116 replies to this topic

[DMurph51]

PPCs are my favorite weapon. which style will be featured in MWO?
Which style would you prefer to see?

"ball" style, a la Mech Assault and this clip from MW2

1:30


MechAssault 2
0:51



or, as the SARNA BT site describes it, in "laser" for?

Quote

PPCs fire a concentrated stream of protons or ions at a target, causing damage through both thermal and kinetic energy

Edited by DMurph51, 12 January 2012 - 04:35 PM.

[Zaius Ex]

What? No poll? =P

I vote for ball w/lightning trail myself. I've always seen it described as "man-made lightning" so I don't see how that could resemble a laser at all. And regular lightning bolts don't make sense physics wise, which kind of narrows the field to ball lightning. Of course I am speaking of physics in a game with giant robots and jumpships and such, so... -shrug-

[Troma Lorane]

id like to see the ppc look from mechwarrior 4 mercs. but the intro for 5 look good to especialy like the showing of the heat on the end of the barrel because the ppc is one of the hottest weps you can use

[DMurph51]

im a fan of the ball style as well. i grew up on MA and MA2 (srsly one of the best pilots in MA2. srs.) (respect the srs tag), and MW2 mercs was the first video game i ever owned, so im quite fond of that style

and perhaps i read the SARNA site wrong, and maybe it's not a laser....

edit.

edited the OP to reflect SARNA's description

Edited by DMurph51, 12 January 2012 - 04:48 PM.

[Sug]

I thought the ppc's in the mechwarrior 5 trailer were nicely done. Maybe a little thinner of a beam, with a more manly sound effect.

[verybad]

The ball lightning style looks ridiculous to me. It's a particle cannon, not a Tesla rave ball shooter. The thing does damage through high speed impact of particles moving at a sizable fraction of C. It should act largely like a laser in terms of use.

Edited by verybad, 12 January 2012 - 04:55 PM.

[Omigir]

I hated Mech Assault as a mechwarrior tittle. Fun to play but a travesty.

The PPC did look good, but then the PPC fire tracked targets.. so im going to have to go ahead and say MW3/4 a bolt like shot. Upgrade the graphics and partical like affects.



Having not played MA in a while, i forgot you had to charge your ppc's too.. oh lord...

Edited by Omigir, 12 January 2012 - 04:59 PM.

[Solis Obscuri]

Zaius Ex, on 12 January 2012 - 04:20 PM, said:

What? No poll? =P I vote for ball w/lightning trail myself. I've always seen it described as "man-made lightning" so I don't see how that could resemble a laser at all. And regular lightning bolts don't make sense physics wise, which kind of narrows the field to ball lightning. Of course I am speaking of physics in a game with giant robots and jumpships and such, so... -shrug-

I like more of a "bolt" style - a streak of glowing particles crackling with electrical discharges, not a floating blueball, and definitely not some kind of laser...

[Liam]

The easiest way to describe PPC is probably:
Laser Induced Plasma Channel (LIPC) ... From the look that would be a straight lightning, with some current pattern
The velocity should be very fast then ... (I think similar look is in MWLL)

Particle beam realization is a bit complicated.

From the sound I loved one from MW3 ...
MW2 PPC lightning ball was maybe done because of the limited hardware ... I don't like this one.

Edited by Liam, 12 January 2012 - 05:02 PM.

[Zaius Ex]

I wouldn't want just a floating ball either. I'm more thinking of MW3 where it was an orb trailing lightning bolts (if memory does not fail me), which is also how they look in the old MW5 trailer to me, at least. I'm fine with actual bolts of lightning too, as long as they look as such and aren't just fuzzy lasers with thundercrack sound effects. lol

[Fyrwulf]

Edited by Fyrwulf, 12 January 2012 - 05:13 PM.

[William Knight]

Fyrwulf, on 12 January 2012 - 05:13 PM, said:

i agree

[Tannhauser Gate]

I think ALL weapons should sound great, look great, and feel powerful. These things are mech-sized weapons which, anywhere else, would be major field weapons with supporting trucks and a dozen men that are deafening and jarring when they fire. Attached to a mech, it should be no different. From the time you pull that trigger you should hear what amounts the firing of major field weapons, from the deafening roar, the screaming travel to the target, to the thunderous impact. Spent shells, if any, should eject rapidly in a hail of loud ringing “brass”. Once fired, the weapons should “exhale” with a hiss as the cooling systems flow after which the reload / recharge mechisms should engage. If you were on the ground standing near that mech, the sound should be utterly overwhelming, the pressure waves of firing should blow out windows, shake foundations, and send smoke and embers for 50 years down range. At least, the pilot should get a major earfull and the mech should feel the recoil.

