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Author Topic: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!  (Read 30994 times)
Elvish Pillager
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #30 on: July 12, 2008, 12:36:37 am »

We don't know exactly what the effects of being hit by a laser are. It could be that a thousandfold increase in power is required to achieve a twofold increase in effective damage.

...

It's not canon. Ditch it.
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #31 on: July 12, 2008, 08:01:30 am »

....Maybe the the VUX have a continuous-beam laser and "gigawatt" represent average power, while the Chmmr's is actually a nanosecond-pulse laser which would make "terawatt" merely the peak output? ....No?  *cricket chirps*

Well, you're both right.... though if accurate nomenclature is an issue, then an X-ray laser would technically be invisible (in addition to being a bit of a mouthful). Any nice, punchy name would do the trick, I guess.
(By the way, if it does get added to the game, then the SC1-style info display sequence could probably be controlled by a script, which would mean that the text need not be set in stone.)

It's funny you should mention that - I used to work with femtosecond-pulsed lasers (which got into the terawatt range) to produce coherent x-rays (ie a pulsed, table-top x-ray laser). If we're really trying to be accurate, then we wouldn't be able to see any of the laser weapons (yes, my friends all refuse to watch star wars with me).

But honestly, I fully realize that my previous argument with a rude person has jaundiced me a bit to this debate. Really, I'm not a canon-Nazi ("No SuperMelee for you!!!!"). I truly do love the "flavor text" you've added (the thraddash turning signals - hilarious). Some of the changes to the texts in going from the old images to the new images appeared to me to be a conscious effort to come more in line with canon, and so I suggest this change in that same spirit. I also don't think "heavy X-ray laser" is much more of mouthful than "terawatt laser" - it's only one syllable difference. But regardless of whether I can sway you or not, my concern over this one point pales in comparison to my accolades and praise to you for a job well done.  Grin

Quote from: Elvish Pillager
We don't know exactly what the effects of being hit by a laser are. It could be that a thousandfold increase in power is required to achieve a twofold increase in effective damage.

From my experience with lasers, I'd say it's the other way around since the higher power gives access to a nonlinear interaction regime with multiphoton absorptions (freshman physics classes lie, electrons can absorb more than one photon at a time - under certain conditions) and higher ionization states.
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #32 on: July 12, 2008, 04:31:36 pm »

Fair enough, the terawatt is gone. Grin  How about simply "X-Ray Laser"?

By the way - regarding the page with the images..... I've just upgraded my Firefox to v3.0, and noticed that a brilliant new "feature" blurs the images to death.  Apparently, if you scale your image by applying a style - which I did, to give a nice 2x zoom - then FF3 applies a basic scaling filter, which is very bad for pixel art, and best of all, cannot be turned off.

So, apologies to FF3 users - the blurriness was not intended... try to view the page with something else for best results.
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #33 on: July 12, 2008, 06:59:59 pm »

Fair enough, the terawatt is gone. Grin  How about simply "X-Ray Laser"?

"X-Ray Laser"? No! What are you doing?! That name is terrible. Who cares if "terawatt laser" is not in line with real life physics? The game is halfway between cartoon and science fiction.
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #34 on: July 12, 2008, 09:59:52 pm »

Yeah, I'm gonna have to join the dissenting opinion here.  Terawatt laser is a much better name.

Also, the art is really awesome.  I rarely get excited over fan stuff but these things are just beautiful.
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #35 on: July 12, 2008, 10:34:49 pm »

Quote
"X-Ray Laser"? No! What are you doing?! That name is terrible. Who cares if "terawatt laser" is not in line with real life physics? The game is halfway between cartoon and science fiction.
Exactamundo! The whole point is for the names to be sciency sounding, but still wrong. Or at least not really plausible.
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Cedric6014
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #36 on: July 13, 2008, 12:03:30 am »

Terawatt laser sounds cool to me, and i'm pretty sure ive read that somewhere official. manual maybe?
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Elvish Pillager
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #37 on: July 13, 2008, 01:05:58 pm »

Fair enough, the terawatt is gone. Grin  How about simply "X-Ray Laser"?
I'd keep the "heavy", to reinforce the fact that the laser is really powerful, but your abbreviation is fine.
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #38 on: July 13, 2008, 01:48:30 pm »

Woah Vile, so that's what you've been doing all this time? Wink

I recognize the Supox from the ol' "graphics thread" for ship sprites. Well done, indeed!

