I'm not upset--I had my fun and I proved my point, it's not like they were going to hire me anyway, even if it would have probably faster than trying to steal them in steps.
Basically, the thing with the balance was that the game simply wasn't either flashy or fun, and the realism aspect was trash. The concept of balance used was "accuracy is worth twice it's weight in damage" and "range is worth half it's weight in accuracy."
The other balance principle was "all weapons should be viable to the endgame as primary weapons, improved iterations should not replace previous designs except as more specialized variants." So red lasers were accurate, fast to fire, did low damage, had long range, penetrated atmospheres best and fit on smalls. Greens were mediums, fired slower, did more damage, etc. So balance got incrementally more complex, not more powerful. The power was gained from the flexibility to make specialized ships. What's the point in having many weapon types and ship design mechancs if only one weapon is necessary to win?
Even at endgame with AI Dreads, a player should be using T1 and T2 weaponry for SOMETHING.
As for the
ballistics, kinetic weapons of all types had extreme range, but the projectiles didn't move that fast and were not accurate so it was unlikely they'd hit at max range. They did the same damages at all ranges, and fired real fast, and had the sweet nBSG graphic for their fire effect. Oh, and I added functional flak, which you can see the remnant poofs of in a few of the SS's posted. You can see one bursting in the bottom of the topmost image, and right next to it you can see the missile it was meant to intercept (and may, the flaklets are the white hot dots that are flying out of the explosion). I apologize for the quality but I didn't take these, they're actually fan screenshots!
Lasers became
beam weapons that either fired in quick, short pulses or--as some did--long burns. A 'long burn' laser had to track--which meant that you'd often know when you came into range of the enemy because
long fingers of laserlight would appear off the flanks of the front ship and rake their ways into the hull, leaving hot melted trails. A cool effect, if I say so myself. That last pic is being done at remarkably short range, and with green lasers, it was probably extremely brutal.
That's a more normal range.
I made a lot more missiles, and made them kick white smoke instead of brown. I made small missile mounts for dumbfire weak-tracking missile swarms (stolen!) as well as heavy missile slots that fired what were essentially
cruise missiles. I also gave them a faster turn rate than turn acceleration, which caused them to
yield to inertia and have to flip around and accelerate back into you. This made them handy on lighter ships, but with the more advanced engines a small craft can survive against missile spam.
Less so against my Star Trek inspired Photon and Quantum Torpedoes.
Much to my dismay, the
big guns remained the most popular, but whatev'. I finally just gave them a goofy
Yamato Cannon ripoff. There's a ship back in that mess, trust me. The large cloud at the 'base' is the firing location. Thing is, for it's cost and mass, that big gun is terribly non-efficent. So at least heavy lasers and heavy missiles win out. I also added bombs and a few other unglamorous things. The bombs were really sweet--they had blinking lights to denote their type, they were released close up to a planet... oh well.
Like I said, I had my fun.
Railguns that outrun and outrange lasers, inertial cannons, etc.
And the Hivers fight constant wars amoung themselves... and use a gate network. 
