It is going to take me a lot of time to get enough experience with the combat system to form solid conclusions. So for now I'll ask you. In your opinion/experience, given equal investments in research points and resources, can a non-missile fleet mount enough effective PD to survive a missile fleet's missile strike and still have enough direct fire weapons and close with them to have a fair chance of winning a battle? I can see the non-missile fleet will start at a disadvantage. The missile fleet gets to hit first. And unless the missile fleet is defending a fixed location, the beam fleet will have to dedicate enough technology and additional resources to be faster than the missile fleet else they'll never be able to close to engage. Otherwise the missile fleet would be able to do what damage they can then retreat to reload. Obviously there are a lot of variables and no such thing as perfect balance, but is it close?
I'm writing this before reading any of the other replies, so I might be repeating things. IMO, you can design point defenses effective enough to allow beam ships to close with a missile using enemy, however, given the wide range of possibilities in Aurora this statement comes with several caveats:
1. For purposes of this question I am assuming relatively equal "tech levels" and tonnages;
2. The beam only side MUST have a superior fleet speed to be able to catch the missile side;
3. The beam side must have a "mature" point defense capability, consisting of long-range anti-missile missiles coupled with long-range anti-missile sensors, and some sort of decent clsoe-in point defense system to deal with the leakers.
A system like the one described in #3 above can be overwhelmed by either box launchers or if the attacker has enough time and space to launch multple salvoes and then combine them into one large salvo. However, either of these decisions carries a risk for the attacker. If he launches his entire load he is vulnerable in the next battle even if he wins this one, or if his combined salvo isn't actually big enough to overwhelm the defenders defenses then he is in big trouble.
Kurt