[raynor]

IMHO, the Phased Polaron Beam is the best general purpose weapon in the game. It is extremely cheap to research, does very good damage, has adequate range and fires every turn. The fact that it penetrates non-phased shields is an added benefit but is less than 1% of the reason why I use the PPB. Lately, I have been disabling this tech area because I think it unbalances the game--esp. when the AI doesn't research Phased Shields fast enough except on medium/high bonus games.

Even if a weapon which only fires every three turns did/does more damage than the PPB does in three turns, I think the PPB would still be a better weapon because it has an increased chance of hitting the target with three separate to-hit die rolls.

I like weapons that fire every turn because it makes the combat go faster and seems to require much less micro-management of umpteen million battles. I prefer the PPB over shorter range weapons like the Ripper/Tractor combo because you can also use the PPB to knock out satellites/WEP's with shorter ranges.

One Last comment: I think it is interesting that the null space weapons are so heavily penalized--i.e. they only get to fire--I think Zanthris said--every three turns? But the PPB fires every turn?!? That is the main reason I think this weapon is unbalanced. In every game I've played, I haven't found any weapon further up the tech tree which does more damage per turn than the PPB. Once again, IGNORE the fact that it penetrates shields. Even without that ability, it's still the best weapon out there with perhaps the Meson BLaster coming in second doing less damage but allowing you to mount more weapons--thus increasing your to-hit probability, I would guess.