I tried to focus on Firearms to begin with and they just arnt worth it, I ended up re-specing the skills out.

They do great DPS, but their weight makes them too slow for pvp, ok for Pve farming though.

Guess there needs to be some kind of balancing before they can be considerd viable enough to spend EP into the skills

small firearms - crap
medium Autocannons on Heavy Laser Mech are better then Medium HCL laser, even with maxed advanced robotics, the ACs will do more DPS at a bit less range... with almost zero AP consumption and less EP invested.

though, the mass could be an issue, it really doesnt matter on a seth at all (that thing is slower then anything else ingame anyway...)

i have to do another chart to show ranges:
DPS comparison

I maybe able to assist you with something that you may enjoy that utilizes auto cannons.

PM me in game

Shooting mechs or assaults?

For Auto Cannons all you need is a dispersion a sub 8 which would require Precision 8

against blue - laser
against anything else, really depends on the range you prefer.

the chart was updated, as i totally oversaw the cycletime bonus you get for faction weapon from your faction extension (thelodica robot control 8 = 8% cycletime bonus)

MG may have the better DPS, but much shorter range - and AFAIK, firearms ammo is more expensive to build then laser ammo (at least its more complicated)

last but not least: you get t4 autocannons from market... for t4 med Laser you need to trade with a beta corp. (and really, laser below t3- SUCK)

well ACs are good.

they deal more damage for less invested EP
they deal it independant on which bot you mount it
they deal it on a lvl4 adv. robotics heavy mech, same ammount as they do on a lvl10 adv. robotics heavy mech.

they are cheaper to build, you get the research from drone kernels, and they need less CPU/Reactor then other weapons.
you can even fit two of them onto an assault

so what so whats not "good" about them?

There is one realy good reason to fit Autocannons on Yagals => farm amunition/kores from Drones and Numqal Drones AS ROOKIE!

Even with bad extensions you get more amunition out of Drones then you need to kill them. Plus you get some additional money from Plasma/Loot/Kores (if you sell them). In addition you might be able to farm your first Magnetic Weapons and Amu from Numqals which saves you some NIC too .

There are some 1st star Spawn with Bots which use the high damage short range amunition. They can be farmed pritty easy with Autocannons on a Yagal as you have much more Energy to rep then with Magnet Weapons. And this spawn comes up to 60m which is perfectly finy into optimal of T1 and T3 Autocannons.
Some other spawns stay at 75m which is fine for T1/3 too. T2/4 has again optimal problems. Anyway, the falloff bonus from blue Bots let you do decent damage up to 100m with any Tech level.

For NPC shoting don't use T4. T3 has a much higher alpha (higher volley) with higher cycle time. Using T4 means, you need much more amunition then with T3. Your overall DPS isn't hurt to much with T3 too.

Overall I'd prefare blue bots do to the falloff Bonus which effects all guns. The critical bonus from yellow isn't noticed until you get ~10% from extensions. As soon as you hit 15% or even 20% fast T4 Autocannons with upgrades and extensions might be a realy deadly killer .

PS:
T3 small Autocannon 70m opti + 140m falloff
50% bonus just from the Yagal max = 210m falloff => 280m hit range with ~140m where you still do good damage.
Remember: Yagal base lock range is 125m

So you need realy good targeting extensions AND mods to reach the 280 max hit range .