Missing Techs

There have been changes to the combat system with possibly more down the road.

The changes to weapons was to give them different attack ranges and rates of fire. Missiles have the largest range but slow rate of fire, kinetics have the shortest range and fast rate of fire, and beams are somewhere in between

Shields and armor can now defend effectively against all attacks. Point defense however is being replaced with evasion, since point defense shouldn't realistically do much against beams or kinetic weapons.

Thanks for the answer-I figured that was the case but didn't know if I was missing something. 

I was generally aware of the changes to weapons, but eliminating an entire line of defenses and sensors doesn't make a lot of sense to me regardless of those changes.  In the first place it seems to me that point defense and ECM would be a thing with civilizations capable of interstellar travel in a universe that still uses guided missiles as a form of attack.  Using armor and shields to absorb missile impacts instead of merely avoiding being hit in the first place seems pretty common sense.  Obviously ECM wouldn't be effective against rail guns or beam weapons because there is not guidance system in either case, but it would come in handy to interrupt missile systems. 

I realize it's early days and things can and likely will "evolve" with further iterations, but I don't like this change.  

Oops

[v1.55 latest on steam] I was also confused with this because I can still see the point defense ratings in my fleets, but not in the research tree. And also there is no improvements on the ships or any information about how to defend against the different types of attacks.