Could be a question of how big a power source you can stick on a plane compared to a HWP? The laser itself might not need to be bigger, just spend more power to get a more powerful beam/faster rate of fire to slowly damage the hull..
The suggestion is merely to stick with the vanilla research tree. It makes little sense to be unable to fit a heavy laser you know and use on a HWP until you discover the laser cannon. The "engineering/physics" explanation can be whatever you come up with later.
Wow. That is a bit beyond what I need, but impressive all the same I am just interested in small QoL stuff right now... besides Weapon Roles
Well, feel free to take whichever small bit fits your needs
I haven't published the code yet I think, so sharing is a different way to make it useful!