Understanding Weapon_Energy

[Redspear]

On the face of it, the weapon energy property, as defined in  Shipdata.plist, is easy to understand. It assigns a damage potential to a weapon in order for its effects to be determined.

When we consider it's affects upon NPC lasers however then the plot thickens spmewhat. They appear to overwrite the values of the core laser weapons (when mounted in the fore position) and so my first question would be why do they do this?

If I'm understanding correctly them the obvious potential there is either to have player and non-player lasers of the same type do different amounts of damage or to standardise their damage because NPCs use them differently.

When we look at the default values assigned however we can see that pulse lasers are granted the same values as beam lasers. Beam lasers have a greater rate of fire of course but, for the player equivalent at least, do not require the same damage per 'hit' in order to have greater damage potential (in fact, they score significantly less damage per 'hit').

Are there different assumptions with regards to NPC firing rates?

Is there a formula for converting a theoretical player available laser into a non-player weapon_energy value?

What would we lose (with regards NPC lasers) without the weapon_energy property?

My understanding may even be so poor that I'm asking entirely the 'wrong' questions but then at least they'll help to illustrate the extent of my ignorance.

Thanks for reading.