[Quikngruvn]

Bumping up the research cost of PPB's seems to me the easiest fix. Another idea would be to increase the cost of PPB's by a third to a half of their current costs. As Rollo pointed out, PPB's can get expensive in a hurry... make 'em even more expensive, and they may not be so pervasive.

Also, has anyone else noticed something odd about the PPB damage progression? Check the damage for each level of PPB's:

1: 30 25 25 25 20 20
2: 45 40 40 40 35 35
3: 50 45 45 45 40 40
4: 55 50 50 45 45 45
5: 60 55 55 55 50 50

It's almost as if there are three levels missing that could go between levels 1 and 2. Stick those three levels of research in, and suddenly you have a nice orderly progression from level 1 to the highest level (now 8). That would help balance too in that you'd have to throw that much more research into PPB's to get reasonably effective weapons.

Quikngruvn