Few of my weapon choices are directly affected by their damage/OP ratio. Many of my weapon choices are influenced by the opportunity cost of mounting it instead of another weapon. (while OP does matter here, slot size, type and quality are even more important.)
I would guess that since slot size and type are pretty fixed that “quality” encompasses dps/OP and DPS/slot almost exclusively and you don’t realize it.
No, "quality" here is in reference to the quality of the weapon
slots themselves. It's not really a variable that can be summed up in a single quantitative number, the quality of the mount is based on where on the ship it's located, the coverage it supplies, and whether the slot is a hardpoint or a turret.
The left-most Mora small ballistic hardpoint has very little gun coverage compared to the turrets on a low-mobility platform with heavy OP restrictions. That mount is a low-quality mount and is likely to be the first mount to be "scavenged" in order to make a Mora build work.
Same with the broadside turrets of the Scarab, very poor weapon coverage for turret weapons, even in the PD role. Scarab builds often use cheap throw-away guns on those or leave them out entirely, which is why those slots are being removed in 0.95.
Turreted large missiles, such as those found on the Legion XIV, are high quality as they have an ability to independently track targets with even unguided torpedos. Front-facing hardpointed large missiles like on the upcoming Champion are not quite as high quality (you have to turn the entire ship to track things with torpedos), but they're still fairly good in that respect. Off-side missile hardpoints like on the Apogee are not as high quality as torpedos are entirely impractical on these types of slots, which limits its usage to missiles with good guidance.
