Cannon

Overview

Damage Type	Weapon Type
Kinetic	Projectile

Good	Not Good
Reasonably high kinetic damage.	Shield damage is not good.
Runs on very little power and distributor draw.	Hard to aim, hard to see.
No damage distance falloff and generally high shot speed. Fixed ones are good practice for learning PAs later.	The gimbaled version is less accurate due to “wiggle”, and needs clear line of sight to fire. Many ships have hardpoints that can be blocked by the hull from certain angles.
High breach chance and damage, so it’s a sneaky good module killer.

Size Notes

Each size and version has a different shot speed.

Accurate firing is difficult when using non-identical fixed cannons.

Powerplay

Concord Cannon

Medium gimbaled cannon with a 3 shot burst and extended ammo supply.

Less damage per shot but increased damage when all 3 shots hit. Increased rate of fire and shot speed.

Retains the usual high breach chance of cannons, so along with the gimbals to do the aiming for you, they work very well as anti-module weapons.

They also partially fix the problems with mixing cannon sizes, since they aim themselves. Pair them with larger fixed cannons for extra punch.

Gimbal wiggle makes them less effective at precision module targeting at longer ranges, although the shot speed increase helps. Short Range is probably a better engineering choice because of this.

Chaff makes them totally ineffective.

Engineering

Efficient	Cannons are already the lowest draw weapon in the game, so this is not a good choice.
High capacity	More ammo for applying experimental effects.
Lightweight	If your ship is mass sensitive.
Long Range	Increases shot speed so it’s easier to hit…but it’s hard to hit beyond 3 km or so.
Overcharged	Big damage out to the full range and the distributor draw penalty is puny on this weapon. This is best for fixed mount cannons.
Rapid Fire	Doable, but you lose accuracy due to jitter. (It’s a single shot, so either you hit or you don’t.)
Short Range	Big damage, and you’re not likely to hit beyond 2 km anyway with gimbals, so pick this one for non-fixed cannons when you can control range and be close. The heat penalty is tiny and doesn’t matter.
Sturdy	No.

Experimental Effects

Auto Loader	Improves sustained damage by continuously reloading the weapon, although it’s slower than you’d think.
Dispersal Field	Works like the chaff effect when you hit. A strong active defense.
Double Braced	Not that useful. Better to use module reinforcements.
Flow Control	Cuts power usage a bit…but this is already a low power weapon, so what’s the point?
Force Shell	Pushes your target based on the damage you do, but makes the shot slower and harder to hit with.  Fun but questionably useful.
High Yield Shell	Changes the damage to explosive and hits in a sphere around the point of impact. Has a fairly large damage penalty but can take out modules well with good aim. Use it on huge and large hardpoints.
Multi-Servos	Not a good choice.
Oversized	This actually provides more sDPS than autoloader for this weapon.
Smart Rounds	If you enjoy firing into crowds. Or you could aim better.
Stripped Down	Removes a tiny bit of mass, but there are better places to drop mass than weapons.
Thermal Cascade	Similar to Thermal Shock, but only on hits against shields…which cannons aren’t good at damaging.  Not recommended.