posted on September 13th, 2011, 2:30 am
Well, the shields don't show their strength by colour anymore right? Like, red means weak, yellow means weakening, green being strong. But they did in A2? So the shields would presumably have colour coding ability. Sounds like a nice idea.
I think it should be specific to where it is hit more so though. Getting hit on a saucer section and shields turning 'green' all over would be awkward.
Also, potentially deceiving, consider a member who is not necessarily aware of the meaning, and thinks through no fault that 'green' colour shields means that his shields have not been damaged, but are staying strong.
Imagine Romulans with green weapons giving impression of less perceived damage, where as Klingons with some red might seem to be doing extra damage ... simply through nature of meanings associated to the respective colours.
But yes, a localized colour effect, with clear audio that damage is being inflicted would be realistic and add to that side of the game.
Although, if the weapons are draining the shields... so long as it isn't a green weapon doing the draining should be fine. Ie, a red orange or yellow draining colour would serve both as eye candy and clearly show damage.
And then taking this to whatever extreme. Borg could have some nice effects and such.
Just to mention it, when I first saw it quite a while ago, a lot of the visual effects of the federation specials were quite confusing to me at first in the beginning. The blue effects of novas, and canaverals and the like were confusing. A blue spiral would be created and I'd be like, did the AI do that or me? And what is it? etc. Simply intending to illustrate what I mean, but yeah, obviously after you get accustomed to the vessels and specials you'll know whats up...
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