Something less like :

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And more like :

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Beams! Freespace beams were awesome. I still remember in some of the big battles, with capital ships all over, my insistence as a meager little fighter pilot of focusing fire on the power plants of the major ships tended to result in me wandering into the beam weapons designed to destroy capital ships. I was helping! Sometimes enemy beams, sometimes ally beams killed me. It was humorous and very instantly lethal. My poor little fighter ship.



The slowly moving bolts in the game look so bizarre. Light speed should be perceptually instant, so beams should be instant. That doesn't mean they should be perfectly accurate, but a missed beam shot still looks awesome. Seeing missed bolts drift slowly past is a little weird.

I really agree with the main thrust of this thread: actual BEAMS for beam-type weapons, and maybe some visual differentiation for higher-tech weapons/shields/etc. of the same types.

Just remember guys, Freespace had both 'Pure' beams and 'Bolt' beams

All the work on the current beam weapons have already been done, gfx / stats / balancing with the other weapon types - keep it.



I would like to see actual beam weapons in the game, it's a great idea, but i would rather have a new additional weapon type - not just a visual mod.

basic concept :

rename the existing beam weapons to something like particle weapons.

have a new beam type weapon, using the ideas posted here. ideally use extra branches on the sides of the military tech tree, if not tag it on to existing techs. beams could have a dual role as an offensive weapon and as a counter to missiles - which is a real military tech.

if anyone would like to expand on this please do.

Dubb wrote:
Just remember guys, Freespace had both 'Pure' beams and 'Bolt' beams

Nothing, and I mean, nothing has ever come close to Freespace in this regard.



A few missions, I'm the bad-ass, shooting shit & ruling the roost. My kill ratio is high, I'm getting all the secondary / hidden mission goals, I'm an ace, hot shit, get in line flyboys!



Ok, new mission: hmm, let's go see, gotta help some Capital ship newbies, trololol, guess they need a real pilot...











HOLY





FUCKING





SHIT





THAT





CAPITAL





LASER





BEAM





COVERED





HALF





MY





SCREEN





AND





IS





ROASTING





FIGHTERS





LIKE





A





BUG-ZAPPER











Yeah. Nothing has come close in 20 years of gaming. Modern games just won't even go near this whole "make the player actually feel puny" aspect ~ it's all 'God of War' ubermench crap. Ironically, whilst coding to make sure the player never dies >.>

*bump*



Devs, any comment on this particular topic?



C'mon, you know it would be very, very cool to have beam weapons in Endless Space that look something like this:

I too support beam lasers. They're just better aesthetically. And really, its not hard to make. Some of you guys are being too meek and too humble about this. "Oh devs I know it'd maybe be hard to make so maybe you should concentrate on other things. I understand..." Well I'm a very basic designer and can say its not. Let me tell you why:



1.) This game is an alpha. If there's any time to make these suggestions it's now, not during beta stages.



2.) They're still making races, designing the art to icons, designing hero portraits-- I'm pretty sure if they can do that, making a beam effect would not be complicated.



3.) They don't even have to do much. Just take the current "laser" designs that are fired and code them so their length extend to the range the ships they're targetting are at. You don't even need to make entirely new laser designs. Then instead of an animation showing the laser traveling from the firing ship to the target, just make the beam instantly show up, burn a bit, and then steadily flash out.



4.) Why are any of you concerned about game balance over an aesthetic design? Just because a laser is a beam doesn't mean its instantly hitting and is always firing accurately. Hell, oif that's the case, the kinetics should be always hitting because this is space age technology and ships do combat by slowly maintaining thrust in one predictable direction while broadsiding each other. To be honest, the entire way combat is done is probably unrealistic. So why make beam laser guns have undeniable tracking and accuracy? If the shot's a miss, simply have the laser fire off into empty space. Not seeing a problem here.



Summary: beams are better than palette swapped kinetic tracers. Give us more beams!

ehecatl123 wrote:
I too support beam lasers. They're just better aesthetically. And really, its not hard to make. Some of you guys are being too meek and too humble about this. "Oh devs I know it'd maybe be hard to make so maybe you should concentrate on other things. I understand..." Well I'm a very basic designer and can say its not. Let me tell you why:



1.) This game is an alpha. If there's any time to make these suggestions it's now, not during beta stages.



2.) They're still making races, designing the art to icons, designing hero portraits-- I'm pretty sure if they can do that, making a beam effect would not be complicated.



3.) They don't even have to do much. Just take the current "laser" designs that are fired and code them so their length extend to the range the ships they're targetting are at. You don't even need to make entirely new laser designs. Then instead of an animation showing the laser traveling from the firing ship to the target, just make the beam instantly show up, burn a bit, and then steadily flash out.



4.) Why are any of you concerned about game balance over an aesthetic design? Just because a laser is a beam doesn't mean its instantly hitting and is always firing accurately. Hell, oif that's the case, the kinetics should be always hitting because this is space age technology and ships do combat by slowly maintaining thrust in one predictable direction while broadsiding each other. To be honest, the entire way combat is done is probably unrealistic. So why make beam laser guns have undeniable tracking and accuracy? If the shot's a miss, simply have the laser fire off into empty space. Not seeing a problem here.



Summary: beams are better than palette swapped kinetic tracers. Give us more beams!

Yes, I like to hear thing like that ! Hop beam will occurs in next version

I also support real beam weapons for lasers. Because as it is now they just look like a colored version of the kinetic weapons which is... a little boring. Lets have different things lighting up space.

At the very least the pew pews should travel faster... they are supposedly made of light.

Lasers would probably be nicer looking as beams since the kinetic weapons are already pew-pew.

Nothing wrong with bolt-type energy weapons, just don't call them lasers. With a bit of handwavium, plasma-based projectiles would fit the bill.

No matter how standard fare it is, lasers should be beams. Unless you plan on adding different kinds of lasers; invisible ones that are mostly just heat and explode on impact, beam-type lasers, some sort of torpedo things.



But beams are cool. Totally needed for awesome.

Honestly (and I don't know if it has been said yet but) I would have them look much different, if only for a gameplay stand-point. If i see vast pillars of light coming at my ships in the long-range turn, you bet I'd at least think about defending in the mid-range turn...that is unless mine are much better

I agree the free space lasers look nice. My 2 cents also go to having most energy weapons more beam-like; unless it's an energy weapon which isn't a beam (plasma bolts etc.). Some of the beams also could look like detonation emitters, hence where there is one beam which causes some type of cool looking explosion on enemies.

+1 for the laser light show

I would very much love to see lasers turn into solid lancing beams, tracing their way across a hull, rather than simply look like flying projectiles, which should definitely be reserved for kinetics.

Beam weapons +1.



I remember the joy I had moving from mechwarrior 2 bolts to mechwarrior 3 beams. Joy. And freespace2 was... awesome.

Stretchycheese wrote:
*bump*



Devs, any comment on this particular topic?



C'mon, you know it would be very, very cool to have beam weapons in Endless Space that look something like this:

Just wanted to quote this for a new page. THIS IS WHAT LASERS DO.