Medium Binary Lasers

[Intermittent_Coherence]

Why exactly does the Blazer automatically default to using cores from Large Lasers?
In theory shouldn't the principle apply to Medium Lasers as well?

Because I'd be totally down for 7 damage, 6 heat at 2 tons and 3/6/9.

[Alsadius]

A big part of the Blazer's value is headcapping. A Blazer Lite can't do that. Besides, this just isn't as cool

And with those stats, I'd rather just mount two MLs, because 7 damage isn't going to breach much more than 5, and I'd rather have 10 total than 7 total. At least make it 1.5 tons.

Also, I know it's canonically from a different era, but maybe the Heavy Medium Laser is what you want? The Heavies are fairly balanced in a 3025-tech setting (if only by their ludicrous heat in a SHS-only era), and we already have stat blocks for them.

[Rayneth]

As Alsadius says, the biggest appeal of the normal Binary Laser Cannon is that sweet 12 points of damage at medium range.

I don't really see much of a niche for Medium Blazers to fill other than some kind of rule of cool.

[Sabelkatten]

It would probably be pretty balanced at 6 heat, 2 tons, 3/6/9 range, and 9 damage. You generally have to go above 10 points for damage concentration to really matter, 2x5 points or 1x9 should be about equally effective.

It would make a powerful weapon against really light mechs, thought. Scouting and scout-hunting would become a lot more "interesting"...

[Intermittent_Coherence]

It would probably be pretty balanced at 6 heat, 2 tons, 3/6/9 range, and 9 damage. You generally have to go above 10 points for damage concentration to really matter, 2x5 points or 1x9 should be about equally effective.

It would make a powerful weapon against really light mechs, thought. Scouting and scout-hunting would become a lot more "interesting"...

That's my thought as well. The large blazer only does 50% more damage, which is why I went with 7 damage but even that would be a massive boon for light mechs. It would also be the perfect counter for those pesky Clan medium lasers when Revival comes around.

A big part of the Blazer's value is headcapping. A Blazer Lite can't do that. Besides, this just isn't as cool

And with those stats, I'd rather just mount two MLs, because 7 damage isn't going to breach much more than 5, and I'd rather have 10 total than 7 total. At least make it 1.5 tons.

Also, I know it's canonically from a different era, but maybe the Heavy Medium Laser is what you want? The Heavies are fairly balanced in a 3025-tech setting (if only by their ludicrous heat in a SHS-only era), and we already have stat blocks for them.

No, I meant blazers. We all know that Heavy Lasers are what Blazers want to be when they grow up.

[Alsadius]

That's my thought as well. The large blazer only does 50% more damage, which is why I went with 7 damage but even that would be a massive boon for light mechs. It would also be the perfect counter for those pesky Clan medium lasers when Revival comes around.

No, I meant blazers. We all know that Heavy Lasers are what Blazers want to be when they grow up.

7 damage is probably too low. Even using the "50% more" from the Blazer, I'd round it up to 8. Doing 8 damage on 1.5 tons would be playable, I think, even with that high heat. Bugs would probably like that a lot, whereas at 2 tons I'd just take the two MLs on a Spider.

Ignoring weight/slots for a second, I think the Blazer might arguably be a better weapon than the HLL. 16 heat and 12 damage vs 18 heat and 16 damage(at +1 to hit)? Not an easy choice, tbh. The Blazer has BV 222, while the Heavy Large is 244, so statistically (using the base BV math assumptions, which probably under-penalize to-hit penalties), they're nearly equal in actual damage dealt. The HLL wins on the five tons you save, obviously, but otherwise they're not too far off.

[Intermittent_Coherence]

Large laser amounts of damage in a 2 ton package(let alone 1.5 tons) is game breaking. It already surpasses the Clan Medium and Medium Pulse Lasers which are themselves already broken. And that's in the Clan Wars.

In the Succession Wars era, even more so.

Putting them next to IS Medium Pulse Lasers gives you a good option, do you trade +1 damage for -1 accuracy and +1 heat?

[The_Caveman]

Large laser amounts of damage in a 2 ton package(let alone 1.5 tons) is game breaking.

But with nearly as much heat and just over half the range. And the damage concentration isn't enough to deal a major blow to anything over 35 tons. It's actually less deadly than two medium lasers.

My problem with using something like a MBlazer as a primary weapon on a light 'Mech is it's just one more weapon with 9 range. Virtually everything carried by 3025 light 'Mechs has 9 range except for the street-sweepers, and all of it is most useful at ranges where the small stuff can hit.

For two tons, it'd be more useful for it to do 6 damage and have a range of 12 than to do 8 damage and have a range of 9.

[Sabelkatten]

The MBlazer would be much like clan heavy lasers. Not so much a "why" as a "why not".

[Daryk]

I think Caveman hit it on the head... the "why not" is simply range.  A Medium Blazer is right down there with a Small one (5 damage, 2 heat, 1/2/3 range).  You're better off with two regular weapons of that size.

[Sabelkatten]

But if you're generally better of with a pair of standard MLs then the MBlazer isn't unbalanced, and if it isn't unbalanced there's no reason to disallow it.

[Daryk]

Other than it simply would never make it out of testing and in to production, sure...

