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[Vextor]

How do you use them?

Let's say there's Graviton Beam for suppression, but in reality a pulse laser or mining blaster does the exact same job, but they generate hard flux on top of that. The range feels useless if it's the only thing firing, its damage on armor is negligible enough to turn off shields, vent and go back in.

Then, there's the tachyon lance with insane damage on paper, but again, the shields just brush it off as if it was a soft breeze of wind.
"But if it doesn't hit the shields it's devastating!" Yeah, just like a plasma cannon, autopulse laser, etc.

And the worst thing of all is that they can be fired even with minimal amount of flux remaining, which means the two mining blasters next to it never get the chance to shoot again until the AI backs off for a full vent.

From what I've seen the only times when they are able to kill is when the battle is already won. Good job on cutting up that cruiser... surrounded by 4 other ships.

[SCC]

Graviton Beam is decent for suppression, since it has 1000 range and it's very flux-efficient; it makes the enemy ships back off far away, if they are short on flux. It's not a great weapon in situations that don't involve stand-off, though.
Tachyon Lances are actually amazing, if you have some other source of hard flux, since not only their burst is pretty strong, but they also have lots of EMP and they create a lot of arcing, when they hit enemy ships on hard flux. 4 Tachyon Lance Paragon is one of the nastiest ships, since one slip is enough to get hit with 10k of energy damage from 2000 range. And Paragon can mount 2 heavy needlers or 2 HVDs, too.

[TaLaR]

Pack a Paragon full of beam weapons (except the 2 universals, keep HVDs there). Soft flux is a problem only when you do not output enough of it.

[Igncom1]

Yeah^

Beam lasers are for more long term and drawn out fights, or for support with their generally low flux costs to operate.

A Tac Laser by it's self won't get much done but it's undemanding profile with great range and pinpoint accuracy can help take down armour at a safe distance, or when massed easily deal with weaker enemy ships for basically zero cost. It's energy damage means that while it has no advantages, it also has no true weaknesses.

Graviton Beams deal kinetic damage, not energy, and for their cost to operate deal an appreciable amount of damage per second. Their purpose is to safely hit enemy shields and take them down if massed so that anti-armour weapons or other energy weapons can hit at an opponents armour. You'll often find them on eagle cruisers who use three of them to slowly take down an opponents shields before unloading 3 heavy mortars into them, a deadly combination.

As for big beams, the High Intensity Laser does HE damage and can murder pirate clunkers in seconds. If shields ever go down, for any reason, fire this in the breach and watch as their ships get melted. They obviously stack very well with Graviton beams, but few ships are actually capable of mounting them so they can't truly be counted upon for an option unless you REALLY love the sunder.

Beams should never be anyone's first choice of weapon, but for the flux concious warlord perhaps consider trying them out as a secondary or tertiary weapon group.

[Plantissue]

Beam weapons are a bit like fighters. The more of them you have, the better they get. They are also pretty good at instant hitting ships which already have armour gone and shields down to finish off ships. How ship AI works in Starsector is that they tend to be cautious so that range 1000 is able to "zone" away smaller ships like frigates. An Eagle with 3 Graviton beam can simply overload or force to switch off shields of most frigates and destroyers eventually. Neither Tactical laser nor Graviton Beam make for good "peer opponent" 1v1 weapons. to be honest I don't make good use of them but in the past I used to mass Tactical Lasers  with Integrated Point Defense AI, but now I do not.

As for Tachyon Lance and Phase Lance, they do well enough by shooting at anything near Flux maximum. They will either overload the shields, or destroy armour. In particular the ships they can be mounted on are usually either fast or there are multiple energy mounts close together.

[Tackywheat1]

Quad tach lance on a Paragon is very good. I somehow beat Forlorn Hope on my first try (I lost on my next 2 tries) because AI Onslaught retreated for some reason, cruisers came at me one by one, one heron rushed me(I have no idea what AI was trying to do) and then picked off the remaining frigates one by one.

[Goumindong]

How do you use them?

Let's say there's Graviton Beam for suppression, but in reality a pulse laser or mining blaster does the exact same job, but they generate hard flux on top of that. The range feels useless if it's the only thing firing, its damage on armor is negligible enough to turn off shields, vent and go back in.

