Walt You've probably thought of this already, but lasers, beams, and EB's should have zero (or close to zero) recoil. But obviously, cannons and railguns would have a lot more recoil. If the recoil from cannons is problematic for small ships, that might even be a feature making recoilless weapons preferable to ships with less inertia.
Missiles I'm not sure about. There is a more gradual release of energy and less of it will be transferred to the ship.
Maybe a low amount of recoil, small enough to let small ships still use them?
Obviously, there are recoilless guns around today, and this could account for reduced recoil on cannons, but they would still have some. However, it's not possible to add a recoilless feature to a railgun, without doubling its energy output (effectively firing projectiles in opposite directions with each shot) so railgun recoil should be difficult to handle, and definitely something small ships would struggle with.
