Minor questions on weapon audiovisual effects

Well, my guess is for question 1, as you get different beam weapons, they look different. Or perhaps it's the mass drivers instead of beams. As for question 2, no idea, sorry.

I know they do for Plasma, Phasors, etc., but these both occurred with Lasers (I checked the ships).

The top-end laser has a different animation, IIRC. Not sure how the invasion animations are picked.

they should really do an overhaul on invasion animations. Those crane tanks and happy meal boxes shooting missles look so stupid.

Those purple bursts are from Laser V's, the other lasers are the red beams.

LOL! Don't forget they also bobble up and down like Hamburglar after they win.

LOL this is so true! Been whining about em ever since the GC2 was released. Who ever created these GFX for land combat should be ashamed.

In MOO3 we just have a tiled view of the planet and the attacking side's colour advanced over the defending side's colour depending on the success of the invasion and how much of the planet they conquered. I think even putting goofy animations beats that.

Ofc, in MOO3, ground combat was a bit more detailed, technically.

Planatary Invasions in MOO2 looked alot better. I don't remember too much, but I believe there were technologies for tanks and big mechs to defend planets. If you had that tech and structure, you would then actually see them fighting.

@Stanley Tarrant

You right on the money, I have the same kinda memory picture from MOO2. If a game 10 years older can beat modern day game in terms of graphics, something is wrong!

Yeah, as great as the ship combat animations are, you would think that ground invasion graphics would be better than practical "atari" quality. I know with a few minor animation changes to ground combat, conquering the galaxy would be alot funner (although it already is pretty fun!   )

Specifically this is what they could do:

If playing as a default race, have the soldiers at least kind of look like that race. Have different tanks and vehicles for the different default races. Then with custom races, you choose how you want your race to look like when invading.

If you have say phazors and your opponent has lazer tech, you get to see your green beams firing against their red beams. In other words, have the soldiers shoot your best tech ship weapon while the opposition shoots theirs.

If you have space marines or better soldier tech, you see the difference: for example if you invade with space marine tech, your soldiers look like power armored warriors not unlike the space marines of warhammer 40K.

It would be nice if you saw asteroids crashing or nukes going off depending on the invasion tech you choose.

The devs all love to boast about the better graphics with ships and what not in DA and I agree, yet ground combat still looks like atari style graphics, and is the same boring thing to watch.

Frogboy, are you getting this??

Or maybe they could go to Hollywood and spend tons of loot hiring A-list actors like Matt Damon, Adrienne Brody, and Gary Sinise and just do a live action cut sequence with a bunch of different scenes to emulate the various invasion forces and available invasion tactics...
Oh, but wait a minute... I think this is already being done. Star Trek XI... a prequel to the original TV series...

Actually, all sarcasm aside, the graphics could use some updating but they don't really mean all that much to me. It's all in the ships maaaaaannnnnnnn!