Beam Weapons

Most coherent-energy weapons are deployed for less-lethal purposes, designed to impair rather than kill. They are wielded with Guns skill and resisted with energy armor.

All beam weapons are equipped with both a standard and nuclear battery. The standard battery powers the weapon’s shots until depleted (per its Ammo stat). The nuclear battery will recharge a standard battery completely in 4 hours. Standard batteries can be swapped out with a reload complex action. A battery used in one type of beam weapon may not be used in other types.

Beam Weapon Ware

Hand Laser: The morph has a weapon-grade laser implanted in its forearm, with a flexible waveguide leading to a lens located between the first two knuckles on the morph’s dominant hand. The laser’s batteries are implanted and not easily swapped out in biomorphs.

Beam Weapons

Battle Laser: This heavy laser pulser is typically mounted and used for battlefield support, firing more powerful beams than the standard laser pulser.

Laser Pulser: The pulser emits focused beams of light that burn into the target and cause its outer surface to vaporize and expand, creating an explosive effect. The beam is pulsed in order to bite into the target before it is diffused. When fired in stun mode, it shoots a pulse at the target to create a ball of plasma, quickly followed by a second pulse that strikes the plasma and creates a flash-bang shockwave to stun and disorient the target and anyone next to them. Pulsers are vulnerable to atmospheric effects like dust, mist, smoke, or rain, however — the GM should reduce their effective range as appropriate. Laser pulses are invisible, but they can be seen with enhanced vision in atmosphere (or in the visual spectrum in smoky/polluted air) or in the shooter’s entoptics.

Microwave Agonizer: Originally developed for crowd control, the agonizer is also useful for repelling animals. The agonizer fires millimeter-wave beams that create an unpleasant burning sensation in skin (even through armor). Agonizers have two settings. The first is an active denial setting that causes extreme burning pain in biomorph targets, inflicting a pain effect until the end of the next turn and forcing them to move away from the beam. The second “roast” setting has the same effect as the first, but also actually burns the target. Synthmorphs are unaffected by the pain, but damaged by the roast.

Particle Beam Bolter: This weapon shoots a bolt of accelerated particles at near light speed that transfer massive amounts of kinetic energy to the target, superheating and creating an explosion when striking. The bolter’s beam is not diffused by the cloud that occurs when it strikes, and so it has greater penetration than the laser pulser. Likewise, the bolter is not affected by smoke, fog, or rain. Bolters must be set for either atmospheric or exoatmospheric (vacuum) operation and will not function in the opposite environment, though it only takes a complex action to switch. The beam appears like an arc of lightning in atmosphere, but is invisible in vacuum (though visible in the shooter’s entoptics).

Stunner: The stunner is an electrolaser that creates an electrically conductive plasma channel that transmits a powerful electric current, shocking the target. Stunners do not work in vacuum.

Beam Weapon Rules

The following rules apply only to beam weapons.

Laser Blindness

Though laser pulser beams do not appear in the visible spectrum, they may be blinding to those with enhanced vision and may reflect off surfaces in ways that blind those with regular sight. For this reason, most laser wielders (and their companions) are careful to equip anti-glare mods. This effect can be ignored in most cases, but GMs may want to allow it for called shots to blind or as a result of superior success/failure results. Potentially blinded targets must make a REF Check. Success means they are blinded for 3 action turns, failure results in permanent blindness until repaired or they spend time in a healing vat. Blinded characters can still “see” through tactical nets and similar mesh links.

Sweeping Fire

When you miss with a beam attack, you can use that missed beam to “home in” on the target. If you make another attack against the same target with your next action, count the missed attack as an aim action (+10 to hit). Since most beam weapons are invisible to standard sight, you must have vision enhancements enabling you to see the beam in atmosphere or be meshed with the weapon’s AR targeting entoptics.