Is this possible? I’d like to make the Lightning Beam look something more like this:
Yup it should be, because the shipmodules.csv spreadsheet explicitly selects lightning.dds as the texture for that weapon. If you look at that file (you need dds plugins for photoshop or similar) it looks like this:
The game picks a random strip from what it assumes to be 8 columns, and swaps between them regularly to make it flicker. So you need a file with 8 versions of it, and ensure its in dds format with the right alpha channel; etc.
Then you need a new weapon of the SIM_LightningGunModule variety that actually uses it as its texture.
Cool, thanks! One further question, which edge of that .dds file is the start of the beam and which edge is the end? In other words, does the graphic originate from the turret bottom-to-top, or top-to-bottom? I’d like there to be a noticeable impact point on the enemy ship, right now it just looks like it’s vigorously tickling the target.
I’m pretty certain its bottom to top, but that might not help because the beam itself gets repeated over long distances, so it doesnt seem to stretch or comrpess, which means you couldn’t achieve what you want right now without code changes.