kinetics and basic gripes (pwrs and costume)

This ignores a fairly fundamental problem with how cone ranges are defined, which means defining anything other than a cone isn't (or doesn't seem like) it would be possible.

A cone range is not defined as the shape of a cone, but rather as the radius of an AoE, restricted to a certain angle off centre. In fact, you can think of full AoEs as 360 degree cones, though I doubt that's how they're defined mechanically. That's also why Range (previously Cone Range) enhancements only make the radius of the cone longer, but do not increase the angle of the cone.

To define a square "cone" would be... A complete re-write of how cones are defined, to put it simply. Even if there were a good analytical approach to doing this, I would bet money that the system would not be set up to support it. And failing that, trying to catch things into effects via hit boxes is... Not something the game currently does, put it like that.

This also ignores an interesting aspect of how City of Heroes draws sphere and cone AoEs. We always draw these flat on the ground in 2D, because that's how we tend to use them, assuming that their 3D shape would follow. It doesn't. Spherical AoEs here are not spherical in the slightest. They are pill-shaped, in that their horizontal radius is far greater than their vertical radius. Fire up Dispersion Bubble or Force Bubble and you'll see what I mean. AoEs have much lower vertical reach than they have horizontal reach, and while I've never confirmed this for cones, I assume they follow the same shape.

One final note - you draw cones with a flat "bottom," but considering our cones are slices off a sphere (well, pill, but it draws a circle on the ground), it means that their "bottoms" would be round and bulging out. If they weren't, this would give you longer reach on the sides than you'd get in the centre, and considering you aim the centre of the cone, that would be highly unwieldy.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I'm not sure that the visual effect defines the limits of the power effect though. It makes no logical sense to design them that way, it seems like it would actually be MORE difficult to make them pill-shaped than it would for them to be strictly spherical (the pill-shape is more difficult to define mathematically).

The only explanation I could see for it, is if the horizontal radius was measured from the outside of the space defined by our avatar (which if I remember correctly is a cylinder) and the vertical radius was measured from some point inside it. I see no reason why anyone would purposely design the powers that way, since it would add considerable difficulty for no real reason.

It seems more likely to me that the visual effects for dispersion bubble simply looked better if they weren't strictly spherical.

Considering how badly the entire engine handles verticality, I have no reason to suspect it would respect verticality for AoEs. furthermore, having actually played with PBAoEs of various ranges as used from the air to try and catch enemies with them while staying out of melee, I'm all but convinced that this is how it works.

Mathematically, a pill shape isn't that hard to define depending on what kind of coordinates you're using. Spherical coordinates would make such a definition needlessly difficult, true, but cylindrical coordinates would make it actually very easy. Considering that the game appears to define 3D space as an extrapolation of 2D space, I have much reason to believe that's exactly what it uses, in effect if not in definition.

Cylindrical coordinates can reduce a pill shape to a 2D elliptical shape, or actually a half-ellipse, which is then rotated around the centre vertical. Or it would be if that were expressed analytically. As far as I can tell, 3D range is calculated by measuring the distance of an object's projection on the 2d horizontal plane that the character is on, then measuring the distance that object is above or below the plane and "increasing" its distance by some formula. I doubt it's even an ellipse, to be honest. It's probably something much simpler, like a parabola, if it's not even linear.

I've no doubt that the pill shape of Dispersion Bubble and Force Bubble aren't EXACT descriptions of their respective powers' areas of effect, nor do I feel that they are actually defined to follow that shape. However, they are a good example of how AoE range doesn't extend as far vertically as it does horizontally. Because City of Heroes is, for the most part, a planar game, we rarely experience this, but it's there, and it's an important fact to keep in mind. Especially if you, like me, try to catch things with Combustion while staying above the 7 foot melee range of the things you're trying to hit. You'll hit a LOT fewer things than it looks like you should with a 15' AoE.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I might have to get a bubbler up to dispersion bubble level quickly and play around with this with my wife a bit.