Having clearly different visuals for different damage types (and to a lesser extent damage quantities, something improved substantially in the new version) is very important: Giving associations of particular levels of danger with certain visuals (heightening excitement) and making new weapons feel actually different rather than just bigger numbers on a potentially endless treadmill (a mistake many a game has made).
With the changes made to weapons fire graphics in the latest version turbolasers, particle beams and ion lancers are no longer easily distinguishable (even if they may look a bit prettier).
Previously, a lot of the damage types had a very different feel, you couldn't confuse the sparkling dark green of a particle beam or the solid monocolor line of a laser or the lightning of an ion weapon with anything else, though obviously there was still room for improvement ("heavy" versions of weapons like the slam cannon looking exactly the same as the non heavy versions was an issue).
Transcendence does an excellent job on making ships at different stages of the game have a different feel (even if the Ares are a butt ugly color
) and used to do a good job with beam weapons (though less so with matter weapons above kinetic), I feel this is one of the more important aspects of good game design and should be preserved in future versions.Not quite related to the above but just personal preference:
Lasers as bolts just doesn't work for me, a laser beam should be one solid line of a single color.
I also really liked the old particle beams
The Dragonfly Missile System supposedly launches micromissiles, but the actual graphics look like big howitzer bolts.
