I just wish there were an efficient medium energy weapon that deals hard flux (ie. not a beam). I feel like the heavy blaster is the best of the bunch (not TERRIBLY inefficient, same range as pulse laser, high alpha strike(very useful against armor)), but the AI doesn't throttle its use as much as I'd like. They use it so much that it forces their soft flux near the limit, which makes them drop shields to avoid an overload, which leads to taking unnecessary damage. The only reason I don't use the Mining Blaster is because it's even more inefficient than that. I almost feel like it should have 75% flux efficiency instead of 50% due to its other limitations.
Recently, I've been using the pulse laser a lot more, though. It's mainly because it makes the AI behave a bit more aggressively, use its flux better (nearly flux stable in most cases), and vent at better times for whatever reason.