Phaser effect and special maneuver ideas

posted on December 18th, 2011, 2:44 pm

Here a few ideas which floating around in my head for some time.
On the one hand i have an idea concerning a graphic improvement of the federation phaser effect and on the one hand it is a special maneuver idea which inspired by this.

Would be possible the phaser effect of the federation vessels design in the following way:

Enterprise D phaser Test
- YouTube

What I mean is the phaser array effect before the output
In the past I had already mod the weapon effect in Armada II (tga’s & odf’s) so that they looked better than the original Armada II (in the time before fleetsoperations). But to generate such an effect I don't have an idea … what do you think (especially at the “modding veterans”), is it possible?


Furthermore I had another suggestion with regard to special maneuvers. It could be a additional tactical ability a alternative ability to a special weapon. It consumes special energy. The maneuver idea involves that proceed a complete ship moving sequence with weapon fire.

For example the galaxy class could a mixes phaser and torpedo volley:

Enterprise-D fires phasers and photons
- YouTube


Or a sustained phaser fire like that (00:39 – 00:45):

Video: Yesterday's Enterprise: Part Two von Nick - Myspace Video


I'm curious about your opinions, argument and proposals 

posted on December 18th, 2011, 8:26 pm

If you made these weapons come from a single hardpoint as a special weapon, then you could make a texture animation for that to my knowledge. I do not believe it would be possible to have it more flexible than that however. 

posted on December 18th, 2011, 9:10 pm

It could be possible to generate a brief flare at certain locations to create the illusion of firing; but that will involve some extreme texture/mesh animation and it would only look right from a specific angle. To do it on every ship would be incredibly time consuming for what would - to be honest - be a small benefit. It would look good, I'll grant you - but with the focus on fleets that the game has it is just more sprites and such to render at once, and you'll not notice them all in a hectic battle.

posted on December 18th, 2011, 11:54 pm

There was once a mod for Armada II that was called "Multi Target Phaser" which is similar to the multi target photons of the galaxy class in fleetops. Several phaser beams fired on several ships, however, from one hard point only. If you could make it so that one weapon would fire in succession of several HP's out, the goal would be a little bit closer...