What are weapon types meant for?

[Edward8D]

Hi, I am making a little weapon overview for myself as to find the places where each weapon type may excel. This was due to the fact that from what I saw, high dps / low per hit weapons perform very poorly and anything that hits high per hit is a king. Especially Reinforcing swarm battery seems atrocious and AI tries to put it on everything. I would expect there to be a niche use for everything.
Can you take a look at these notes and let me know if I missed something? Further thoughts, considerations and experiences are welcome.
Also, it seems with fighters these characteristics are further reinforced. Low damage, high dps weapons wetnoodle enemy capital ships, Titan Blaster shreds them to pieces. Even against other fighters low damage per hit weapons seem very weak.

Titan Blaster: Damage and accuracy penalties, but once you get in close, you obliterate the enemy. Plus probably the best weapon for fighters as they can get through both shield and Armor DR.
Phaser Cannon: Damage and accuracy penalties. Shield bypass, but given its relatively low damage per shot, lot of the damage is wasted.
Omega Beam: Mostly damage penalty. Makes you want to come closer. Accuracy doesn't seem so bad. High armor bypass with high damage per shot -> Good against heavily armored targets.
Nova Pulse Wave: Seeking, no penetrations, high damage per hit. Not sure whether the damage falloff relates to the missile itself or the AoE area.
Riptie Gravitic Mines: Shield + Armor bypass missiles. Nice damage per hit.
Transient Singularity: Brutal damage and strong bypass. Very low dps though.
Quantum Shard: Seeking. Horrible against shield, good against armor. Because of the lower damage at range it's still better to fight at close range.
Nova Missile: Seeking. Okay damage per hit, but low dps. Small penetration, but otherwise classic missile.
Reinforcing swarm battery: Very long range battery. Seeking. Designed to overcome PD, but does very little damage. Wittle down enemy before they can get to you?
Forge Rail Battery: Long range, hard to hit target at max range, very nice shield bypass, but weak against armor. Good against low armor, high shields targets.

I am trying to get a rough feeling for the weapon categories, their use and actual in-game usability. Also looks on paper vs actual in-game results.
I have a feeling there is a variation on Heavy guns - Fighters - Fast weapons - Spock. Heavy guns kill fast weapons, fast weapons kill fighters and fighters kill heavy guns.
(P.S.: I am aware of the Scott's guide)

[Nightskies]

My guide on Steam addresses the weapon categories in general, which includes most of these weapons. Based on experience. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2834433225

I haven't concluded my tests on the Phaser Cannon yet, but I was expecting a lot from them, and they lived up to my expectations. The phaser beams are worthy of note as well. Both sets directly compete with the Titan Blaster, with just a bit more range and accuracy (except the phaser lance, a proper standoff weapon). On ships, the phasers work better, as one should expect, against targets with a heavier shields-to-armor ratio. So they're terrible against Mortalen but fantastic against Zenox, just like you assess with the Forge Rail Battery.

Your assessments otherwise are fairly on point.
The Titan Blaster is an effective general-purpose weapon due to its sheer firepower and its range isn't bad. Its arguably the best weapon for ships, too.
AoE weapons (nova pulse) do suffer from big damage falloff, like torpedoes.
The torpedo is an effective general-purpose weapon; its weakness against shields is only truncated against some Zenox targets, defense bastions, and spaceports. It is notably vulnerable to PD. Despite this, one can blindly use torpedoes for any situation and not go wrong, provided a Neutral attack stance is used.
Reinforcing Swarms hit pretty hard in their slow-firing volleys. Their DPS is low, but they are the ace of alpha strikes, mitigating the impact of regeneration with sufficient focused fire. An attack fleet dedicated to these will do more than whittle down enemies and excel at a colony siege on either side.
Forge Rails aren't as weak against armor as implied. While they have a damage penalty against armor, with the damage multipliers that admirals can provide, they hit hard enough with a single shot that armor resistance, the best aspect of armor, doesn't mitigate their damage much. As standoff weapons, they belong in a fleet with such an admiral.

[Edward8D]

Thank you very much, Nightskies! This is exactly what I wanted. Plus there's a ton more! Pity Google didn't pick this up, more people should know about it.

I appreciate the work you put in, for us. Thank you.