Colonel;
You need some mods!
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE4/Mods/
Check out Pirates & Nomads, or my new Carrier Battles mod (no AI for CBmod, but there is a "newbie" game open on PBW)
Devnull is also quite popular.
Or, if you don't want to have it be too different, you can pick up the SE3 mod I made (For SE4 gold). Something was lost in the translation from stock SE3 to SE4, and this puts it back.
In general, most mods do a significant amount of weapon balancing.
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PS:
For those who still think a realtime combat can't be controllable, check out the demo of the predecessor to the new Wierd Worlds game.
http://www.digital-eel.com/sais/files.htm
Space bar is the hotkey to toggle the pause.
It only has "play" and "fast forward", no slo-mo, and the weapons are quite different, but you should get the general idea.