[Star Wars Saga] What's up with ion damage?

[Trekkin]

I've been trying for a while in a Saga campaign I'm in to work out how to build a ship focused on capturing rather than destroying other capital ships (we are, through shenanigans, filthy rich and flying a Banking Clan Frigate around being pirates), and it seems that ion damage does very little for a starship's abilities. The only ion cannon with an x5 multiplier does as much damage as a light turbolaser but with 250% the slot requirement, so it's extremely slot intensive to load up on ion weaponry and almost impossible to build batteries of them, and it just seems better to use turbolasers and hope.

Am I missing something? Is there a way to disable starships that doesn't rely on these huge, expensive, minimally effective heavy ion cannon? I'm stuck trying to figure out how to stop blowing up our targets, and it seems like nonlethal damage is hugely inefficient.

[Mando Knight]

Ion Cannons are so limited because that's how they are in Star Wars in general: weaker than lasers, bulkier, harder to maintain, etc. However, once you crack open the shell, ion damage can kill a weaker ship's condition. Usually, you rattle the enemy ship about for a bit with the normal guns, then zap them with the ion guns when they're nearly crippled to keep them from doing anything. Anything smaller than a Cruiser is under the threat of severely losing power when targeted by a bank of Heavy Ion Cannon.