Can we get more model options to show what upgrades exist?

[slapshot]

This came out from the asteroid thread - figuring out what upgrades an enemy has is near impossible for most upgrades until it's too late (i.e. bc next to bc), so can we make some stuff more visible?

I would focus on small ships first, but the same idea could be applied to the BC

small ship hull: have them grow in size slightly based on how many small ship hull upgrades a team has, i.e. scale the ships from 80% to 120% size in 5% increments
small ship thrusters: have some small glowey things near the rear of the ship to indicate that they have upgraded their move speed, increase it with each upgrade (max 5 upgrades I think)
wraith/corvette damage: can the projectiles grow in size slightly or have their color deepened?
small ship energy: again, glowey energy things based on level (extra on subjugator with correct tier upgrade)
miner: have the mining beam turn slightly red (not quite Q-beam red) with each upgrade, to where 7 upgrades (econ tier) makes the beam be a deep pink shade, but not quite red (red reserved for Q-beam)

missiles on BC: have some small glowey thing on the exterior of the BC to indicate missiles loaded (bonus if it indicates which missile type and which bay it's in)
BC hardened shielding: deepen the color of the BC shielding with each level

And similar visual effects if feasible/makes sense for the other upgrades

Thoughts? impractical to implement in editor?

[Puppetbones]

I'll add to the list:

Dielectric Sensor Recovery: Spawns a small satelite dish on roof of BC
Laser damage: Changes color of laser or modifies it in some leveled way (perhaps brightens)
Enhanced Stabilizers: Should use the same effect as for ss speed, for the sake of consistency

And a couple of thoughts

Are we still going for mining laser being the color of the asteroid it's mining?

It seems more intuitive to me that things get brighter as they get upgraded instead of darker.

[Dreadnought]

Like in factory ships where every time you upgrade your BC it gets a different model? o.o

[Degra]

Like in factory ships where every time you upgrade your BC it gets a different model? o.o

I'd rather see additional objects getting attached to the current BC hull.
Not sure if that's possible with the SC2 engine though. Probably not.

Also particle effects for speed / laser ups.

[Puppetbones]

I think it is possible to attach objects to BC hull, but, just as everything else is in Editor: hard.

And I think particle effects for speed / lasers would actually have to be done in the same way: attaching objects to them (or at least that would far more efficient than the alternative: having a different model for each damage level, speed level, etc).

[Siretu]

Attaching stuff to the BC is definitely possible and I have previous experience doing it (see destroyer and chomper). Adding particle effects or darkening effects should also be pretty easy. I actually implemented that for BC lasers, just for fun, but it's disabled.

I'm all for this, just give me concrete examples of what I can do for different upgrades.

[Dreadnought]

The easiest bench-markers to use are either the tier upgrades or %% amount of total upgrades.

like every tier upgrade will update the BC model

or every 20% of total upgrades will update the BC model.

[Puppetbones]

I'm all for this, just give me concrete examples of what I can do for different upgrades.

Most of them seem concrete to me, but I guess I'll make suggestions for some of the less concrete ones:

Wraith/Corvette/Destroyer/BC laser damage upgrades: Have the unupgraded projectiles be narrow and have the width increase as damage is upgraded. Like for the wraith, the unupgraded projectiles could look the same as they do now, and the fully upgraded version could look like they did a few months ago.

BC kinetics:
- Damage: Larger missiles.
- Bleedthrough: I don't have any ideas...and considering you can see the bleedthrough damage being done I don't think model changes would accomplish much.
- Homing: No model changes needed. Missile path curvature is enough.

Small Ship Hull: I don't like the idea of changing the size of the ship. It makes the game seem unpolished, and to me does not communicate hull upgrades. Also larger size means it's easier to hit, and flares are less effective, which I guess is interesting but still I don't like it. I also don't like tinting the ships for mostly the same reasons. The best thing I could think of was having the ship flash when it takes damage; a brighter flash when hull is upgraded. Maybe even a subtly different colored flash when upgraded too.

Mining Laser: Have the mining laser be the color of the asteroid it's mining. Perhaps gray for mining other ships. Mining laser upgrades could make the beam wider/larger. Q-beam could make it brighter and speed up the animation of the model. (That also reminds me: to me it would look better if the animation was facing the opposite direction, because right now it looks like matter is going from the miner to the asteroid, when it's really the other way around)

Engine/Thruster upgrades: For small ships, I think the tail of the engine fire could be made longer with engine upgrades (so it would look kind of like engine boost on the BC), but that means enhanced stabilizers (BC) would need something else, making it inconsistent with ss engine upgrades. Although, that might actually be okay since enhanced stabilizers (BC) is in fact different than ss engine upgrades because it also increases turning rate. Perhaps some sort of engine glow would work for enhanced stabilizers.

Loading missiles: I don't have any good concrete ideas...

@Dreadnought:
Siretu confirmed that model changes would be feasible and easy, so no need for benchmark changes. Models could (and should be) updated after each individual upgrade is researched.

[Siretu]

Can't really change mining beam direction easily. From all searching I've done, it seems "impossible" to reverse animations in editor. The closest thing would be to periodically set it back, one animation frame at a time.

For something like the mining laser, I'd rather not do that. It wouldn't work any way, because the mining laser model seems to be using a particle system.

To implement this, I would either have to have someone take the animation and mess with the particle system in a model editor, or get a suggestion on a new mining beam model.

[slapshot]

can we have the kinetics "fire" from the new kinetics gun now? and the gun point in the direction kinetics are shooting?