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I imagine the answer to your first question is the KISS principle, and they didn't want to add the complexity of a damage-beyond-optimal-range table or equation or whatever. I've always found the weapon ranges to be rather low, too, but keeping them limited encourages engaging in action-packed, close-range combat that makes for fun gameplay.

That second one is harder to reconcile with the rules. Burst fire from a recoilless weapon would, you'd think, be little different that single fire. I daresay the target would move (and so would your hands, somewhat) between the first and last shot, but it'd be like pointing a rifle-shaped camera at someone.

question 1:
lasers are just focused light. light does just keep going. but it's the Focus that is the key. that focus is what makes it a weapon as oppossed to an expensive flashlight. you focus a laser to a specific range. beyond that it starts to lose focus and will not do as much damage. plus, light is diffracted and absorbed by the atmosphere, so eventually the laser light becomes to weak to have effect.


Question 2:
laser weapons cannot burst. they may have a 'pulse' setting where multiple laser pulses are fired in rapid sequence. pulses have a +1 to strike, making them easier to hit with, and they do damage eqaulk to 3x the normal single shot mode.

[quote="glitterboy2098"]question 1:
lasers are just focused light. light does just keep going. but it's the Focus that is the key. that focus is what makes it a weapon as oppossed to an expensive flashlight. you focus a laser to a specific range. beyond that it starts to lose focus and will not do as much damage. plus, light is diffracted and absorbed by the atmosphere, so eventually the laser light becomes to weak to have effect.[quote]

Lasers don't just focus light with fancy lenses or mirrors, they emit a burst of photons that are all travelling in the same direction. Laser beams maintain their coherency, even in an atmosphere where you've got water vapour and dust and air to mess things up. And in outer space, you'd have to be aiming at targets insane distances away before you have to worry about losing enough coherency to affect the power.

Plus of course, the more powerful your laser is, the further it can punch through to have a meaningful effect even in adverse conditions. And lasers in Rifts are ludicrously powerful. Typical laser rifles in the game are able to dish out 4D6 mega-damage at their maximum listed range of 2000'. That's enough damage to punch clean through a 20th century tank and out the other side in a fraction of a second. So I think it's safe to say that if you're on the ground, pretty much anything within line of sight will cop pretty much the full damage from a laser beam, even if they're five or six miles away from you.

Still, we can get around range with a little bit of handwaving. The range listed in the book is only the maximum 'effective' range. With a well-aimed (or lucky) shot you could hit someone for full damage a lot further away than three or four hundred feet with your laser pistol, and a lot further away than two or three thousand feet with your laser rifle. The problem though is that it's a hand-held device being aimed and fired on the fly. The weapon's devastating at extremely long ranges, but since it's built to be useful in a variety of situations rather than as a straight-up sniping weapon, it's a bit of a pain in the ass to actually aim at those extremely long ranges. If you want long range accuracy, you'll want something built for long range accuracy, preferably with some kind of mount or tripod to put it on, and fancy expensive scopes.

Sort of like how in the real world you could theoretically shoot someone a long way away if you aim your gun high enough, but you're not likely to ever actually see someone scoring a one kilometre kill with an M-16.


Now moving onto bursts...

Apparently it's just the rules. I guess you could take a laser weapon and keep pulling the trigger in rapid succession for the equivalent of a burst, and the lack of recoil means that you probably shouldn't suffer anywhere near the same penalty you'd get for firing a burst from a traditional firearm. Still, unless you've got your laser weapon on some sort of fixed mount, all that trigger-pulling and the slight movement of your own body means not every shot is going to be as perfectly on target as the first (especially at really long rangers).

Plus of course Mega-Damage lasers really shouldn't be silent, but that's a matter for another thread and I'm tired of explaining why anyway

Lasers don't just focus light with fancy lenses or mirrors, they emit a burst of photons that are all travelling in the same direction. Laser beams maintain their coherency, even in an atmosphere where you've got water vapour and dust and air to mess things up. And in outer space, you'd have to be aiming at targets insane distances away before you have to worry about losing enough coherency to affect the power.

