This client-side effect mod serves two purposes. One is to make all the vanilla effects - which are sometimes a bit hard to see - really bright and colorful. I also want it to be easy to determine what is shooting you if all you can see is the projectile trails. The result is a mod that changes all ballistic weapons to have brighter, more lasery, more pewy effects. This mod is for PA:Titans. It doesn't completely break if you use it for classic, but you may get some inconsistencies. You can get the classic version here. Here is a bit of a look at what the mod does, details follow: (Note that this video is not entirely up to date, but it is close enough) Color is used to signify damage/threat. Damage levels are arranged as follows: red < orange < green < blue < violet Please note that this is only a guide, and although it is usually true that a unit with a red projectile will do less damage than one with a green one, colors are used more to make unit projectiles unique and easy to identify. The hope is that with a bit of practice you will always know what units are firing at a glance. The following is a list of all the affected units: Commanders: All three commander weapon variants get a special effect. Bots: Dox Grenadier Slammer Sniper Vehicles: Bolo Drifter Inferno Leveler Sheller Air: Kestrel Naval: Piranha Narwhal Orca Torpedoes (all torpedo weapons get this effect) Leviathan Defences: Single, Double & Tripple Laser Turret Pelter Holkins Now on PAMM! Happy laser fights! <3 dom EDIT: I was so tired when I made this I forgot to mention; thanks to all the people who gave feedback and helped shape this mod! You can view that process in the Work In Progress thread here. I am still open to tweaks and such, so let me know what you think.
Change Log: 1.5.3 - 26-04-20 - Updated for build 114218 - Added effect for the Stryker - Added effect for the Strafer - Added effect for the Typhoon drones 1.5.2 - 22/12/18 - Fix typo in muzzle flash effects 1.5.1 - 20/10/18 - Updated for build 112176 1.4.2 - 26/11/16 - Actually updated for compatibility to the Legion mod. 1.4.0 - 16/11/16 - Updated for compatibility to the Legion mod. - All weapon effects now have a strategic dots that appear when zoomed out. 1.2.4 - 09/1/16 - Updated for build 89755 - Bolo renamed to Ant 1.2.0 - 21/10/15 Kestrel: - Added sparks to muzzle flash Dox: - Added sparks and tweaked muzzle flash color Slammer: - Added sparks to muzzle flash - Made muzzle flash slightly smaller Ant: - Fix side lights - Added sparks to muzzle flash - Shorten projectile trail a bit Drifter: - Added sparks to muzzle flash Leveler: - Added muzzle sparks Sheller: - Tweak projectile trail to have a orange-red tinge as a secondary color - Add smoke skirt to weapon fire event - Added sparks to muzzle flash Ares: - Added effect for main cannon (muzzle flash, bullet trail, explosion) - Side cannon effect (muzzle, bullet trail, and explosion (a bit simplistic at the moment)) - Hover effect is now consistent with other hover units (no longer team colored, neon blue color instead) Kaiju: - Added sparks to muzzle flash effect for main and side cannons - Slightly increase length of the main cannon projectile trail Narwhal: - Added sparks to muzzle flash - Muzzle flash slightly smaller Orca: - Added sparks - Projectile trail is slightly shorter Pirahna: - A bit of sparks to muzzle flash Leviathan: - Sparks and smoke added to the muzzle flash - Projectile hit effect radius reduced by a small amount Stingray: - Missile trail slightly shorter Holkins && Pelter: - Added muzzle particles with smoke and sparks Catapult: - Tweaked muzzle smoke puff to be pink to match the tactical missile smoke puff to be pink to match the tactical missile 1.1.6 - 5/9/15 - Added effects for the Kaiju (t2 hover ship) - AA missile trails are now a smidge longer (the intent is to increase visibility a bit) - Tactical Missiles launched by Bluehawk, Stinger, Kraken, Catapult, and Hornet have been updated. (they are now pink (or blue) to reflect damage) 1.1.5 - 24/8/15 - Added effect for drifter - This mod is now for PA:Titans, PA:Classic version 1.1.2 - 20/8/15 - Small fix for sniper bot effect to be compatible with both PA and PA:T - Fix hit effect as well 1.1.0 - 01/8/15 - Updated for build 86422 (TITANS build) - Unit names updated to match new localisation format - Selection boxes(circles) fixed to be the same size as vanilla 1.0.3 - 01/8/15 - Updated for build 85138 (asteroids build) - Dox projectile trail effect, tweak color to be a bit more red 1.0.2 - 30/7/15 - Naval trails has been updated to play nice with this mod! 1.0.2 - 26/7/15 Bolo: - Trail is a bit smaller Pelter: - Trail has a more blue accent color - Middle trail is thinner Sniper: - Trail is less red than it was before - Muzzle flash is larger and more prominent - Added recharge effect 1.0.1 - 14/7/15 - Increase priority so that XPlosion and CPlosion don't override my effects. (Note that this will make Naval Trails not work for some boats fixed)
so managed to play a bit with it ( until disconnect -_-) so personaly i am just not a fan of the green shellcannon effects but prefer green color rather for beams or plasmacannons t1 tank projectiles are too big dox, grenadiers and infernos look pretty good as well as orcas so far ... will test more later when i get to it ... one suggestion since you work on commanders can you also change the ubercannon effect from the commander and vanguard differentiating them? i like the commander weapon effects from the video
Yes, but only the muzzle flash. So the weapon trails and hits would still be okay, but you will see the vanilla muzzle flash instead.
