Also, to people saying energy weapons are better: they're awesome for ripping apart low tech ships (i.e. pirates) - but they're actually sub-par against Tri-Tachyon ships. Since damage from beams can get vented while shields are still up, and all the energy projectile weapons have *really* high flux generation...
I haven't read what you were responding to, but I just had to mention...
I find that energy weapons are even more terrible vs low tech ships in general, actually. Low tech ships tend to have ballistic weapons, which very often means at least a mix of kinetic damage. You are guaranteed to lose, all other things being equal, when you pit ships that rely on shields and energy weapons against ships with high armor and plenty of kinetic/explosive ballistics.
All they have to do is machinegun your shields down and then casually tear apart your inferior armor/hull. Meanwhile, your only options in response are gravitons, which are so piddly that most ships ignore them just with their regular flux dissipation, nevermind their laughable damage vs armor and hull and inferiority vs even machineguns, and then there are sabots, which are ultra limited by ammo, and are chewed up effortlessly by flak.
Higher tech ships that spew beams and pulses and energy blasts already generate a ton of flux on themselves, don't do that great against shields, and have terrible point defense that can't even begin to compare to the likes of their ballistic counterparts.
The only real advantage of high tech ships is their speed, which the AI is not even close to utilizing like the player can.