Allow ship to see in all electromagnetic spectrums, which would help find stellar bodies

[Jeeves]

So, a lot of stellar bodies primarily emit energy in a range different than visible light. Black holes, when consuming matter, emit gamma rays as well as a lot of X-rays. All stellar bodies emit IR light, which would allow you to pick up variations in temperature across space. Making spotting a tiny planet much easier. Neutron stars emit x-rays if they are pulars, which would make awesome looking lighthouse beacon patterns. Black holes would shine brightly around their rings, and you'd actually be able to take in the true physics of the body in a way we can't do with just the gravitational lensing effect.

It wouldn't be particularly difficult, it would just require the interface to register a bit more information about the stellar bodies, and give you the ability to switch between spectrums.

Though if this were used in combat, it could prove a very effective way of resisting the impact of silent running, so perhaps this would be an extra advanced set of scanners, only usable during supercruise, or something like that.

It would also make for some interesting flaring effects. Being close to a star at a Navigation point or an Asteroid field, you would get completely washed out by the star using IR sights. You probably would be invisible using either silent running or regular flight.

But once again, I think it could be balanced. Of course, the views would use false-color imaging, etc.

 

[Mohfuu]

I think it would be difficult because we might be talking about making additional graphical effects that are just running in the background until you switch something over on your canopy that lets you see this stuff.

I still think it would be worthwhile and pretty darn cool.

 

[DaggerSnake]

I would be a nice visual touch. I assumed the discovery scanners were using all this type of info in their sensors. But my suspension of disbelief is pretty easy. I'm a cheap date

 

[firstname_lastname]

Yes, this this would increase my immersion.

 

[Jeeves]

I agree. Considering that our Advanced Discovery Scanners do actually register all this information (IR spectrum lines are used to figure out atmosphere types), we should be able to get some effects. Flip on the false color imaging, suddenly all the bodies in the system change their looks. It would be fascinating too, because it would also show the localized temperature variations, and FD could communicate a lot more information.

In some ways, they are already using the physics models for real stellar bodies, so translating that extra bit of information into the system is entirely feasible. And it would, indeed just look fascinating. You would get to see Nebulas and other objects in completely different ways than before.

 

[Jeeves]

Hmm, well we do know that regular ship scanners can pick up information on infared. But I think perhaps they should give another module to pilots for this, or possibly stick it as a utility mount outside the ship.

 

[WalterHWhite]

Nice idea. Will it also include radio frequencies? Those Earth-likes may have some good music

 

[Asp Explorer]

This was suggested way back in Alpha - something akin to the different views from the Predator movies

It disappeared without trace back then, but it's certainly something I'd love to see a module for.

 

[CMDR Rob James]

Would we be able to see some of accretion disk without looking at the different wavelengths?

microquasar ( not allowed to post pictures or links yet ) www
---lecosmographe.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Microquasar_ESO.jpg---

 

[Lodorenos]

I suggested something similar, an X-Ray module, last week.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=101518&highlight=

 

[Iniaes]

This would definitely be an interesting and immersive addition to my only occupation in-game, have some rep

but as far as loading for the server and in-game assets go this could result in a lot of extra work for the FD team, unless they tie it into starforge too.

 

[Jeeves]

This would definitely be an interesting and immersive addition to my only occupation in-game, have some rep

but as far as loading for the server and in-game assets go this could result in a lot of extra work for the FD team, unless they tie it into starforge too.

Thank you!

I do see that, it is a whole lot of data, it would take a huge patch to do all the rendering, but once modeled that principle can be applied throughout all the other systems, it doesn't need to be done individually.

 

[Jeeves]

Speaking of which, does anyone have an idea of, on a programming level, just how tough this would be?

 

[dementia]

Speaking of which, does anyone have an idea of, on a programming level, just how tough this would be?

Not very. You would essentially be rendering the scene with different coloured lighting from each object. Those objects with are invisible to the visual spectrum would simply have a black light. Different 'vision modes' could therefore be easily implemented simply by changing the ambient light and the lighting coming from those objects.

At least that is how I would do it.

Of course there are other considerations (texture changes, etc) that could be additionally employed.

 

[Jeeves]

I can think of it in terms of Revit, where you simply add other layers to a drawing, which would be exposed under specific programming conditions. For many objects though, it wouldn't be necessary to use x-ray, gamma ray, or Ultraviolet layers, so most planets would be a lot simpler as data files. IR would be pretty easy too for just temperature, unless they wanted to render actual spectral lines in the coloring, which would be interesting.

 

[SneakytheRogue]

Speaking of which, does anyone have an idea of, on a programming level, just how tough this would be?

Programming wouldn't likely be too complex. It would be very similar to what dementia has already suggested.
Research & design would likely be the tedious aspects. Assuming they want to continue with the level of realism they started with, they would possibly have to revisit and add detail to all the major galactic objects for each spectrum we add and setup how they want it to be viewed. In 3D too, because you can see it from angle in this game, not just the perspective we have from Earth. Star spectrums could probably be pushed out procedurally, but nebulas and other unique/famous celestial bodies would liekly need to be hand-tailored.

 

[Jeeves]

Programming wouldn't likely be too complex. It would be very similar to what dementia has already suggested.
Research & design would likely be the tedious aspects. Assuming they want to continue with the level of realism they started with, they would possibly have to revisit and add detail to all the major galactic objects for each spectrum we add and setup how they want it to be viewed. In 3D too, because you can see it from angle in this game, not just the perspective we have from Earth. Star spectrums could probably be pushed out procedurally, but nebulas and other unique/famous celestial bodies would liekly need to be hand-tailored.

Very true, and those would be some of the most desirable areas to visit, just for the aesthetics. I think it's well worth it. It would be amazing for immersion (and probably set the bar for every other space game to follow).