Why didn’t the protoss use their carrier lasers more?

SC1 opens with a cinematic where the protoss incinerate Chau Sara. Throughout episode 1 the protoss pose an ever-present danger of planetary incineration. Several planets including Mar Sara and Antiga Prime are incinerated. After episode 1, however, the protoss seemed to forget they had planet glassing lasers. They never use the lasers in later episodes where they would be convenient.

Tassadar never tries to laser zerg positions on Char. The protoss never laser zerg positions on Aiur in the middle of an invasion. Tassadar kamikazes his carrier into Overmind rather than using the laser. They never explain why they cannot, either.

Altho the lasers are used for destroying whole planets, we usually see this being done by dozens of carriers at a time. It is reasonable to deduce that the damage is proportional to the duration of the firing and the number of lasers used. So it could work as an orbital canon to strike strategically viable positions.

The starcraft story was developed haphazardly. For example, the cinematics were developed separately from the scripts and the scripts were later rewritten to account for them (or at least most of them). This includes the scene where Chau Sara was incinerated. I wonder whether the protoss’ planet glassing lasers were actually introduced in the cinematic and weren’t originally intended to be in the scripts?

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