Aircraft thrust color

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Bravix

Please no...

This isn't Tron. Thrust colors should at least be somewhat realistic. I don't recall exactly what they currently are (Your standard red/yellow thrust with a blue trail I think?)

Anyway, thruster colors shouldn't all be different. It just gets silly. Why would they be different? Unless each empire burns their own special fuel.

I wouldn't mind if they look different...but their engine trail representing the color of their faction as well? Its just nonsensical. I doubt they'd waste the resources to color their aircraft's engine trail.

Just pointing out, bullet tracers are faction specific colors. It isn't always about realism, it's about gameplay. It's always nice to have some lore friendly explanation, but considering they make these things out of nanites, it's not hard to imagine they may have some easy way of manipulating thrust color.

But yeah, faction specific vapor trails may be going to far. I'm ambivalent about that part.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Bravix

Anyway, thruster colors shouldn't all be different. It just gets silly. Why would they be different? Unless each empire burns their own special fuel.

[Bazilx]

And nanites probably did build the pyramids as well. They can do anything, pretty sure they merged the average soldier with zebra DNA to give him the unparalelled cunning and ferocity of a zebra in heat.

[Landtank]

Originally Posted by Bravix

Please no...

This isn't Tron. Thrust colors should at least be somewhat realistic. I don't recall exactly what they currently are (Your standard red/yellow thrust with a blue trail I think?)

Anyway, thruster colors shouldn't all be different. It just gets silly. Why would they be different? Unless each empire burns their own special fuel.

I wouldn't mind if they look different...but their engine trail representing the color of their faction as well? Its just nonsensical. I doubt they'd waste the resources to color their aircraft's engine trail.

No one wants to be shot at by their own team, that's probably a good reason to have different thrust coloration.

I don't really care about realism when it comes to things like this, seeing as its nonsensical to NOT have different colors. If I'm on a 10 kill streak I don't want it ended by my trigger happy friend in an AA MAX >.>

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by sylphaen

There's a different number of tracers per plane:
- Mosquito: 4
- Reaver: 3
- Scythe: 2

I was actually thinking it was very smart when I noticed it during the stream yesterday. Maybe they'll make the color custom.

Yep. I first noticed it when I was thinking "wtf is going on with that quad trail shit?" Then I realized it was the tail fins on the Mosquito. I realized that the Reaver must have 3 trails and the Scythe must have 2 based on their air profiles alone before I even double checked to confirm that was the case. Kudos to the dev team on that one.

This makes me thing they wouldn't be adverse to this idea, since it would especially help identify NS common pool vehicles at night.

Originally Posted by Landtank

No one wants to be shot at by their own team, that's probably a good reason to have different thrust coloration.

I don't really care about realism when it comes to things like this, seeing as its nonsensical to NOT have different colors. If I'm on a 10 kill streak I don't want it ended by my trigger happy friend in an AA MAX >.>

Considering that we have soldiers wandering around in bright red, blue and purple armor, it's obvious that the empires want people to know who they are. So yeah, it makes sense that they would apply this to as many things as possible, including tracer fire and thrust color.

[Eyeklops]

I like this idea. Agree!

[chanic]

Different tracer colors makes sense.

TR - conventional cartridges
NC - magnetically-accelerated railgun slugs
VS - pew pew lasers

Why wouldn't you expect those to be different colors?

And why not for the faction-specific engine colors too?

TR - conventional fuel-burning turbine engine
NC - magnetically-controlled ion thrust engines
VS - alien tech gravity manipulation engines

Making up technobabble explanations is way too easy.

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Bazilx

the unparalelled cunning and ferocity of a zebra in heat.

that killed me

[Methonius]

I agree with this as well. I think it would look cool to see the different empire trails going through the sky, especially at night.

[Kilmoran]

I'd almost desire for this to be customizable (but that would defeat your point)

Here is my only objection.... stealth. If you make it so that the trails are empire specific, you largely eliminate their ability to be stealthy, particularly at night.

[Kilmoran]

Originally Posted by chanic

Different tracer colors makes sense.

TR - conventional cartridges
NC - magnetically-accelerated railgun slugs
VS - pew pew lasers

Why wouldn't you expect those to be different colors?

And why not for the faction-specific engine colors too?

TR - conventional fuel-burning turbine engine
NC - magnetically-controlled ion thrust engines
VS - alien tech gravity manipulation engines

Making up technobabble explanations is way too easy.

The first part i agree with absolutely. The second part.. i am hesitant about because of my point before about stealth. I would hate to never be able to do an aerial scout at night simply because my thrusters give away my faction.

[meiam]

you can just color the smoke coming out, so that in the dark you barely see the smoke anyway. And friendly fire should be a real concern in the dark

[Bravix]

Fair enough, I didn't take into consideration the tracer effect. I actually like the tracers...

Still don't like the idea of the empire specific colors for aircraft trails, but just my opinion.

[SoNaR]

Makes sense, would be very useful for distinguishing another factions aircraft from afar at night if the thrust was all different colors... so.... +1 I support.

[Xyntech]

If no devs comment in here, I'll probably tweet Higby about this once things calm down a little after E3