(Answered UPDATED) IO - Re-Engineered Lasers and Forcing PSR

[MarauderD]

So earlier this year Paul confirmed that even though Hardened armor needed two points of normal damage to mark off one "bubble", the half points counted as 1 damage for the purposes of PSRs.

For example, a mech with Hardened Armor is hit by two PPCs: each PPC hits for 10 damage, reduced by the hardened armor to one half bubble per point of damage. However, for the purposes of the PSR roll, the 20 damage threshold has been reached, and the mech with hardened armor must roll to see if it falls down.

So when Re-Engineered Lasers are in play, how does this work?

For example, a mech with Hardened Armor is hit by one PPC and one Re-LL. Does the Re-LL cause 9 damage in terms of the paper doll but 18 in regards to the PSR check? Is there a PSR roll here?

[Paul]

Not a TW question, it'd be TacOps or Supplementary.

That said, the PSR is caused by the amount of damage inflicted to the 'Mech. Different armor types and internal types resolve that damage in various ways based on their properties, or the properties of the weapon. The key is looking at whether there is a reduction or amplification of damage in the rules.
In Hardened Armor there's neither, it merely permit each armor point to absorb 2 damage instead of 1.
And R-Lasers ignore that functionality, treating it like regular armor, where 1 damage = 1 armor point.
As such, in your example, the 'Mech takes 19 damage and does not need a PSR.

[MarauderD]

Thank you Paul!
(It seems I lost my bet with my friend, but thanks for the answer. :P)

[Xotl]

We're updating this answer.

Specifically, Hardened Armour is being errataed so that only a full circle of it being removed counts towards a PSR.  For example, a PPC striking Hardened Armour would only count as 5 damage towards a PSR that phase.

In the specific example above, the mech would count as having taken 14 damage that phase for the purposes of a damage-based PSR (5 from the PPC, and a full 9 from the re-engineered laser).

This will all be reflected in this year's BattleMech Manual errata.