Ships & Modules

While the simple "beams for range, pulses for tracking and dps" is probably what you found there's a tad more to it.

- pulses tend to "suck" till you get the T2 versions and can use Scorch ammo, increasing your viable range
- beam lasers are very powerful and usable compared to other long range turret options
- the main issue lasers have is damage types and the longer range crystals you use the less thermal damage you do leaving only EM, this means that using pulses against for instance Guristas is a bad thing. On paper pulses with scorch may have the range and dps but in reality it's almost completely EM damage which Guristas are heavily tanked against, so generally it's better to fit beams because they can get away with using shorter ranger crystals with more thermal damage compound meaning better applied dps

For PVE generally you should probably stick to "beams until I can use T2 pulses and even then it may not always be the best option". There are of course some missions which are specifically short range or against obvious short range NPC factions, that's where you'd use pulses.