Restoring the Small Laser to "glory"?

[Charistoph]

So, a lot of TRO entries state the the Small Laser is great for dealing with Infantry.  For those of us who never dealt with Infantry until Total Warfare, this seems to be an odd statement.  (Personal note: I've played off and on since the 90s, but I didn't work with anything but Mechs until BattleClix and Total Warfare.)  For right now, all the Small Laser is good for is low-heat, knife-range, Crit/Head-seeking.

Looking in to a few wayback machines, Infantry took damage like normal, with no reduction from the Heavy weapons used by Mechs and Vehicles.  There were no burst-fire weapons in CityTech, with the first Compendium just upgrading Machine Guns with those rules.  Flamers didn't even do anything extra.  Near as I can tell, this continued through the Revised Master Rules.

Today, Conventional Infantry take reduced damage from Mech and Vehicle Heavy weapons, which includes the Small Laser, ER Small Laser, Heavy Small Laser, and improved Heavy Small Laser.  That means the (non-pulse) Small Laser does the same damage to Infantry as a Standard Large Laser.  Which then makes the only use for Small Lasers in the Anti-Infantry role as being much cheaper on Heat than the Large Laser AND allow that Large Laser to be used on something with more Armor.

So, how do we return the Small Laser to its old glory?  Near as I can figure there are 4 basic ways to do this:

1) Back to original: Small Lasers do their full Damage to Conventional Infantry Platoons without a Roll or modification.  This makes the Heavy Small Lasers quite scary.

2) Capped Damage: All non-Pulse Small Lasers do a set 3 Damage to Conventional Infantry (not including In the Open or Mechanized modifications).

3) Compromise: Small Laser Damage is still modified, but only to half instead of to a tenth.  That leaves the original to only 2 Damage, but that's still better than what the Standard Medium or Large Lasers are doing.

4) Import it in to the Burst-Fire club: Standard and ER Small Lasers now do 1D6/2 Damage and the Heavy Small Lasers do 2D6/2 Damage.

What are your thoughts?  Small Lasers should be kept as is, or do they need to return to their earlier glory days when it could actually threaten a Platoon besides a glare?  Are there any other methods you think would be worthwhile to consider for helping Small Lasers be more than just a joke?

[Daryk]

I'd be more inclined to leave Small Lasers alone, and just add the other weapons with those effects.  Heck, we can even mount actual Infantry Support Weapons now...

[Hazard Pay]

I think they're fine as is currently. They're good for TSM heat Management for the IS until Micro Lasers become more widespread.

[Retry]

1D6 burst fire.  I've tried it and it works well enough.  1D6/2 is barely better than nothing, just 1.5 or 2 average damage depending on how you round.

[Cannonshop]

So, a lot of TRO entries state the the Small Laser is great for dealing with Infantry.  For those of us who never dealt with Infantry until Total Warfare, this seems to be an odd statement.  (Personal note: I've played off and on since the 90s, but I didn't work with anything but Mechs until BattleClix and Total Warfare.)  For right now, all the Small Laser is good for is low-heat, knife-range, Crit/Head-seeking.

Looking in to a few wayback machines, Infantry took damage like normal, with no reduction from the Heavy weapons used by Mechs and Vehicles.  There were no burst-fire weapons in CityTech, with the first Compendium just upgrading Machine Guns with those rules.  Flamers didn't even do anything extra.  Near as I can tell, this continued through the Revised Master Rules.

Today, Conventional Infantry take reduced damage from Mech and Vehicle Heavy weapons, which includes the Small Laser, ER Small Laser, Heavy Small Laser, and improved Heavy Small Laser.  That means the (non-pulse) Small Laser does the same damage to Infantry as a Standard Large Laser.  Which then makes the only use for Small Lasers in the Anti-Infantry role as being much cheaper on Heat than the Large Laser AND allow that Large Laser to be used on something with more Armor.

So, how do we return the Small Laser to its old glory?  Near as I can figure there are 4 basic ways to do this:

1) Back to original: Small Lasers do their full Damage to Conventional Infantry Platoons without a Roll or modification.  This makes the Heavy Small Lasers quite scary.

2) Capped Damage: All non-Pulse Small Lasers do a set 3 Damage to Conventional Infantry (not including In the Open or Mechanized modifications).

