Yeah, as we said upthread, people badly overrate the artillery beam, it's way too slow and doesn't deal focused damage against what you need to break.
I mostly don't recommend adding a teleporter to ships that don't start with one. The higher rewards are fun, but there are always situations where boarding doesn't work (auto-scouts, high level medbays), it takes quite a while (like a whole sector) to pay back the 90 cost, and it really never pays out enough to make up for consuming the system slot away from cloaking or hacking.
And yeah, weapon management is the biggest key to not falling behind in the mid-game. Forget the ion trash and any other gimmicks like fire weapons; the way you win is by firing huge bursts of 5-10 projectiles ideally followed up by a damage beam at the instant their shields are popped.
I mostly don't recommend adding a teleporter to ships that don't start with one. The higher rewards are fun, but there are always situations where boarding doesn't work (auto-scouts, high level medbays), it takes quite a while (like a whole sector) to pay back the 90 cost, and it really never pays out enough to make up for consuming the system slot away from cloaking or hacking.
And yeah, weapon management is the biggest key to not falling behind in the mid-game. Forget the ion trash and any other gimmicks like fire weapons; the way you win is by firing huge bursts of 5-10 projectiles ideally followed up by a damage beam at the instant their shields are popped.