Phaser Type I: a weak/versatile standard issue phaser for emergencies

[Mordent]

Okay, I'm picking up what you're laying down. No offense, but I don't care. I wasn't really looking for anyone to tell me not to do this so I'll be making the patch regardless.

Mostly I wanted suggestions for balancing issues for how each power level should work and function. And more ideas for the utility function. Maybe I'll remove one of the damaging settings in favor of one of those.

Making a patch that no one wants is a great way to get a thread moved to here. Community feedback is important.

With that out of the way:

For the most part I want it to be something to help you get away from danger, not something that will let you kill people.

I don't understand the correlation between this idea and the motive. How does this help you get away from danger? If you're being chased, sure, I'll concede that having a ranged weapon is better than not, but you're currently looking at 30 burn damage if all of the shots hit on the "damage" setting.

Small amounts of burn damage are not really a great deterrent for someone coming after you. If you're security, you have something better than this. If you're a regular crewmember and you're able to run and have time to shoot back, running to somewhere where there are more crew would be a better use of your focus. If you're running from security rather than antags, we don't need another way for staff assistants to be griefy shits. If you're an antag, how you have you not found something better to use?

Essentially, I don't think this is filling the niche you want it to be.