It's pretty hard to tell if you're about to kill a MAX or if it can take another magazine or two. So what if maxes with 50% of health would start to spark and on 25% would emmit smoke? That wouldn't affect MAXes in fight directly, but will make it more difficult for single unit be as much effective, making maxes to relie more on the team to defend\repair them, while making life a bit easier for infantry, facing those MAXes, dew to the fact that they'll know if they should engage and try to finihsh the MAX off, or if they should flee.
+1, I like that suggestion I cannot recall just how many times I bailed from a MAX or scared people away, when in reality I (or the enemy) had so little health, that a knife would've finished me (him/her) off. People in general are so scared of MAXes that they refuse to make any kind of engagement, seemingly forgeting that 5 people (especially HA with overshield) can quickly and effectively plink the MAX to death without resorting to explosives. Something that'd give the players an additional set of balls neccesary to fight a MAX is a welcome change.
You're forgetting that the MAX will have the visual obstructions of sparks and smoke coming from inside it. This will cause a lot of blindness which others aren't suffering from and frankly I'm tired of that (black/red out) in shooters, I know it's an attempt to give realism and a more obvious visual to the user of their health but it's really not very efficient or accurate. Getting back to topic, I'd rather not have sparks/smoke coming of MAX units, that's just going to add more lag to this game, particularly during very large fights and during MAX crashes. (Ever seen 20+ maxes vs 20+ maxes, now picture that with sparks and smoke flying out of every single one of them as bullets litter the area... might be a bit more laggy don't you think?)
Personally I just shoot MAXes because if I don't kill it, the next person will. I don't believe we need to cater to people who don't have the guts to die in a game where they can come right back 8 seconds later. Same goes to this C4 nonesense, if people don't want to learn to drive a tank properly and keep parking under cliffs and enemy occupied bridges then they deserve to blow up. If they don't have the balls to shoot a MAX when they can't see the health then they don't deserve the points.
Emmm... it's up to animators to make sparks fly not directly into MAXes face. Considering it's size, shouldn't be that hard to do. And those sparks can be quite small to be simply an indicator, not a gorgeous fountaine of visual effects. About lags. A sparke on a MAX is no different for a computer to process then a spark on a wall made by bullet. So no, it shouldn't cause any lags. Plus every single thing with big health in this game have some sort of damage indicator: tanks, aircrafts, sunderer shield and even heavy's shield (no shield -> half of healh is gone). But not Maxes. Which is wierd and should be fixes.
Ever noticed that smoke effects don't strictly blow straight up? (Wind effect) They can't make it only go one way and they can't make it not render for the player that's rolled as MAX. Vehicles have fuel, things to ignite etc, maxes are just walking suits of armor with guns there's really no reason they would spark or smoke. To spark they would require far more energy than a max unit would ever possess. At best you would have small arcs of electricity for wiring that wouldn't be visible and to do otherwise would just be campy and really be a poor aesthetic choice. It would be on par to the old SNES TMNT game where when you beat up the foot clan they would fly at the screen. Heavy shields are by no means an indicator of health, there are various types of shields that have greater or less absorption, including one that simply reduces incoming damage and does not negate it. I might also add t hat heavy shields do not take headshot multiplier damage. You might say that a combat medic with fully certed nanoweave and medic abilities is a big health class, there's no visual for that either. Stating that large multi-manned vehicles (which have fuel & ammo to burn/ignite & room to make the graphic non-obstructive) have effects that signify their health is reason to create such effects on infantry is not a valid arguement. If you REALLY want to see MAX health so bad because you're afraid of them and aren't willing to take a chance and shoot them... then try using the "Enhanced Targeting" implant which shows a spotted enemy's health when you have them in your sight.
I am most definately sure they can. Have you ever tryed Unity? It's a free game engine and it has a particle system that would allow to controll particle emission so it wouldn't go where it shouldn't. If a free engine can do it, the engine of Planetside can do it as well. Erm... what about all the electronics, batteries, wires, cooling systems and sych? You think they wouldn't give a sparkle or two? Google tests on how can spu perform without a cooler attached. You'll be surprized how something so small cam smoke so much. And a bullet to a working monitor gives a lot of sparkes. So yes - damaged MAXes should spark and smoke. Yes they are. If a shield is on, the heavy has a lot of health and everyone can see that. Shield indicates health boost. Flashes are not bigger then MAxes, but the sparke and smoke. ESFs are 1-man vehicles and they spark and smoke. So why shouldn't MAXes, again? And if an implant is so simple solution, should spark\smoke effects be removed from vehicles? Because why not?
*Facepalm* I'm not even going to bother with most of this because I already addressed it, however an ESF is a plane, it's large and has fuel/oil/explosives that can ignite as I mentioned. The fact that most vehicles contain more than one person was not the point I was making.... Flashes again are vehicles that contain fuel/oil which may ignite. Please read more carefully...