Lasers do use mirrors and fancy lenses to focus light. that the light is polarized and at only one wavelength has little effect on it, it is still just light. to be of any use as a weapon or tool the laser light has to be focused via lenses or mirrors.

remember, although laser light appears to be a 'beam', it is not perfectly straight. a 'laser beam' does expand in coverage as it gets farther from the laser, it just doesn't do so as fast as the random photons of a traditional light source. a laser that appears to be perfectly straight on earth would illuminate an area the size of a football field when shined at the moon.

plus the intensity of the light produced directly from the lasing chamber will usually be inadequate for weapon use. you have to take that beam and further 'condense' it using lenses and mirrors so it puts the most light on the least area, thus getting the most results out of the least energy use.


but as i said earlier, lasers do the most damage through heat, not cutting. they impart thermal energy when they hit, causing the target to melt/vaporise. since this occurs in the space of a few seconds, you get explosive results as the material literally explodes.



a really good site for this stuff

glitterboy2098 wrote:Lasers do use mirrors and fancy lenses to focus light. that the light is polarized and at only one wavelength has little effect on it, it is still just light. to be of any use as a weapon or tool the laser light has to be focused via lenses or mirrors.

Actually, laser light is coherent, which makes it significantly different from the light coming from your flashlight. In coherent light, all of the 'peaks and troughs' of the waveform are matched up, which leads to a beam of great intensity compared to non-coherent light. It's like soldiers marching in lockstep collapsing a bridge.

a really good site for this stuff

That is an awesome site. Thank you.

First of all, would the range not be longer than it is? It's pure focused light, and something that emits that much light should just keep going. I mean, what happens after 2000 ft.? it doesn't just drop, it has no weight or mass. It shouldn't weaken, in fact the penalty for shooting over 30% of your range is -2 strike or something like that.

according to the books energy weapons disperse or dissapate harmlessly after they exceed their maximum range...in regards to specific energy types like plasma, if a target was at max range you'd still be able to hit 3 feet past max because of the plasma beams side effect...though they'd only take like 3d6 damage from heat...as well as if your within 3 feet of the beam as it passes you, you'd be burnt for 3d6 as well. Its odd that the beam just stops at max range...so I guess you could have a house rule that says after 300 feet of max range targets take 1/2 damage from the dissapating energy.

Now I have this impossibly amusing image of someone poking their tongue out at the person firing at them with a 2000-foot-range laser rifle, because they're standing 2001 feet away, and the beam just... ends.

Ahulane wrote:

First of all, would the range not be longer than it is? It's pure focused light, and something that emits that much light should just keep going. I mean, what happens after 2000 ft.? it doesn't just drop, it has no weight or mass. It shouldn't weaken, in fact the penalty for shooting over 30% of your range is -2 strike or something like that.

according to the books energy weapons disperse or dissapate harmlessly after they exceed their maximum range...in regards to specific energy types like plasma, if a target was at max range you'd still be able to hit 3 feet past max because of the plasma beams side effect...though they'd only take like 3d6 damage from heat...as well as if your within 3 feet of the beam as it passes you, you'd be burnt for 3d6 as well. Its odd that the beam just stops at max range...so I guess you could have a house rule that says after 300 feet of max range targets take 1/2 damage from the dissapating energy.

The books say rather a lot of silly things about high technology though. Personally I'd just follow the range rules because they're the rules, not because the reasoning behind them makes any sense (which it doesn't ).

The books say rather a lot of silly things about high technology though. Personally I'd just follow the range rules because they're the rules, not because the reasoning behind them makes any sense (which it doesn't ).

They sure don't

Now I have this impossibly amusing image of someone poking their tongue out at the person firing at them with a 2000-foot-range laser rifle, because they're standing 2001 feet away, and the beam just... ends.