[SpaceBadger]

As others have told you, the DUC guns are good at low levels, but the best is level 5 and then you can't research them any higher than that. The energy guns start out weaker than DUCs, but can be researched lots higher to be much more powerful.

To me, that doesn't mean that DUCs should necessarily be ignored so as to concentrate on boosting those energy gun levels. I want something to give me an edge against the first aliens I meet, and researching a few levels of DUC guns does that - while they may have level 3 anti-proton beams, they are way outgunned by my level 3 DUCs. After I've taken care of my initial survival and set up some defenses, and probably researched a level or two of missiles as well, then I'll get to work on researching the energy guns.

Caveat: I am a newbie at this game, too, so there may be some flaw in my plan that the more experienced players will point out. I'm just throwing it out for consideration because this is what I do and nobody else explicitly suggested it.

SpaceBadger