Can someone write a beam guide?

[Techercizer]

If you fire a beam and a ship manages to raise 1 block of sheilding in the middle of the attack, the damage will be reduced accordingly.

Beams are pretty simple and occasionally there is an in-game tip that explains how they work in better detail.
Every point of sheilding reduces a beams damage by 1.
Beams do a tick of damage for each room they touch. If you have a good eye for the hitboxes on rooms, you can do some mad damage with some practice.
Not much else to it.
I wouldnt know this for a fact, but id guess that the black borders to each "room" are actually a small empty space that divides them. if you shot exactly parallel along said lines you might end up doing no damage. But thats just speculation on my part.

Again, I've said this many times, but I'll say it again in nice bold letters

This is not because of shields, and I am not damaging every room I touch with a beam weapon. I've beamed ships with Ion 5 on their shields. I've beamed shields that don't even have shields installed. I'm asking for help aiming these beams and understanding how they calculate damage.

[Melacar]

Alright so back from a few battles, here's what I do with mini beams after taking down shields.

Here are the results (1/2)

placement.png

Effect.png

[Techercizer]

Alright so back from a few battles, here's what I do with mini beams after taking down shields.

Here are the results (1/2)

When I do that, I only hit the room on the far right or the one on the middle. Occasionally, if I'm lucky, both. Strange thing is I often damage subsystems and light fires in sectors I don't wind up damaging the hull for with laser weapons. Maybe I'm having a bug?

[Melacar]

(2/2)

Placement 2.png

Effect 2.png

Hope this helps.

BTW, this is only with a mini-beam, with larger weapons you can hit a lot more rooms

[StahnAileron]

[...] Strange thing is I often damage subsystems and light fires in sectors I don't wind up damaging the hull for with laser weapons. Maybe I'm having a bug?

This may be a dumb question, but WHICH beam weapon are you using? I believe there is a FIRE BEAM weapon that doesn't do hull damage directly, but has a higher chance to to cause fires. I think I came across it in one of my recent playthrough attempts.

[Techercizer]

[...] Strange thing is I often damage subsystems and light fires in sectors I don't wind up damaging the hull for with laser weapons. Maybe I'm having a bug?

This may be a dumb question, but WHICH beam weapon are you using? I believe there is a FIRE BEAM weapon that doesn't do hull damage directly, but has a higher chance to to cause fires. I think I came across it in one of my recent playthrough attempts.

Naw, naw. I've used small beams, medium beams, halberd beams. Tons and tons of beam weapons.

While we're on the subject, I can use fire beams great! Get a nice Engi cruiser with enough defenses to negate your opponent's weapons, Ion down his shields, and keep lighting his Life Support on fire until he can't afford to repair it any more. Free ships practically fall into your lap. I don't always light every room I hit on fire with the Fire Beam, but I'm pretty sure that's because starting fires is random.

[RynCage]

This is not because of shields, and I am not damaging every room I touch with a beam weapon. I've beamed ships with Ion 5 on their shields. I've beamed shields that don't even have shields installed. I'm asking for help aiming these beams and understanding how they calculate damage.

Oh, you wanted help with that completely obvious part.
My mistake.
The pictures above aught be enough.

[Nova]

Until the shields are completely disabled your beam should always start in that room to make sure it takes damage because taking the shields out completely makes the rest of the fight trivial. Especially if you used lasers to bring the shield down in the first place.