AC's in table top use a singular hit location, only the Rotary and UAC use the cluster table. So the lore argument doesn't hold a lot a water. The real issue is that beam mechanics suck in a server authenticated game. Caching, HSR or whatever you want to call it is a band aid solution with very real limitations as to what can be achieved by these means. While the current system is better than what we had in closed beta, it's not great. You want to make energy builds more viable compared to AC builds, cut the beam durations by 75%.
The real reason why you can't have effective lasers is the fear of a repeat of Laser Armageddon. I don't think we ever really got to a good place of balance in closed beta. We'd have a much better game if there were much shorter beam durations, balanced by around 4-5 times TT armour values (roughly double to what we have now) and Ammo counts per ton upped by 25%. You basically net out to where we are now, with more effective but not OP laser weapons.
Anyway, if you really want to reduce the effectiveness of the current AC meta, just reduce ammo counts by 65%. Now the danger of running out of ammo is much more real. Get rid of the 200 ammo count AC 5 builds and a couple backup medium lasers look a lot more attractive, when compared to 10 rounds AC 5 rounds. It's the ammo count that lets one lean on the skill biasing of the weapon more than anything. As it negates the largest downside, limited ammo.
Edited by Grits N Gravy, 13 December 2013 - 09:04 AM.