Screen shake at the end of a magazine

Sy

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Nov 16, 2018
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#1
An idea, perhaps only for some weapons/types, would be to have a bit of screen shake near the end of a magazine.

Related would be heavy machine guns getting screen shake when the trigger is held down.
 
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Aug 14, 2016
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#2
I have not played the demo on anything yet. But when I play games I use the sound of the gun to tell me how much ammo is left in the mag without even looking. This is because in a good number of games you can hear tone of the gun change as you fire it and mag gets lower and lower. Hell in some game of some types of guns I can tell how much ammo is left within a few shots even if my eyes closed. That is how much information can be told with good sound design.

P.S.
A famous real life example of this would be the M1 Garand making a pinging sound when the clip is ejected from the gun.

Anyway, if we are talking about visual effects for guns. Some of the sci-fi energy weapons will slowly change colors as the ammo runs out.

In some games, I subconsciously count the tracer rounds as I fire the gun because they spaced out evenly in the mag or change/belt so if you know how many of them are in the ammo pool you know around how many shots you have left.
 

Pandagnome

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#3
in a good number of games you can hear tone of the gun change as you fire it and mag gets lower and lower. Hell in some game of some types of guns I can tell how much ammo is left within a few shots even if my eyes closed.
I am very interested to hear how the different sounds for the weapons are going to be like when they are low in ammo, reloading and firing.

Speaking of sounds i like these sounds from guns such as

Also how the gun is holstered in the thigh that sound is nice too

When it changes its gun mode

Sounds like a super charged kitten

Would this also apply to the tsi hu since i have not heard the weapons they shoot or if it needs reloading/recharging?

For the assault rifle in the demo i like the strange birdy like sound and also the number of ammo shown.
The plasma cannon do not really notice much apart from the little ammo bar that turns red.

There could be other ways to show low ammo as Sy mentioned the little shake and other things like

- Pressure release sound & effects
- Perhaps the speed of the shots slowing down last 5 or so shots
- An A.I that just says low ammo
etc


 

Pandagnome

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#6
In the demo the assault rifle is very nice with the auto reload, and able to reload when you wanted.

The plasma cannon is nice though i think the auto recharge is slow as some have mentioned.

What if guns had a toggle to change firing modes e.g.

Semi
Burst
Auto

If you did this for the plasma cannon example auto would just unleash them 1 after another then soon as the recharge is full it fires again unless your finger is off the button.

Burst could unleash 2 plasma projectiles at a time.

Another example with assault rifle or those better with higher damage precision semi and burst could be handy.
 
Likes: Omnires
Aug 14, 2016
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#7
The thing with energy weapons is that there are 2 types of reload style, 3 if you count hybrid style.

Battery type - The gun's ammo count is how much power it drains from the battery. One type this a fixed energy fire mode, making it so that every shot takes the same amount to energy to each time so you can count shots like a normal gun. You reload the gun by changing the battery.

Charge type - The power drains while you are shooting but recharges when you stop firing. The upside to this is you have more control over how much energy you put into your shots. But you are also limited by how fast the energy can recharge. No need for reloading, just wait times until your next shot if you drain all the power.

Hybrid type - Is a bit harder to explain as it can use both types if the user wants too. But this also tends to add mass and complexity to the gun where as using a signal style would not. For example, an energy pistol that you can reload by changing the battery and/or have the gun charge with the solar plates that are on it.

There is also another gun type that never really needs to worry about running out of energy. And this are ones that are linked to the power grid itself. This types of energy guns and energy melee weapons can also be used by mecha going by what is powering the mecha. For example in some stories the mecha have things like a small nuclear reactor or small fusion reactor powering them, so they are not likely to run out of power for decades on their own (In the more realistic stories like Gundum they make it a point to explain why even in the middle of combat all sides do everything they can to avoid damaging the reactors of enemy mechs). This means they can use their weapons non-stop without ever needing to worry about losing power. But there is something they still have to worry about and that is building up to much energy and/or heat in the weapons. In these types of weapons the problem comes from the heat sinks and vents. How fast can they remove the heat from the weapon as you use the weapon. This forces the user to wait until the heat goes down enough to use the weapon safely again, if they let to much heat build up in the weapon. Or they can eject the heat sinks and replace them.

P.S.
We do this in real life with normal weapons by how you can change out the barrel of some types of machineguns when they get to hot, so you can keep firing at the target(s) without having to wait for the gun to cool own. One famous example of this is in WWII with the MG42, which is belt feed machinegun . You can view the barrel of the gun like a heat sink that you can change out.
 
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Wraithbane

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Jul 27, 2016
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#8
An idea, perhaps only for some weapons/types, would be to have a bit of screen shake near the end of a magazine.

Related would be heavy machine guns getting screen shake when the trigger is held down.
Wouldn't screen shake make it difficult to read them? :)