Personally...

I prefer high fire rates, but also my fighting style is more tailored towards dogfights and others may vary.

As for the crosshairs, if you have any variance in projectile speed and or rate of fire they "wait until it's swirling" thing loses importance.

But also, I tend to get comfortable with a set of weapons and start ignoing the crosshairs as much as it becomes "feel", when I get to that point with a ship kills start happening alot faster for me.

Next i'll be attacking weapons platforms and hearing voices in my head telling me to use the force...

gah...

I prefer the nimble legionaire ship from trafalfa retro fitted with class 4 and 5 dragoon weapons.....takes down a hessian within seconds.....just getting past the minefeilds is a bit of a problem thou.

Make sure advance thrusters are installed coz you'll be needing 'em

I was wondering why they didnt made this;
if you have six 4s on your ship, why not firing then close after each other? more chance to hit those fast ships.

So a 4.0 refire rate refires faster than 2.0?

I prefer high fire rate, though admittedly mostly because of a 'coolness' factor.
I just love it when I see a steady stream of fire coming from my ship blasting away. I did however now start to use a combination of two 8.33 weapons + a 8.33 (all level 9) turret and 4 4.0 lvl10 weapons.
This gives me a steady pummeling plus the punch to knock him down. Since I am only playing SP the 'fear'-factor is useless, but I think in SP I'd prefer fast firing weapons to throw the enemy off cause he's constantly being hit. (Always makes me nerves)

Murphy was an optimist.
*I* am a pessimist[!

I multiply the damage output times the refire rate to find the best damage potential when I choose my guns. Usually the slower ones do more damage per second. It's really pretty satisfying to wipe out an enemy's shields in one or two shots But be sure they all have the same projectile speed or you CANNOT hit with all weapons at once, and you may as well throw away those heavy slow hitters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm sick of seeing all your signatures and not having one of my own

I'll stick with the faster firing ones. I miss too much to use a slower one well.

8.33 for me.

on one server i fly an eagle with 2 nomad cannons, 2 cerberus, 2 tizona de cids. slow mo' weapons. it seems to do fairly well. however it can be a real pain to swat at the smaller fighters.

out of curiosity i branched off on another server and went with the faster firing weapons, namely a barracuda with 4 sunblastA's and 2 catapults. this config is FUN. hf's, lf's, mines, missles, nothing short of a vhf in adv. brigadine has gotten through a wall of 8.33 fire.

the config even thwarted a would be pk'er in a sabre. ate up his shield batts spraying him at range then burned in and said hello with 2 cats in his face. in the end i was denyed though. in the rush of adrenaline i failed to seal his fate by taking out the trade lane before he could escape through it. :/

Can't wait to try it in a hammerhead >

Wow, he musta sucked. No disrespect, but he really shoulda been able to own you if he knew what he was doing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm sick of seeing all your signatures and not having one of my own

I think the weapons that has projectiles speed of 700ms or more is better. You can hit things accurately from far away...

Trent : Hull Buckling[! Life Support Failing. I can't breathe[![!
Juni : Cut it out Trent[! I'm not that heavy..

-- Having fun with scripted dialogue --

I like 8.33 better because i can keep a stream of fire at the enemy... i normally like just fully equipping sunblast B on my Sabre.... i also love the sunslayer torp, 11k DAMAGE !!!!!!!! its perfect against battleships and blowing up enemy ships in point blank range...

lol bbrock81.. what?! you don't believe that i have mad skillz?!

(it's ok if you don't. i'm not sure that i do either.)

If there's one thing I've learned from PvP battles, it's that weapon synchronisation is IMPORTANT. Originally, I had a loadout of 2 Diamondbacks, 2 Nomad cannons, and 2 Skyblast B's, thinking that a mixed refiring rate would raise my hit/miss ratio and at the same time keep the pressure on my target, but I quickly found out it made aiming nearly impossible (also in large part due to varying projectile speed), so I ditched my configuration in favor of a Tizona D.C. / Nomad Blaster / Salamanca turret combination. Must thank the PK'ing bastard who made me see the light.

I prefer weapons with a 4.00 or 5.33 RoF. The damage is usually very nice, and the projectiles move quickly enough to hit my targets at the same time. Occasionally I'll use the faster 8.33 but they don't pack enough punch for my tastes, I hate having to spray down an enemy constantly to do any significant damage. My aim is also better than that... but not quite good enough to use 2.00 or 3.03 with slow projectiles just yet.