[The_Caveman]

It wouldn't justify the cost of R&D. Maybe you'd see it as a weird Solaris weapon, where the novelty outweighs the degree to which it sucks. But nobody is putting one into production because it's objectively worse than the tried-and-true tech and has no real niche.

Amusingly, you could strap two Clan medium lasers together and it'd be game-breaking. A two-ton headchopper with medium range and moderate heat. But then you've run smack into that one guy's law.

[Daryk]

I think the clan version would only do 11 points.

[marauder648]

The Blazer gets a lot of stick but its not that bad.  The Bombast however deserves every ounce of rotten fruit and veg lobbed at it.

[Daryk]

Absolutely... I love the "regular" Blazer Cannon.  It's everything a 3SW weapon should be...

[The_Caveman]

Absolutely... I love the "regular" Blazer Cannon.  It's everything a 3SW weapon should be...

I just wish they hadn't made it quite so heat-punitive in an era where nothing can spare it. At 14 heat it'd still be cumbersome enough to prevent it popping up everywhere, but not unbearably so.

[Daryk]

I wouldn't have minded 14 heat, but I can totally live with 16.  It's not bad as a drop in AC/20 replacement, but it gets tougher when replacing an AC/10.

[The_Caveman]

I wouldn't have minded 14 heat, but I can totally live with 16.  It's not bad as a drop in AC/20 replacement, but it gets tougher when replacing an AC/10.

Replacing an AC/20 with a Blazer is rough. Replacing an AC/10 is just farcical. You end up with 8 extra heat that you can't sink without ripping other stuff off the chassis.

I just think there are better ways this could've been handled. Like making the weapon 12 heat 12 damage and suffering spikes of +20 heat on a roll of 2. That would make it tricky to manage even in the DHS era without making the average performance so abysmal that nobody would include one without a gun to their head.

[Daryk]

Try one on an Urbanmech… they work fine... 

[Sabelkatten]

Try one on an Urbanmech… they work fine... 

But the standard Urbie is ridiculously oversinked. Most mechs aren't.

[Daryk]

It's not quite that bad... I'll have to dig up one of my Blazer threads to link here...

[The_Caveman]

Try one on an Urbanmech… they work fine... 

But it performs worse than just swapping both weapons out for two large lasers. Which are always going to be easier to find than a white elephant like a Blazer cannon.

[Daryk]

Better/worse for the 2 Large Laser/Blazer Cannon debate is subjective.  Sure, the first gets you more damage (if they both hit), but they're very unlikely to be to the same location.  The Blazer converts any head hit into an instant kill (at least in 3025, before Hardened Armor).  The only weapon in the era that does more damage to a single location is an AC/20.

[Daryk]

Found one of the Blazer threads... this one had a Centurion and a Hatchetman in it...

[The_Caveman]

Better/worse for the 2 Large Laser/Blazer Cannon debate is subjective.  Sure, the first gets you more damage (if they both hit), but they're very unlikely to be to the same location.  The Blazer converts any head hit into an instant kill (at least in 3025, before Hardened Armor).  The only weapon in the era that does more damage to a single location is an AC/20.

So, a given blazer shot on a TN of 7 gives you a 1.6% chance of an instant kill and an average of 6.96 damage. Two large lasers give an aggregate 9.28 average damage with an 82% chance of doing at least 8 damage. My dice are cursed so I know which one I'm taking every single time. Plus you get to keep fighting if an arm goes missing.

And versus anything an UrbanMech should be fighting, both hits to the same location, unless it's the head, is less desirable than 8 points to two different locations. There's a lot of stuff in 3025 that has locations with <8 armor.

[Daryk]

True, but there are plenty of 10-point locations too, and while they're PPC-proof, the Blazer will penetrate.

With cursed dice, I'd also go for more chances to hit, but I am a Blazer fanatic... 

[Retry]

Better/worse for the 2 Large Laser/Blazer Cannon debate is subjective.  Sure, the first gets you more damage (if they both hit), but they're very unlikely to be to the same location.  The Blazer converts any head hit into an instant kill (at least in 3025, before Hardened Armor).  The only weapon in the era that does more damage to a single location is an AC/20.

I like Blazers and use them on some of my more "flavorful" designs, but honestly, just one or two niche advantages (Head Capping) doesn't make for a "subjective" debate.

There's probably a good in-universe reason why nobody bothered to make ER or Pulse Blazers.

[The_Caveman]

I like Blazers and use them on some of my more "flavorful" designs, but honestly, just one or two niche advantages (Head Capping) doesn't make for a "subjective" debate.

There's probably a good in-universe reason why nobody bothered to make ER or Pulse Blazers.

Actually a pulse Blazer has more potential than the regular variety IMO. A 15-damage weapon with -2 to hit would be great to have when fighting the Clans. Even better, putting two pulse lasers together implies it should have the -3 to-hit of VSPLs because of the increased rate of fire. 20 heat is a pain to deal with but in 3050+ you also have things like Gauss rifles and SSRMs to even out the heat curve.

[Daryk]

A Large Pulse Blazer would be interesting!  But by that point, I think the field is pretty crowded with options.

The relative value of a 12-point hit is subjective outside of head capping.  Anything where "YMMV" is subjective by definition, and the Blazer is definitely in that category.