Then, there's the tachyon lance with insane damage on paper, but again, the shields just brush it off as if it was a soft breeze of wind.
"But if it doesn't hit the shields it's devastating!" Yeah, just like a plasma cannon, autopulse laser, etc.

And the worst thing of all is that they can be fired even with minimal amount of flux remaining, which means the two mining blasters next to it never get the chance to shoot again until the AI backs off for a full vent.

From what I've seen the only times when they are able to kill is when the battle is already won. Good job on cutting up that cruiser... surrounded by 4 other ships.

The graviton beam is one of the weaker beam weapons* but the others have plenty of value and it still is decent. The main thing about soft flux is that if you have enough of it it doesnt matter that the enemy can dissipate it. When that happens the range and accuracy of beams shines.

Like other weapons they all have their uses and integrate with other weapons. The main use, in numbers, is bullying smaller ships. Smaller ships are harder to hit and beams solve this. Since larger ships have better flux than smaller ships this lets you efficiently explain to frigates how youre a destroyer and they are not.

Phase lances and tachyon lances will come together for you once you start to understand strike weapons and HE weapons and how to use them. HIL once you start to get into bigger fleets. Ion beams when you understand that their purpose is to force enemies shields up. And Tactical lasers when their purpose is to provide overlapping anti-fighter fields.

*though it does have some specific, undocumented features. Specifically it has an impulse associated with it. Which means it pushes ships it his and also pushes missiles that get near it. It can be hard to hit a graviton shooting ship with dumb fire rockets.

[Flare]

Aside from what others are saying, there is a tactic I use with a single continuous beam weapon I like to use when flying around in a lone frigate.

It's to have a fast ship with one or two tactical laser on it. They are long range enough for your ship, being faster than the opposing ship, to sit out of range of the enemy frigate with your shields down passively venting hard flux. Since the tactical laser is still firing, the enemy frigates usually still have their shields up and whatever hard flux you've dealt to it before sitting back in tact laser range stay there while you are fully able to vent the hard flux. Of course, this won't work on ships that have their own long range beams, but against pirates and the luddic path, it's usually no problem.

[Tackywheat1]

Graviton beams actually pull/push missiles? I have never heard or seen this happening. Is that actually true?

Although I did see a gryphon that I was a firing 2 gravitons at magically deflect 4 atroposes so idk now

[Flare]

I've had frigates I was piloting pushed, pulled, spun around when a ship with a graviton beam was hitting my shields, so yeah I do think they exert some force to their targets.

[TaLaR]

Aside from what others are saying, there is a tactic I use with a single continuous beam weapon I like to use when flying around in a lone frigate.

It's to have a fast ship with one or two tactical laser on it. They are long range enough for your ship, being faster than the opposing ship, to sit out of range of the enemy frigate with your shields down passively venting hard flux. Since the tactical laser is still firing, the enemy frigates usually still have their shields up and whatever hard flux you've dealt to it before sitting back in tact laser range stay there while you are fully able to vent the hard flux. Of course, this won't work on ships that have their own long range beams, but against pirates and the luddic path, it's usually no problem.

I don't like leaving few poker lasers on player piloted ships because it cuts both ways - both me and enemy being unable to use zero flux boost or vent freely. I find boost and venting more important. AI is much less proactive with venting than me anyway, I typically vent so close (and often within their firing range, if their shots are dodge-able or cheap to armor tank) that they don't consider situation safe to vent.

Yes, you can fix the problem of boost by taking Helmsmanship 3, but this seems too niche reason to me. Also, just a few beams are often pointless:  if enemy is currently unable to fully utilize their flux dissipation, being hit by few beams is free (within unused dissipation allowance).

[Goumindong]

Graviton beams actually pull/push missiles? I have never heard or seen this happening. Is that actually true?

Although I did see a gryphon that I was a firing 2 gravitons at magically deflect 4 atroposes so idk now

Inhave played this game since 2013 and only learned about it when @thaago demonstrated it on his stream (i think it was thaago)

[Megas]

In releases before 0.8a, enemies raised shields against everything, and poker beams were very useful (to prevent them from dropping shields and dissipating hard flux).  Now, AI is smarter and pokers are not very useful except maybe frying the rare unshielded small ship (Hound or Domain derelicts) here and there.

I occasionally mount tactical laser as part of the Heavy Blaster and Tactical Laser combo as a cheaper OP substitute for two Pulse Lasers.