I've been playing with adding hard points and messing with weapon damage this morning and I have come to the following conclusions:

 

1.  The tag doesn't have an effect on how much damage the ship does, it might have some effect on how much excess damage the ship can sustain after the hard points have been destroyed, but thats hard to tell.

 

2.  Damage done by a weapon is calculated based on the following

Projectile Damage(how much each projectile does)

The Game Constants modifiers

The number of shots fired(Recharge rate, number of projectiles in a shot)

The number of shots that hit(accuracy, you can have the most powerful weapon but if they don't hit then your screwed)

edited the above is correct

Edited February 4, 200620 yr by akulapanam