Khasidel said:
being subjected to the equivalent of a small nuke each time they're hit.
No. Just because it's listed as an equivalent doesn't make it so. One of the problems with the DR system is its vague sense of scale; an Aether shot of any kind has cutting power -- not nuclear EXPLOSION power. Firing a small nuke in any scenario is ridiculous.
Khasidel said:
In my opinion, such heavy firepower would be overkill for this situation and any missed shots would take chunks out of the walls of the cave environment they are in presently
It's an energy weapon. Your NSP will burn through the ice and rock as well, taking chunks out. Maybe not as well as an Aether pulse, but certainly anything hot enough to shoot
radiation will cut through ice pretty nicely, so it becomes a moot point.
Also your opinion of "Overkill" is slightly skewed; Aether Beam Saber Rifles are very common, and even NSPs can be considered "overkill" because they literally fry peoples' nervous systems with radiation on their lowest setting.
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying it doesn't matter if you're given the option between holding a grenade to your chest or a hunk of lit dynamite: both will splatter your remains all over the room, it's just that the dynamite will make you into smaller pieces.
Also, knowing how pragmatic the NMX supposedly are, they should have built their facility to stand -- not expecting fighting, but understanding that it could happen and making the necessary precautions. They're very warlike, obviously, and not far above the SMX in their tendency to murder one another to get a Klingon Promotion. It should be noted that the only SMG's available to the NMX are energy-based in the Type 28 NSP flavor.
Edit: Or the Aether SMG's they captured off of Yamatai. One of the two. Can we get a clarification from the Nashgod?
If the passage should cave in, it certainly wouldn't be solely the result of Arkase's Aether usage. It'd be because of the heat from (any sort of) weapons' fire, the sound of combat (sound alone could trigger a cave-in if it's weak enough), the NMX' deployment of some sort of artificial cave-in (demo charges, etc.), or because of some unknown surface condition... say, something heavy moving past atop the passage when it's weakened.
If you want to avoid cave-in, don't have a firefight with energy weapons. At this point, Aether doesn't matter in the scheme of things.
Moogle said:
Sorry for not replying sooner. Finals week is happening. It is a thing that is taking the time.
Hope you get some good scores. We can wait.