I don't remember if this has been debated before, but here goes.
I was thinking about weapons that are meant for suppression in real life, such as MGs. There, the sheer amount of fire down range forces the enemy to take cover and stay down, where accuracy is not that important, since the purpose is not necessarily to hit the enemy but to prevent them from moving and firing. AFAIK in x-piratez however, the only bonus you get from a weapon like the gatling, is that it might shred some cover around the target, but explosive weapons are much better and more reliable at doing that. My point is that in most cases, one or two accurate bullets are much better for killing an enemy than scatter fire. Therefore, a weapon that sprays a lot of bullets will almost never be preferable, unless such a tactic were to be rewarded, e.g. through a suppression system (like a TU debuff on next turn for the target). It would probably need to be tweaked a couple of times to avoid exploits, if it is to be implemented.