CA lasers

[1v0ry_k1ng]

basically, they look poor. cartoony, much too fat and the wrong colour (green llt looks awful). the BA lasers look about ten times better, and they are like, the engine default. lasers are not hard to edit, so someone might want to address this sometime

this also extends to the EMP fx, both the lightning (yellow.. urgh), the fx when it impacts, and the trashy looking x-ray shader over emped units. look at pures emp FX (tiny arcs of lightning jumping about the unit)- that looks sweet.

all the cartoony fx (lasers, emp x-ray thing) bring the tone down a tonne. seriously, ca fx looked their best around revs 600-900 when they used the engine default beam lasers with the CA fx (and lightning etc all looked bangin- the blue banshee laser etc etc.. quant was in control at this point I think?) at some point there has been some decision to turn toward cartoony fx, fat lasers etc? I dont know how the democratic mass of ca functions, but how about considering a U-turn of policy ^_^

[Otherside]

Firstly thats all matter of opinion

Secondly CA lasers were one of the first things in CA so around those revisions the coms/llt had those lasers

The Lasers are standardised

Green > Blue > Purple (arm) thickness indicates power

Red > Orange (core)

I dont think they look that cartoony or out of place tbh the only ones i dont really like are the yellow lasers on flea/weasel/jeffy/zipper (mainly due to thickness)

I think everyone else is pretty much fine with the lasers so there going to U turn just because you dont like it

[[Krogoth86]]

Well ivory sure has a point when saying it looks cartoony. I personally never liked the CA lasers although the situation got way better - that's for a different reason though: Imo non beam lasers only work when travelling more or less slow like they did in OTA or do in NOTA. Imo they're of no good use when flying fast...

It really was a pain as it was like a unit comes into range and then the epileptic dance of colored lights starts. This has become way better with the "recent" releases imo (didn't really track this behaviour though but I think they got a bit slower). Still you cannot really follow single shots with your eyes when you don't determine all your attention to them which fights the purpose of a single flying "projectile"...

So imo instead of epileptic flash fests of numerous small beams you cannot track anyway beam lasers are the way to go. My impression is that this already has happened for quite some units as you see way more beam lasers being used than in former versions...

[maackey]

Otherside: No. Not everybody is fine with CA's ugly lasers. The green ones especially.

I think everyone else is pretty much fine with the lasers so there going to U turn just because you don't like it

Who is this everybody else you mention?

Just because people are complacent and aren't actively revolting against the current effects (yet) doesn't mean that they particularly enjoy them and would rather have something better. I know I would. Of course that is just my opinion, but I think you'll find many more people than you think with a similar opinion to my own.

[Otherside]

dev's wont revert to old lasers so tilll someone makes something worth replacing them with there staying.

and arm llt laser is fine

[Gota]

I said they are cartoony in in the first k of revisions..

[CarRepairer]

From CA updater poll:

Do you like the new ARM beam colors (green)?
No, I prefered previous coloring 83
Yes, I like new green beams 474
Not playing CA 210

[KingRaptor]

They still probably should be narrower though.

[zwzsg]

I like CA fat colorful laser burst. And cartoony > pseudo realistic. Please don't listen to them.

[Pxtl]

I actually really like CA's cartoony style. I mean, it's not for everyone, but it works well for CA. Notice the MSPaintish loadscreens and the premise (basically, 2 armies of robots kill each other) and CA's cartoony theme is pretty consistent throughout.

Obviously, the fat lasers would be absurd for a serious game... but CA isn't. And I really like CA's stun-shader effects.

Not every game has to be Gears of War.

[Saktoth]

For visual stuff, polls are kinda useful. They tend to be biased towards new things in general but the poll speaks for itself.

Personally i like the narrow red and blue ones, and want core lasers to get a tapered edge.

As for this 'Quant vs democracy' rubbish- Quant is the major advocate of the large green lasers. He implimented the large beam lasers, and also the green AFAIR.

You guys like to throw around BS about how CA democracy vs a single devs interests or one devs ideas vs anothers have influenced the game but you almost never know what you're talking about or who advocated what or how the descision was really made... disagree with the descision by all means (i do) but dont run around pretending to dissect the dev teams political dynamics.

[knorke]

i think lasers are ok but hate the emp = flashing unit effect.
Blue healthbars and that the units stop moving tells anything.
Maybe have the units emit some colorded smoke or sparks if that is possible.

[CarRepairer]

knorke has a point. The flashing is more of a graphical indicator (like a healthbar) than a special effect. Something should be done about that.

[Licho]

I love flashing indicator. Just bar is barely visible.

[CarRepairer]

I love flashing indicator. Just bar is barely visible.

I didn't say we should have just a bar. I was agreeing with knorke that there should be a real effect like blue sparks, rather than the units glowing and dimming.

[Argh]

Just make call to LUPS, turn on a random sparkly particle effect if the Unit is in the frozen queue.

Not a biggie, it'd probably take longer to design the effect than to stick it into the code for the healthbar Widget.

[Google_Frog]

I prefer the current ones because they're distinguishable and easier to see from a distance.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

they look terrible- the blue heathbar + not moving is perfectly visible.

[Otherside]

the emp flash is fine and doesnt look that bad 3do models themselves are uglier

[1v0ry_k1ng]

BAAAWWWW EVERYTHING IS PURFECT!! /FANBOI

srsly

no