May I suggest a roll-over icon strip, somewhat like the "filmstrip" option in MS Window's explorer which allows you to see a bunch of image thumbnails on a strip and the selected one enlarged in the middle.
The icons can be very small - just enough to identify the ship it represents.
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #39 on: July 13, 2008, 02:01:47 pm »

Fair enough, the terawatt is gone. Grin  How about simply "X-Ray Laser"?

"X-Ray Laser"? No! What are you doing?! That name is terrible. Who cares if "terawatt laser" is not in line with real life physics? The game is halfway between cartoon and science fiction.

Actually, it could STILL be "Terawatt LASER", it just means it's less efficient - even scientifically speaking.

Example - a 5kg hammer with an elastic rubber handle (can bend) and a 5kg hammer with a harden handle. Now go break someone's windshield. Both hammers potentially do the same damage, but you have to use much more force with the elastic handle to actually deliver.

[edit - ha, missed Elvish's post up top. sry]

Those were 3 lines on useless physics where the main question is - which sounds cooler? - go with Terawatt LASER  imo Wink


P.s. if we're talking science already, it should be GAMMA-RAY or something, seeing as that's much more potent than X-RAYs on the electromagnetic spectrum (see e.g. http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html).
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #40 on: July 13, 2008, 05:11:00 pm »

Woah Vile, so that's what you've been doing all this time? Wink

I recognize the Supox from the ol' "graphics thread" for ship sprites. Well done, indeed!

Well, I've actually started working on this a year or two ago, until I ran out of steam (right in the finishing stages, as always) and went back to it only last week, haha.  So yeah, the Supox image in that thread was from this little project - good memory Wink

May I suggest a roll-over icon strip, somewhat like the "filmstrip" option in MS Window's explorer which allows you to see a bunch of image thumbnails on a strip and the selected one enlarged in the middle.
The icons can be very small - just enough to identify the ship it represents.

How about this (instead of pick-exit-next-previous)?  I simply used the smallest ship icons I could find in the game content (XXXmicon.1.png).  Prehaps scrolling across icons could bring up each ship's image on the bottom screen, pressing Fire would bring up the info sequence, and pressing Fire again would select the ship, with the "X" icon going back to the fleet screen without selecting.... or something like that.

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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #41 on: July 13, 2008, 05:17:21 pm »

Anyway, as for the Chmmr, I do agree that "Terawatt laser" sounds cooler.  But if this does end up in the game somehow (wishful thinking?), then it would be up to the team to decide...  that, or asking TFB to wield the Ultron for an answer. Wink
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #42 on: July 13, 2008, 05:27:28 pm »

It's not canon. Ditch it.

+1

Unless, of course,

and i'm pretty sure ive read that somewhere official. manual maybe?

is true.
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #43 on: July 13, 2008, 08:11:48 pm »

I really love what you are doing here. Don't know if I can think of one complaint.
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Re: New SC1-Style Ship Info Screens - All Done!
« Reply #44 on: July 13, 2008, 10:14:16 pm »

"X-Ray Laser"? No! What are you doing?! That name is terrible. Who cares if "terawatt laser" is not in line with real life physics? The game is halfway between cartoon and science fiction.

I think we misunderstand one another, so maybe I didn't explain myself clear enough. Both names, "terawatt laser" and "X-ray laser" are equal amounts of technobabble. Neither is more in line with real life physics than the other. Terawatt lasers do exist, as do x-ray lasers, though neither in a form similar to the Avatar's laser. If it were only a question of what sounds cooler, I too would go with Terawatt (actually 1.21 Jigawatts would be even better). But the difference is that "X-ray laser" appears in one canon source (the 3DO video), while terawatt does not - though I'm open to being wrong on this point. Now, if you don't mind, I need to get a new flogging device - the horse blood on the one I'm currently using is making it hard to hold onto...
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