So, a bit of a non-traditional Hwatcha nerf incoming. The Hwatcha's currently problem is ease of use + effectiveness. Like the Flamer before it, it's extremely easy to use, but takes foreplanning and effort to counter, with excellent disable and hull-damage, along with moderate armor-strip, all in one easy-to-aim package.
To balance this out, rather than changing damage values, I'd make it impossible to fire less than a full clip. Often, good players will stagger their fire, turning the gun into a mega-Artemis and allowing precise sniping. Making the gun fire the whole clip (with the same shot spacing as it currently has if you rapid-click to fire) would give the gun a skill-cap to get a full-ship disable, and make the reload time a larger drawback. If it still proved too effective, perhaps a reversion to the spread would be called for, but I'd rather make one tweak at a time.
Thoughts?