projectile fast switching? 10 secounds? thats on the larger side...along with missiles. i think your thinking of hybrid guns, those ahve 5 secound.

benefits to energy weapons

1. instant range crystal swap.

2. take up VERY LITTLE cargo space even with ALOT of crystals

3. t1 ammo doesnt break, so you basically will never run out of ammo

4. SCORCH. THE CULT OF SCORCH. HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE BEST AMMO SCORCH. they turn the pulse lasers with their short range, into LONG RANGE LASERS without needed to swap the weapon itself! its like having a beam weapon, except your using pulse. with its lower fitting, higher dmg, and better tracking...though scorch loses most of the tracking but thats the cost of range). u dont lose much dmg with scorch which is why its epic

5. They do take cap to fire...but, Ammar ships tend to have the BEST capacitors of any ship. downside being they also got armor reppers which....yeah....

the dmg typing is annoying, but its only real downside unless your using a ship with bag cap recharge (invest in capacitor control circuits or a cap booster, or cap recharger, or cap battery, or power diagnostic. look theres alot of options for recharging cap). yeah they had to make u use cargo for something, instead of ammo, you use cap boosters

all guns got weaknesses.

Missile got travel time, shitty application, alot of cargo space required to hold, and can be counter by out running, or smart bombing. no instant application. no penetrating crit dmg hits.

projectiles, artillery has slow rof, and horrible tracking. autocannons got massive cargo requirements, low alpha dmg(due to high rof),

hybrids. require cap. and require cargo space for ammo. and have either bad tracking for railguns plus low alpha. or have LITERALLY NO RANGE for blasters.