I have to agree that the PPB can be devastating in most situations. Using it in a solo game against AI opponents feels like cheating.
Maybe Phased-energy weapons should be made a racial tech? If it costs some racial development points to be able to use then it will be less unbalancing. Other than this change, I think some improvements in armor technology might help to balance this. I would still really like to see Emissive armor changed to have a "total per turn" limit on the energy it can absorb. Right now, all emissive armor becomes useless when cruisers appear because the large mount doubles all weapon damage and out-classes emissive armor. Setting the limit higher and higher makes ships "invulverable" to more and more powerful weapons which has its own unbalancing effects. This "all or nothing" approach just doesn't make sense. If there were a total damage per-turn limit possible you could set the damage resistance of emissive armor higher without making ships totally invulnerable. Then emissive armor could be a really useful defense against the PPB. Crystalline and Organic armor make good counter-measures aready, btw.
[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 02 September 2001).]