Quote:
Originally Posted by MrFix
At TL10, most handheld weapons such as Laser Rifles and Gauss Rifles cannot penetrate TL10 Assault Vest, but invalidate limb armor, so unless your troops are trained for them leg shots, they'll pursue HEMP as main bullet, or transfer them fully to Gauss Railguns and Sniper Rifles.
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Laser rifles have about ten times the effective range of projectile rifles (due to having Acc 12), good rate of fire and Rcl 1. For close quarters projectile weapons will reign, but in more open environments lasers will, because aimed autofire will allow multiple hits on limbs (or even the neck) from outside effective projectile range (and I don't recall a rule that says that aimed shots must specify a location, so random hit locations are allowed, avoiding a hit penalty at the cost of possibly hitting armour for no damage). Unless people are wearing Combat Hardsuits and Space Combat Helmets laser rifles are a serious threat because of their accuracy, RoF, and Rcl.
In my experience (which may not be typical), player characters are very sensitive to limb hits because they tend to not have handy evac and are often a long way from support and really good medical facilities. Thus they care about full-body protection more than soldiers and police might - the latter want something that will keep them alive and not encumber them too much, but PCs want something that will also keep them in the fight.