Stars moving past you in space (I think is wrong)

Has I-War 2: Edge of Chaos style "HUD space dust" been considered and/or rejected at some point?

I really liked that feature. It was less ambiguous as it was clearly "artificial" and since it came in nice straight lines it was very "readable" in a practical sense.
I think design discussed it early on, they decided they didn't like it.
 

Jenner

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
Personally I hardly ever notice the space dust at all. I mean, subconsciously I know it's there and I definitely like it as it helps to judge velocity and whatnot. It's just not much of a nagging issue to me I guess. Kind of background. Which I suppose is the point. :D
 
Keep an eye out for the Space Dust Bunnies.
They are real killers.

Not to mention the allergies to Space Dust mites. ;)

But seriously, I just think of them as a HUD element that the spacecraft manufacturer helpfully builds into the viewports. Maybe, for the purists, FD can have space dust be an option.
 
You would have to be looking at very nearby stars in front of more distant starts to notice much of a difference. A star at a distance of 1 parsec (3.2 light years) varies in relative position by 1/3600 degree when viewed 6 months apart (a spatial distance of 2 AU, or 16 light minutes). Over half a light year, that star would have moved by 4.5 degrees relative to the sky. But the vast majority of the stars in the sky are much more distant. Did you check with stars included in the beta?

It was back in Premium Beta - I took screenshots to do blink comparison and didn't notice anything. I didn't bother working out which stars in the field of view were which but figured there ought to be something close enough to move... :D

It should be fairly easy with those two star systems that are right next to each other in SB1, might have a look there some time.
 
They are NOT space dust because that is impossible. If that many particles are around you, space would fade into a foggy color and far away stars would be invisible. How would they only be visible in close proximity around you and not far away?

The most likely explanation is that they are holographic projections by your optical implant or hud to visualize speed. I think a dev mentioned somewhere that they might implement a slider to fade them out.
 
haha wow, I was not expecting such a quick and large response to this.

I guess I can play along - sure, space dust :)

Though, I think I'll always believe deep down that the dust is too bright to be just dust - unless the dust was made of retroreflectors or something.... but even then, if the dust was *so reflective* there would still need to be a nearby sun or something to get them that bright (like the proximity and intensity of our sun) - which in most cases there isn't.

If it was just regular dust, it would be like regular dust in a dark room - you don't see it (or *maybe* just barely you do =P)
 
Nice idea! +1

51.png

Not crazy about it.

I prefer to think that it's snowing in space.. little cosmic snowflakes :)
 
Last edited:
Yes it's space dust .... very early on in one of the Alpha tests a Lakon 9 tried a fancy landing at Chango Dock, it didn't go well, 440 tons of Space Dust now contaminates the Galaxy :eek:

2292507374_a32c3226ae.jpg


Memories!
 
Well it's a old design dissision.
but
I am much more hardcore for realism. No velocity cue. No visual dust. Like headlight snowfkakes in space.
Also I think with bit of space speed it al will just blure away. And without out high power head light you would notice it. But what you would notice is slamming this dust on your ship.
The wear and tear would be huge. Much higher speed. Dust the size of sand grins are like shooting gallery with energy of small arms. Much higher speed and next to the impact you also get gamma ray fom those impact.

A space craft would have cockpit but command bunker bridge and kynetic bow like ship.
With gamma ray blocking shield after it and sensor strips because you go trough sensors like it ammo. Sensors would have a hard time.

To me just like airliners which have no point of reference up there. Fly on intruments.

It also reminds me of startreks warp drive and speeds. Stars fly by in second.

So warp speed is like .2 parsec to 5 parsec per second. Depending how dense the stars distribution localy is. From the visual cue.

With such speed the galaxis isnt huge any more relative to how fast you are.
With sensors with high fidelity for as far as 100 LY and micro fidlity op to 3 LY and nano at 1 LY.

The sandbox get smaller feel while keeping the same size.

Most space games have dust as speed cue. Some even space fly's.

It's all a design desision.
 
In supercruise I rationalized it as ALL computer rendered view..

Because travelling routinely at 15c would otherwise be a rather boring view:


[well, darn I was going to put a kewl photo here, but Google failed me. So, Imagine:]

[Tunnel of distorted light, blinding white region in front of you, blueshifted and compressed images of outside to your front in all directions, Redshifted and stretched view slightly rearward of beside you, and utter blackness behind]

As you cannot in fact use light to see anymore when you are moving faster than it does, then obviously supercruise "views" are graphically rendered to show how the system would appear. [they should but the docking menu swipe animation upon start of supercruise]

At normal flight, the bits can be attributed to stellar winds interacting with the shields.

In hyperjump, those stars you are zooming past are "hyperspace stars", among "hyperspace dust clouds" in a nascent "hyperspace universe" that you are passing through as a shortcut.
 
You know, I think I like Calaban's explanation the most because you can actually take it all the way to a plausible place, I think... though in some ways it does cheapen the entire VR experience a little bit if you go where I'm going to go with this.

It's completely plausible that the glass you're looking out of the spaceship through isn't actually glass - they're futuristic ultra high resolution ultra high contrast displays. Why do you need windows in a space ship capable of greater than light travel? You don't - not even at all.

So, the world outside could appear *completely* different from what we see on the displays, and the ship gives us an approximate rendering so that our ape brains can handle what we're seeing... and also, LOL, the programmers of that rendering decided to add the artificial "space dust" so that pilots can get a sense of speed and such.

Of course, then that means you're not looking out at real space - you're looking out at a very very good, slightly altered rendering of space.
 
I too see the "space dust" as a concession of the computer controlled environment to our biological systems.

When we move around on a surface in a vehicle of some sort, or even walking and running, we can judge our speed and therefore control our braking, balancing and acceleration according to those visual clues.
When moving through fairly empty space those clues are lacking so our ship computers give us back those visual clues with the streaks passing us. This aids us in judging braking, direction of travel and acceleration. The so called "space dust" doesn't have to be a real physical object, it can be just a cig( computer induced graphic) to aid its human controller.

Pretty necessary in my view.;)
 
Last edited:


I saw some move in relation to each other on the long SC slog to that station that everyone moans about.

The name escapes me at the moment but I swear I saw them move! :D

ETA: For the avoidance of doubt - can I just add that what I saw moving was absolutely positively not the space dust effect, which is obviously not meant to be stars (to me at least). Thank you.

I wonder how quick the Stellar Forge code can generate the 2000 or so visible stars needed for your average night sky?

Okay, so I finally got around to examining my evidence - 2 screenshots taken 12,000.00 Ls apart.

It would appear I imagined it after all..

:eek:
 
Back
Top Bottom