Phaser Damage
 

A long rambling but important question:

Just finished Hardpointing a sovereign class ship for our mod (details here ). After playtesting I've noticed that the phasers don't seem to do as much damage as they should.

I've reduced the firing time by increasing the discharge rate and decreasing the maximum charge. Does anyone know how phaser damage works? Is it applied over time (i.e. it does damage at a rate per second) or is the damage merely applied at the end of a complete blast - incomplete blasts do no damage?

The phasers should be doing 300 damage per hit, (2 blasts doing as much as a photon 2) but testing on my favourite target - the Comm Array, shows that they're not even close to this (maybe half).

Any info on how phaser damage is applied (it seems to work differently from pulse and torpedo damage which I've had no problem with) would be greatly appreciated.

After a bit of experimentation I've realised that the reduced damage was due to the attacks being made at long range...

doh!