3) Compromise: Small Laser Damage is still modified, but only to half instead of to a tenth.  That leaves the original to only 2 Damage, but that's still better than what the Standard Medium or Large Lasers are doing.

4) Import it in to the Burst-Fire club: Standard and ER Small Lasers now do 1D6/2 Damage and the Heavy Small Lasers do 2D6/2 Damage.

What are your thoughts?  Small Lasers should be kept as is, or do they need to return to their earlier glory days when it could actually threaten a Platoon besides a glare?  Are there any other methods you think would be worthwhile to consider for helping Small Lasers be more than just a joke?

This is where the rules changed and invalidated fluff.  Small lasers prior to TW would kill three guys in a platoon.

that's it, three...and that's only because for damage purposes, the platoon was treated as a single solid object.  we didn't get much variation in that until (was it compendium?) until the first infantry platoon generation math was done in one of the supplements prior to the massive rework of the core rules that was the Total Warfare hardbacks.

Now, they're not particularly good for infantry, though that isnt' true of all small lasers, and for a loss of 1/3rd the range you can get it back with pulse lasers.

well, unless you play Clanner, then you don't sacrifice anything for your advantages even when it doesn't make sense.

[DevianID]

So a few things going on.  First, in the OG rules, battledroids, any hit to infantry killed them.  Then in citytech and later, small lasers can start fires being an energy weapon, so unlike a machine gun a small laser can set terrain on fire and burn infantry out.  Flamers were better at starting fires to burn infantry out, but small lasers were less heat, smaller, and so easier to use.

The more time passes, the more other weapons get buffed and infantry get buffed.  But judging from the ability for small lasers to act as point defense weapons in space, its not unreasonable at all for small lasers to have a burst damage mode now, seeing as the other classic small anti infantry weapons all do that now too.

[Sabelkatten]

1d6 damage to PBI doesn't seem unreasonable or unbalanced. It would still be worse than a MG, but good enough that taking SLs as AI weapons doesn't look silly.

[Cannonshop]

1d6 damage to PBI doesn't seem unreasonable or unbalanced. It would still be worse than a MG, but good enough that taking SLs as AI weapons looks silly.

do you mean 'doesn't look silly' in your proposition there?  otherwise it reads...kinda weird.  sorry to bring it up and if you're not a native english speaker my apologies even more.

but yeah, as said here;

So a few things going on.  First, in the OG rules, battledroids, any hit to infantry killed them.  Then in citytech and later, small lasers can start fires being an energy weapon, so unlike a machine gun a small laser can set terrain on fire and burn infantry out.  Flamers were better at starting fires to burn infantry out, but small lasers were less heat, smaller, and so easier to use.

The more time passes, the more other weapons get buffed and infantry get buffed.  But judging from the ability for small lasers to act as point defense weapons in space, its not unreasonable at all for small lasers to have a burst damage mode now, seeing as the other classic small anti infantry weapons all do that now too.

there's been a LOT of changes to how weapons perform, and some of the baseline ones from OG days HAVE suffered as a result.

[Andras]

This is where the rules changed and invalidated fluff.  Small lasers prior to TW would kill three guys in a platoon.

that's it, three...and that's only because for damage purposes, the platoon was treated as a single solid object.  we didn't get much variation in that until (was it compendium?) until the first infantry platoon generation math was done in one of the supplements prior to the massive rework of the core rules that was the Total Warfare hardbacks.

Now, they're not particularly good for infantry, though that isnt' true of all small lasers, and for a loss of 1/3rd the range you can get it back with pulse lasers.

well, unless you play Clanner, then you don't sacrifice anything for your advantages even when it doesn't make sense.

Don't forget you also used to double damage if the infantry were in the open. Two small las would wipe out almost half a platoon in the open.

[Daryk]

You still double damage against infantry in the open...

[VanVelding]

I've never been a big fan of the way that the Small Pulse Laser gets a special rule for infantry that other pulse lasers don't. I prefer elegant rules to cutout exceptions.

I say all that because my solution would be to give 'mech scale weapons a non-reduced, non-doubled damage value against infantry. +2 or +3. Everything hits a bit harder against infantry, but a low-tonnage, low-damage weapon like a small laser would be slightly more efficient against infantry.

