The beams cannot target something outside of a very narrow arc in front of them. The problem is that the beams attach themselves to the target, so for as long as the beams are firing, they will track the target, even if it means the beams will go through the Kol (I have another screeny of that happening).

The KOL has not yet gone through the same level of refinement as most of the other capital ships in the game. While the basic 'feel' will remain the same, you can expect something very different.

As long as we're talking about the graphical representation of the ships...


I... Agree. The Kol is lacking something. it's beautifully detailed, I'll grant, but it dosen't seem to be the big great battleship it should be.


I'm willing to bet that everyone who will be consuming this game has been influenced by at minimum one of the following, and possibly more, or all (note that these are just those which influenced me):


The Homeworld series (HW/HW:C/HW2)
The Wing Commander Series (and the movie)
The X series (Most likely X3: The Reunion)
Galactic Civilizations
Star Wars
Star Trek
Sword of the Stars (Crappy game, cool ships)


A good, terran-built ship, should be large. It should have a sort of dark industrial-gothic look about it, by which I am not referring to Warhammer 40K's architecture, I am refering to the dark and yet gleaming broodyness of it all.

A terran capital ship should be massive. Absoloutely enormous. It's turrets should be the size of a small frigate. It should (in defiance of all inteligent space-naval design) have a very obvious "Bridge Tower" section. It should have obvious sensor spines of some sort sticking out the front, and possibly down below. And it should rain energy and death like water directly in front of it.

I try. With the Kol, I really try. I can almost feel it sometimes, but it's just not... Mmm, what's the word? Intimidating enough.

Part of this is the weapon sounds. "Pew pew pew!"... No. I'm sorry, "Pew pew pew" should be the sound the deck guns make when they blow up fighters.

"Ka-CHUNG!" is a good sound for a capital railgun to make. So would be "Ka-ZEEELCH!", if you want to ham up the electrical nature of the railgun.

The lasers should look like lasers. I can't tell what's a laser and what's an autocannon, because they look so alike. Maybe lasers should be an obvious beam effect, that dosen't last as long nor does it look as particle-streamy as the beam cannons on the front of the Kol. (Play Nexus: the Jupiter Incident. Their lasers are perfect.)

As for the beams at the front... The beams themselves are good, though I don't like the way they all converge on one vertix, that may or may not even be an important part of the ship it's firing at. (I honestly don't think converging all four beams at the end of the grapple-arm of a construction frigate is going to be that damaging.)

And the sound effect? Guys, please, go play Homeworld again. The ion cannons firing is what I imagine in my mind when I watch those beams on the Kol firing. As for the "Four feelers", I first thought those were part of the Kol's navigational array. I was surprised when they fired those beam cannons, heh.



Oooooh, looky: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://tn3-2.deviantart.com/300W/images2.deviantart.com/i/2004/04/2/a/Hiigaran_Battlecruiser.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.deviantart.com/view/4872232/&h=225&w=300&sz=15&hl=en&start=7&tbnid=KcTl32FkHWezGM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHiigaran%2BBattlecruiser%26imgsz%3Dsmall%257Cmedium%257Clarge%257Cxlarge%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D100%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG

This is a good, right proper capital ship. More "nice and clean" than the TEC stuff should be, but it's massive in scale, you can clearly tell how impressive it is. And really, the Kol is big, compared to the frigates, but I don't think it's big enough.

The sheer size of a Kol should make any frigate captain want to command his XO to bring him his brown trousers.


Just my ruminations. Ignore me if you wish.

Wow, you want to have your cake and eat it too, don't you?

Worky Linky?


Happy now?

This argument just never dies!

Seriously, I'm impressed! Lots of good points all around!

mmmm yes, a species which doesn't need to traverse the horrible demon field other-space to travel interstellar distances, and thus open holes in the universe for such creatures to enter our realm... truly these are a worthless people!

Correct the pony idea was never mine.... but the windows were

well someone was complaining that the Kol was not manly enough in it's shape and apperance, perhaps it the engines at the stern were givin a more curlular shape and the cannon moved to the center of the bow... that might make it apper more manly!  

or just ubermirrors...

pfff, ur living in the 21st century arent you ron?! ubermirrors= 105% reflection XD

Eh, just make it a lens instead. A perfectly clear lens.

<3

I think I'll remodel the Kol battleship so it will be a giant pink pony that shoots lasers from its eyes!

but honestly, lasers are light, so it can be reflected! think of is as a ship upgrade: glass armor, 95% reflection of laser attacks, but takes 50% more damage from autocannon and 70% more from missiles.