They are useful for a few things:
- Fighters / FACs, good for Anti-Fighter / Anti-FACs since they'll be fast enough to interdict bombers and long-ranged enough to demolish enemy Beam Fighters / FACs. Works best at higher Capacitor techs.
- "Opening Salvo", You can get 15cm and 20cm Lasers down to the size of 10cm Lasers, allowing you one big punch to start. This gives you a head in the DPS race to come.
*The enemy will catch up to your damage output, the point is that they have already taken more damage. So all things equal, your DPS might be 20-30 lower, but your Alpha means you might have 30-40 more Amror/Shields to start with. It's a balancing act to be sure.
- Alpha-Vette Soup, Small Corevettes with lots of Capacitor 1 0.5x Reduced-Size Lasers. Swoop in, fire everything, run away... repeat. Works poorly against very shield centric enemies, but it's more economical as you save a lot in weapon and reactor costs per Damage. Railgun Barges work on a similar idea, albeit lots of 10cm Capacitor 3 Railguns, not Capacitor 1s.
- Spinals, They make all three of the above even better. I get Spinal Mounts pretty early on, and usually will Advanced Spinal Mount cooking on the backburner with an EW Guy and 1 Lab. Really let's you get the most out of your laser tech.