86 replies to this topic

[Black Mamba]

MW2 lasers.

Gauss rifle should be similar to the one from the Navy Railgun test, except with a silver/blue spark (flame).

PPC from the MW3 intro OR the 2009 reboot trailer is perfect.

[Odin]

cobrafive, on 31 October 2011 - 04:06 PM, said:

Don't lie to yourself. The color of the three laser types is more important to you then you want to admit.

Haha, how would you know?
Well, err.. actually your right about it
But, I don't care about what color they use, I just got one big wish:





Please -Please!, by all the Love of ***, Don't use the freakin' candy-colors we' ve seen in older Mech games.
Weapon effects, colors and such like, should be on par with the outstanding Mech art we've seen so far, made by flyingdebris.
Simple a necessity.

What older Mech games achieved was great for its time - HAIL! to paingod and all the other devs - your not forgotten!, but PC hardware/software moved on, and so must PC art, period.

Odin out

Edited by Odin, 03 November 2011 - 05:30 AM.

[Creel]

Patriot, on 01 November 2011 - 01:40 PM, said:

Aff TRL, it would be.

But as Aegis states, light temperature(Your car's headlights for example) dictates the color, and temperature means melting power means more armor goes bye-bye

Wavelength =/= temperature.

Damage isn't a question of temperature, but of energy transfer. The laser itself is not hot, but the transfer of energy when it hits something will heat the thing that it hits.

Wavelength determines color, and is largely arbitrary. amount of energy transmitted determines damage, and is completely unrelated to temperature.

[Captain Fabulous]

Here's a suggestion for all of you who are arguing about the science of the whole thing: Build a 30-foot mechanized robot, build the lasers, set up a firing system, and see for yourself.

Then we can argue about science.

Up until then, I make the motion that we opt for the most awesome colors ever.

[Owl Cutter]

Creel, on 03 November 2011 - 06:25 AM, said:

Damage isn't a question of temperature, but of energy transfer.

Quote

Wavelength determines color, and is largely arbitrary. amount of energy transmitted determines damage, and is completely unrelated to temperature.

That's much of what I was trying to say, thank you. The damaging portion might well be an invisible colour, too, with a visible component just for a "tracer."

I really, really think having colour vary by brand name or something rather than size would be optimal; that way players can eventually have whatever colours they prefer on whichever laser sizes they need. I'd also like "frankenmechs" patched up with whatever salvage was available to have mismatched lasers to reflect that, and for high-rollers with lots of money to be using "prestige" models. It could add a lot to immersion.

[Coalbiter]

Captain Fabulous, on 03 November 2011 - 06:52 PM, said:

Here's a suggestion for all of you who are arguing about the science of the whole thing: Build a 30-foot mechanized robot, build the lasers, set up a firing system, and see for yourself.

Then we can argue about science.

Up until then, I make the motion that we opt for the most awesome colors ever.

If they're hemming to the lore of the universe, lasers act like lasers in real life. Really, really powerful lasers that don't melt what they hit - they make it explode. That's how fast the energy transfer of BT lasers has been described by freelancers. The giant robot component is just a vehicle (rimshot) to deliver scifi weapons that are based on actual concepts and function according to how they would function.

[Razor Kotovsky]

ChargerIIC, on 01 November 2011 - 12:14 PM, said:

Three Four words: Custom laser color setting

**** YEAH

[Coalbiter]

Aegis Kleais™, on 04 November 2011 - 10:59 AM, said:

Would you guys rather rely on game lore, or get some solid professional evidence, like requisitioning a professional, say, Bill Nye?

Where do you think most of the game lore comes from? There are some liberties here and there with things that aren't currently explanable (like fusion engines that put out more than they take to keep in operation), but otherwise, it's scifi, as in an attempt to extrapolate future developments through current understanding of science.

[Tsen Shang]

When I fire my large lasers, I want silver unicorns to charge out of the barrels streaming sparkle producing rainbows and exploding into hearts and cinnamon buns when they hit.




You can tell me you wouldn't pay for this.


































But you'd be lying.

[KingCobra]

Having some experiance with weapons textures when we made Mods for SFC=StarfleetCommand-StarfleetCommand3 the stable colors are just fine red,blue,green its the weapons muzzle flare,the graduent differences between light and dark textures,the glare,the inner contents of the laser,energy weapon streams that make them awesome.Like sparkeling particles inside a PPC steam or a spiral inside a balistic round animation.It all boils down to detail in visual animations & sound.I say sound becouse a weapon must look and sound real and visualy beautiful to attain that awe inspiring aspect that you want to see over and over again.

[Captain Fabulous]

Tsen Shang, on 04 November 2011 - 11:15 AM, said:

When I fire my large lasers, I want silver unicorns to charge out of the barrels streaming sparkle producing rainbows and exploding into hearts and cinnamon buns when they hit.




