TL;DR: they are constantly outranged by ballistic, and when they're not they don't do any hard flux damage. Also a lack of variety. PD is fine and not really discussed.
Small mounts:
Ballistic weapons that fit in these mounts are plenty, from the light needler to the light assult gun to the light mortar to the railgun. Energy weapons have the IR Pulse Laser and antimatter blaster, which do hard flux and are both outranged by all the non-PD ballistics. They've got the Ion Blaster, which is practically useless on its own, and the tactical laser, which is also useless on its own.
The range on the AM blaster is fine, as it fills a special role. The range on the IR pulse is okay, because 100 difference is acceptable in the chaos of combat. The tactical laser isn't too bad where it is, given it's meant to work with other weapons and only does 75 dps anyway. The ion blaster is where the real problems begin to show, because it's clearly meant to work with on of the larger weapons except...
Medium mounts:
This is where the ballistic weapons begin to really shine. here the jump from 600-700 range to 700-1000 is made. Some of the most commonly used ballistic weapons are the Hypervelocity Driver and the Heavy Mauler, which both have a range of 1000. All non-PD non-graviton beam energy weapons have a range of 600. Thats 400u of distance (over 9 seconds in an Apogee, 5 seconds in an Aurora) that your high-tech destroyer or cruiser has to cross before it can even begin to fire, througout which it's taking hard flux damage which limits it from using its weapons when it finally gets into range.
On a ship that can mount these guns, any ship relying on energy weapons for their hard flux is at a disticnt disadvantage. This is why the Aurora, Apogee, Shrike and Medusa perfrom worse than their corresponding low-tech/midline counterparts. Beam weapons are especially useless here, as they don't really pressure ships that can absorb 200 flux without too much of an issue, eg most ships with a medium ballistic mount.
Large mounts:
There are three main energy weapons that fit large mounts, the autopulse laser, the plasma cannon and the tachyon lance.
The autopulse laser is a worse version of the Onlaught's thermal pulse cannon. It uses more flux, has lower range and does less damage. For a large energy weapon, this is a little bit terrible. If it used a bit less flux and did a bit less damage, this might make a good medium weapon.
The plasma cannon has the highest sustained DPS in the game, does hard flux damage, and uses the most amount of flux overall. However, compared to the mjolnir cannon, it uses significantly more flux, has a shorter range, but does a a fair amount more damage and has no EMP component.
The lance is excellent right where it is and I don't think it needs changing. It's essencially a Super Beam that peirces some shield depending on hard flux.
Beams:
There are four beam weapons, the crappy general one (tactical laser), the graviton beam, and the large but very bad graviton beam (high intensity laser) and the ion beam. The first two have distinct roles and perfrom admirably, but could use a damage buff with corresponding flux useage buff, or additional, more powerful weapons with these higher stats.
The high intensity laser is next to useless for a large mount. It does 500 base damage but is halved to shields, does no hard flux damage and has no special effects. This essencially means that it's doing 250 damage to someone's shield for 500 flux. In all cases, I would rather put a graviton beam in it's place. Beam weapons are mostly for pressure and secondly for poke damage, and this weapon has it's priorities the wrong way around.
The ion beam does well with its special effect, but suffers in a high tech fleet thanks to a lack of hard flux, and doesn't have the tachyon lance's high burst damage to help it out. In short, it's fine
The AI doesn't really know how to handle beams though. Steady AI (the default for non-officered ships) tries to get in range of its longest range non-missile weapon, and stay in that range unless it thinks it has an advantage. This seems to include beams. Beams work best when they have a source of hard flux as a compliment, which if armed with anything else but a HVD/HM, it won't get.
So what is the point of energy weapons?
Energy weapons are short range, high flux using weapons. This is let down by the fact that the ranges between weapon sizes don't really match up, and despite the fact that they do a lot of damage, the extreme range disadvantage they have vs ballistics leaves them inferior overall.
Energy beams are the opposite, long range, low flux usage weapons, except the ion beam which has a special effect instead. All beams make excellent support weapons, maintaining pressure and allowing flanks to happen and overloads more likely. This is what makes the midline Eagle so effective, a combo of graviton, an ion beam and HVD/heavy mauler makes for a well rounded ship that the AI works with well.
Proposed resolutions:
Energy needs at least one long range hard flux weapon for each mount size. Somewhere around 600-700 for small, 700-800 for medium and 900 for large, similar to ballistic weapons. This would balance them against the extreme range of the HVD and heavy mauler, while maintaining the ballistic range advantage. A modular version of the Thermal Pulse Cannon, even if generally inferior to its onslaught counterpart, would not go amiss.
Energy weapons need more variety in general. The large difference in ranges between small and large hurts the Apogee, and the very short ranges and high flux usage hurts the Aurora. More energy weapons with different ranges and flux usage would alleviate this and buff high tech ships in general where they need it most: cruisers and destroyers.
Large energy weapons (aside from the PD and the lance) need a buff overall. A buff to 800 range would go a long way. There's a reason there aren't any large energy mounts on the conquest.
