So I have head that people are having a hard to finding a way to make the Firespray worth it.

Krassis with the Heavy Laiser Cannon sounds like a obvious choice. Together it is 43 points, but it can twice the punishment of an X-wing and can really really deal out the damage especially at range 3. I know that he can't use his Laiser Cannon in his rear arc, but it seems like a pretty good combo.

Some people have written about loading the Firespray up with lots of missiles, torpedoes and mines. But it seems to me that if you are going to shoot more than once, then you might as well take the Heavy Laiser Cannon. It has added utility in that you don't need a target lock wich means you can use your target lock when shooting to re-roll dice.

Where does it say that it can only be used in front arc?

In the rulebook that came with the Firespray:

Auxiliary firing arc

Each ship in this pack has an auxiliary firing arc identified by dotted lines printed on its ship token. These ships also have a unique primary weapon icon printed in their ship cards. When attacking with its primary weapon, a ship with this icon may attack an enemy ship that is within Range 1-3 and inside its standard or auxiliary firing arc.

When attacking with a secondary weapon, the ship must still target an enemy ship inside its standard firing arc (unless otherwise specified on the Upgrade card).

I think a lot of this "I can't make these large ships work!" comes down to learning how to maneuver them. I remember saying this when I got my Falcon back in November. Honestly I played with it more. I learned how to use it with out having actions. I learned how to boost the snot out of it so it NEVER gets shot at. The Slave one is an AMAZING ship. Yes the heavy laser canon is great but stacking it with an upgrade that will let you still get that crit out of it, AMAZING. Don't use the mines as stand alone weapons. Use them to stop ships from executing turnaround maneuvers. It can be a huge deterrent to try that maneuver if you think you might land on a mine. Use those mines to set up your next shooting phase. I've used this twice to put an X-wing right where I needed it to be. Inside of my firing arc. The Seismic Charge is better than the Mine in my opinion because it is not an action.

Also don't waste time with missiles or torps. That heavy cannon will get the job done.

you do realize that once you get the hang of maneuvering the big ship, you just need to wait until your opponent is skilled enough to learn how to block them, range 1 them and for the Firespray, approach from its sides, and it's all back to square one again. I've spent the past 3 weeks flying the Slave I every single night with pretty much every single variation i could think off or have read online, and I have quickly came to the conclusion that unless you are flying in a empty 3x3 with about 4 opponent ships, you will be wasting a lot of turns doing subpar maneuvers and generally being a waste of 30+ points, going all "hey guys, i'm helping" awww so cute kinda useless waste of board space. in fact, it would be a lot more efficient if you were to divert those 30+ points to 2-3 other imperial ships, which will honestly nab you about the same amount of hp (spread across 2-3 ships, meaning you could have a bit more hp due to buffer if flying 3 ships or just about the same hp with 2 ships), and you get 2-3 attacks per turn as well, which makes up for the difference in firepower, even when you consider heavy laser cannon. Yes, the Firespray is a good ship when supported with other things as well, eg. squad leader, howlrunner etc, but the exact same thing goes as well if you are talking about the 2-3 ships you could field instead.

like after all that flying around with the Firespray, i expected myself to be some Firespray professional pilot, able to gauge accurately how it would fit between tight spaces between ships and asteroids etc, how to fly it around and get it exactly where I want it etc. I did get that, but by the 2nd week or so I discovered instead how to get at least 1 ship to fire at it from range 1-2 from its sides for nearly every turn or so, and how to generally tear it apart in 3-4 turns, avoid both mines, totally block its movements and action choices etcetc, and by the end of the 3rd week i simply given up all hope on this rubbish. Will I play this ship? definitely not in a 100 point match, nor a tournament, but for fun matches anywhere from 50-70 points against 2-3 ships, I could consider bringing it out for a spin. it is both great fun and utterly useless at the same time.

EDIT: if you ask me how I'd field it, I'd most likely throw out an empty bounty hunter, and I may or may not even consider a gunner upgrade depending on how badly i need those 5 points elsewhere. then point it exactly to the left or right and have it move horizontally until your opponent has reached, then swing in with a 90deg turn to catch somebody within range 1 of your front arc, then fly pass and catch somebody withint range 1 again with your rear arc, then have him stay in the middle and be a big irritating piece of plastic while you do actual stuff with the rest of your squad. if he is taking hits and dies, all the better, at least i know those hits didnt land on something else more important, like any TIE/in or some named TIE/ln

@Duraham,

I find this interesting because I've had completely different results. The few games I've played with a Slave One I've destroyed my opponent with the ship doing damage every turn. I do not rush this ship into combat. It is better at long range. I stay out of asteroid fields at all costs. I do notice that it is a huge target and takes a lot of fire and doesn't always make it to the end of the game, but this is fire not directed towards my squints.

I noticed from your reading that you are playing it against other imperial lists, this is something I have yet to do. I can see where your frustration would come in then because this cannot be easy as squints should rip the large base ships apart.