94 replies to this topic

[S3dition]

Black Mamba, on 05 November 2011 - 04:56 AM, said:

This distortion you speak of could prove useful. Say after the projectile is launched, the trail could leave an awake of distorted ripples or "rings." There will be no color to it except that it just merely distorts the background. For example, check the video S3dition posted. At the 0:06-0:07 mark (pause it), you can see the blue trail which leaves to the heat distorting the background.

That "bluish ring" is an envelope of plasma created by the high voltage current running through super heated air. So is most of the fireball that follows. I assume the blue ring would disappear a short time after leaving the barrel, but the only declassified tests take place at less than 10 meters.

[minobu tetsuharu]

I'm more concerned with how the sound and impact a body. Mechcommander had the best version of the Gauss Rifle sound hands down. No other game comes close and even their some improvements possibly could be made.

[GreenHell]

I agree that the Gauss rifle should have a nice crack to it, from the sonic boom. I read somewhere that the Gauss rounds travel at mach 4 to 5. Don't quote me on it... Anyways, I think it should have a nice silvery blur. Nothing extravagant like in previous games. (the MW4 corkscrew gun comes to mind T_T I hated that thing...)
Having a nice burst of armor flying off the enemy mech should be the biggest indicator of the Gauss' presence. It is a large caliber weapon after all. It should have a meaty feel to it. It might not have the raw damage potential of the biggest AC's, but it is still a powerful gun.

[Tsen Shang]

Gauss should look a lot like this I think.

[Agent Cooper]

I believe the whole blue spiral rings thing came thanx to that horrible Schwarzenegger movie Eraser. Those hand held rail guns feature that very effect.

[CaveMan]

A bright white flash at the muzzle, like a flashbulb going off. The actual projectile should leave a thin trail of smoke from the burning nickel it leaves behind, but no showy plasma *****. When it impacts, there should be a massive cloud of dust and debris.

[DoubleD]

Stylized version of both Mechwarriors 4 and Living Legends would be what I found most visually pleasing.

[K Wilson]

According to the Novels, a Victor's Right-arm Gauss rifle (A Poland Model A, IIRC) would fire each slug (125 kilograms of metal) at slightly under mach 3; that's too slow to cause ionization, but still fast enough to create a visible sonic boom, and shatter nearby windows. In this case, I'd have to argue that a modern update of the Mechwarrior 2 gauss rifle would be most accurate to the popular depiction; in an urban area, you'd even have to deal with the shockwave reverberation in buildings for an interesting visual effect.

One thing all the books agree upon regarding the Gauss rifle is that each impact produces ~tremendous~ amounts of torque; a shot with a Gauss that hits an enemy medium 'mech in the shoulder would probably wrench the mech's torso around from the kinetic dump, and a shot to the thigh would literally make it skip a step and possibly stumble.

As for the sound, again looking through the novels, the most popular depiction is a loud 'Chirp' of the magnetic coils cycling, followed by the supersonic 'BOOOOOOOOOM' of the slug breaking the sound barrier. Just my 2 bits.

[VYCanis]

i'd love to see the gauss rifle be a nearly instant hit weapon to actually, you know, convey that it is in fact a hypersonic projectile you are firing.

Balance-wise this could be handled by having a short delay between trigger pull and firing

The firing effect i think should be a bright electric flash at the muzzle, a bright silvery streak of the projectile, and a few subtle vapor rings dissipating off the projectile path, (assuming its in an atmosphere.) and a powerful nasty impact that sounds like a plane crash..

If its in a vacuum, i'd rather not see any trail element

[Amechwarrior]

VYCanis, on 05 November 2011 - 01:32 PM, said:

i'd love to see the gauss rifle be a nearly instant hit weapon to actually, you know, convey that it is in fact a hypersonic projectile you are firing.

Balance-wise this could be handled by having a short delay between trigger pull and firing

I think that is a great idea, it preserves both having to lead the target and the speed of the slug. You could even write it up as "coils charging" and give it sound effects of the charge right before it fires.

[Neozero]

Traveling at supersonic speeds creates massive amounts of heat and given atmospheric conditions it would not be uncommon to see "rings" form as the projectile passed out of the barrel and to its target. This all has to do with the humidity at the time when the round was fired.

To the fact that yes when traveling that fast is its very much possible to ignite the air around, infront, or behind the traveling object. As the round is traversing the atmosphere towards its intended target it both causes rapid compression and expansion which leads to spontaneous combustion of the air around the object. SuperSonic aircraft avoid this issue by making the craft as aerodynamic as possible with sharp lines and smooth edges that aid in spreading the pressure and heat evenly over the surface of the craft. This is why rockets and the space shuttle burned up on reentry. The angles and lines on these vessels are not as sharp and as such they generate a larger amount of heat because of the friction caused by rapid air compression. Not to say our supersonic craft would not burn on on re-entry either as anything that breaks our atmosphere is traveling in excess of 25,000 mph which creates massive amounts of friction.

