I think weapons should stay as they are.\\
HOWEVER, i think they should have another 'level' added to them, more a purely cosmetic/decorative (maybe with some functionality) than any big rework.
I want to have giant, flashy beams of death, or maybe I want them to look like pencil thin space distortors?
Maybe I want giant glowing balls of death for missiles, or maybe I want dim, sleek missiles with giant thruster plumes?
Maybe I want my engines to have a giant radiant glow or maybe I want a concentrated stream?
Very little functional effect, however it would allow much greater immersion and customization of weapons to personal preferance without forcing players to use a missile type just for its looks.
Thruster blocks could also be linked to one of these 'cosmetic' computers, and allow cosmetic adjustment of the selected group.
_____________________________________________________________________________
So, simply put:
-Add another type of computers dedicated to mostly cosmetic appearance of systems.
-These computers can be used to modify the cosmetic effects of certain ship systems.
E.g
Cosmetic customisation to allow the same weapons system to look like this:
Or this:
When activated, you can move the sliders around/select different options in the computer.
For example, relative size of projectile, relative brightness, length, intensity, transparency, dissfusion etc.
These could all be played around with to create a variety of visually different weapons with the same functional charestics and would make starmade a lot more visually appealing, diverse and
PRETTY
HOWEVER, i think they should have another 'level' added to them, more a purely cosmetic/decorative (maybe with some functionality) than any big rework.
I want to have giant, flashy beams of death, or maybe I want them to look like pencil thin space distortors?
Maybe I want giant glowing balls of death for missiles, or maybe I want dim, sleek missiles with giant thruster plumes?
Maybe I want my engines to have a giant radiant glow or maybe I want a concentrated stream?
Very little functional effect, however it would allow much greater immersion and customization of weapons to personal preferance without forcing players to use a missile type just for its looks.
Thruster blocks could also be linked to one of these 'cosmetic' computers, and allow cosmetic adjustment of the selected group.
_____________________________________________________________________________
So, simply put:
-Add another type of computers dedicated to mostly cosmetic appearance of systems.
-These computers can be used to modify the cosmetic effects of certain ship systems.
E.g
Cosmetic customisation to allow the same weapons system to look like this:
Or this:
When activated, you can move the sliders around/select different options in the computer.
For example, relative size of projectile, relative brightness, length, intensity, transparency, dissfusion etc.
These could all be played around with to create a variety of visually different weapons with the same functional charestics and would make starmade a lot more visually appealing, diverse and
PRETTY