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[Kanjejou]

on paper heavy blaster look better but if you  look into it heavy blaster consume so much more flux/s i dont see much use for it...

strangely my shrike/wolf seem to work better with the mining one than the heavy one...I overload a lot with the heavy one when with the mining i seem to work better...

[Thaago]

The heavy blaster is better in 99% of cases. While it has higher flux/s, it also has higher efficiency so for a given amount of flux you get more damage out. Firing some, then waiting (or venting), then firing more with a heavy blaster will do more damage in the same time as a mining blaster just fired. Mining Blasters are ok to have early game against armor tanks because they are common weapons to crack heavy armor when other options might not be available, but HB's are just better.

Pretty much the only time a mining blaster is actually better is on a Hyperion or phase ship when you fire a single shot then go invulnerable again.

[Igncom1]

Yeah I've got mine on that mid sized phase ship as phase lances take a moment to prime before firing and I didn't have many HBs at the time (and I think 3 might be too hot for one ship) so they seemed oddly perfect for my little black market beauty!

[Kanjejou]

Yeah the efficieny is marginaly better and you can squeeze some extra range but strangely i foudn it easier to deal with the 1200 flux every 2sec compared to the 720flux per seconde of the heavy blaster.

also mining blaster seem gain way more efficiency from energy weapon mastery those 200 extra damages per shot (700vs500 that become 910 vs 650)  seem to really shine for the brusty style of play you expect of energy weapons platform like shrike and wolf...

[Thaago]

... I'd also say not to use either of those weapons on a Shrike or Wolf unless your fleet has no other anti-armor... pretty much my number 1 pet peeve when it comes to Shrikes is people putting on blasters then complaining it doesn't do well vs shields!

[intrinsic_parity]

If you're flying the ship yourself, heavy blaster is much much better. You just don't fire it at max ROF, manually fire it and let your flux dissipate a bit between shots.

For AI, idk which is better, but pulse laser or ion pulser are both probably better for the AI. Medium sabot + HB on shrike can be decent too.

[superhotdogzz]

Yeah the efficieny is marginaly better and you can squeeze some extra range but strangely i foudn it easier to deal with the 1200 flux every 2sec compared to the 720flux per seconde of the heavy blaster.

also mining blaster seem gain way more efficiency from energy weapon mastery those 200 extra damages per shot (700vs500 that become 910 vs 650)  seem to really shine for the brusty style of play you expect of energy weapons platform like shrike and wolf...

That is when you using HB on a platform such as Shrike or Wolf, those little ships don't have what it takes to power HB. But if you look at ships like Aurora or Fury, HB would do much better than MB. Since the flux capacity could tolerate more shots, and HB's ROF is just much much better, thus a lot more damage.

[SCC]

Mining Blaster works only for ships which don't care about soft flux, like phase ships or stations, but for everything that gets shot back at, Heavy Blasters are better.
For Wolf and Shrike, I'd probably choose an Ion Pulser instead of either of these, but that's because Ion Pulser is meta now.

[TaLaR]

Mining Blaster had it's only niche on previous iteration of Hyperion. Now there are no ships that would prefer it.

[Megas]

Mining Blaster had it's only niche on previous iteration of Hyperion. Now there are no ships that would prefer it.

Speaking of previous iterations, also early Harbinger when it had medium synergies and its system was Entropy Amplifier.  (Back then, Afflictor had Quantum Disruptor, and it could counter all of its counters.  Hyperion?  Dead if Afflictor got the system off first.)  Back then, Harbinger was an overpriced joke.  (I tried Proximity Launchers as a flux-free replacement on Harbinger, but like Devastator, the bombs detonated too early and splash damage attacks rarely did the full damage.)  After it swapped systems with Afflictor and got QD, Harbinger became the overpowered Reaper boat, and its synergies later became energy, becoming the oversized AMB Afflictor substitute.

Before 0.8, with stronger skills, Heavy Blaster was better than Mining Blaster for Hyperion because it had the juice to fire double Heavy Blasters three or four times before it needed to teleport.  Then 0.8 gutted skills, and Hyperion could maybe get two HB salvos off.  Better to get Mining Blaster then.

