Holy smokes! I absolutely blitz most npcs with even level 2 engineered multicannons. I used to struggle against even expert craft, but last night, I took out 2 FAS with my Python mk2, one deadly and the other expert, in like less than a minute. And i had upgraded my thrusters to dirty drives and i just flew circles around them.

I knew engineering was strong, but this is wild. Honestly, the only thing that gave me trouble were high ranked snub craft, like the Vulture.