[General Battuta]

Here, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just didn't quite 'get' what you were seeing. You now have a test mission in which someone has implemented 90% of the exact system you're dreaming of. You can use it to tweak the technique, try to build a dynamic version, or run balance tests - but all the foundationals are right there for you to use: a group of ships firing their beams at a central ship which fires a larger beam.

This is all that will ever be required on the FRED level for your idea to work.

[Nuke]

seems like it would just be better to have all the ships just shoot at the target all at the same time. like how picard pewned the borg cube in first contact. but im all for the death star effect because it looks cool.

[MatthTheGeek]

Yes. Rule of cool > *

[z64555]

Focusing multiple beams allows three things:

1. Coordinated strike against a distant target. Although some ships are perfectly capable of long-range strikes, other ships may have the range but not the targeting capabilities. The MBC allows a variety of ships with a variety of capabilities to perform the strike.

2. It may be possible that the ships don't have line of sight to the target (i.g. an asteroid field), but the MBC does. This allows for an ambush mission where the attacking ships hide behind asteroids while the MBC is only visible, hence surprising the targets.

3. As explained earlier, multiple beams vs. one big beam. The multiple beams would in theory cause more damage than the big beam, like a shotgun vs. a .50cal. However, as with the .50cal, the big beam can punch through the targets armor much more quickly and more forceful, opening up a soft spot for attack.

Source?

The Death Star's superlaser derived power directly from the hypermatter reactor. Its faceted amplification crystal combined the destructive power of eight separate tributary beams into one single blast with the intensity of a stellar core.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star

Although, that page is listed as needing citations... 

[Qent]

EDIT: And, upon watching that video, the effect, while cool, has a long way to go. 

Wow, congrats on being a huge asshole. I'll pass on your dislike to Sara, I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

Here's one with a more polished effect.

[jr2]

@Batts: I should have been more specific.  I wan't talking about the effect itself, rather, how the effect compared to SW canon.  To give you a quick mental snapshot of what I mean: let's say someone is porting the FS2 campaign and assets to a new game engine.  Say, Starshatter.  Now let's say you see a YouTube video of the Collossus firing its main beams at an NTF ship, blowing it apart.  Except, the beam has the size of a AAAf beam, and doesn't have quite the same effect as the FS beam cannons do, it doesn't pulse, rather, it's like a straight pencil of light.

Now you see?  Whilst 90% of the effect is there, (and, I forgot to add, 90% of the work has, indeed, been done) the effect still has "a long way to go" before ringing true to FS2 canon.  And I should also mention, that I was unaware that this was the effort of a single member of the community.  That she managed to create this effect entirely on her own is impressive.  EDIT: and I just realized, you seem to have missed the post before mine:

Looks totally hacked...

We could do much better.

Way to single me out.    You know neither of us meant this as being derisive of another modder's work in any way.  I mean, come on.

@Sara: keep it up, you're within sight of the finish line. 

@BW:
The beams leading to the center need to be thicker
The interpolation (is that the right word) needs tweaking (the interruptions in the small beams that flow towards the focal point)
The small beams need to be more evenly spaced.
The small beams need to fire one at a time. 
The small beams need to all be coming from he outer ring of the firing 'bowl', some are currently firing from space.
There needs to be only 8 of them IIRC.
The glow in the middle needs to start when the first beam reaches the focal point, not before.

If any of the above nitpicks are not correct, please, feel free to correct me.

[NeonShivan]

Excuse me, but this will bother me. Do you mean something like this?



Because if so, I believe it has already been done...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3FHN_3INDY&feature=channel&list=UL

[Spoon]

Excuse me, but this will bother me. Did you actually read the thread? 

[NeonShivan]

Excuse me, but this will bother me. Did you actually read the thread? 

Yes and no, I've skimmed through it cause I was doing other things at the time.

I will remove my previous post if it is a bother though.

[Qent]

I uh... posted exactly that video two posts above yours.

nitpicks

While you've answered Black Wolf's question, I don't think these are relevant here. You said yourself that you were not looking to the Death Star as a model. The only reason that video clip was posted was to demonstrate the mechanics of the effect in action. The end visual effect will be different, and probably wouldn't incorporate any of the improvements from those nitpicks.

One that you missed is that Firing from space? No... how-- the beams need to hit the focal point instead of streaming off into space. That actually will be relevant, because your focal ship is mobile, probably smallish, and maybe fast. So if it escapes the tributary beam's before firing, it would look silly.

[jr2]

One that you missed is that Firing from space? No... how-- the beams need to hit the focal point instead of streaming off into space. That actually will be relevant, because your focal ship is mobile, probably smallish, and maybe fast. So if it escapes the tributary beam's before firing, it would look silly.

I was referring to the smaller beams that are feeding the main beam.  If you look closely, some of them originate not from the rim of the firing ring, but what appears to be thin air space. 

EDIT: As for the effect being able to be used with the MBC idea; not sure if it would work as I'm not sure if the mechanics are similar enough to adapt (ship firing its own weapons to create bigger weapon vs ship acting as a collecting point for the DPS of all beam fired at it and redirecting them, possibly with extra range and maybe extra DPS, to a single target).

[Qent]

Oh, I see what's going on I think. There are only 8 smaller beams. It looks like +Range was used to make them end in the middle, but either it was set too high or it only made them fade out instead of disappearing instantly.

[jr2]

Oh I see.  So they are extending too far, and the angle makes it look 'extra' beams coming from the middle of nowhere?