That depends on how you look at it. The plasma R can cover a max of 32 hexes in FedCom, which is the same as a ship can move at flat out in 1 turn. so that translates about right on that metric.
Plasma is auto hit and on a 2 turn cycle, both are big advantages over the source game. They are, however, reduced by phasers far more effectively which (maybe) compensates.
If you take how far a ship can move and base ranges off that, then it is the huge (and still effective) range of other weapons that doesn't translate so well.
e.g. Phaser 1s are effective at range 18". Phasers in the source game are just not that effective at those sort of ranges, but they do become very effective up close. Removing the accuracy trait from phasers would make them more in line at long range, and change 'Kill Zone' to provide an accuracy bonus instead so that they still have the close range killing power. The kill zones could do with being reduced a bit (to 6") as well, they shouldn't have a kill zone greater than overload range of heavies, and at 8" it is a huge distance relative to ship speed.
In fact phasers are probably just far to effective all round in this game, which is probably partially responsible for some balance issues. They have too long an effective range, to big a kill zone/do too much damage, (1 or the other) and are too good against plasma.
A phaser1 doing 2 damage would be about right at point blank (base contact) range, but at 8" it is probably double what they should be doing.
Having a plamsa degraded by all phasers 1AD per hit is huge, and whilst plasma does get some advantages from auto hit, I'm not sure the phaser effectiveness is right. Most cruisers in this game can take a plasma R on the nose and suffer no permanent damage even to shields (boost shields and phaser it down). That is just plain wrong, plasma R ought to be the most scary single weapon in the game, that should make you run or suffer at least a down shield even after phasering it. Obvioulsy the option to run doesn't exist in this game, but being able to ignore a plasma R is far to much compensation for the loss of the 'run' option.
Gorn Cruiser vs a Fed NCA (near enough same point). 12AD of plasma, vs upto 10 phasers and a boost shields. The Fed shoots down on average 7/8 and boost shields negates another 2, leaving an average 7-11 damage to shields. That is for something that would have left the Fed crippled in the source games, or heading in the opposite direction at high speed. Drop back a range category (to 8-12") and the Gorn averages no damage at all.
Another way of looking at it, 4 overloaded photons vs 2S + 2F should do the same damage at close range (after accounting for the increased reload speed of plasma). That would imply that plasma is about 1 AD short (each type) on what it should be doing compared to the other 2 turn armer currently in the game. I.E in this game 2 overloaded photons on average hit for 16AD.
In the above example it should be noted that such an increase in plasma damage still doesn't take down the enemy shield.
The problem with ACTA is that by removing any run away option, and making fleet based IDF so hard it has painted itself into a corner regarding balance of plasma, Plasma can more or less table an opponent in 1 fell swoop in the source game, but as they have to actually 'seek' the target that is hard to achieve as the other guy just runs, but making the opponent run is in itself tactically useful. In this game with auto hit you can't just have an 'I Win' weapon like that, if there is no counter tactic it is overpowered, if there is a counter tactic then it hardly ever happens.
Also, as with all multi turn arming weapons that rely on 1 turn of real crunch, you have to balance out the need to reload with how much damage they do when they fire. Having to reload in this game is a much bigger weakness than SFB/FC. In the source games you can still do everything else, or a good range of everything else whilst reloading. In ACTA it is your 1 and only special action. Your ability to defend or counter enemy tactics is much reduced, and therefore you are in a much worse situation whilst reloading. That should mean that your crunch delivery is pretty damn good. Photons are ok, they can do good, non-negatable damage with shield pass through and devastating crits when they fire (and range 15 is still decent). Plasma on the hand is very much subject to being shot down, so whilst its raw damage look good, the fact that a lot of that is going to be shot down makes it less useful. If you can't deliver significant damage and then have to reload you are on a loser.
Is plasma weak? Well as noted in a previous post, at a fleet level it can indeed overwhelm pretty much any other fleet in the perfect conditions. However, as noted above, for balance purposes that means there must be a counter to it, but once there is such a counter it becomes very hard to use. Any system that is that binary in effect is not going to work well in a game. Currently the range is the counter, and backed up by IDF if needed.
In short, I think ACTA has reduced seekers to such a simplistic system that it is very difficult to handle the heavy hitting plasma in a way that feels balanced, as the system is just too binary in nature to allow such potentially powerful weapons. Drones also suffer, in the opposite direction, as they have been given damage ratings that more or less reflect their raw damage in the base game whilst taking no account of the simplistic seeker mechanics and how many of the seeker defenses have been stripped out (or lack of ammo worries).
My current musings to handle this:
1) Increase plasma damage (by 1 dice all round).
Increased damage allows a single plasma ship to take on a single enemy ship better if it gets close enough, or to fire from 12" with the same firepower they now have at 8", 12-16" is still pretty 'meh' at least in the early phases.
2) make IDF automatic.
Note it would still be a special action. You still have to use your 1 SA to go defensive. Auto IDF would compensate for increased plasma effectiveness and also help stop drones being the wonder weapon they currently are.
3) Make IDF restricted to kill zone range. Knocking out drones or plasma from max range is 'odd'. It encourages fleets to operate in what looks more like a defensive formation. It also discourages the very long range drone fleets just scattering in front of plasma fleets, else they lose the IDF benefits against now better plasma.
4) Make plasma very long range (rather than boost damage). Range 24" would mean that 'close' is 12" and mid range is 18". That ensures that getting to plasma range is easier, especially with the current proposed drone hit roll. The 24" range may be long relative to the source games, but realistically only Plasma R is much use at that range, and given the long ranges on other weapons is not so unreasonable.
