Quote: You're arguing right past me at a completely different case. I had no secondary weapon and no knowledge of when I would.
I'm aware you didn't in that particular scenario, but we're talking sector 2 --> 3 transition timing. Keeping IB2 you'd have probably gone Zoltan sector over rebel and had a different run though, maybe something else rather than that small bomb. It's not reasonable to plan on using EITHER IB2 or BL3 alone into sector 4+. Decent progression needs another weapon (or maybe boarding if the game gave out crew like candy and a bomb weapon). 2nd weapon is significantly less onerous to use on 4-5 power than 5-6, trying to save for 6 weapon power means cutting other upgrades and likely extra chip damage in middle sectors.
IB2 + combat 1 is better in sector 3 IMO, you'd need to miss twice to have it break even with BL3 in terms of "time to hit their weapons" vs 2 shield layers, but the BL 3 can miss too.
In sector 4 where 3 shield ships start appearing often neither of these weapons are good enough anymore.
Quote: Ultimately, we're probably both right, it was a solidly winnable run either way, we'll never know whose approach might have resulted in like 99.2% win probability instead of 99.5% or some such.
Yeah it's true that such a choice with otherwise solid play would rarely alter whether the game is won. It's pretty noticeable that your games with fast weapons you are in the green when winning in nearly every case, whereas with the slow charger you took significantly more damage vs RFS. This is why I have IB2 as one of those weapons in the sea of "mid-tier, winnable weapons but nothing special" while I grade BL3 as one of only a handful of low tier weapons (similar to vulcan, chan ion, and several missile weapons with chain ion being the worst).