Hi @MrTBSC, I'm not sure what you mean of the green shellcannon? Is that the pelter? I think I actually might make them a smidge smaller, I have a similar feeling. Thanks! I will think about it. I noticed you also commented on my youtube videos, so I will summarise those comments here: Pelter: maintrail should be a bit thinner imo I concur, but the change will probably be small and harder to notice Holkins: yeeaaaaapp THAT looks like pain xD Gunship and Dox: reminds me a bit of the defiant cannon effect from star trek deep space nine Umm, don't know that show sorry xD Leviathan: YAY GAUSSRINGS \ ^_^ / GAUSSRINGS!!! Piranha: uh wow that looks actualy pretty badass thx Sniper: hmmm ... something is missing here .. but not sure what ... I am not sure either. *shrugs* something may come to mind later I guess. Let me know if you think about anything. Narwhal: personaly not quite satisfied with this one ... but still good .. Anything particular that you don't like about it? I put a bit less effort in this one than I have the others. Is it the fact that it is green? xD Bolo: yea not a fan of the green coloring and the shoots are just too big ... Unfortunately, I realllly like the green xD, but I can make it a bit smaller, so I will give that a go. Orca: yupp ... hit the nail with that one Thanks! The video version is a bit outdated, I hope you like the in-game ones even more!
for the sniper bots it might be interesting to make the muzzle flash a bit over the top to compensate for the simple beam (which is nessesary to be simple) Maybe a gauss ring with a bigger flash so that it shows that it is firing a very high velocity protectile
+1. Also due to the slow rate of fire, is it potentially possible to have a *build up* effect for the sniper (so for a couple of seconds before the shot actually fires a glow accumulates around the gun to show a large energy build up)? It might not be possible but just a thought.
Well, there is no about-to-fire event, just the fired event. So I can only do some flashy charge-down cycle at the end.
To be honest that could work as well, especially as you can have long life particles now). It would mean that the 'charging' effect only occurs after the first shot (although I doubt anyone would notice). I guess what you'd have to do is using the 'fired' event, create a subtle glow that grows over time until the gun fires again- it would give the impression it's charging up (even though it's technically a post fire effect)?
I can cheat, by making a charge effect that lasts four seconds. That way it will look good when the unit is firing as often as it can. But that will look odd when the unit is firing only some of the time.
why would it look odd? if the animation stops at 4 seconds tan when the last shot is fired the anim will still stop after 4 seconds. leaving the sniper bot without particles but all charged up. It's a matter of perspective how you look at it It charges up before firing, but does it have to be fired right away? or can the sniper bot charge up, hold the charge and release it at will. Think a bit about lore in regards to the units. How do they work. what machinery and mechanisms do units use. It will make comming up with effects and how they should look a bit easier
Yeah @dom314 I think that could work well, if you have time any chance to test it out? Also didn't Uber just add the 'infinite' particle lifetime option by setting the time to -1? Could you create a particle effect that is permanent until cleared (with the 'clear particle' option being at the start of the firing effect)? That way the sniper would walk around with it's weapon primed and ready to fire when nothing is in range which could look nice
That's just it, there is no way to use another event to clear the particle, so if I used the infinite lifetime emitter thingy it would just stack on the more a bot fired. What I can do however is a charge effect that right before the end seems to go 'silent' before shooting. Kinda like a bomb that does an implode, pauses for dramatic effect, and then explodes again.
Ah nice, that should work Sounds like a couple more functions could be nice though... @bgolus, @jables any chance of a pre fire effect trigger and possibly a 'clear effect' function for the particle system to accompany the nice new infinite particle option?
Effects spawned via the events are fire and forget; they don't really know what they are after they've been created. Effects spawned via the fx_offsets are tracked and enabled / disabled by the state they are hooked to. That plus killOnDeactivate would let you use infinite particle lifespans. However, there's no pre-fire state to hook to that the client knows of. Also, infinite lifespans crash beams right now ... and infinite lifespans aren't actually infinite, they just last for a few billion years.
This is totally fine, since all systems storing time as 32 bit integer may need a reboot before Tuesday, 19 January 2038.
Well we're proposing creating a particle effect for the gun muzzle that builds up and stays put until the gun fires, so the lifetime particle wouldn't be applied to the beam effect, so does that mean it should work?
Muzzle flashes are events, so they'd just stack up and there's no state to hook to for fx_offset related to weapons firing to fake "charging". It's plausible if the weapon used ammo (the blue bar), but the sniper does not, and there's not currently anything setup on the effects system to hook to that.
