Sorry if this has been answered before but my "Search-Fu" is weak and I wasn't able to find anything similar.

The beam keyword states:

after performing an attack with this weapon, you may perform up to 2 extra attack using only this weapon. Each attack must be against an enemy unit that is in line of sight, has not already defended, and is at range 1 of the previous defender.

When it says "has not already defended" what timeframe is it referring to?

-"Not already defended" during this match? Seems extreme and makes beam weapons unusable from turn 2 onward.

-"Not already defended" during this turn? Seems more likely the intention but still hampers beam weapons and will force players to always activate their tank first.

-"Not already defended" during this attack/activation? Best case scenario giving tank players more flexibility in their tactical decisions and would make double Sabre tank lists a little more viable (even if still kind of meh competitively)?

Again sorry if this has been answered before and thanks in advance for your response.

Effectively you cannot target the same unit twice with beam. So you could go A to B to C, but not A to B to A. This only applies to beam, not other weapons (note the "This weapon" portion).

How you use the beam weapon depends on what you want to do. In my mind there are really two cases:

- Maximizing Suppression: Under this, you can Split fire using Arsenal 2, Fire the main cannons at A, then fire beam separately and Go B to A to C (Assuming the distances work out). In this method, you can actually put two suppression on A as it was targeted twice with two different weapons.

- Maximizing Damage

Fire everything a A to add two red to the main guns keywords and then beam onto B and C

9 hours ago, Chili-52 said:

-"Not already defended" during this attack/activation?

Given the bolded portion below, I think it’s pretty clear they’re talking within the context of a single attack action.

“Each additional attack must be made
against a different enemy unit that has not already defended
against an attack made with this weapon, either the original
attack or one of the additional attacks ”

Are you implying then that my assessment is incorrect?

28 minutes ago, Mokoshkana said:

Are you implying then that my assessment is incorrect?

No, your assessment is correct. I was implying that of the 3 options OP suggested, the one I quoted is the correct one.