This page covers everything involving emitter beams. Beams are constant and have a maximum range of up to 20 tiles away from the source, instead of being projectiles that repeatedly strike the target. This method is far less laggy and more efficient.
Beams can be combined with up to two other beams via prisms. Prisms combine the power of all beams striking them, and emit a new beam with the new power level.
Beams also now deal damage per tick:
damage = \frac{(basedamage \times power)}{seconds in beam}
Note that damage is even applied if one quickly darts through the beam.
Basedamage is 30 for emitter beams, which is sufficient to power field emitters off of a single emitter each.
Prisms are one of the most powerful parts of engineering, and can easily create a beam capable of killing or removing limbs instantaneously. Prisms combine the power of all beams touching the short sides of the device, and emit the boosted beam from the long side. Even previously-boosted beams can be merged.
Two prisms start in Engineering Secure Storage.
In case you need to build a new prism:
Build a machine frame. Apply wires. Add a prism circuit board (engineering 3, programming 3). Add 6 capacitors. Add 3 high-powered microlasers. Screwdriver
All machines that respond to emitters take additional damage from combined beams. For example, lockers will perish from a boosted beam faster than an unaltered beam from a single emitter. Mobs take more damage from boosted beams. Supermatter gains more power from boosted beams.