Railguns are also dirt cheap, a 10cm V1/C1 railgun costs only 1 MSP to repair. Likewise their tracking requirement and range will be less, so the size of the FC needed for a railgun is less than what you'd need for a turreted laser. I'm thinking of putting a weapon on my support ships, and it will either be a railgun or a reduced size laser, maybe a mix of the two. Meson cannons and HPM are weird in that no matter how big they are their damage is fixed, especially the anti-shield bonus for HPMs, but they'd be crazy powerful if they weren't.