you can edit the .entity files using a basic txt editor. For windows, it can be opened
with notepad.

Go into gameinfo folder like UEF said, and look for the files that begin with Capital
and Frigate for the ships. The files have prefix's that categorize each ship with a
race that it belongs to, Phase are the Vasari, PSI are the Advent, and the Tech are,
well, the TEC. There are no prefix cruiser files. Its all categorized into frigates.
Don't ask me why, thats just how it is. The ships are also cat'ed depending on what
role they play in the fleet, utility, seige, heavy, light, ect ect. I'll grab a list
of what each ship is for each race later on. I compiled one in the past, but I'm not
sure where I put it.

What your looking for is the values for the weapon damage itself. Damage per second
is this:

DamagePerBank:FRONT 46.750000
DamagePerBank:BACK 0.000000
DamagePerBank:LEFT 0.000000
DamagePerBank:RIGHT 0.000000

Don't add anything to the Back, left, or right banks. I'm not sure if you have to add
another hardpoint to the ship itself, if you want to experiment, go ahead.

For the Rate of Fire, I think your looking for this:

PreBuffCooldownTime 5.500000

Lastly, for the abilities, just look for the prefix with abilities. There's a ton of them
that come with SOASE. I've experimented with them and they are easily inter-change-able
between each ship (atleast most are).

I really hope this helps you.