Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-21473588-20130920054201/@comment-16502426-20130921042311

After a day to think about it, a Nerf incarnation of Ember Celica is certainly in order. Or at least heavily EC-inspired (for reasons to follow). This is half 'stream of consciousness', half trying to explain this. So forgive me if I argue with myself a bit. XD It is, however, pretty much a wall of text.

The main issue is the motion activation itself. Since even within the show the same motions (or very similar motions) produce different results. For the sake of clarity, I'll call a motion in the regular punching direction (away from the shoulder/body) the forward direction, and the opposite motion the reverse direction.

The first question is, which direction triggers EC's firing? At first it would seem obvious, forward! but upon closer checking, it is tough to tell for sure. At one particular frame I was lucky enough to stop at during the fight with Junior, I noticed that her arm was all the way extended, but no shot had been fired yet (although this was only a few frames before it cut to another view, so it could just be not animating the last shot which wouldn't be seen for long). Could the firing action be triggered by the reverse motion, as her fist deccelerates? It would make sense in that she wouldn't have to fight recoil during the punch, and it would make it easier to use it in a flicking motion to get her recoil boost.

However, after extensive review, it appears she can trigger it with a sweeping motion, even if it doesn't have a hard reverse motion. So forward-triggered it is.

Second issue. It can be seen several times that she cocks EC with a reverse motion. However, the question is does she have to do this between every shot, or can she go all the way to the end of her ammo in a row? Since she's rarely seen reloading, I'm fairly certain that she basically does this any time she stops, since the reverse motion of pulling back from he last punch didn't happen. So yes, she does do it between each.

Last issue, how does she sometimes fire without a punching motion? The most notable example is her finishing blow to the DJ in her trailer. She's already got both hands on him, then fires a shot. with no significant acceleration of motion. One thing I've noticed is that despite being "gauntlets", EC does not provide any protection or reinforcement to Yang's knuckles. This could be for a reason. The outer part of EC seems important in the firing/cocking/reloading process. Perhaps when she jabs her fist further into the DJ, it pushes on this outer part, triggering EC? We'll likely never know for sure.

So in short, the mechanics of Ember Celica would appear to be:

-Pump Action (but possibly semi-auto)

-Forward motion - Fire

-Reverse motion - Re-cocking (very unlikely: safety release)

-Reverse motion with some sort of activator - eject casings, prepare to reload. Once reloaded, activates.

-Forward motion when in inactive state - activates.

Outer part:

-May or may not be involved in the motion sensing as an inert weight. If true, that would mean it could be fired by pressing/pulling on the outer part.

I believe that the casings may contain more than one shot each. This would explain why the only time she reloads is to change the type of ammo. The reverse motion "re-cocking" could simply be a measure to make sure that she can't accidentally jam the trigger in the on position (which, with the weapon still having uninterupted access to dust due to more than one shot per casing, could cause an overload or some other issue).

So, for the Nerf idea:

- Outer part on spring-loaded sliding track connected to inner parts. Is heavy enough to overpower the springs if accelerated quickly enough. This essentially is acting as the trigger.

- Triggering mechanism could in theory be either mechanical, or electrical of some sort. I'm leaning electrical, since it would be much easier to implement and calibrate.

- Basically, when the outer piece moves (not talking much here, likely only a cm or so each direction) and it reaches the end of its travel, it completes a circuit, triggering firing mechanism. When it hits the end of the reverse direction, it activates the ammo to cycle (in this case we obviously only get one shot per dart).

- To reload requires an inward flick, or some other activation, which trows the piece onto a parralel track and retracts up the arm to allow reloading. Near impossible to actually make work, but I can see how it would work in my mind.

Modifications made to be slightly better for actual useability:

- Possibly eliminating the re-cocking motion

- Moving the ammo slightly further up the forearm. This allows easier reloading without the fancy motions (which is pretty near impossible and I am not even remotely thinking about), while making the barrel slightly longer as well.

So, TL;DR: I may or may not be making a Nerf weapon somewhere between heavily inspired by Ember Celica and actually mimicking it. We'll have to wait and see.

Most likely not any time soon, I don't have any resources here. Maybe when I go home over winter break, but no guarantees. I'll definitely post if I get anything remotely near functional. Which is probably not too likely. :)