Firstly, the balancing isn't finished. I need to do a lot of testing, plus I rely on reports like this one.
Secondly, lasers aren't supposed to be that effective. They're the next step up from the standard weaponry (not quite obsoleting the latter) that is the human's answer to plasma. PBW is just stronger than laser. That's a singleplayer consideration. How does this translate to multiplayer, you ask? Well, read the proposal for
point-based MP.
Thirdly, the values you posted here are wrong. Here are the defs for the minigun and heavy laser:
{
name "_Full-Auto"
skill heavy
projtl bullet
impact bulletImpact
hitbody null
firesnd weapons/chaingun
speed 0
spread "3 6"
crouch 1.0
range 60
shots 25
ammo 25
delaybetweenshots 20
time 30
damage "20 5"
dmgweight normal_spray
reaction true
}
firedef
{
name "_Long Wave"
skill close
projtl laserPulse
impact laserImpact
hitbody laserImpact
firesnd weapons/laser
speed 0
spread "0 0.8"
crouch 0.3
range 60
shots 1
ammo 3
time 12
damage "50 10"
dmgweight laser_light
reaction true
}
That's 40-60 laser damage in 12 TUs, and 600-1000 damage minigun damage in 30 TUs (15-25 damage per shot).
fourthly, the TU/damage ratio isn't the whole story. If you look only at that, you end up with the wrong idea. Let me correct the twisted TU/damage view with the following:
In 12 TUs, the heavy laser does 40-60 damage. Let's suppose the soldier is wearing medium armour. The calculation becomes: 40 - 25 = 15 damage minumum, 60 - 25 = 35 damaghe maximum.
In 30 TUs, the minigun does 600-1000 damage, but
in 40 shots. Let's assume for the sake of the argument that all 40 shots will hit - which they really won't - then the armor will reduce 12 damage - per shot! So the calculation becomes at minimum: (15 - 12) * 40 = 120 damage. At maximum: 520 damage.
The minigun does a lot of damage, but again, not NEARLY all of those shots are going to hit. And since the randomness factor applies to every bullet, you aren't going to do the maximum damage in a practical situation. It'll be more like the average damage, which would be 320.