[Krsqk]

Not to rehash the entire of AS/Talisman/Uberweapon (like it's not going on anyway):
1) Build hundreds or thousands of smaller ships. The AS can only capture so many per combat. Swarm them to death.
2) Researching Talisman or AS costs a good deal of extra research. Getting both costs a horrendous amount of extra research. Your economy is unlikely to be able to support all those extra ships you're going to be stealing. If you're just going to scrap them, then why not blow them up in the first place? It's more efficient in a 25-30 turn combat.
3) As stated before, it takes a while to catch up to ships/fleets set at max range. An opponent with good strategies can pick you to death.
4) Use fighters. Sure, they can be slaughtered by PDC, but AS and Talisman already take up a lot of space. PDC just takes more away from your real weapons--and I'm sure you remembered to pack those as well, right?
5) Use swarms of small boarding party ships. They don't cost much, they build quickly, and it doesn't matter if you a few get subverted--you can kill them pretty quickly anyway. If the AS ship doesn't have a self-destruct, you get all that pretty weaponry. The AS chain-reaction effect is pretty well documented. If it does have a self-destruct, then it's mission accomplished anyway.

It makes no sense, BTW, to allow shields to block psychic crew conVersion. It's supposed to be something extra-material. I don't remember the descriptions for the other psychic weapons off-hand, but it may make some sense to allow those to be blocked by shields/armor.

In summary, of course AS + Talisman hurts your opponent--it's supposed to. After all, you're spending 3000 RP on it. They can spend 3000 RP on a whole lot of other things--propulsion experts, better SY rate, better maintenance reduction, better economy, better aggressiveness, etc... There is no perfect counter to any option (well, except for building nothing but colony ships and sensor sats); but there are ways to defeat any combo. It should be expensive to defeat the AS+Talisman combo, given its cost in RP.