I'm fairly sure a communications laser that can cause a decent amount of damage to something close would be problematic. Dead birds, holes in the shuttle that just dropped you off, etc. Now, of course, there's nothing stopping a larger laser being built with the necessary systems to focus it down to a comms laser. Perhaps the weapon style laser comes larger or more expensive to account for the extra complexity of switching between blasting a hole through another vehicle and talking with the seller survey expedition.