Laser or bullets?

That's more so a failure of the associated Hit and Emmiter FX IMO than with the Idea of Beams.

Plus I don't think anyone wants just one or the other, but a mix as appropriate, as a weapon Beams bring a lot of Unique traits that other weapons don't naturally share.

Mike

I agree with OP,would be good to see some visual indication of the Enemy's Firepower

We originally went with "star trek" lasers (beams) for many of our units, but found we had to change them to "star wars" style (bolts) because of planet curvature. On even average sized planets two Ants had to get significantly closer to each other than seemed necessary to actually hit because they are firing in to the ground.



Some of the taller structures, like the laser defense towers, use straight firing laser bolts (ie: they fly straight w/o gravity) and we certainly plan on adding laser beam style effects at some point in the future. For the moment it's one of the missing features of our effects system.

edit: Also, yes, most (all?) effects are still temporary.

As expected pretty much, It'll be interesting to see how you around the System, maybe this calls for some taller units?

Mike

It could be fun to have a system where units like that are more useful on larger planets, but that could be stretching it.

I just think trying to balance around planet size, when nothing else or little else is also done to the same standards would just be too much of an outlier compared to everything else.

Sure at some point, even if you make a Tall unit or Tower there will come a planet size where it just doesn't work but with a good design and balance it should be minimized and/or avoided entirely simply due to the nature for the unit.

For example a tall turret that has a beam that has long range and a low but constant DPS is good because of it's range so it's naturally not favorable on a smaller planet to begin with.

Obviously this is all off the top of my head so don't read too much into it.

Mike

Yeah.

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dude laserbeams that would go around the planet would be awesome! And actually it would be the logical aproach.
And if tanks would have laserbeams, because of theire short range you wouldnt really see they would go around instead of straight...

A curved beam?



This isn't a new concept, at least not when it comes to anime, robots or mecha.
If Uber wanted to implement a curved beam-ish weapon, it could be a charged particle accelerator similar to a BattleTech PPC.
Since it doesn't travel at the speed of light, it could be like a concentrated part in front, and a trailer part behind similar to a comet.

And physics-wise, it doesn't matter how much something weighs, if it is subject to gravity, it hits the floor at the same time. Meaning, a slow charged particle beam would also curve like a tank slug.

So instead of just bullets, missiles and lasers, you can have a 4th category of charged beam.
Which graphically is different than bullets, but would behave the same (or at least operate within the same equation with a different Velocity variable).

Uber, you're welcome.

As you've implied, I think once we get beyond a certain point we have to stop calling it a laser. A PPC or plasma weapon that shoots a "bolt" of projected energy may have a similar graphical effect to a laser, but the fluff would be slightly different for those that cared to dig into it. To steal another possible representation from MWO, this mech is shooting a PPC:



As I think about it, for me the "suspension of disbelief" might actually be easier with a "bolt" of projected energy because it won't be quite as obvious that the "bolt" is having to curve to account for the scale mismatch of the planet versus the unit. Since a "true scale" would be too immense, trying to demand "true physics" with some of the weaponry feels disingenuous.

So would a "bolt" of energy be best represented by a symmetrical design (the bolt is like a cylinder of similar dimensions along the length) or would an asymmetrical design (like an elongated teardrop) "feel" better? Or would there be room for both representations?

It is a bit unusual to have direct fire weapons that can't get an angle on their target. But those kinds of limitations are still very useful to have.

For example, the basic AA unit could have long range but fire in a direct line. The planet's curvature makes the weapon useless for long range ground attacks, which is a very desired outcome to limit AA spam against ground. As planets grow in size air tends to gain power, and a direct fire AA would gain utility as it becomes more proficient against ground. They both rise in utility, helping keep each other in check.

Ah, now I remember Z.O.E.'s homing laser. That was pretty.

This picture depict perfectly the problem, and it's nothing to do with beam or bolt weapons.
The problem is far simpler than that, it's obviously the scale of the game that is completely off.

A properly scaled game (=shrinked unit size, focal trick etc, see the scale thread) won't have this problem as the beam weapons's range will be far away from being affected by the planet's curve.

How to see which end is firing and each end is the target?
Easy, make the weapon need a loading time (short, like a few hundreds milliseconds) while it will "glow" a little, showing the weapon is accumulating power before releasing the charge in a instant hitscan flash.
The receiver one is the one who's exploding.

The laser could also display as a bolt, but a very fast bolt, and/or displaying a rapid change of color from bright to dark on the length of the beam while it's fired, like some extremely fast "progression bar", nearly instantaneous like the railgun effect on Quake.
With a few small sparks where the beam hit and pas through some scenery elements like wreckages, small rocks etc...

How about a long-range artillery laser that uses orbital mirrors to direct shots back down to the surface? When you build it, it launches a mirror that can be moved around in the orbital layer, restricted to line of sight with the ground station. The mirror would have a range around it that would define the area on the planet the laser can target. Building additional mirrors would let you replace any lost to anti-orbital weapons, as well as expand the operational area of the laser. Maybe you could even allow shots to reflect between mirrors as well, which would give you a laser with full planetary range, assuming you can protect all the mirrors.

Thanks for the explaination. I already thought about this posibility but i was too lazy to check if the planet curvature was really significant regarding the range of weapons.

So the lazer weapon equipped unit must be tall (as the penetrator was in TA) or really short range (as the basic kabot of the core).

I'm happy to know that uber will improve all the projectile effect.

Good memory of balanced annihilation, look at this annihilator turret

Maybe it could be like a plasma glob with a cool looking tail. Like a comet.

a suggestions maybe?

reducing the scale of units would help alot with this issue (that a lot of curved projectiles arn't exempt from at the moment) as the curvature would be less pronouced in comparison.

how about sum of both? & whatever looks cooler lol

I think unit sizes are good right now. Small enough compared to commanders that there's a noticable difference, but you're not looking for ants on the map to select things when you don't have enough units to move into strategic view.

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/