Laser turrets vs Personal Laser Defense

[AK90]

Hello,

Lets discuss the fact that Laser turrets has a lower damage compared to PLDs.

PDLs: Less power usage, higher damage. 50.0 kj per shot

Laser Turrets: More power usage, less damage. 800 kj per shot

While this could have been to nerf the LTs it seems odd that the placeable turrets deal less damage then the ones in your power armor.

[Silfir]

How is this a balancing concern? Laser turrets and personal laser defense serve completely different purposes. Laser turrets vs Gun turrets vs Flamethrower turrets, that would be a balancing concern. What you have is a verisimilitude concern.

Anyway, I believe the idea is that personal laser defense units are much harder to assemble than laser turrets and require highly advanced materials, namely blue chips and low density structures. That's why they're far more power efficient and do more damage. It's just better technology. (Also: laser turrets have longer range. Maybe you have to sacrifice some power to shoot farther.)

The one thing that doesn't make sense is why you need five stone-furnace-sized laser turrets every time you want to make one personal laser defense unit that's about as big as a pair of nightvision goggles. But even that is still not a balancing concern.

[valneq]

[…] you need five stone-furnace-sized laser turrets every time you want to make one personal laser defense unit […]

This also serves as an explanation, why the personal laser defense has a higher damage. Not by a factor of five, but still higher.

[Jap2.0]

Also to note is that they're two different power generation systems that aren't really reconciled in any way.

[Xeorm]

Balancing wise the idea is to make them useful to have in your armor. Armor which has significantly less power generation, but is unique and so you'd want the PLD's to hit harder than regular turrets to let them keep up. Those numbers all make sense from a balancing PoV.

If you're having issues making sense of them, could always go with this explanation: the PLDs use much more sophisticated circuits than the regular turrets, and are presumably integrated into the suit's systems. So part of the laser turret's job regarding targeting could be done by the suit, reducing energy usage. As well, if you reduce waste heat you could see significant reductions in energy usage while maintaining a high useful energy amount. Combine less waste heat with a better focusing ability and you could very easily see those types of numbers.