Lasers are still overpowered and the introduction of anti-laser modules only mitigates this a little since most ships don't equip them.

The missile perks help somewhat, although the lesser bonus of being more hardened against ECM is responsible for this; the primary bonus of damage is overkill - missiles are already pretty strong. The problem with missiles in the Star Wolves franchise is that you just run out of ammo too fast, and most of your missiles don't hit (ECM, shot down by AMS).

Low missile count is fine for the enemy; you the player are expected to plow through hundreds of enemies, so even if they pack 2-3 missiles each on average, the total is still a lot of missiles thrown at you. However, from the player side of the equation, 2 missiles is a waste of space. 5 seconds into the first battle and your ships have probably launched them both, so for the rest of the battle (not to mention the dozen of subsequent battles you get into before having a chance to dock and buy more missiles) your team will be flying around with empty missile launchers.

Which is why I modded them - I threw out the low-end missiles of each category and replaced them with a more reasonable supply. Enemies have access to them too though, which makes anti-missile defence a tad more important (read: if you fly around without protection, you're gonna get loved tenderly. lol). Feel free to download the mod linked in my sig. It only changes missiles so it should be compatible with the other big mods out there, and it's fully compatible with the unmodded game. If you've already got missiles loaded up you'll need to sell them, though - sorry. The replacements are more than worth it though, especially if you're playing on hard mode.