I've never played any Tribes games, but using particle effects as beam weapons looks like crap. Badspot could add some form of beam weapon rendering to the engine, but there are so many other things that are central to Blockland that can be added or improved. I just don't see this happening.
too bad you couldn't use raycasting for the projectile itself, then have it emmit something like a beam of light to look like a laser.and a phaser has 2 settings: stun and kill.