Frankly, the numbers for orbital bombardment seem off. I guess the intention seems to be nukes are quick and dirty, energy is clean but requires many breakdowns.
However, if you take the 8 dmg warhead, it generates 8 dust. To do the equivalent amount of damage, you need 5 times more shots for chance to hit, 15 times more for missing attacks, 10 times more for missing subattacks (against infantry),
for a total of 750! shots which generates 37.5 dust, something like 4.5 times more.
Am I missing something, or energy weapons are just all around worse than nukes?