapons. Excluding spears and firearms still leaves most weapons to be said, from the prehistorical handaxe to God tools. However, you seem to have interest in classical sci-fi weapons. I could name some if you want.

Others: We have the TE, but remember we still have to include FPs for it.

I'm not actually sure if it is. A sapient might not decide to mix chemicals until they get something useful. Maybe they still use elasticity as their primary means of firing a projectile. Even during a period where most tech is in our Industrial Revolution. It depends also on the curiosity of a creature and how much they experiment with chemicals.

Gunpowder was a random discovery here on Earth, way before science was born. However, there's no reason why scientific method would not bring firearms. It's pretty obvious - theory: Explosions throw stuff. Maybe they could throw projectiles as well -> test: SUCCESS!

Random note: Bows (and longbows in particular) were more powerful than firearms for a very long time, however, they required extremely long training time (archers had to begin as childs). Firearms training took just a few weeks, and that was the main reason it replaced bows so early.

I'll agree to that I'm just saying that things like gunpowder aren't always going to appear in a civilization. They may have explosions and possibly large cannons to do something with it projectile wise, but I'm not sure that the guns that are hand held will always necessarily develop. They may find things like coil gun before gunpowder.

That wasn't a good example. Gausses require a lot of power and very precise engineering, that isn't something you might want to build if there a simpler, yet effective variant. Virtually everything explosive could be used instead of gunpowder, so the civilization would have to be devoid of any explosives -> no combustion engines, no advanced mining, there's a huge list of things going with this...

@OP: Whatever you can think of you can make using the Tech Editor. There will be melee and projectile weapons.

No research is ABSOLUTELY necessary. There is a chance, yes, that a peoples may never discover gunpowder. But, i think it is highly unlikely that no one in the world would. Of course, this all changes if there are insufficient resources to make firearms a viable option.

The OP question has pretty much been answered, however, it brings to my mind another question: when we start talking about futuristic researches, will we try and keep them totally realistic or will we sacrifice a little realism for a little fun?

As long as they are founded in science I believe it's ok. I mean we have no idea what our future holds so I believe we could sacrifice our current view of realism for fun.