Hopefully at some point we can access the variables of wounds and whatnot (-> all emitters but that's another story) so you could check BurstDamage and add a proportion of that health back.

wooden we don't have "the attachments thing" yet.

Regarding lasers, perhaps a variable beam width? Wide band that does massive surface damage (i.e. doesn't penetrate very much at all, not very good against armored targets, doesn't chew terrain) and makes it a little easier to hit things but dissipates over a fairly short range, and a tightly focused beam that penetrates very well, is extremely precise, long range, but only damages a very small area, and cannot gib most limbs. The wide beam is a fairly logical equivalent of a laser 'shotgun'. This is more of a 'toggle firing modes' option, with the weapon having swappable lenses.

I also picked a friend's brain and they suggested the weapons be chemical lasers. Varying the chemical produces laser beams of differing wavelength and frequency, and also neatly explains the little 'shells' ejected by the weapons, being little single-use chemical containers that can be varied. Chemicals that produce more powerful shots don't necessarily consume more 'ammo' each, but are more expensive. They also have noticeably different effects. A laser in the infa-red range will heat up the surface of a target and cause thermal damage. Whereas a laser in the gamma radiation range will shoot clean through anything short of a foot of lead, and will do significant cellular damage and probably give the target cancer ( ). Heck, you could even have an ammo type that produces a low frequency EM laser for a similar effect to the electrolaser, but probably wouldn't harm the target. Similar effect to a long-range taser which still makes electrolasers advantageous. Another nice little perk to varying chemical ammunition is that the 'colour' of the laser would change, and we can handwave the 'visible spectrum' part for the sake of coolness.

So here's some suggestions:
Ammo types:
Infra-red rounds: Set the target on fire, and is compatible with both lens types. F-model Tengu and Oni armour are immune to the fire effect.
Microwave rounds: Sort of a halfway between regular and gamma ammunition. Better penetration of armour and terrain but less physical damage. Not compatible with the wide-beam lenses, defaults to a tightly focused shot.
Gamma-wave rounds: pretty much ignore armour and physical toughness and take a chunk of the target's HP, but also do no physical damage i.e. gibbing or wounds. Hit location could also make little difference, so against a Coalition Heavy or Browncoat the gamma rounds would be preferred, but a regular ammo headshot may be more effective against a Dummy or Ronin.
EM-wave rounds: No physical damage but stun targets in the same way as EMP grenades and Electrolasers. E-model Tengu and Oni armour are immune to this round.

Weapons:
-A stealth model assault laser, with interchangeable EM chemical ammunition. Works with active camo but the normal fire isn't stealthy at all. Also significantly more expensive than the regular assault laser.
-Regular assault laser has swappable lenses for wide-beam shots.
-An F-model assault laser with interchangeable infra-red chemical ammunition.
-An M-model assault laser with interchangeable microwave chemical ammunition.
-Long range laser has interchangeable ammo for regular, infra-red and gamma chemical rounds.
-Ammo supplies for the Oni's laser minigun could be regular, infra-red and gamma chemical rounds.

The shells being ejected are EPFCGs in the Darkstorm canon afaik. Re: chemicals - that's not how lasers work, you don't burn up the chemicals, you excite them with electricity and they release light of a certain wavelength.

I know how chemical lasers work, but I wasn't sure if the subject chemical would degrade over time, especially in high-energy applications like a laser that's coherent over a long distance.

If it did, it'd be due to the element ionising components in the gun, which would mean you'd have bigger issues than needing a new casing.

Ah, Chemistry.

But yeah, I like these ideas. The Gamma Rays could be stealthy - you only feel sick when you get radiation poisoning, not as if you just got shot with a laser.

Problem is if you fire enough gamma to injure someone it'll have a similar effect to hitting them with a normal laser: their fluids boiling and their tissues thus becoming steaming mush. The stealth advantage would come from being able to shoot people through walls and no visible flash, though the fire and massive spike in heat at any "contact" point would be fairly indicative of where not to stand, I suppose, but not where to shoot.

I imagine you wouldn't fire sub-lethal levels, you only get radiation sickness when exposed to relatively small amounts of gamma for quite some time. Unless you want to make a "gamma cannon" that you have to fire at someone for half and hour or so and wait for them to get nauseous or pass out, the effect would be much the same.

Fair enough. Any invisible light would work, really - x-rays, infrared, microwave, whatever.

Maybe its best to make a microwave laser that makes someone explode, similar to the effect of putting a squirrel inside of a microwave.

There isn't any pressure so it won't be realistic but still kind of fun to see. Or a laser that heats the whole bunker and turns the bunker into one giant microwave. I think that's going to take a lot of sparkle magic to work.

One thing I need to point out to you guys is that I already plan on making ALL lasers invisible from now on. No more blue beams or anything like that, except maybe in the case of the electrolaser discharging. Instead, I'm simply going to give the weapons obvious impact effects, including a "gunshot" sound that happens at the impact point only if the laser actually impacts something.

This should result in a rather unique and interesting effect, and also cut down on any lag the laser graphics used to cause.

Also "gamma wave beams" that go through solid objects isn't a bad idea. It'd be like the laser equivalent of the coil gun.

Surely there should still be a sound inside the weapon from the EPFCG, you know, exploding?

I can't properly equip the 6mm case supply--how does one do it?

Yeah... it's not exploding out of the barrel though. The sound of the internal explosion would be muffled at best, since it's fully contained. I'm not really sure what that'd sound like, to be honest.

At the very least you'd hear the clicking of the shell ejection, which is kind of the sound effect I have going on right now. But I'm not sure what sound would be right before that.

Probably something like cracking and an explosion inside a can.
It could make for a fairly unique sound.

I call upon Rule of Cool for visible lasers Doubly so considering how incredibly sexy the DS laser effects are.