Having some sort of burning object would be the optimal true to physics render, you could even put rings around the edge of the barrel to simulate the effect of the object entering supersonic speeds as it exits the barrel.

Edited by Neozero, 05 November 2011 - 02:10 PM.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Gauss slugs travel at hypersonic to hypervelocity speeds (Mach 5+/Mach 8.8+).

Quote

I wasn't able to find any descriptions of muzzle flashes or muzzle blast, but some of the art has substantial muzzle flash/blast - to the point where I would expect it to shatter windows and pick up dust in a substantial radius around the rifle. Here's an example of the art I speak of:

I'm inclined to say that the "muzzle blast" you're refering to is more of a side-effect of the air-displacement caused by the slug leaving the barrel at hypersonic/hypervelocity speeds.

Quote

Finally, MWLL seems to have changed the blue spiral to blue rings. Again, not exactly sure what the rings are supposed to represent, but at least it looks cooler still.

Maybe another effect of the slug moving at Mach 5+?

[UncleKulikov]

I'd like some kind of beam, similar to the beam rifle from Halo 2 and 3.

[CCISolitude]

Given that the Gauss round is a solid slug, no propellant etc, I'm not sure it should have a trail at all.

Yes, trails are pretty, but from the tactical stand point, an EM flash at the discharge point is one thing, but the rest of the round should be visually silent as it were.

Some sort of shimmer in the air though, (as previously suggested, and given modern hardware, not a difficult thing to do) that idea makes the most sense.

[Phades]

UncleKulikov, on 05 November 2011 - 02:38 PM, said:

I'd like some kind of beam, similar to the beam rifle from Halo 2 and 3.

It is not a beam weapon.

An update of MW2 is probably the most likely choice for the projectile with perhaps a very subtle ripple effect following it. Nothing too flashy though. The projectile should have a different look and feel compared to the low end ac/2s and 5s for sure in projectile size.

The cannon its self should be something rather imposing though. Probably along the lines of a 10, but thicker and perhaps slightly longer.

[Pointman1]

I hate the way the gauss shot looks on MW4. The spiral thing is cheesy. MW2 got it as accurately as it should be. It literaly just fires a silver metalic round.

[azov]

I actually think that piranha already has a good model for the gauss rifle. If you look at the Duke Nukem rail gun, it creates a "shockwave" type appearance in the air. I would get rid of the red streak though.

[Hayden]

I vote for a fast moving metal slug (not as large as the one in MW2, I think that one was a bit out-sized) moving fast enough to ignite the air, so it has a nice flaming trail behind it~

[Nebfer]

K Wilson, on 05 November 2011 - 10:58 AM, said:

According to the Novels, a Victor's Right-arm Gauss rifle (A Poland Model A, IIRC) would fire each slug (125 kilograms of metal) at slightly under mach 3; that's too slow to cause ionization, but still fast enough to create a visible sonic boom, and shatter nearby windows. In this case, I'd have to argue that a modern update of the Mechwarrior 2 gauss rifle would be most accurate to the popular depiction; in an urban area, you'd even have to deal with the shockwave reverberation in buildings for an interesting visual effect.

One thing all the books agree upon regarding the Gauss rifle is that each impact produces ~tremendous~ amounts of torque; a shot with a Gauss that hits an enemy medium 'mech in the shoulder would probably wrench the mech's torso around from the kinetic dump, and a shot to the thigh would literally make it skip a step and possibly stumble.

As for the sound, again looking through the novels, the most popular depiction is a loud 'Chirp' of the magnetic coils cycling, followed by the supersonic 'BOOOOOOOOOM' of the slug breaking the sound barrier. Just my 2 bits.

The Novel Tactics of Duty mentions Hypersonic Gauss Slugs six times, End Game also mentions a similar number, half of them referring to heavy Gauss Rifles.
Though the only time I can recall a velocity of 1km/s being given is in Double blind with a Caesar (the brand is the same though Poland model A).

[zverofaust]

I'd like to see it have an effect similar to this:

The muzzle flash would be a puff of vaporizing air, with the projectile itself having a vapor cone.

A trail, especially like the one in one of the videos, would look too much like a missile IMHO. It is important that different weapons have noticeably different effects. AC's would have a standard conventional tracer round effect, missiles have the trail of flame and smoke, lasers as a beam of light... more interested in what PPC's would look like!