In terms of large lasers, the average seems to be 1 or 2 shots with an accurate extreme hit or miss range that kinda pushes it at about 450 meters to get 8 damage for 8 heat. and consider you might have to get '20' zaps onto the same body part. but now take that same laser machine gun, knowing that each 'zap' has only a fraction of the medium laser beam's power.

Now imagine you have a medium laser machine gun (pulse laser), your chances of hitting the same limb of the enemy up to 180 meters are much higher than your chances of hitting with any other weapon. Your chances of hitting at 0 meters to 270 meters is about identical, since the laser is instant and the beam is almost always in milliseconds. Imagine you have a medium laser where you need to score maybe 2 or 3 hits to the same section of the enemy. When considered, this makes a lot of sense.

The additional heat also comes from the rapid fire (4 heat medium pulse, 3 heat medium laser). 180 meters medium pulse, 270 meters medium laser) is due in part to the fact that a pulse laser needs many successive hits in 'about the same area' to deliver that slightly higher damage (6 damage medium pulse, 5 damage medium laser). The reduced 'accurate range' for pulse lasers (i.e. The second is heavily demonstrated in Mechwarrior 4's intro during the Mad Dog's last stand. Sometimes more along the lines of 'Disruptor' weaponry in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (in shooting short Star Wars blaster-rifle-like 'lines' of light with a bright glow to each). Sometimes they are depicted as akin to the rapidly fired 'laser Gatling gun' in Fallout 3. When all of these 'zaps' (or 'wubs' as they are called in MWO) hit the same area, the collective damage is superior to a standard laser. The accuracy bonus is given because in lore, pulse lasers are 'laser machine guns' that actually do 'less' damage per 'zap' but fires each zap so rapidly. Sometimes the difference between a hit, a damn good hit, and a miss is simply '1'. This increased accuracy comes in the rolls being in your favor typically by '1' (or more) to each pulse laser weapon's to-hit chances. So in comparison, in tabletop the pulse lasers give you increased accuracy, especially against small objects like infantry, vehicles, and other things with high agility. A more typical medium laser such as Fusigon Heavy Weaponry's 'Omicron 3,000' is a medium laser that needs to be shot 3 times to make the 5 damage for the same 3 heat.) Variants are not encompassed in standard tabletop (as the frequency of rolling to check for hits is varied, and the amount of detail in rules needed to account for all 44 unique variants and 60+ total variants of standard medium laser.would need its own 70 page book. not to mention that it needs to be 'pre-charged' before fired. (For example the Rassal Blue Beam by Arcturan Arms is a blue-colored medium laser that deals its heavy damage in a single 0.2 second zap, but the heat is immense and other issues like shorting out consoles, disrupting the user's sensors, etc. In tabletop, a standard laser is more of a zap of energy varying from '0.1 seconds' to '1 second' depending on the variant/subvariant of the laser category it is in. The other aspect is they deliver more damage per hit than their 'standard' counter parts. In MWO, the advantage of pulse lasers is a significantly shorter beam time (less face time meaning you can deal the damage faster and pull away to take hits safely, better for hit-and-run attacks too) and because of this shorter beam time, you can 'reload' faster.

What's the catch? What were Pulse Lasers like in the TT and the lore, and what were their advantages in both the TT and MWO? Why on Earth - or the galaxy - would I mount a 6-ton Large Pulse Laser that can only shoot 600m with effective range when I can mount a 4-ton ER-Large Laser that can pew pew 800m away? I'm really struggling with understanding their usefulness. What is the point of these things (lore-wise and MWO-wise)?

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