[Suicide Junkie]

Consider the effect in starfury.

While your bullets are on their way towards the enemy, the enemy can be firing energy bolts back, and the shots cross in the middle. Two ships with equal weapons range will both fire, and both hit. Two direct fire ships in combat can potentially both die, leaving no survivors.

Naturally, projectile speed is a somewhat important feature of a weapon, since if your shots go faster, they hit earlier, and the enemy weapons get damaged earlier.

A nifty weapon might even be a gun that does Huge damage, but the bullets it fires travel slower than most ships. So it only works when the enemy is charging towards you.