Hmm… it’s nice, but it doesn’t feel quite right, somehow. Try this: As the precursor beam reaches the join point, it makes a small round glowing end point. As each precursor beam adds to it, the glowing end point glows brighter and slightly bigger. Once all precursor beams are present there’s a slight delay as the (now large and brightly glowing ball) suddenly releases itself distending forward into a beam that’s significantly more gratuitous than the precursor ones – faster, thicker and brighter. That should burn a pretty good hole through whatever it hits.
I don’t know how it is balanced, but it should require quite a bit of power.. remember the death star was the size of a small moon. And the laser was its primary weapon.
Number 2, definetly. That channeling effect looks a lot cooler. Make it quite powerful but a hidden unlock for doing something amazing in-game, maybe.
Pretty cool effect. It would be interesting if you could get 4, 5, or even more based on how much you want for the ultimate attack, but I think it has a lot of potential. I would like a little better if the focal point had a bit more attention (glowing ball, energy gathering), but otherwise a nice effect.
Looks good. Reminds me of Harvest: Massive Encounter (http://www.oxeyegames.com/harvest/), a TD-style game that allows you to group lasers together. The more lasers you link, the more gratuitous the super-laser becomes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aE6EsDkWqk
I agree with AlexV and Werit that the firing superlaser ought to be much more dramatic than in those videos. Also, how about a super-super laser that is channeled by different vessels into one focus point to sweep across the enemy fleet? As a fleet sized weapon that is?
It looks neat and all, but from a pragmatic angle I have to ask what the point would be. I don’t know anything about the game, aside from what I’ve seen in videos, so perhaps this is obvious to everyone else, but how would this be different from the overall effect of just firing the multiple lasers individually?
It looks cool, but I guess I’m just wondering what your ideas for its role in the game would be. If it IS a very expensive super-weapon, I agree that it needs to be even showier, somehow – maybe more charge-up time and firing less often. If it’s just a cool-looking laser variant (maybe one with extra armor/shield pen), then I think it looks appropriate.
If you want inspiration from some really cool lasers check out this video of Ikuraga. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjgmlzKwkz8&feature=player_embedded# At about 0:15.
addition to last comment: It looked cool from the vid, but we can’t even see the effect it has on the enemy fleet, how much damage it does. perhaps another vid showing damage?
I agree with most of what has been said, I would expect such a weapon to be devastating in effects and appearance, requiring multiple slots to function (maybe even with a range of slots to be used for more or less powerful results) And also if you look at the super-laser scene in the Star Wars movies, it is not only the visual appearance that suggests the magnitude of the weapon but the sounds too, I would say the sounds would be very important to make this weapon appear powerful. I like more the second version also, but something is still off, I don’t know… could be the sounds as I said.
The “final beam” needs to look beefier. Right now it’s three lasers that combine to form a single otherwise-identical laser. I want the combined laser to look gigantic and deadly and evil. And, possibly, not entirely straight. So, make the final beam about twice as side, give it a little bit of fluctuation around the edges to make it look not-quite-controlled, add a brighter node at the intersection point and make it surge slightly when the combined beam fires. And give it its own sound effect, a little beefier and a little more dangerous-sounding.
This needs to be into the game… do NOT miss the chance to implement the death star cannon ;) But I agree, that the animation depends on what the role of the weapon is. It could either be a special kind of laser, that has some nifty side effects or it could be a big and powerful cannon. If it’s a weapon so powerful, that the whole ship needs to be designed AROUND it (which I would SO love! The more modules the more powerful – immense “infrastructure” needed etc.), it needs some bigger impact visually. I would slow the small beams accumulating down even more. Some 1 seconds to fire would be OK. And then, after the beams focus, I’d have a little delay before firing as well. This way, you can get the message “Powerful as hell” across better. I also love the idea of some “wobbeling” in the beam. It’s not a real “laser” anyway, so no need to stay with the reality of beams in that concern ;). Just make the edges a little fuzzy, and let it ark a tiny bit like a lightning. If it’s another form of laser, I still would like the idea of the focus point being a little more visible as well as the laser being a little bigger. But in no way to the extend described before! It’s no fun, if the weapon looks like it could destroy a planet, but only has the extra ability to clean the targets windows to the natural power of burning the colour of the ship… Ôo
beams could concentrate in a turret where there will be a glowing bright flare and then a big beam but idea very good and it would be nice to have it in, even in this form ikaruga video has very nice beam effect and LASER effects which are lacking in current game version They are hardly noticeable at tall
Very nice! I agree with the guy who said to make the final beam thicker, and possibly make the intersection larger and larger as each beam joins. Have you considered an extra module required to make lasers operate in tandem on a ship (and then of course make the superlaser do extra damage)?
definatly add this, just the last beam looks kinda odd, it just goes through the others, make the final lasers not strait edges, and make the junction have some fragments go off at odd angles. definatly add though.
Yeah I agree the final beam definitely should be thicker I think also the final beam should only fire along the axis of the ship not off at an angle, that makes it seems a bit wierd too. #2 is better than #1, but there are times when the initial beams shoot through the ship for example which looks a bit odd. Besides if you’re making a super-weapon it needs some balancing attributes, just don’t forget to leave the thermal exhaust port unshielded ;-)
Cool effect. My main suggestion is that perhaps it should only fire straight. The off-center stuff doesn’t look right. High powered with a limited arc seems a nice balance anyway. My second suggestion, also mentioned above, is maybe three giant glowing points on the hull that build up and then the three beams meeting and then larger beam all snap on at once.
Should there be a heavy version where the beams fire without any charge but the final beam gets more powerful after time goes by. The ship stays still and the beam uses more energy until ether max energy is reached and the ship is disabled for a couple of seconds or a preset time is reached. Afterwards, the weapon needs to be recalibrated and cannot fire for some time. Could this “charge” method work on other weapons like energy missles? The beams converge on one point and an energy sphere forms at that point. After a initial charge, the missle can fire. It is very hard to fire down because of the intensity of the energy makes it hard to break apart. you can also put down a down time for this. This looks like its going to be a great game and im going to buy it as soon as it comes out, but don’t rush.
I agree that you shouldn’t miss the opportunity to have a death-star-type beam. Perhaps one way it can be powerful yet balanced is to make the capital ship stop moving when the superlaser is firing. Videogame / movie physics yes… but this is gratuitous not realistic. ;)
Cant wait for this weapon to be available :) For my 2 cents – as mentioned above, thicker main beam (more nodes = thicker and more powerful beam) – try a double a helix around the main beam – when each individual node prepares to fire, particles gather at the turret . . – at the point of impact, small beams deflect of in random directions . . (hopefully these suggestions don’t require gratuitous amounts of coding) Keep up the good work
The strength of such a small team is that it’s able to quickly incorporate cool stuff like this. These are looking good Cliff…
More thoughts: with this kind of graphic, perhaps a good to do it would be to allow the player to select which of his ship’s beams are to fire in this ‘over-charged / combination fire / cascading / array / xxxx /’ mode. The beams that are selected to fire in this mode have their frequency of fire reduced, do the same damage as they normally would (if they were to fire normally over the same amount of time), but gain an additional bonus to cause automatic destruction of one (or more) ships’ systems.
Sry, that last line should read ‘bonus chance’ not bonus. I imagine something like %20 would be good. Or maybe even an additional %1 chance of a critical strike that causes a ship to automatically explode. That might be too much randomness for your design though; as so far , the battle outcomes seems almost wholly dependent on player strategy.