Thoughts on regular cannon...

I'm sure mine is the same as yours (right?). There aren't any conflicts between burn damage and the sniper (that I can see). And the sniper also benafits from burn damage talents.

 

I use regular canon on all my ship
It work very well with my gameplay

Proof on fixer


Proof on defender

 

Cannons forever! Dual blast cannons on my mk5 enforcer with a t4 cannon. All Bhurt training to blasts.
I don't find flare particularly effective because I lack the duplicates, perks, and training. Cannon lets you hit ships while your blasts are cooling. You can get a couple extra hits before you have to use the Tesla bolt to let everything cool.
I saw something, a YouTube video(?), where perfect flame perks and training would give a t5 blast cannon a 90% increase (?). But without all that cannon still huts harder I think.
IF I ever got another 5 rare snipers, I haven't gotten one in 2 months, I'd again, use dual sniper with cannon.

 

I am using dual sniper and canon, work very well long and short distance battle.