If that was the case then using beam as a slave would have absolutely no downside. All slave weapons trade something for a benefit (for example, rapid fire trades damage per shot with rate of fire). Having longer range must be traded with something else, which is damage.
Yes you trade ROF for damage but the trade is equal, the DPS of the weapon stays the same. With Sniper you get a longer range faster projectile for half the DPS, is that actually an equal trade? I'm not saying it should also get an equal damage bonus but it should get something. Perhaps an even greater increase in range? It might also be less of an issue when AI can actually use the range of weapons. My sniper turrets are kind of wasted right now.[DOUBLEPOST=1413666417,1413665300][/DOUBLEPOST]On another note:
Am I the only one who finds the entry barrier of defense systems to be way to high. 10% of a ship is a lot of space and I just don't see the benefit of spending power as well as up to 10% of a ships mass in order to get an effect. That 10% is a lot of shields, power, and thrusters your ship now doesn't have. It may be viable for doom cubes but as I build interiors I don't see myself every having the room to ever consider using defense effects. For a while the number of modules required was bugged and you could use the different effects as long as you had the power for them (still is in the current release). There should be much less emphasis on how much of your ship is filled with massive blocks of effect modules and balanced more by power requirements.
The same goes for jump drives. The difference between a single jump module and an "efficient" system is like 20 seconds, but yet the amount of space you need is staggering. I don't really see any reason to ever build this mythical efficient jump drive. Its probably better to wait the extra 20 seconds than have to start the charge over because your massive drive lost a single block.
Edit: Another problem is mass also takes turrets and docked ships into account but yet these docked ships do not benefit from the effects.