How about making the charge cannon a 2 click process to fire. Click once to start the charge, and click again to fire. And have it hold the charge for a short period of time. We don't people flying around the galaxy with 4 charged cannons ready to fire at any given time. But making it so that the player can focus more on landing that 1 shot that makes the difference instead of timing it to get the most damage. Right now, it's virtually imposible to use it because hit percentage is so low. Also, be able to fire prior to fully charged.

It can fire prior to full charge.
I once tried to set up a bind to accomplish this, but gave up after some minor obstacles. Back then the charged cannon was useless anyway.
-:sigma.SB

Yeah, I like MB's idea. Solra's right though that you can fire prior to full charge, though the firing is unintuitive as it only fires after you release not as you press the button.

I was also thinking if we keep the usual setup, give the Charge Cannon a Gauss-like autoaim. As it stands now, it is almost impossible to land a hit because of the nature of ship combat. And it has nothing to do with skill : to time your charge, you need to be able to predict what is going to happen. But that's impossible unless your opponent is a robot.

I remember that battle Shape and I had with the "new" charged cannons. We can't hit each other because both of us are so used to dodging more rapid firing stuff, dodging charged cannons fire is almost cake.

At the risk of sounding like a parrot... let me also point out that the charge cannon is available at license level 3, so it is a quasi-newbie weapon. i.e. it may not need to be improved... the 50 m/s speed increase was a big boost. Now, in all fairness I haven't used the new charged cannon in PvP, but look at the other weapons available at level 3: the phased blaster, for example.

Eh but this is still an endgame based game.

Nobody spends a great deal of time at level 3. And even then, the weaknesses of the charge cannon are apparent

Well, I'd disagree that no-one spends time at level 3, but I agree that this is an endgame based game.

In fact, since the charge cannon is so unique, the only weapon of its kind... it just seems like it *should* be a high level weapon.

What about increasing its license requirement substantially (to HW 7?), making it an L-port weapon, doubling its maximum damage, giving it a gauss-like autoaim, and increasing its mass to 1,500 kg?

Maybe there could be a L port variant like that, but I'd still like a S port version to be available as well.

[edit]
Oh, and another thing I'd really like for the Charge Cannon, would be to make it so its velocity was also based off how charged it was - more charge, higher velocity. As it is now the Charge Cannon is almost better as a twitchy-finger-rapid-fire weapon than as a charged-up heavy hitter. Credit where credit's due, it was roguelazer who I first saw suggesting this.
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I searched and did not find that thread, sorry for being redundant.

That's what i meant, make it still be fired prior to fully charged. But with the nature of combat in the game. You can't land a hit with it. Even when i was combat 3, i used it once and threw it away. It's not even a good noob weapon. You have to land better than 2 fully charged shots to pop almost all ships. And with a hit percentage under 10% for most PvP combat, that's a pretty poor weapon of choice. It needs some tweaking. Make it a little easier to use, and more potent. such as 2 clicks to fire and having it hold charge for a few seconds. This would give the player ample time to aim and try to land the shot. And in combination of 1 other energy weapon, it could be useful.

However, i like dynamic velocity idea too. I'm not sure about increasing the auto-aim cause it's a very light weapon, 400kg. Maybe if you make a L port weapon of the like with better auto aim.