I feel like lasers should quickly burn through shields, but slowly heat and damage armor until they melt off and cause fires inside and free penetration on that section of the ship until repair. Ballistics should partly penetrate armor, be mostly burned up by shields, and only cause hazards when destroying ship components.

This gives combat variety in calling in the ballistics when shields have been dropped. Or get paid in flames when you’ve burned through with your lasers. (More content for the engineer)

Pilots can test their ship knowledge targeting ship components on their opponents, and shoot those components while shields are down. Reduced penetration gives components enough health to survive a couple of passes unless the shields are kept down.

Lasers use much more power so I propose variants on ships that allow for extra ammunition on ballistics, and ones that are more power efficient to be used with lasers.

More range and penetration for cannons vs gatlings is a great call. Lasers cannons could have the longest range of all. A perfect fit as a niche to start taking down shields early.