What are the best ways to to make laser-shooting weapons?

I am looking for a substitute for my old one which is an emitter that shoots a few glowy pixels along with the actual projectile. This one, however, gets kind of ugly when the visual particles bounce off stuff and look really not-laser-like.

The second type I've tried so far is a lua-generated beam like those in the WH40k mod, but as nice as it would look, I would want to keep it simpler and less performance-consuming for those without the very most top-notch computers.

At the moment, the best I could come up with is the most boring so far - just a high-velocity pixel with a large trail. Adding a glow would be no use since data hasn't implemented glowing pixel trails yet. What I am looking for though is a way to stop a particle with the velocity of ~400 from launching terrain bits into the air when it hits the ground. Also, maybe, a way to stop pixels from bouncing off anything. That or a better laser.

Hmm. I do have a way to make decent-looking energy projectiles, but unfortunately it's very system-intensive as well; mostly because of the number of glows involved.

For terrain, perhaps try dynamic sharpness scripts (also a great way to cut down on terrain destruction) so that the projectile is reduced to very low sharpness if it's about to hit the terrain. But that can be intensive with lots of projectiles due to the constant rays/traces required.

For bounce, best bet is to meddle with custom materials as much as possible.

I also recall there used to be a very simple, non-glowy laser/beam weapon in the default files, Base.rte/Rifles/LaserRifle.ini. Absurdly long trail and very fast projectile with low weight and low-bounce material.

Try this? I get the feeling it deserved more use than it got, it's a pretty clever (if repetitive and painful to make) system.