Today, Mining Blaster's niche is starter weapon for Apogee.  As long as Apogee has Unstable Injector, might as well use the blaster because its shot range with anything will be awful.  Mining Blaster has better sustained firepower than Autopulse or any other early-game weapon against heavily armored targets.  (Elite weapons like Heavy Blaster or Plasma Cannon are generally unavailable very early in the game.)

[Maeleth]

... I'd also say not to use either of those weapons on a Shrike or Wolf unless your fleet has no other anti-armor... pretty much my number 1 pet peeve when it comes to Shrikes is people putting on blasters then complaining it doesn't do well vs shields!

I'd argue that this is true only for officerless Shrike, without Smods or any additional advantages. HB is the only weapon worth putting on a Shrike (aside from Ion Pulser+Unstable Injector support variant).

I've had a huge success going for 200k+ deserter bounties with a pure Shrike/frigates setup. Works like a charm every time, and they never ever die.

[Morgan Rue]

Mining Blasters are effective as secondary burst or armor breaker weapons. You generally shouldn't use them as primary weapons compared to Heavy Blasters, but they work well as complementary weapons on Cruisers and similar.

If you can get them, Antimatter Blasters are likely better than Mining Blasters for this purpose, though they have slightly shorter range, have lower output and are generally less flexible in exchange for twice the burst damage.

[rabbistern]

before 0.95 i would have said that the HB generally is superior, as before it was the "general use gun" for a medium energy slot, for when you dont wanna think and just want to hold LMB, use it against shields and armor and hope that your high-tech flux superiority can make up for its inefficiency. but now that ive played 0.95 for a while i really dont see an argument for why the HB would be better over the MB, and thats because of the specific niche these weapons are in now.
energy weapons have been buffed to be more competitive, specifically regarding anti-shield. pulse lasers and ion pulsers are now without a doubt THE medium energy weapon of choice for anti-shield supression/flux building, whereas things like the PL, HB, MB (and amusingly enough even the HBPDL) are your choices for armor-stripping. and when you think about it in their role of anti-armor guns instead of generalists, the MB is superior. even if it has the flux ratio of the gauss cannon, it is 10 instead of 12 OP, and you shouldnt be thinking of 2 OP as "oh thats just 400 caps or 20 vents", but rather as something that can make or break a build, as the OP counts in starsector are so low that leaving weapon mounts open is common practice. these 2 op can be better PD, a reaper, or a hullmod that you can fit in, and as much as i would have preffered a "modular specializations" kind of deal, where hullmods are very cheap but have very strong specific debuffs, with the way it works here, in a game where you have an avg of around 120 or so op on a ship, of which some will be vents, caps, and hullmods, it would take more than just "better but still not good" flux efficiency to justify paying 12 over 10 op.
not to mention its armor cracking advantage is even better with short range EWM as Kanjejou pointed out, which is the playstyle youll be going for anyway with most ships that feature a med energy slot.

of course none of that is even tangentially important compared to the fact that MBs have that brilliant civilian-industrial charm, so i dont see how the heavy blaster was even supposed to compete against that

[Lullabison]

Mining Blasters are effective as secondary burst or armor breaker weapons. You generally shouldn't use them as primary weapons compared to Heavy Blasters, but they work well as complementary weapons on Cruisers and similar.

If you can get them, Antimatter Blasters are likely better than Mining Blasters for this purpose, though they have slightly shorter range, have lower output and are generally less flexible in exchange for twice the burst damage.

I take Antimatter Blasters over both Mining or Heavy, personally. At least on ships like Shrikes and Wolves. The DPS may be lower, but I don't want those ships sitting around inside a capital's arc trading broadsides. I want them to get in, dump as much damage as possible, and get out.

[intrinsic_parity]

IMO Heavy blaster isn't an armor cracking weapon, it's a hull DPS weapon with good anti-armor capability, and the ability apply some decent shield pressure. Mining blaster is too inefficient for shield pressure, and really not much better than heavy blaster for armor/hull plus it has much lower DPS, and anti matter blaster is an efficient anti-armor weapon with very low DPS. They are not even in the same category for me. I also would almost always take AMB over mining blaster.