(minor suggestion) Weapon Charge Glow

[Angstromicus]

Wouldn't it be nice, and more realistic,  for a ball of energy to manifest as you charge up a charge gun? Urgh darn, can't think of anything else to add to this, except I hope it wouldn't take too much work to implement, and hopefully it is a good enough idea to be implemented.

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

It would certaintly result in people turning around and seeing a large yellow glow at the end of an opponents gun, then tensing up a split second just before they are blasted into tiny, TINY pieces.

It sounds ace.

[Avatar]

I had an email chat with Ken about that sort of thing once, and of course the "Wave Motion Gun" came up.  You can't talk about videogame weapons without referencing Anime at some point...     See, the Japanese have that sort of thing down pat.  

For those of you who don't know what the WMG was it was the main weapon of the spaceship Argo in "Star Blazers", a classic Japanese Animated ("Anime") series.  The way it worked was to channel the entire energy output of their hyperspace engines into one hugely destructive beam.   First the ship lights would dim as a glow appeared around the gun barrel, and small specks of light would appear to form and move into the gun barrel.  Then the ship would black out completely as a huge beam of energy shot out of the front of the ship.  Then the beam would thin, the glow would fade, and the ship would be dark and helpless for a few minutes.

By then you're seeing by the light of whatever huge object they'd just destroyed.   Awesome.  

Anyway, the idea was that a weapon ODF should have several stages for the weapon to go through.  PreFire, Fire, and PostFire.  That way, you could simulate the firing of the WMG.   Beams should also have a similar setup, with a Start, Middle and End state, so they could go from thin to thick and then fade out.  They should also have properties that would allow them to go right through their target (another Anime weapon idea).



-Av-

[stinky]

I was thinking about how to get that effect without the need for extra changes to the game itself.

Say you have the scion gun spire, but you modify it with two cannon HPs in the same spot. In the ODF:

weaponMask = 00011
weaponHard1 = "HP_CANNON_1"
weaponName1 = "gchargegun"
weaponAssault1 = 0
weaponHard2 = "HP_CANNON_2"
weaponName2 = "gchargeeffect"
weaponAssault2 = 0

(where gchargeeffect is a weapon that fires harmless or harmful bullets with a very short range that you would modify to give the desired effect of charging, and gchargegun will be the actual weapon that charges up - only problem will be trying to get the chargeeffect to sync with the chargegun)

Just some ideas - I have not tried it myself since I'm pretty terrible at doing weapon graphics to get a good charging effect. I'm sure it will work though.

[Angstromicus]

Yes, that would work, but it would not be as effective as my idea, because it would require 2 weapon hard points, instead of 1, plus, since it would require 2 hardpoints, it's possible for that vehicle to pick up a weapon and gain more firepower than it should, etc. etc. etc.


Edit: Not to mention that if the charge glow weapon hardpoint shot harmful bullets, they would harm the ship, if it was the player craft, and, hopefully, if my idea's implemeted, it won't harm the ship if the effect causes damage.

[stinky]

Yeah true, with any workaround there will always be unwanted issues. Lets hope that this may get implemented after all the major issues with 1.3 have been addressed - although this being a minor suggestion.

[Jwk the Hemp Monkey]

Well I am hoping that when ken gets back he can unlock all of these sorts of things. GSh is more to do with AV's and Major bugs. Ken is the man who loves to polish up the game and make it more fun.

[Scout]

""Wave Motion Gun" came up. You can't talk about videogame weapons without referencing Anime at some point... "

uh well, if u related it to another game like... Homeworld2 where you see a small blue energy orb manifest at the end of a ion cannon turret..
or Hoemworld1:catacylsm where the motherships addon seigecannon charges up for a shot, or halo where you charge up a plasma pistol, or the hunters with there custom ai fuelrod gun that also seems to charge up.

[Slaor]

More pretty fx would always be nice (I am a graphic dude after all) but consider the kinds of trouble the AI might have with a weapon that needs a half second charge up... Assault tanks might be able to hit buildings with them but hovertanks would be useless.

A way for the AI to use Mag gun properly would be much more useful, even it was a hack. An AI only flag for minimum Chargetime in the weapon might even simulate it a bit, and if it was enforced for player it'd let you do lots with the whole charging beam/spinning barrel theme. But its still just gravy, there's LOTS of other guns.