Didn't know you could have a burst with a BEAM weapon, might try that. Does it just look like the regular beams but flashing rapidly?
POINTDEFENSELASER is a weapon class type and is basically used by upgrades. So the Advent laser upgrades affect the LASERPSI weapon type for example. You don't need to change this if you're only wanting to change the visuals. Only a handful of values actually effect gameplay - those being DamagePerBank:FRONT/BACK/LEFT/RIGHT, PreBuffCooldownTime, Range, CanFireAtFighter, and the values under damageEnums. None of the WeaponEffects values affect gameplay only visuals.
Adding research items requires a few different steps. You create an .entity file for it (see the existing RESEARCHSUBJECT_* files in the GameInfo folder). Then you need to add it to the list of research subjects in the faction's .entity file (e.g. in PlayerPsiRebel.entity for Advent Rebels). Then you need to add name and description strings to String/English.str, add button graphics (in Textures) and brushes (in Window, basically files to refer to specific segments of the image files and give them a reference name), and make sure these are referenced in the .entity file. There's probably a guide somewhere on the forums.
The effects for the abilities are in the Particle folder. The files can be edited in a text editor if they're converted from BIN to TXT, or you can use Particle Forge.
PointStaggerDelay is the delay between the hardpoints firing. E.g. if a ship has two hardpoints set for weapon number 1, it will fire one particle from each hardpoint. If the PointStaggerDelay is zero, the particles will appear simultaneously, otherwise it's the delay between them in seconds.
You can change the colour of the beam using beamGlowColor only if the texture is greyscale. If it's coloured (as most of them are), then it'll become an odd mixture. So if you try to make it red but the texture is yellow, it'll probably come out orange.
Hope that helps!
