Detail question on the Organic weapons

[Possum]

ALL comments herein are based exclusively on the v0.56 demo.

Like most of you, I have played with the Organic special abilities tree quite a bit, since it does seem to be the only special ability that is anything like fully-developed. Most of the others seem like a hasty afterthought.

And the one question that occurs to me over and over concerns the relationship between the Plasma Charge and the Electric Discharge (or the Hyper-Plasma Bolt and the Lightning Ray, as they are called at higher levels).

Both weapon families are useable on the same types of vessels. Both weapon families are capable of targeting the same kinds of vessels. The two weapon families have near-identical costs at any given level. And yet the Electrical Discharge/Lightning Ray is consistently smaller and does more damage. So what in earth is the reason for having the Plasma Charge weapons family at all?

The only possible explanation that occurred to me was that some sort of counter-measures against the Electrical Discharge might exist, which was not effective against the Plasma Charge. Perhaps some sort of (forgive me) giant capacitor? I seem to vaguely remember something like that from Starfire...

Your thoughts, please?