Late Stage Cosmetic Ideas

from Sins Forums

I know it's really late in the design stages, but I was playing the other night and came up with some ideas that would make Sins much more cosmetically cool.

  1. Moving Parts on Titans - So these things are already really cool and huge and all, but I got the idea from Galactic Civilizations 2 where you could edit the ships so that they had revolving parts. I don't think that would take too much memory and graphic power to have some moving parts. The TEC Loyalist Titan could have the huge "walls" move in closer when it's repair cycle thingy is enabled, like the Titan is hunkering down. The Rebel Titan could have the center cannon revolve after it fires a shot, like it's changing barrels or chambering a new round. The Vasari Titans could have some really cool parts. I see the thin half-disc like one somewhat like the underwater Gungan vehicle in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. The back end of it should revolve. You could do a ton of stuff with this. I just feel like they don't look near as powerful just sitting there not really moving anything. If the cannons actually tracked targets and such, it would be way cooler, but I understand the memory requirements are massive. Sins 2?
  2. Some of the weapons effects just seam weak for the damage they do. I'd suggest making the TEC beam effect much wider and "fuller", as it looks hollow from some views. The advent beam also looks weak. I imagine it taking longer to reach it's target and having some large "projectile" looking lump on the front of the beam itself, like the charge was built up before being fired. I've seen some of the Vasari weapons effects and they do look really cool. A lot of the weapons effects in Galactic Civilizations 2 could almost be used here, mostly the beam effects, the ones in GC2 look a lot more dangerous.
  3. I still don't see that the "bubble" mouse over effect is fixed when moving a mouse over large structures and ships. It's like there is a bubble around them that keeps the infocard up on them and sometimes that gets in the way when commanding ships up close. It also makes you select a larger ship when you're trying to select the one behind it that you can see but not select unless you rotate the camera. This was not the case in Diplomacy and other expansions, so I hope this will be fixed.

Other than that. Jolly good job. Keep up the good work Stardock and Ironclad. Looking forward already to Sins 2 and what's chasing the Vasari.

 

5,445 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

You know, as much as I am for nice weapon effects, beam based weapons are beams. As in you focus light through a set of lenses and shoot it at the enemy. It moves at the speed of light. There is no visible (to the human eye) projectile moving to the target. You are watching too many (badly researched) Scifi anime.

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

The Advent fires super saiyans not plasma and use them to generate the beam blast.  TEC doesn't get them.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Lasers move at the speed of light, too, so there shouldn't be a projectile for them at all since they're just a pulse of light.  Just sayin'.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

True, but I also get the feeling that the "lasers" we see in sins or movies like Star Wars are not actually lasers, but morel like "Laser induced plasma weapons" (shamelessly stolen fomr the Star Wars wiki), meaning the projectile itself is not a laser beam, but a superheated projectile.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

I do see that most of the weapons are lasers, but some of them are plasma, and so maybe Stardock people already had this discussion. I just think it would look a lot cooler if there were more than a bunch of blue laser-lines across the battlefield (battlespace?). I'd really like to know what everyone thinks of the moving parts on Titans though, that would be the bomb.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting sulley1, reply 5
I'd really like to know what everyone thinks of the moving parts on Titans though, that would be the bomb.
End of sulley1's quote

I would love to see it implemented myself - it would create amazing visual effects. Alas, I highly doubt that the current engine/code can support such a thing.