Re: [HoE] More confusion on Junkers [Shane]

[Afterburner <afterburner@erols.com>]

>Off the top of my head, I would say to focus less on the "physical" vs.
>"energy" damage - physical damage is just kinetic energy and all that, and
>I would look at it as "special effect" vs "nothing special" weapons.
>
>Flame throwers - I would call an "energy" weapon, as they have a residual
>effect.
>Lasers - I would call "physical", because all it does is do damage.  Of
>course, it's a cool justification for taking a huge RoF with a long range
>mod - but those points are spent elsewhere.  Maybe an Infrared Laser -
>invisible and soundless, would qualify for the "energy" cost.

	Yeahbut...

	The chart pretty explicitly lists "lasers" as an example of "energy
damage."  And it mentions "explosions" as a source of physical damage.  I
could make an argument either way for flamethrowers (i.e. I can see some
similarities between "flamethrowers" and "explosions", but explosions do
most of their damage due to heat + kinetic energy, whereas flamethrowers
just do damage from the heat.

	I tried to use the "collateral damage" idea too, but there again, you have
to actually take "burst radius" or "30-degree cone" to get the benefit of
collateral damage.  If I take an energy weapon that shoots a thin beam, it
doesn't automatically set stuff on fire (for example), or at least it
doesn't explicitly mention that anywhere in the rules.

	AB