Taorec Awesome analysis. As Teg says, I did have a general feeling for those things. TL;DR at the end for the impatient. Other thoughts:
AI seems to prioritize targets following this pattern:
- is it a reactor? is it shielded/armoured? If not, shoot first.
- is it a shield? is it protected? If not shoot it first.
- is it a weapon? is it protected? If not, shoot the most expensive one first.
- is it a thruster? is it protected? If not, shoot that.
My point is, more often than not, the bigger weapons are often focused first because they can't be behind armor and usually the entire front section of a ship is protected. That means ion beams, large cannons and missiles are number one priority for the AI or anything that can't shoot at a designated priority block. This is both good and bad. Typically, smaller ships can use this to their advantage to draw fire to the best protected areas. For larger ships, this is also true, but there is a limit to how well you can protect an area without creating more weak spots or wasting huge amounts of space.
So yeah, larger weapons could probably use a buff or more could be created such as armored turrets of whatever kind that are much more resistant to incoming fire.
Also, the electro-bolt looks a lot better on paper than in practice, in my opinion. I usually use between two to four as a shield-busting option, but I find that they cost far too much energy for their range/dps against hull.
Lasers are also better than it seems since you can use and maintain a lot of them for very little space and they are accurate. Very efficient little buggers. Standard cannons are similar, but their reliance on volatile ammo tends to create more weak points than lasers.
Missiles may be terrible on paper, but they can fire from the sides which is a great supplement not to mention the range. Large cannons can do insane damage, but yeah, their size, slow rate of fire and enormous ammo requirements make them rather unwieldy. I find ion beams to be the least appealing of the large weapons simply because they can only fire forwards and have issues penetrating shields. That said, the fact that they don't use ammo means they can still be useful.
tl;dr. Larger weapons could be a bit better, they are usable but less efficient on most accounts. More weapons would be nice for late-game as currently there is very little you can do to prevent damage on bigger ships/fights.