You can tell me you wouldn't pay for this.


































But you'd be lying.

I would buy this in a heartbeat.

[Wraith 1]

Laser color was one of the only things I liked about MW4 lasers, wavelength doesn't have anything to do with the energy output of a laser, but green lasers do have the tactical advantage of being brighter, thus more easily blinding a pilot. I liked that MW4 had different color lasers, but you still had to look at beam sizes to determine what type it actually was.

As for my favorites, PPCs and gauss rifles, PPC looked really good in the trailer, but I'd like it to look just a bit more electrical, maybe some sparks coming off of it IMHO. As for gauss rifles, I liked it best in MW2, where it was actually pretty accurate to real life, real gauss rifles are virtually silent unless they produce a sonic boom, and they don't have a muzzle flash, smoke, or a tracer, making them a lot more stealthy than a normal gun.

[StonedDead]

I like the idea of the PPC cannons looking like lightening bolts. Reminds me of the Electron Flux cannon from Earthsiege, the first mech sim I played. Nothing like using the power of lightening from your giant walking robot with guns!

[Zakatak]

Because me r sooper physist dood, I say we should just go by the EM spectrum.

But because I don't actually know them myself...
Large - Purple
Medium - Green
Small - Red
TAG - Blue

No point in going with "scientific fact" on this one. If your lasers phase out of existence at 400m, then you've effectively kicked science to the curb. I suppose we could make them lose power drastically after X distance due to some psuedoscientific reason, like scattering.

Edited by Zakatak, 06 November 2011 - 06:18 PM.

[Rodney28021]

irishwarrior, on 02 November 2011 - 06:49 PM, said:

The lasers being fired by 'Mechs would really not have any color, from what I understand - it's not in the visible spectrum, because visible light isn't going to burn through anything. The impression I got is that the color seen by the pilots is like a present-day tracer round - it lets you see where your shot is going, and how to correct if you're missing. Going with that theory, I almost wonder if the Devs could go with House colors for your lasers, to make it easier to differentiate friend from foe in combat - if you're Kurita and you see someone firing red lasers, you'd know they were on your side. Same with gold for Davion, blue for Steiner, purple for Marik, and green for Liao. Not sure how that idea would work with the Free Rasalhague Republic, though, since they share blue with Steiner...

Yeah, damage causing lasers in Real life are virtually invisible since they are of the Infrared wavelength. I think all mechs on the same team should be firing lasers of the same color either Red or Green. The color is provided by a laser sight showing where the infrared beam are hiting. PPCs should be thick whitish electrical beam. Gauss rifle should be a swirly contrail with sonic boom. Autocannon should have tracers and smoke trails.

Edited by Rodney28021, 05 June 2012 - 01:00 PM.

[UncleKulikov]

I want to be able to purchase custom lenses to alter how the lasers look on my system. I don't like green medium lasers for example.

[CeeKay Boques]

The Color of Lasers, with Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise and Paul Newman right? Love that movie.

Edited by Technoviking, 05 June 2012 - 01:09 PM.

[TKG]

Technically combat-grade lasers dont have any color it's kind of stupid in a tactical situation to show the enemy where your firing from by way of fancy green laserpointer of death or whatever color you prefer.

Though for battletech the idea of a differing color per laser size is a bit much, a good pilot can tell by beam diameter as the size of the laser beam effect was very different in size. I do agree that for the sake of game play between technology bases there might need to be a difference ie clan tech versus IS tech but otherwise it's just uneeded fluff.

[Kobold]

Jump to 1:35 in the Assault video to see an excellent ( ) view of a Catapult K2 firing its PPCs.

[Kosomok]

In reality, the laser beams should not be visible, period. In fact, nothing other than missiles should really be visible.. the cannon projectiles and gauss projectiles simply move too fast to be meaningfully visible, especially at the short ranges we are dealing with in the game.

PPC would also be too fast to really see, other than, perhaps, a trail of ionized air that followed the path of the shot.

Since this IS a game, you need things to see that spice it up--I don't really care what colors they are (my vote is for user selected colors) as I believe it would be standard practice (if the beams were visible) to use a variety of colors for shooter ID purposes (tracer) and to mask exactly what type of laser you are shooting.

There really shouldn't be any meaningful range limitation on lasers, either (meaning that you are essentially instantaneous LOS weapons). The range limitation comes from the beam spreading over distance or the energy being absorbed in the medium between source and target. Short, medium and large should all have the same range, just delivering less/more energy.

There are a lot of problems with the technology presented in BT (mostly WRT to how to simulate it and the actual tactical employment)--but that is neither here nor there. Blowing stuff up in a giant robot is fun