(Don’t you just love it when you accidentally hit CTRL R)
So I didn’t make myself clear, my bad. They were two different issues. First off, yes the cannon is separate, but I only meant to be referring to that in light of how it is glowing red, were as the thermal oscillator didn’t go red until it was about to fire. So maybe making it white or dark or something might be better.
Second is that based on this:

Yellow being the direction of light (which may or may not be incorrect due to 3D to 2D mistranslated on my part) I would say that the stream should be visible on either the surface, trench or just behind the edge of the base.
That’s that last I’ll say on it. I think I said what I meant this time.