[Mobius]

You're strange.
A shockwave should propagate itself all around the destroyed warship.3rd shockwaves are simply not realistic,I'm calling them "Hula-Hoops of Death" rather than "Shockwaves".

<3rd shockwaves make the game go slower,while 2d ones are widely used by most games without slowing down the game>

[Snail]

You're strange.
We all love 3d shockwaves except for you (and jr).
Why would a shockwave just 'decide' to be perpendicular to you. That's unrealistic. Granted, you shouldn't even be able to see much of the shockwaves, but it looks cool, and if you are going to have massive blue circles, must of all make them 3d, as they look cool.

<3d shockwaves may make the game go slower but so does 99% of all new effects>

[KappaWing]

Ah, but hula hoops of death are used in Star Wars.

Like in the Death Star.
And Depth Charges in the Fett v. Kenobi space battle.

[Dark Hunter]

Those charges had the coolest explosion sound I think I've ever heard! 

[Kosh]

Why does each race have so many destroyers?

[KappaWing]

Those charges had the coolest explosion sound I think I've ever heard! 

Yeah it sounded awesome in the theatre... It was the delay that made it even better. 

[Dark Hunter]

Why does each race have so many destroyers?

Because [cliche]variety is the spice of life![/cliche]

[Herra Tohtori]

You're strange.
We all love 3d shockwaves except for you (and jr).
Why would a shockwave just 'decide' to be perpendicular to you. That's unrealistic.

In fact, the actual question is this:

Why, in real life that is, a shockwave in a vacuum would be planar?

The shockwaves from traditional explosions, detonated in atmosphere near ground look planar because they interact with the surface of the earth and the atmosphere, but in fact all shockwaves are spherical in origin.

And a sphere viewed from any direction looks round. So in a way, original shockwaves are "more real" or perhaps I should say "less imaginary" than current "3d" shockwaves. In fact they are more 3d than current 3d shockwaves. But whatever.


Hula hoops of death are very pretty and traditional in space shockwaves, but they are definitely not justifiable by any kind of physics based on real life, which on the other hand doesn't really matter, especially in this case since very few things in FS universe are. In my opinion, current 3D shockwaves would give more realistic results if someone simply took the model system out of order and just replaced the old texture with the cool blue animated texture. But I can't bother to do that really.

[Snail]

Granted, you shouldn't even be able to see much of the shockwaves, but it looks cool, and if you are going to have massive blue circles, must of all make them 3d, as they look cool.

Sometimes to make a game you have to completely ignore the laws of space. First, to make it get a good score for sound, you have to make sound travel through space. One rule already broken. Then you have to make combustion in space work. Another rule broken. Then obviously you've just gotta make some kind of super fast travel like Lightspeed, Hyperspace, Slipspace, Subspac, etc. That's probably got nothing for or against, but it's super unlikely there's a parallel dimension that is blue with a sun at the end with man-eating red and black aliens originating from it.

Most space games are very unrealistic, but it is that which makes them fun.

[KappaWing]

Space games are realistic to a point, which makes them fun. The storyline is actually realistic and feasible, maybe a bit further in the future than mentioned in the game though. Sound in space and combustion in space arent very glaring no-nos. If the physics were more realistic (i.e. not stopping when you cut your throttle), the game would be much more annoying and not fun to play. Shockwaves fall under this category. I strongly believe in the "hula hoops of death" as described by Mobius, as they are similar to the awesome EPII depth charge explosion effect.

[jr2]

Then you have to make combustion in space work. Another rule broken.

Not really.  For combustion you just need heat, fuel, and oxygen... and I'm sure you'd agree there's plenty of oxygen on board any craft carrying Terran or Vasudan ppl.  There's plenty of heat from the damaged reactor going supercritical.  And, there's fuel from the matierals & weapons onboard, plus the nuclear fuel used in the reactors... although I'm not sure how that would work as it would depend on the type of reactor used.  And, actually, I think just about anything will "explode" if you throw enough energy at it... the super-rapid expansion, or something like that, I'm not sure.

[Colonol Dekker]

Are pictures only released on the frontpage?

[Dark Hunter]

Go back to page 23 to see Snail go on a picture-posting rampage.

[Colonol Dekker]

Ouch my bleeding eyes

Cheers the zods look quite  but i like new female command, shes kinda fit for a sequence of pcx files.......
Like the ne/improved beams/lighting too

[Woomeister]

I rendered them using Poser

[Snail]

Then you have to make combustion in space work. Another rule broken.

Not really.  For combustion you just need heat, fuel, and oxygen... and I'm sure you'd agree there's plenty of oxygen on board any craft carrying Terran or Vasudan ppl.  There's plenty of heat from the damaged reactor going supercritical.  And, there's fuel from the matierals & weapons onboard, plus the nuclear fuel used in the reactors... although I'm not sure how that would work as it would depend on the type of reactor used.  And, actually, I think just about anything will "explode" if you throw enough energy at it... the super-rapid expansion, or something like that, I'm not sure.

I'm nitpickin' now, but do Sentry Guns have oxygen in them? Even if they did, there wouldn't be a lot of it, so the explosion would be comparably small. Inferno explosions are probably more realistic in the way that they're simple spouts of atmosphere with a puff of combustion, but I don't think they're as good to cover up ships exploding since sometimes you can see a clear split from 'hull' and 'space' expanding from the middle (you know what I mean).

Ouch my bleeding eyes

Cheers the zods look quite  but i like new female command, shes kinda fit for a sequence of pcx files.......
Like the ne/improved beams/lighting too

Yeah, I went a bit CRAZY there, I was ripping through the forums copying hundreds of URLs into a single post. The main reason for that was to kill slower computers (kind of backfired because I lost something I was working on ).

The new female command is actually the CO of the GTCa Oracle, I believe, home ship of the pilot. And it's not a sequence of pcx files, those heads don't animate. Actually, Woo, do the heads have different expressions?  Like 'TC-1a' (or whatever) would be command in 'calm' mode talking about the beer last night, while TC-1b would be command saying 'oh damn incoming enemy fighters' and TC-1c would be command saying 'aww **** we lost the Beer Shipment!'. Because in the picture where the EAC Magister is incoming and the Oracle is telling Alpha 1 not to engage, the head is smiling indifferent to the situation.

And what Zods? New Zod .anis? *goes to check on his own post*

[Woomeister]

No they don't animate, that would be very difficult for me to do.

[Dark Hunter]

But having variations of one ani to represent moods is a brilliant idea! If I knew how to create ani's I would start that so fast...


Hey, something's been bothering me.
What in the hell is up with this Vasudan (I think) ship? Looks like it has boils or something...

[Woomeister]

That's an Ancient ship not Vasudan.

[Snail]

That's a tweaked Vasudan map form the Anuket (Vasudan Gas Miner).

Besides, it's Ancient obviously. It's firing a bloo beam. In fact it's the AD Minos.