Am i miss reading things orr

[Malacodor]

Is cannon cannon piercing any good, for a spinal weapon? or should i go cannon, pulse, ????? never built a spinal weapon, most of my primary weapons are missiles of some kind.

Piercing reduces shield damage, basically the worst choice for alpha damage, better go with ion, as Jarraf said. Also, more reload time means more damage per hit. Beam/beam has 3 km range and triple damage/relaod, cannon/beam has 6 km range (if you can hit at that distance!), double projectile speed and quadruple damage/reload, cannon/pulse has 2 km range but 16 times the damage/reload. Note that without slaves beams have 5 times as much damage per pulse as cannons have per shot, but also five times the reload. It basically boils down to the range you want and if you can hit your targets at that range with cannons reliably.

 

[DrTarDIS]

Is cannon cannon piercing any good, for a spinal weapon?

Think of it this way: How long does it take you to turn your ship 180. That right there determines how likely you are to get/keep a target in your firing basket. (if the answer is "impossibru" you can use jump-drives to "hop" into a firing position with a good navigator. Keeping it is another thing.)

Either way your spinal is for when you have that advantage. As such with a "big ship" you can usually afford to have a whole hotbar dedicated to each range. The logic I use:
Long range

• -missiles...but the more the range the more chance of being "shot down", at close range keeping a "lock" on anything is hard...semi-useful
• beams - never as long as missile range, but no-avoiding them. you click, they hit(If you can render the object and hold mouse on target). Long cycle time. fill the hotbar. ion can pre-nuke shields, "pull" can bring them in to a different firing basket
  
• Cannons/beam: how good can you track, lead, etc target. can you see?

Mid range

• -missiles...best mix between "keep/get lock" and "time it can be shot down'...fairly useful. fill the hotbar with a mix
  
• beams - no-avoiding them. you click, they hit(If you can render the object and hold mouse on target). Fill the hotbar with /beam at 30-50%. Stop effect keeps them from "getting around you". push sends them back to long range. pull brings them in for closer death.
  
• Cannons/beam: how good can you track, lead, etc target. can you see?

short range

• -missiles...at close range keeping/getting a "lock" on anything is hard...semi-useful
• beams - no-avoiding them. you click, they hit(If you can render the object and hold mouse on target). Fill the hotbar with /pulse for nukes or have one really good /cannon for control. Stop effect keeps them from "getting around you". push sends them back to long range. never underestimate a momentum or energy nuke beam at this range. can be decisive.
  
• Cannons: /beam has 4 sec reload, waste. /cannon lets you "chew" through things, and keep shields down. /stop keeps them in place if yer gun is beefy enough to still do some DPS.
  
• shield-drain: "lulz your sheilds are mien." can't be dodged as long as you can keep your cursor on track, but no momentum control. /pulsse nuke for a half a hotbar?