Dude make it BIG. Don’t give us cute MA weapons. As for PPCs, the ones in the 2009 trailer were better but its time to put some cajones on our weapons.. imo.

Edited by LakeDaemon, 12 January 2012 - 05:35 PM.

[The Madcat]

I'd like to see ether the one from the new MWO trailer or the MW3 version.

[Kenyon Burguess]

just a blue beam with a different trail effect would be great. slow moving balls that track or that can be dodged need not apply.

[Strum Wealh]

Since they're often described in the novels as "cerulean beams/bolts of man-made lightning", I would like PPC salvos to be depicted as such - a visual effect akin to a bolt from a Tesla coil or a salvo from Quake Wars' lightning gun (or even some combination thereof) and a sound effect akin to either the sound of an active Tesla coil or a thunderclap (or even some combination thereof).

Your thoughts?

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Strum Wealh, on 12 January 2012 - 07:09 PM, said:

Since they're often described in the novels as "cerulean beams/bolts of man-made lightning", I would like PPC salvos to be depicted as such - a visual effect akin to a bolt from a Tesla coil or a salvo from Quake Wars' lightning gun (or even some combination thereof) and a sound effect akin to either the sound of an active Tesla coil or a thunderclap (or even some combination thereof).

Your thoughts?

Exactly my thoughts. Similar to the blue "lightning" streaks from MW3, MW4, the 3015 trailer and in MW:LL. However, while the visuals will most likely be quite similar to what they had planned for in the 3015 video, the audio I thought was a bit off. Really, since there is an immense amount of power and energy being released from the cannon, a sharp thundercrack and distinct discharge from the capacitors should follow on top of the familar "shreiking" sound they've made in past games.

Sound is jsut as important as "realistic" visual effects. I don't want a pop gun noise going off when I fire an autocannon.

[Rabbit Blacksun]

i'd have to go with the beam style, not the ball style, considering it stands for PARTICLE projection cannon it sorta makes sense, never seen a group of particles form up in a sphere before.  
Besides ... beam style just looks cooler and with the exception of ball lightning most lightning are solid beams of coherent energy

[Zaius Ex]

If left to their own devices, groups of particles always form a sphere. That's why raindrops, hailstones, planets, stars, comets, old galaxies and many other naturally occuring phenomena are spherical. It's the most efficient shape in nature: maximimum volume for a given surface area. Also, the lighning bolts that we see aren't beams of energy so much as ionized gas turned into plasma by the intense heat and electrical charge passing through the air (which is why ppc's that are bolts of lightning wouldn't work in space, there are no particles to propogate the charge).

Taking all this into account a beam of energy just doens't make sense for a weapon that supposedly dumps a massive accumulated charge stored in capacitors in one go. That doesn't equal beam. The would have spherical head section fromed of the ionized particles excited during the initial capacitor dump and have a tail streaming from it opposite it's direction of travel due to energy being discharged into the atmosphere while in flight a.k.a. a sphere with a lightning tail behind like like they were in MW3 and the 2k9 trailer. You guys may want beam, but that's not what a PPC is based upon the physics behind how they would work.

[Rabbit Blacksun]

hmm must have failed to see the last popular mechanics/science that had particle projectile cannons in it ... not to mention the fact your missing the most important part of this ... its a game ... and it was a question of a persons personal preference ...
now if we are going to realism here ...
you are talking a massive power drain just to build up a charge into the capacitors, not to mention the magnetic shielding required to actually keep the plasma from melting anything around it, then the injection of the metallic particles into the energy matter, and lets not forget my personal favorite heat dissapation from the area of ejection, and since they dont actually keep the heat sinks in the weapon the weapon itself would be a rather nonsensical design to begin with.
Since it is just a game and its a persons preference to the style of energy that is emitted, i am quite happy with a beam.