13 replies to this topic

[ExAstra]

At the moment, the only way you, friendlies, or enemies can tell you're using a heavy lasers vs a normal laser is through an audio cue (the laser has a different sound when fired). However, in the thick of combat with missiles hitting your face and the cover in front of you, autocannons plinking into the assault next to you, and various other sounds (plus people's music which may drown out certain sounds) the audio cues are not sufficient to differentiate the weapons from normal lasers.

Whether heavy lasers are brighter or darker, or have some sort of modified effect when fired (some sort of beam fluctuation?) it would be preferable to them literally being copy/pasted versions of normal lasers.

A change to the visuals would also help identify what types of lasers are being used at a glance during spectating, rather than having to specifically look up that player's loadout.

[naterist]

i would like to second this.

[Villain Panda]

Maybe a spiral laser thingy?

[ExAstra]

Villain Panda, on 29 June 2017 - 12:47 PM, said:

Maybe a spiral laser thingy?

Yeah, I was thinking along similar lines. Just, maybe a slightly less pronounced spiral-y thing.

[Nesutizale]

How about Kylo Rens Lightsaber effect from StarWars?

[StormFrog]

It's pretty easy to visually tell when someone is using heavy lasers. If the lasers last long enough for you to twist off over a third of their damage then they're heavy lasers.

[Virlutris]

It's a neat idea, but nah. (And I hate myself for saying it, because first reaction was "Hey, yeah!")

Heavy Lasers are modificatiins of standard lasers, just the opposite of the ER lasers. One pumps up the range, the other pumps up the damage.

Pulses are different specifically because they fire off that burst of pulses during the burn. It was special techno-plausi-babble to explain the different specs. Different visuals make sense for them because they're described doing something different when firing to have the described effect.

When the lore wrote in Star Adder's new heavy laser tech, there was no such hand-waving (of which I'm aware, anyway). They just said: let's pump up the damage at the expense of heat. Look at the rage increments on it. It's standard base tech standard laser ranges, lots more damage, lots more heat.

"We need moar damage! Give it moar power! Damn the heat, make it hit 77.5% harder! BECAUSE REASONS!!1!"

It's in the pew pew family, not the wub family. Same visuals should apply (even if new visuals would be wicked cool).

[davoodoo]

small crimson red
medium brown
large purple

[Top Leliel]

davoodoo, on 29 June 2017 - 02:51 PM, said:

small crimson red
medium brown
large purple

I would suggest the opposite:

small bright pink
medium sun yellow
large extremely bright cyan

Have them all look "white-hot" compared to the ER lasers, burning brighter and lighter to show they involve near-uncontrollable amounts of heat for their size.

[Kaptain]

Agreed. Don't care what it is but it need something.

[davoodoo]

Top Leliel, on 29 June 2017 - 02:56 PM, said:

I would suggest the opposite:

small bright pink
medium sun yellow
large extremely bright cyan

Have them all look "white-hot" compared to the ER lasers, burning brighter and lighter to show they involve near-uncontrollable amounts of heat for their size.

Which would be a problem depending on gamma and brightness settings.

[ExAstra]

Virlutris, on 29 June 2017 - 02:35 PM, said:

It's a neat idea, but nah. (And I hate myself for saying it, because first reaction was "Hey, yeah!")

Heavy Lasers are modificatiins of standard lasers, just the opposite of the ER lasers. One pumps up the range, the other pumps up the damage.

Pulses are different specifically because they fire off that burst of pulses during the burn. It was special techno-plausi-babble to explain the different specs. Different visuals make sense for them because they're described doing something different when firing to have the described effect.

When the lore wrote in Star Adder's new heavy laser tech, there was no such hand-waving (of which I'm aware, anyway). They just said: let's pump up the damage at the expense of heat. Look at the rage increments on it. It's standard base tech standard laser ranges, lots more damage, lots more heat.

"We need moar damage! Give it moar power! Damn the heat, make it hit 77.5% harder! BECAUSE REASONS!!1!"

It's in the pew pew family, not the wub family. Same visuals should apply (even if new visuals would be wicked cool).

I'm not saying it should pulse. I'm saying there should be some way to tell that it's not an ER Laser - and it should be a visual indicator. I don't care if it's a different color, if it's brighter or darker than the ER, or if they give it some kind of visual effect, but having it stay the exact same as an ER Laser is not only lame in the fact that "we've waited 4 years and they changed the sound of the new laser but copy/pasted the beam" but also in the fact that nobody can tell the difference without hearing the new cue for it.

Why have heavy lasers look the same as ER? Why not just have clan lasers the same color as IS? It's so you can tell what you're being shot with in an instant, no counting of half a second of burn time while under fire required.

[Virlutris]

The large ERs look just like the large standards on the IS side, because the ERs are just modified standards. There's no visual difference the two (spelling edit), unlike the pulses.

The Heavies aren't anything more than modified regular-beam lasers, boosting the damage instead of range. Same principle, applied differently.

Same for goes for colors, but stronger. All the mediums on the IS side are the same color green, all the larges the same blue, and smalls the same red. Clan side it's the same cyan for large ERs and pulses, yellow for mediums, magenta for smalls. (BTW, notice that IS uses an RGB scheme, and Clan uses CMY(K)? That's absolutely intentional.)

Why would they change the colors when it's specifically intended to tell you the "size" class (small/medium/large) and tech base? I'm more opposed to unique colors than tweaking the beam art, because each side's "weight class" should continue to share a color.

Unfortunately (because I think new visuals really would be cool, and said so above), their approach is consistent.

If they want to do unique visuals for heavies lasers, I'd like to see ERs in both tech bases get their own "look" as well. Otherwise, I think they're doing just fine because they're taking a perfectly valid and consistent approach by having Clan ERs and heavies shown with the same steady beam. Colors? (Again cool, but ...) Nope, definitely not.

Again, it's not that I don't think it would be cool, it's that I don't think they're doing anything wrong. Folks (not necessarily you) are commonly framing this as some kind of screw up by the devs, when it's really not, and its actually pretty reasonable.

I'm not drinking the dev team Koop Aid, here. I'm sharply opposed to some of the recent big-ticket additions. But this? The devs are fine. Neat if they do it, but fine and perfectly reasonable I'd they don't.

Edited by Virlutris, 29 June 2017 - 04:26 PM.

[ExAstra]

Virlutris, on 29 June 2017 - 04:25 PM, said:

The large ERs look just like the large standards on the IS side, because the ERs are just modified standards. There's no visual difference the two (spelling edit), unlike the pulses.

They are completely different colors dude.

That is a visual identifier.
Misread your post, ignore the above

Keeping them the same color & animation as ER lasers is just a bad decision, imo, as it's not providing as much information to the players as it could be. I'd also like to see the ER lasers on the IS side a slightly different color compared to the original lasers. I haven't used them yet so I don't know if they are the same color or not, and I don't think I've seen anyone use them yet.

And right there is my point. I don't know if I've seen anyone using ER lasers on the IS side yet, because you can't tell if they're ER lasers or standard without checking their loadout after lock.

Edited by ExAstra, 29 June 2017 - 11:29 PM.