Does Not Illustrate: Weaponized Exhaust

Is the picture cool? Absolutely. Is it illustrative? Not so much. To me that looks more like a really big laser than any kind of exhaust. Could we get a picture of something getting blown back by a jet engine or something along those lines?

If you look closely you can kind of see that it's the back of the vessel, but it isn't very good.

Definitely needs to be replaced, that just looks like a big laser.

Umm... the Angel's Pencil drive is "a big laser", in essence.

That nitpick aside, I agree that the page could use a more obvious demonstration of the trope.

Oh I've got a perfect example for this.

The "Eject Warp Plasma" ability in Star Trek Online counts as this. Your ship leaves behind a trail of warp plasma, and any enemies that fly through it will have their engines stalled and start taking damage. It won't be hard to create a screenshot depicting the damage coming from the enemies as well as the plasma venting out behind my ship. I'll get on it as soon as I get back from the gym (in about half an hour or so.)

Ok. Here is attempt number 1. First off, if you're complaining about how dark space is.. SPACE IS DARK.

What you can see here though is the warp core plasma:

A: emitting from the back of the Klingon vessel.

and

B. Already damaging the Keldon class cruiser that's been caught in it. Yes, I know you can't see the Keldon directly, but the name indicate that it's there.

I like that.

That is better.

It is possible to interpret the ship going the other way, but you kind of have to go out of your way to do that. Or get the wrong impression from the start.

IIRC, it's not actually an exhaust system though, it's a comms device.

If its primary purpose is to make the ship move then I'm okay with it.

I meant the current one. At least, I think it is. I read the story about the first Man/Kzinti (however the fuck that is spelled) interaction, and it was a comm laser Superweapon Surprise.

Completely off topic: That spacecraft reminds me of a Battle Cruiser.

Deboss, it was both drive and comm system. Just a matter of where it was pointed and the focusing of the beam.

Mind you, this thread does bring another issue to mind with the current image: it's part of a copyrighted image. This gives the copyright owner as Adam Burch. AFAIK, no permission has been given to use it (nothing in the source of the page or the discussion).

Angel's Pencil was a lightsail craft... the comm's laser was part of its propulsion system.

I really like 6, too.

Agreed. I don't even know what game it's from (other than being a Star Trek game), but I get a good idea of the trope just looking at it.

It's Star Trek Online. We can pothole that if we put it up.

So, can we go with my suggestion then?

Yes, we can. The new pic's up, potholed, and tagged; caption or no?

I think the picture does a good enough job without a caption.

Actually, when I posted the picture, I posted my suggested caption with it. It further emphasizes just what it is and make sure there's no confusion. Qa'Pla!

edited 6th Jul '12 11:58:49 PM by DRCEQ

How does someone who's never played (or even seen, prior to that image) STO know it's doing damage, though? Or has never played any MMO at all, at that?

I've never played it, but there are damage numbers coming out of the victim ship to indicate that it's being damaged.

That was the second part of my question. How would someone who hasn't played any MMOs know what the damage numbers (or, hell, any of the numbers) represent? Not everyone has played an MMO (and IIRC it's not a universal implementation in all MMOs).