I've been playing a lot recently and one thing is starting to annoy me to the point where I want to stop playing. It seems the AI has the ability to direct each shot of the laser to different rooms, which will cause a lot of damage across my whole ship. I read the wiki and I can't seem to find anything about this for the player, am I missing something or is this a special laser that I haven't been able to find yet. Its really starting to suck to loose all of my major systems from one laser volley.

There are two different kinds of lasers. Beams and, well, lasers. I think that's right.

Beams can go across multiple rooms, and there's even ones that don't do damage but set the rooms on fire. However, beams cannot punch through shields.

Lasers go pew-pew and hit one spot, damaging one single area more, but they can punch through shields.

I hope that answered your question... ):?

It is for the player as well. I got one while playing today.

All of these weapons can hit multiple rooms:

http://ftl.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons#Beams

If he's not talking about beams, the rest of the AI's weaponry is randomly targetted; there's no rhyme or reason to it so it comes down to luck what rooms get hit at what time and your ability to respond to this is an important factor of skill though there are quite a few situations you just can't get out of; the micromanagement is reasonably stressful but ultimately not super difficult for anyone who's played an RTS or what have you.

Edit: Beams are decent enough for the player; Burst Laser 2/Hull Laser 2/Pegasus/Breach Missiles are all better. But if you find a powerful beam (Glaive/Halberd) randomly in sector one or two you might as well use it (or if your ship layout starts with one). Oh right, Ion Bomb is easily the best single weapon in the game though you'd want multiples of Burst Laser 2 in an ideal situation.

Oh I get it. He is using the laser which shoots 2 bursts at one room, and the enemy is using 2 lasers which each shoot 1 burst. That's why he's confused, because they're different weapons.

I know beams are different, I'm talking about the 'bolt' style laser

@Levio: [Edit: Just re-read your post and no, its all coming from one weapon.] Yes but that's not whats happening, it's not a beam it's a laser and each 'bolt' hits a different room, so it causes a lot more widespread damage then just hitting one subsystem.

@Chrjz: If you ever get it again please let us know the name of it :)

PS: By volley in the first post I mean volley from one weapon, not all the weapons

If you're 100% sure it's a single laser-style weapon that is somehow hitting multiple rooms with a single volley, then your game is freaking out. I have never seen anything like that.

@jacoba: You are using 1 of your 4 weapons, he is using at least 2 of his weapons. Just buy another laser.

Alright I made a video of this happening, You can see the laser on the left of the slug ship fire three shots that hit multiple rooms, one the shield, one the life support and the last hits my sensors. This is all from one laser, you can see the color of the bolts are all the same.

Yeah, that's a bug.

@EVO: I just wonder if anyone else has seen it, I should have the latest build from steam so I just don't know how wide spread it might be.

Yeah I got the same thing happening, 4 shots from 1 laser all directed at different rooms, it has happend to me from when I got the game so I'm not sure it's a bug. Thought it was a balancing thing to make the AI a little better. EDIT lol this post is 5 years old woops