Actually, OP was making some mistakes, particularly in relation to weapons fire. He kept firing when WEP capacitor was low. This increases heat and provides less firepower. It would have been better to hold off on firing until WEP regenerated a bit which would reduce heat and do more DoT.
When necessary, I use an enemy ships chaff deployment as a reason to let my weapons capacitor recharge.
Since chaff deployment on the Vette was rare, (not that it did it much good anyway, due to it's large profile) I decided to maintain fire on a depleted capacitor.
I would argue that because multi-cannons are an ammo based weapon, capacitor amount has no effect on damage. Therefore, my pulse laser was the only weapon not being used to it's full potential.
However, in this particular situation, the time taken to let my capacitor recharge and continue fire with just one additional pulse laser, would not of provided more damage than the 3 multi-cannons that were firing constantly.
I used to run all gimballed multi-cannons (faster rate of fire than fixed) but have recently decided to replace a multi-cannon with a pulse because running out of ammo sucks and in a battle where chaff is involved, I end up doing more damage (when faced with a depleted capacitor) by waiting for chaff to dissipate, which allows for capacitor recharge, and continued accurate fire along a super wide firing arc.
In regard to the heat, I had plenty of heat sinks left that would have continued to manage any further heat generated if the battle lasted longer.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall
My thoughts exactly whenever I'm fighting bigger ships, which is pretty much all the time.
