[CommanderDJ]

I reckon BFGreen and BGreen should stay as they are (the whole wow factor thing), but I have no problem with SGreen being resized. The Aeolus did look a little funny like that.

[Kolgena]

I actually mostly like the sizes of everything right now. Smaller beams helps to give ships a bigger sense of scale.

[Maverick]

mediavps\tables folder to get the sexy resizes correct?

[Hades]

Yes.

mediavpdirectory/data/tables to be specific.

[FSW]

Gigantic, ship-swallowing beam glows on cruisers always did look silly.

Hades' new SGreen and LTerSlash look much better than the MVP versions. I never really noticed a problem with the destroyer-level beams in the MVPs, though. Perhaps Hades' are too small.

[sigtau]

I agree entirely with what FSW said--SGreen and LTerSlash look much better now, however, the BGreen, BFGreen, and TerSlash need to stay as they are (though the haze could use a bit of a size reduction, since the haze can also vaporize your ship IIRC).

[Delta_V]

I think Hades' version of the TerSlash is slightly small.  It looks good on the Deimos, but I think it might seem a little small on the Hecate and Orion, not to mention the Colossus.  I would go with somewhere between the two.  Hades' versions of the smaller beams are good; I'd leave them as they are now.  But for the BGreen and above, I think they should stay big.  The BGreen is the most powerful Terran beam, and it should look intimidating. 

As for the Shivan beams, yeah, there might not be a good solution.  Either the LRed is going to eat the Lilith whole or look totally underpowered and not at all the fear-inspiring weapon that it should be on the Ravana.

[Mongoose]

Just have it eat the Lilith whole.  I always felt like that reinforced the notion of it as a where-the-hell-is-that-coming-from artillery cruiser of d00m.

[Qent]

What about campaigns that have user-made ships firing the old beams? That's another reason I think the sizes should stay close to retail.

[Hades]

The terslash should not be made any larger than my resize because remember, even though it's on the Colossus and Deimos, it's still the same weapon. Not only does it better fit the bullseye turrets of the Hecate, it doesn't swallow up the ones on the Orion or the front of the Deimos.

Not to mention, the bigger the beam, the less focused, and thus less powerful. a bgreen being big enough to cover the whole front of the Hecate is not intimidating, but rather ugly.

[Kolgena]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me beam impact explosions (and maybe pierce-through effects) haven't been shrunk down to match the smaller beams.

(I still think the beam balls need to be a tad bigger than they are now)

[Hades]

The beam balls are the size that they are because they integrate better with the beam. Make them too small, and you can see the edges of the beam coming from the turret. Make them to large, and the beam balls will look out of place and more like an afterthought.

And yeah, they weren't downsizes in the table uploaded. I'll upload a newer version in a bit.

[Kolgena]

Very much looking forward to seeing your newest version.

What I mean though, for bigger beam balls, is that the white core of the glow looks too skimpy. You see a medium-sized ball of energy spool up (with a hefty corona of flare or whatnot), then see a beam pretty much the same width as the ball emerge out of it upon firing. That's what I meant when I said it looks imbalanced. I almost expect the ball to shrink and disappear as it's drained into the shaft. In fact, the current glow almost looks like it's the rounded off end of a beam shaft, rather than the ball of energy that's the source of the beam.

I don't quite get that impression with the current MVP terran beams, though to a certain extent, MVP LReds fired from Ravanas kind of give me this impression as well. It's less about the size of the sprite than the size of the white part.

Also, when you're modifying explosions for slash beams, it'd be nice to check if they were still big enough to form a nice continuous line of burn. I understand that the beam skips along the hull, so if explosions are too small, they might look disjointed.

(+1 vote for upsizing the terslash just a smidge. It should look almost as big as a BGreen, IMO. Also, the screenshot might be outdated, but first page of this thread shows the lterslash as comparable in size to an AAA. That's a big no-no if it's still the case.)

[Hades]

Here it is. Just place it in the same place as the last.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[TrashMan]

Not to mention, the bigger the beam, the less focused, and thus less powerful. a bgreen being big enough to cover the whole front of the Hecate is not intimidating, but rather ugly.

That's your personal theory. I personally like terran beams much more than shivan ones. They look much more powerful with their turbulence and "bleeding".
While one can certanly interpret that as having poor beam technology, thus not controlling the beam well and loosing power in the process, one can ALSO interpret it as the beam having so much power behind it that even the finest control struggles with it. In other words, it can look both powerful and weak, depending on how you interpret it.
I presonaly go with wild, untamed power one.

[MatthTheGeek]

one can ALSO interpret it as the beam having so much power behind it that even the finest control struggles with it.

Which means Terrans also have a poor control technology, since even their finest ones can't control correctly a beam which is much less powerful than its Vasudan and Shivan equivalents. So its another argument in favor of poor beam technology.

[Qent]

one can ALSO interpret it as the beam having so much power behind it that even the finest control struggles with it.

Which means Terrans also have a poor control technology, since even their finest ones can't control correctly a beam which is much less powerful than its Vasudan and Shivan equivalents. So its another argument in favor of poor beam technology.

Actually, the beam is more powerful than its Vasudan and Shivan equivalents.

[Nohiki]

True. Highest damages per pulse have SRed for small beams and BGreen for large, only damage per second is smaller because of the recharge, which would indicate that terrans and vasudans might have a problem with cooling the cannons. In high noon, the colossus mentioned melting the overcharged BGreens if they pumped more energy through them. Well, about the flash size, it depends on how fast it charges (warmup time de facto). I take it that we all can agree on the flash being a "reservoir" for the beam, hence the big size, but if you can recharge the flash quickly (and 1,2 seconds or sth like that for small beams is quite fast), i'd say the flash can be smaller.

[MatthTheGeek]

I'm always talking about per-second damage. I tend to consider per-pulse damage as irrelevant. Thanks for pointing it out though.

[Nohiki]

It's not as irrelevant as it might seem. If you jump a corvette with a destroyer, stronger per pulse damage is more likely to take it out instantly, but it might just survive the weaker pulse and inflict some damage to the destroyer or warp out.