first properly spliced ship

[kartoFlane]

so? why should that matter?

Because ion damage is broken on beams, and gets applied per each pixel the beam travels, I think. Regardless of how it works internally, this means that even with ion damage of 1, 4 layers of shields will be brought down pretty much instantly, and each system in the beam's path will be fully ionized.

Therefore, it is impossible to balance.

[xlandar]

ah, I didn't know that. i do have a good ion beam idea that wouldn't be to overpowered though... i'll save it for my next ship.