Edit: After reading the comments on Rubbernuke on the C&P changes, i had to correct what i wrote here. It seems like the "throwaway ship" idea is a thing of the past. So, outdated info is striked out now.
Ok. Shock Cannons are a whole different thing. They do work against human targets.
Now in a bit more of detail: They have a small magazine, an auto-loader and their spread and heat ramps up quickly when firing them sustainedly. Also, each shot has to be triggered manually.
I personally feel that the last thing should have been changed a looong time ago. There are many easy way to get maximum fire rate out of this thing, anyways. The most often mentioned one is to bind a keypress script to the fire button, with a 0.02s delay between each trigger. (A bit longer delays don't result in an actually really noticeable slowdown, but if you want to compensate for runtime effect, then 0.02s or faster are needed. ) Considering that for example the profiling tool of my HOTAS allows me to do that, i doubt that it is seen as an explot... but my first experiment with that weapon was even more simple: I put all four directions on a four way switch on my throttle to be a fire button. Then by merely wiggling that button, i also reached maximum fire speed. (And i really think it's hard to argue that using the games keybinding together with a four way button on a HOTAS is an exploit. )
Anyway, the limiting factor of the weapons is not how fast you can press the button, but to know when to release it again. Spread builds up quickly, so unless you are shooting from absolutely point blank range, you want to shoot short burts. And even at short distance, spread grows insanely. I can press my Krait MK IIs cockpit against a mid-sized target and the last shots when cleaning a magazine in one go will miss the target.
Also to consider: the shock cannons damage is superior to a non-engineered multi-cannon. When looking at a fully engineered multi-cannon, it has similar DPS, but it does not build up spread. So the Multi-Cannon can deliver reliable damage also at longer ranges, can keep up the damage where the Shock Cannon has to stop and all of that while not having the Shock Cannons heat problems. And that is before considering that for things like CZs or RES, Multi-Cannons carry enough ammo, while Shock Cannons will run out. Their ammo supply is low, severely limiting the total damage they carry before needing to reload.
I have given the Shock Cannon a lot of testing. I used it a lot when soloing team elimination missions. (Kind of the hardest content you can find in the PvE game outside of Thargoids. ) Due to their limited number of targets, i hoped that Shock Cannons could shine there. But in the end i had to admit that engineered multi-cannons are just much better there. So even when trying to push all advantages towards the Shock Cannon, it still failed to be better than a properly engineered multi-cannon.
That being said, Shock Cannons have a few things going for them:
- The model looks great! I really like it!
- The sound also is awesome!
- It gives us a weapon of completely different use profile and demands more of the pilot than merely "press button, let the weapon do its damage". You have to watch the spread, make sure that you stop firing when it gets too much, etc. It's very interesting, i just wish the weapons effect would justify this extra effort.
It actually is an interesting choice when you don't want to engineer your weapons. (That's an advantage i did not think of for a long time, till there was a conversation about these weapons where Rubbernuke also was involved. And he explained that he quite often put those weapons on ships he set up for pirating. By doing so, that ship racked up quite some bounty, so he simply sold it after a while. By using the Shock Cannons, he had weapons more powerful than non-engineered Multi-Cannons, without loosing engineering materials when selling them. )
But as long as engineering is as powerful as it is, while Shock Cannons have all their limitations,
the "throw away weapon" is really the only actual use for the it. Which results in this weapon being used very little. Quite a waste for how cool the weapon basically is and how good the model looks. 
and with C&P in the current state, that use also does not exist any more.
(which... isn't nearly as crazy as it sounds, believe it or not).
