Yes.

Phasors I unlocks it (in DL & DA, at least).

You'll find it to be effective but also very expensive. I've heard in TA that it becomes far less effective because its much further up the tech tree.

in TA (at least in the Drath-derived tech trees) you need the first of three disruptors, which is the last tech before the doom ray. in DA/DL it was after the first phasors which is way earlier. since the weapon has not changed, itself, it is now only a slight improvement and almost not worth it with doom ray so close at that point.

Interesting...I'm still playing DA and want to give Psionic Beam a try...thank you.

I can see how the encouragement towards a natural alignment would work, as well as help, both from a flavor point of view and from a game point of view.

I'm also hoping that this means the Drengin will finally start building Dominator Corvettes with their current technology (IIRC they never have, maybe it's been fixed and I haven't noticed yet). But somehow I doubt that.

However.

Do we REALLY need to make the Drengin/Korath militarily STRONGER? I mean, come ON.

Although, admittedly, the difference between Laser V and Phasors I is minimal from a tech research standpoint.