Another thing to note is that there's a larger dropoff in Cannon damage over range than there is from Beams. If you're testing damage at or near 10km away from your target, the Cannons suffer a larger damage penalty than Beam weapons do.

why havent i seen such information on Cannon weapons? Ive never seen it say they suffer a damage drop off at a distance.

Cannons tickle at ranges > 5KM.

All energy weapons suffer a damage loss at range. It's not too bad for Beams, but it's severe for Cannons. That's why one of defenses against Escorts is Tractor Beam Repulsors.

Ah, well the question im trying to get at still stands, Dual Beams and Dual Heavy Cannons are supposed to deal more damage then Beam Arrays even if the Beam Arrays are broadsiding right?

Dual Heavy Cannons, yes.

Dual Beams... depends on your power levels and buffs. Each Dual Beam is only 1.3x the damage of a Beam Array, so at most, you'll be getting 5.2 Beam Arrays worth of damage for 4 Beam Arrays worth of power.

If you can handle the power drain (high power transfer rates via skills and EPS Flow Regulators/Nadion Inversion/EPS Power Transfer), then Beam Broadsides can be viable.

I run with an 8 Beam Broadside in my Cruiser, which obviously does more damage than 4 Dual Beams up front. I know people will tell you that anything more than 5 or 6 Beams is inefficient due to power drain, and that is theoretically correct. However, with high Weapons power and high power transfer rates, an 8 Beam Broadside is quite viable and doesn't suffer much of a loss of DPS due to power drain at all in practice.

Cannon damage drops off rapidly after 4 km. Beam damage drops off after 6 km.

Increasing Power Transfer Rate (EPS Flow REgulations, Electo-Plasma Systems, etc) will have very little effect on weapon power drains. It does have some tiny effect. But it's not enough if Weapon Power Drain is all you are worried about.

Nagorak has done extensive testing with various combinations of weapon load outs. The good news is adding more beam weapons will do more damage. But the additional DPS does start to drop off as you add more weapons. After 6 Beam weapons, the damage curve really starts to flatten out.

EPS Systems and EPS consoles have ZERO effect on weapon power drain, and weapon power recharge rate.

They only affect transfer rates BETWEEN SYSTEMS.

Seriously? Man I always thought they did. Why do I always see them in Escort builds? Doesn't really seem like it'd be worth the slot.