[Sabelkatten]

do you mean 'doesn't look silly' in your proposition there?  otherwise it reads...kinda weird.  sorry to bring it up and if you're not a native english speaker my apologies even more.

but yeah, as said here;
there's been a LOT of changes to how weapons perform, and some of the baseline ones from OG days HAVE suffered as a result.

Correct, not a native speaker. But I thought "seem" (as in "seemingly") was correct here?

Anyway, as the OP states, giving non-pulse small lasers an AI bonus shouldn’t be unbalanced while at the same time matching the old fluff and makes sense given that small lasers can be used as point defense in AT2.

[Demiurge]

I've never been a big fan of the way that the Small Pulse Laser gets a special rule for infantry that other pulse lasers don't. I prefer elegant rules to cutout exceptions.

I say all that because my solution would be to give 'mech scale weapons a non-reduced, non-doubled damage value against infantry. +2 or +3. Everything hits a bit harder against infantry, but a low-tonnage, low-damage weapon like a small laser would be slightly more efficient against infantry.

The small pulse laser arbitrarily gets more damage against infantry vs other pulse lasers, but pulse lasers that aren't the small pulse laser get +2 damage against infantry compared to other lasers (TW pg. 216).  So maybe the small pulse laser is like a really fast-firing laser machine gun, but the larger pulse lasers don't throw out as many pulses or for as long and are more optimized for anti-armor work (although they still kill infantry better than most).  So it's not the most elegant thing ever but it's hardly the most egregious rules weirdness.

[Mechanis]

I personally preferred 1d3  non-reduced damage for small lasers, as this makes their performance against infantry similar to the original implementation. But yeah, I definitely agree that the neatest solution for that lore issue is letting the things into the Burst Fire club.

[Maingunnery]

I personally preferred 1d3  non-reduced damage for small lasers, as this makes their performance against infantry similar to the original implementation. But yeah, I definitely agree that the neatest solution for that lore issue is letting the things into the Burst Fire club.

Isn't 1D6 statistically closer to the original implementation?

[Daryk]

I gave my "IS Micro Pulse Laser" 1d6...

[Retry]

Correct, not a native speaker. But I thought "seem" (as in "seemingly") was correct here?

Your first sentence was fine, it was the second sentence ("It would still be worse than a MG, but good enough that taking SLs as AI weapons looks silly.") that was flipped.  If SLs become decent AI weapons taking them as such wouldn't seem silly anymore.

[Sabelkatten]

Your first sentence was fine, it was the second sentence ("It would still be worse than a MG, but good enough that taking SLs as AI weapons looks silly.") that was flipped.  If SLs become decent AI weapons taking them as such wouldn't seem silly anymore.

Oups. 

Missed a negation there!

[Cannonshop]

Oups. 

Missed a negation there!

It's all good, we were able to pick up on context.  I'm told English is one of the harder languages to get right for non-native speakers.  (what they don't talk much about, is how many NATIVE english speakers are damn near incoherent.)

[Sabelkatten]

It's all good, we were able to pick up on context.  I'm told English is one of the harder languages to get right for non-native speakers.  (what they don't talk much about, is how many NATIVE english speakers are damn near incoherent.)

Oh, it's not really an English problem - I make the same kind of mistakes writing in Swedish. It's all about paying attention to what you write!

Regarding different languages it's rather interesting what kind of mistakes you can make. English has a very "liberal" grammar, so it's easy to skip something and think it's implied. Swedish, OTOH, is fairly strict (not to mention languages like German or Finnish...). So it's easy to miss something that should be there!

Classic Swedish example:
Sjukskotare ("caretaker of sick person", i.e. a nurse)
Sjuk skotare ("a sick caretaker", i.e. hopefully NOT a nurse a the moment!)

[Cannonshop]

Oh, it's not really an English problem - I make the same kind of mistakes writing in Swedish. It's all about paying attention to what you write!

Regarding different languages it's rather interesting what kind of mistakes you can make. English has a very "liberal" grammar, so it's easy to skip something and think it's implied. Swedish, OTOH, is fairly strict (not to mention languages like German or Finnish...). So it's easy to miss something that should be there!

Classic Swedish example:
Sjukskotare ("caretaker of sick person", i.e. a nurse)
Sjuk skotare ("a sick caretaker", i.e. hopefully NOT a nurse a the moment!)

slow down, I'm borderline illiterate in English, I'd be HOPELESS in Swedish! lol.