In some instances the new lighting looks pretty great, like down on planet surfaces or in asteroid rings. Then sometimes it looks pretty bad, like when looking at the Milky Way near a colored star, or when looking at your HUD inside certain stations, or just when inside certain stations.
The concept of adaptive lighting and star colors affecting the environment is great and in theory would improve the look of the game considerably. The problem is Frontier seems to have applied the color gradient to the final output screen after everything else has been rendered. It would have worked much better if the gradient was selectively applied, this way things like the color of the background Milky Way wouldn’t turn red near a red star, or the HUD wouldn’t be tinted by simply being in the same system as a white star (even when the star is behind you). I hate to use the word “lazy”, I’d rather say the improved lighting system was implemented in a “simplistic” manner, and the result is a game which is inconsistent and compromised visually.
I’d love to see the improved lighting system greatly improved some more. Right now I’m not sure it’s honestly better than we had in 3.2. Sometimes it is, but often it isn’t.
