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Description
A very important, though unfortunately rather rare and therefore more obscure attachment for the Type III Phaser Rifle was the Flashlight/Scope module. It was built to transfer at least some of the capabilities of the new Type IIIa to the existing Type III rifles.
Starfleet weapons, even the small Type I sidearms, are accurate up to several thousand meters. Their effective range is far shorter, for the simple reason that the human eye is unable to recognize targets at that range, much less track them properly. You could wave around the weapon and hope the beam hits something, but a more satisfactory solution for long-range engagements was needed.
The module is not a scope per se, instead it takes the image feed from the weapon's emitter boresight, normally invisible to the user and only used by the rifle's circuitry to triangulate the shooter's point of focus, and displays it on a small monitor at the back of the module. This view can then be zoomed and processed with IR and thermal imagery among others. Focussing on a target on the screen then aligns the gyro-stabilized emitter as usual, which then tries to negate hand shaking and hit the target at center of mass.
Another popular option is setting the screen to a "top down view" that shows targets identified by the rifle's motion tracker as blips.
Being placed on top of the upper interface rail, the module obscures the rifle's primary flipup-sight. An acceptable sacrifice considering the zooming options, and normal gyro-stabilized aiming "from the hip" was still possible as well.
The other, technically unimpressive part of the module is the flashlight pack. Though the Phaser beam could be set to such a low intensity and high width to emulate a flashlight, it takes precious moments to switch back to a lethal setting and so a simple, adjustable light projector was integrated to the front of the attachment. With its variable intensity and width, it not only helped orientation in low-light conditions, but was also used to blind enemies. It worked particularly well with Jem'Hadar soldiers, their genetically engineered eyes were designed to see better in darkness and were easily overstrained by sudden brightness.

Description
A very important, though unfortunately rather rare and therefore more obscure attachment for the Type III Phaser Rifle was the Flashlight/Scope module. It was built to transfer at least some of the capabilities of the new Type IIIa to the existing Type III rifles.
Starfleet weapons, even the small Type I sidearms, are accurate up to several thousand meters. Their effective range is far shorter, for the simple reason that the human eye is unable to recognize targets at that range, much less track them properly. You could wave around the weapon and hope the beam hits something, but a more satisfactory solution for long-range engagements was needed.
The module is not a scope per se, instead it takes the image feed from the weapon's emitter boresight, normally invisible to the user and only used by the rifle's circuitry to triangulate the shooter's point of focus, and displays it on a small monitor at the back of the module. This view can then be zoomed and processed with IR and thermal imagery among others. Focussing on a target on the screen then aligns the gyro-stabilized emitter as usual, which then tries to negate hand shaking and hit the target at center of mass.
Another popular option is setting the screen to a "top down view" that shows targets identified by the rifle's motion tracker as blips.
Being placed on top of the upper interface rail, the module obscures the rifle's primary flipup-sight. An acceptable sacrifice considering the zooming options, and normal gyro-stabilized aiming "from the hip" was still possible as well.
The other, technically unimpressive part of the module is the flashlight pack. Though the Phaser beam could be set to such a low intensity and high width to emulate a flashlight, it takes precious moments to switch back to a lethal setting and so a simple, adjustable light projector was integrated to the front of the attachment. With its variable intensity and width, it not only helped orientation in low-light conditions, but was also used to blind enemies. It worked particularly well with Jem'Hadar soldiers, their genetically engineered eyes were designed to see better in darkness and were easily overstrained by sudden brightness.