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Visual effect suggestion: Group weapons into single firing animation
angrytarg
Member Posts: 11,001 Arc User
During an CCA run I noticed that my called in fleet support Typhoon only uses a single beam firing animation fore and aft, but deals, at least according to the yellow numbers, four times the damage of a single hit, which basically means that all weapons are "grouped" to fire as one.
My suggestion is simple: The ability to visually group weapons of the same type into one animation. In Star Trek ships rarely (I know they also did it, but as I said, it was more often the opposite case) fired more than a single (often the main) weapon. I personally would like to see my ships fire a single beam than having beams pop all over the ship, especially on those which have launch state weapon hardpoints that don't make much sense.
Different damage types could be grouped to fire a single multi-colored beam, like the remodulating phaser effect in the remastered TNG episode "Best of Both Worlds".
My suggestion is simple: The ability to visually group weapons of the same type into one animation. In Star Trek ships rarely (I know they also did it, but as I said, it was more often the opposite case) fired more than a single (often the main) weapon. I personally would like to see my ships fire a single beam than having beams pop all over the ship, especially on those which have launch state weapon hardpoints that don't make much sense.
Different damage types could be grouped to fire a single multi-colored beam, like the remodulating phaser effect in the remastered TNG episode "Best of Both Worlds".
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
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Yes to all. Damage could still be applied the exact same way and the 'miss' animation could only be used in the unlikely event that you miss with all of your forward slotted energy weapons.
The bigger problem might be the asynchronous way that weapons actually go off. They don't actually fire simultaneously, even when you mash that spacebar there is a small, less than second, delay for the weapons going off. As skullulfr suggests a single persistent beam with a quick pulse effect for the launch of every beam may be feasible. But since the OP is asking for conformance with the visual effect of the show, it wouldn't be a perfect solution.
Far better would have been for them to do the weapon system differently from the get go, put one energy weapon fore and aft for every ship, and then put 'weapon enhancement slots' which increase the weapons power. Given that nobody ever fires a single energy weapon in this game, but instead uses some variant of blasting away with all of them at the same time, it would simplify combat calculations and graphics across the board. Only downside would be the loss of the cannon/dual beam bank build.
Pretty sure it actually only has one fore and aft beam, and a very, very high Energy Weapons skill. Many NPCs have few weapons with massively inflated damage.
It'd be neat to see that kind of effect considered on a ship to ship basis though. Particularly on ships with few obvious arrays, like the Galaxy's fore strip. Though IMO several of the appearance problems are caused by Cryptic's tendency to bunch all the firing points for beams into boring tight clusters, especially on newer ships...
If I am not mistaken and the fleet support does deal 4x damage on hit (I have to verify that in a single player mission to be sure) then they solved all those problems already. But even if not, the calculations don't change and "missing" could only visually be displayed if all weapons miss, as jembot stated. Critical damage isn't displayed differently from a regular hit. Keep in mind, it would only be a visual effect, nothing in terms of calculations and gameplay would change. On hit of your weapon you'd see four damage numbers rise above the target, displaying miss, regular hit or critical hit and the values.
I like that, but I'm afraid it is far too late for suggestions like that
I will verify this, it is possible that I mistook some numbers for something else. But it could solve visual oddities like that
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Also, if you use a rainbow ship, will the unique beam be a rainbow beam ? While awesome, that would not be trek much.
And if you mix various weapons animations, for example Vaadwaur beams and regular beam, which animation will you use ?
I think there are too many problems with this suggestion.
Use the animation of the weapon in the first slot. Both of your problems resolved.
I have no idea about how to technically implement it, but in theory I don't see how any of those points is a problem.
I already replied to ramkota's points, as have others. If you use a rainbow ship I would love to see the rainbow beam. The canon beam I was refering two is two coloured, no problem making a four coloured one. Having ships fire eight beam broadsides isn't trek either which makes the point kinda moot
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