heat damage for lasers

[jj284b]

TechManual, p. 226, "Laser - Extended-Range (ER) Laser" states:

"The Extended-Range Large Laser (ER Large Laser) focuses a powerful beam of light on targets that causes damage by overheating or melting the target."

which suggests lasers should also apply heat damage to target. Of course this damage should be nowhere near heat added by flamers, anyway there should be some heat transfer to target from these weapons..

Overall, it would further increase importance of lasers, while making them double-edge sword in hot or no dissipation environments (martian or lunar)..

 

[mjbroekman]

That would be interesting and definitely make certainly builds much more dangerous. I think, however, that would result in a gigantic furball of rebalancing especially since there's not basis for comparison in the TT rules to scale things off of. Definitely interesting though

 

[vparez]

AFAIK lasers do raise heat of the targeted mech, but only by a small amount. Fire a couple of LLs on a mech that is a hairline away from overheating and it will overheat. At least I seem to remember that happening a few times.

 

[jj284b]

no, it doesnt. there is no heat damage value in jsons for lasers.

 

[vparez]

And I didn't say there is heat damage. I said they add to the heat of the targeted mech...

 

[mjbroekman]

And I didn't say there is heat damage. I said they add to the heat of the targeted mech...

That's the definition of heat damage within the JSON. As opposed to heat generated.

 

[vparez]

Ok, so what do the flamers do? The rare ones that have something like +5(H)?

 

[mjbroekman]

Flamers:

    "HeatGenerated" : 0,
    "Damage" : 5,
    "HeatDamage" : 10,

Lasers (and other weapons):

    "HeatGenerated" : 18,
    "Damage" : 40,
    "HeatDamage" : 0,

The rare flamers just have a higher 'HeatDamage' value.

Lasers add heat to the firing mech (HeatGenerated), not to the targeted mech (HeatDamage). Flamers do the opposite.

The "damage through overheating" from the TechManual is armor damage by localized overheating of the armor/structure (kind of like overheating a piece of steel makes it brittle and more prone to breaking). The "heat damage" from flamers is a widespread application of heat that raises the temperature of the mech significantly overall.

 

[vparez]

Ok thx.
I could have sworn that there is even a mission loading tip which says lasers have heat damage...
I guess i imagined it.

 

[mjbroekman]

Yeah. The Game Tips seem to reflect an earlier state of the game that may or may not be current reality. There are a bunch of them like that.

 

[Yeach]

lasers are given the advantage of accuracy in BATTLETECH.
That advantage has never been mentioned (outside of pulse lasers)

Maybe we should remove the accuracy bonus /s

 

[The Shadowhawke]

The heat translates to damage, the energy going into melting the target; the only method for laser weapons to work. Compared to the PPC, which does both heat and kinetic damage. Armor ablates off as it takes the damage, and fast explosive bursting of material would be the cause of whatever stability damage they're listed at.