Unless im missing something, range 3 beams seem to cost significantly more resources than torps of the same level. And if you have enough miners or planets you shouldnt be running into a mineral shortage anyway.

If we look at armageddons vs AM pulverizers, the armageddons can get off two salvos before the AM pulverizers can even enter firing range and the beams take a damage penalty for distancea s well.

jammers are significantly weaker compared to computers, you can never put enough jammers on a ship to jam enough of the incoming missiles.

Deflectors vs capacitors is a much more balanced comparison.

And if you are going to use beams to try and tank enemy fire

(Which doesnt really work against missiles,

since the missiles will see a heavily defended target with jammers and go after YOUR missiles instead)

you would be better off using sappers so that your missiles can do double damage faster.

Sappers + Missiles are a much better alternative to trying to use beams unless you are very short on minerals.

for example if i do 1k damage to shields and 1k to armor, does all of the 1k armor damage apply to a single ship or is it spread out over all ships in the token?