Player Features and Ideas Discussion

How do you leave a vapor trail in empty space?
I mean its not using a reaction drive nor is it traveling past .7C to agitate stellar hydrogen to luminescent energies

Yeah and i'd like my machariel to have some more awesome physics effects...

Also hey Baboly!

Simple, require that everyone be twitch streaming their actions while in your fleet and have a separate projector to watch that all their weapons are being used properly.

Simulated parts of our minds desperately seeking to postpone psychosis following the realization of how many people we have killed, how many times they have died. Why do you think its only the unhinged eggers that play with the sound on?

I approve. Perhaps the rounds wouldn't leave a vapour trail such as seen here on Earth or at Halo's sniper rifles, but some things would probably happen:

- Heated up particles of smoke following the same trajectory as the round would probably be briefly visible because of their temperature, providing at least some resemblance of a trail (although one that follows the round instead of remaining stationary), as well a something very similar to the current EVE's "puff" around the cannon muzzle.

- The round itself is at a high temperature on its rear end because of the explosion. That probably makes it glow enough for us to briefly see it rocket towards the target. Also, on Evelopedia there's some lore [can't find it now] stating these projectiles are pre-heated before being shot -which could be enough for it to glow even more- as well as self-propelled (the round itself has a small rocket engine, apart from the cartridge's own explosive).

At the end, following these tips, the most realistic and still visually appealing solution could be to keep the muzzle "poof" (perhaps make it a bit more bright or wide), keep the slight vapout trail, and add some red-hot effect to the projectile itself, making it more visible. And, give them a good, big explosion effect on impact, with additional effects related to the type of warhead fired (titanium sabot -> kinetic missile-like, EMP -> EM missile-like...).

Use to while it wasnt a trail, you would see the artillary round travel as a streak of light (watch clear skies) thats the old turrent graphics. now their just little puffs of smoke.

OP's ship needs more autocannons. The effect on those fits better.

That being said, anything to make Projectile weapons look and feel more impressive gets a +1 from me.

I would add to this idea with a few more graphical tweaks.

For each weapon type it breaks down into two categories, each with their own rate of fire. I would have a constant fire effect on all rapid fire types, and a staggered effect on weapon groups for the long range types. These would be solely visual effects - weapon groups would still calculate damage as a group.

I would also add visual representation of why you miss to both types. I'll use autocannons for an example. Fire would visually spray in a cone depicting falloff, and that cone would move only as fast as the tracking would allow. This would allow instant visual feedback as to why you're not hitting your target.

The same visual mechanics would apply to long guns (arty, rails, beams) but would be harder to see due to RoF.