Physic says no.

Laser are made of light, light is made of photons, photons do not explode and have kinetic impact.

So, EM and Thermal only for Lasers.

Physic says no.

Laser are made of light, light is made of photons, photons do not explode and have kinetic impact.

So, EM and Thermal only for Lasers.

Lets give the already frighteningly op pulse lasers choice of damage (which they can instantly change) as well, what can possibly go wrong?

Truth is lmited damage types only matters at all if your enemy knows what you are going to be fielding, and if your enemy knows what you will be fielding you have worse problems than damage types. Normal fits are all omni tanked so whether you have em/therm lasers or kin/therm hybrids is largely irrelevant. The damage adaptability of projectiles is massively overestmated (it doesn't exist on t2 ammo and even with t1 ammo it only allows for partial coverage often with 3 damage types meaning you are always doing one of the worst damage types as well). Only missiles allow for true damage type choice and they are limited in plenty other ways.

They dont start with 90% resists though.

There probably should be EM/Therm and Therm/EM crystals. Makes sense to me anyway.

The other one is rail guns. Rail guns should do immense kinetic damage, more than any other ammo/gun system by far. The extreme velocity of a rail gun charge means it penetrates armor better than a larger, slower arty round. They should have higher alpha than arty.

Artillery comes in two forms, shot and shell. Depending on type it will either have a payload or be kinetic only. This payload can be anything from toxic gas to a small atomic weapon and only your imagination is the limit here.

What I would like to see is a rebalance of all the gun/ammo/missile types in game. Right now it's a mess. I know people don't like change but the way it's setup now is very unimaginative for a futuristic space game.

Physic says no.

Laser are made of light, light is made of photons, photons do not explode and have kinetic impact.

So, EM and Thermal only for Lasers.

Actually, like you just said, Light is made of a particle. That does actually have a physical impact. Hence why solar sails are possible, since the kinetic motion of the photon is transferable to the ship the solar sail is on.
So, Physics actually says yes. They have found with RL laser weapons that a pulse of a laser often has a kinetic impact on the target also. Resulting in exactly the same result as a bullet would have done. Depends on the exact frequencies used obviously. But light is both a wave & a particle at the same time.
However, RL Physics is irrelevant to Eve, regardless, since we don't use RL physics.

Lasers applied in a burst can very rapidly ionize only a thin outer layer of a target surface into plasma, which immediately blasts back off the target, applying a kinetic impact.

I'm a huge Amarr fan, but giving them variable dmg types would be the weapon system far to powerful imo. I do think however some the Mattari T2 EM resists are some what extreme.

And exp lasers are harder to explain lore wise.

Physic says no.

Laser are made of light, light is made of photons, photons do not explode and have kinetic impact.

So, EM and Thermal only for Lasers.

For a sufficiently low power flux the thin surface layer will be heated to the fluid state but will stay beyond the evaporation temperature, while the solid-fluid interface will slowly progress into the bulk material by heat conduction. In iron the typical progress rate is about 10-2 cm ms-1, and the power flux for this situation may be around 106 W cm-2. [...]
At a somewhat higher power flux, between 106 to 108 Wcm2 [sic], the thin absorbing surface layer is heated up to its evaporation temperature before the solid-fluid interface has progressed appreciably into the material by heat conduction. Thus, with continuing laser power, a less than ++-thick layer of material will continually evaporate, with the material-air interface progressing into the material. Typically a gas jet develops [...]. The gas jet ejects also part of the molten material, thus that the progress rate of the hole is faster than with evaporation of all the material. [...]

At a still higher flux of 109 to 1010 Wcm-2, after initial evaporation of the surface layer, the gas jet is thermally ionized and absorbs most of the incident radiation, which is such blocked away from the material. The surface layer explodes with an ultrasonic jet, its temperature may rise beyond 10 105 -¦ K [sic], its pressure beyond 103 at.[
...
A thin layer of target material is flashed to plasma, and the plasma absorbs the rest of the pulse. At this point, the plasma is at extremely high pressure, much greater pressure than the strength of the target material.
The expanding plasma launches a blast wave. A shell of hot vapor blasts out into the air, while a shell of super-hot, highly compressed material propagates into the target. Pressures are so high the target material flows like a fluid.
...
Eventually, the blast wave has done so much work pushing through the target material and has spread out so much that the pressure is no longer far in excess of the material strength.

mpulse shock indicates that the armor is vaporized at a rate exceeding the speed of sound, tearing and damaging the surrounding hull. You can pretty much consider the compartment utterly destroyed.

They way I see crystals should work is

Radio - Standard: EM damage, gradually moving towards Therm.
Radio = 100% EM/ 0% Therm
Microwave = 80% EM/ 20% Therm
Infared = 75% EM/ 25% Therm
Standard = 60% EM/ 40% Therm

Ultraviolet - Multifrequency: Therm damage, gradually moving towards EM.
Ultraviolet = 40% EM/60% Therm
X Ray = 25% EM/ 75% Therm
Gamma = 20% EM/ 80% Therm
Multifrequency = 0% EM/ 100% Therm

Have the 'LR' crystals do mostly shield damage, the 'SR' crystals doing mostly armor damage.

Then Conflag and Gleam are heavy close range Thermal/Armor damage crystals and Scorch and Aurora are both long range EM/Shield damage crystals.

There. Damage type selection. The numbers can be messed with of course, as they are meerly suggestions.

Also: I wouldn't be opposed to removing one of the short range crystals and adjusting things so Standard is a straight 50/50 split.
And if people think damage selection on lasers is 'too powerful' I don't mind having even T1 crystals break on occasion, provided that CCP find a way to make a full rack of grouped guns all crack their crystals at once. :/ Having to regroup guns in the middle of a fight on those rare occasions when you suddenly find your on your last 8 Scorch is a pain in the ass!

This isn't what happens in a vacuum and you can't state what would happen when they are absorbed by shields either.

Lasers don't need adjustment. Sure they have strengths and weaknesses but so does every system.
If you want to be able to deal different damage types you will have to put up with a 10 second reload time like missiles and projectiles.

And quit complaining you have Scorch.

I see this as a decent way to map hybrid damage, with thermal being short range since blasters are supposed to be gallente based and kinetic for long range. Starting with antimatter doing the highest thermal and lead doing the highest kinetic.