Dots next to weapons

I just got the game on sale and looking at the different ships and their weapons, certain weapons have dots next to them and will be named different things like light or super heavy. However, typically when I actually look at the stat differences, the only real difference is a longer range on the bigger weapon, with everything else being equal. Is that the only difference or am I missing something? To be clear I know some weapons do change in other ways, but it seems a lot of weapons just get a bigger range.