View source for Talk:Cannon/@comment-90.217.129.100-20150131135923

Cannons are good to supplement other weapons if you have lots of feeble gimballed stuff. A class 1 cannon it gives you a fighting chance against big ships when you're otherwise armed only with mgimballed lasers and multicannons. 

Mostly against smaller ships it'll almost always miss so you'll want not to waste ammo by activating it against it; but they are suprisingly good against Cobras and Asps, especially Asps -- they make these big ships almost a breeze to take out. They show a lot of belly when you fight them and few cannon hits can take down strong shields and deal the kind of damage you'll need to do before they kill you or run away.

Cannons are also good when some dumb NPC tries to play chicken with you on a head-on attack run.

I haven't tried the fixed version yet, but due to the way cannons work, I don't see any reason why a fixed one wouldn't be any worse. You're only going to hit whatever is right in front of you or moving slowly anyway. I might give it a try later, because the increased damage could really come in handy. I get mauled against Anacondas with any pilot higher than Novice.