Dividing your gauss into 2 per trigger is a very helpful tool for heat management and is critical to performing successful Cold Orbiting.
there are 4 main ways of doing it (+ a “bonus one”, if we wanna call it that):
this tecnique implies not actually spitting your gauss, and as such it’s the worst for heat given the fact that the distro draw isn’t spread out. that said, some ships such as the vulture and corvette can actually utilize this tecnique because their distro is oversized compared to their gauss combination. it’s also sometimes used by experienced pilots to aid in heart sniping because of the higher alpha damage.
this is the entry-level version of stagger. it’s far from optimal, but it’s still a big step forward in terms of heat management compared to firing all of your gauss at once.
however, it doesn’t allow for the maximum dps. this tecnique implies dividing your gauss into two, and then only start charging one set of gauss when the other one is done firing.
this is a “easier” version of overlapping, with good alpha damage but slightly worse heat characteristics compared to overlapping. it consists of splitting your gauss into two triggers, and then pressing the two triggers with a slight delay in-between. this tecnique allows for the maximum dps.
this is the “ultimate” tecnique. it offers the best sdps, with the best heat characteristics (without using a macro), but it’s also the hardest to learn. however, once one gets to practicing it and builds the muscle memory, it becomes basically second nature. this tecnique consists of dividing your gauss into two triggers, and then overlapping them to start charging one set of gauss while the other still hasn’t fired, but is close to.
the gauss minigun is different. it requires a macro to switch your firegroups. the purpose of it is to spread out your damage as much as possible while still maintaning max dps to get the best heat caracteristics and the most spread out distro draw out of all the firing modes. this was invented by CMDR Aranionros Stormrage.