Black holes.

[Gingerwig]

Hi guys

So I have been making my way to HIP 103442 which is a midway way point on the way to the Sadh Region. I chose this as a way point as it was a system with an O class star and three black holes.

Well I managed to get there this evening and found that...well...there wasn't really anything there. I know what some of you are thinking "well they're black so of course you can't see them" and that's what I thought at first but then I put one of them between me and the star and basically there was no difference. I could see the star with nothing there accept the target reticule where it was supposed to be. No distortion, no black, no nothing.

Is this what it is supposed to be like or is this a bug?

Best wishes

Ging

 

[Gingerwig]

I saw a black hole distort the background of the Milky Way. I recently tried the same trick with a star behind it but that didn't work. Checking against the background occured too late and now I've lost the system. Omega tends to get a little cluttered

If you're still there can you check if it distorts the background?

I've logged out now but I will check tomorrow evening and let you know. Cheers

 

[Bloomoo]

I think they turned down the distortion effects in the 1.1 update, but the notes for 1.2 say
- Let the player get much closer to the event horizon of a black hole
- Modify the strength multiplier of the black hole effects

So it should hopefully be much more impressive once it's released.
(Can any beta testers confirm the effect of the changes?)

 

[Darth Ender]

I'd like to see black holes not dealing heat damage unless they're actively feeding on material and if they're actively feeding then they should not be fully naked black holes but wrapped in gas and material that is glowing (more so than a normal star). This would make any close encounter lethal.

But i seriously doubt that will happen.

 

[Kalpa]

I saw a black hole distort the background of the Milky Way. I recently tried the same trick with a star behind it but that didn't work. Checking against the background occured too late and now I've lost the system. Omega tends to get a little cluttered

If you're still there can you check if it distorts the background?

I had Sag A* distort milky way texture / stars in skybox differently. That felt just plain wrong somehow. I rant about it a bit in this short video.

 

[uberdude]

Black holes in ED seem incomplete and wonky. I understand the reality is we don't have a clear cut image of what a black hole is supposed to look like but we do have a good idea. And at the end of the day there is nothing wrong with using good ole fashioned Handwavium for the sake of making one of the most powerful objects in the known universe look "cool".

But as many others point out. FD has bigger priorities at the moment than worrying about aesthetics.

 

[mapesdhs]

It would certainly be good if at some point FD could add in the way in which some binary pairs consist of a black hole that's
feeding off anothe star, which is certainly visually spectacular.

Following on from this, my brother asked me yesterday whether ED would ever include such things as the ability of stars
to go nova. Our galaxy has about 2 such events each year, so really in some way it ought to be in the game, but how the
heck to model that I don't know, given the damage that's done to anything close by. Somewhat further away but still
quite close systems would have an impressive view, but then one wonders whether the visibility of such an event should
be modelled correctly - re uberdude's Handwavium idea that it's kinda ok to bend things a bit for the sake of coolness,
in this case making a nova visible from elsewhere earlier than it should be in reality wouldn't bother me, otherwise we'd
have to wait a very long time for the effect to spread outwards. Besides, there's already plenty of Handwavium with
the use of a universal time concept.

But yes, if the black hole issue could be much better portrayed, that would be nice, though would you want it to be like
it really is, ie. very large BHs are not initially dnagerous to approach (one can cross the event horizon ok, travel a long
time before reaching the destructive center), whereas small ones are the shredder nasties.

I would love to see gas spiraling into a BH being modelled, or objects like asteroids getting sucked in, however that might
be done. The fact that they've included BHs at all impresses me, but it could be better. I certainly like the distortion
effect I've seen in various vids, though the heat increase doesn't really make sense unless one happens to be going
through the jets that come from such places, and they ought to be visible usually.

Clearly, the way ED does this sort of thing can be evolved & built upon over time. Looking forward to seeing how it
progresses.

Ian.

 

[Undecided]

I think something's wrong. I jumped into a system with a black hole yesterday and clearly saw distortion. I just logged in now and nothing. I tried restarting the game, but still the same amount of nothing.

 

[Kamicosmos]

I'm very close to HIP 63835, and have an advanced disco scanner just for black hole hunting. I will probably do that tomorrow evening.

I agree, from the videos I've seen, they are currently rather unimpressive. I know that our 'image' of a black hole with an accretion disk and massive gas/xray jets shooting out of the hole is rare/not accurate/not seen in our visible light/whatever, but....come on! It is a game, and I want to 'see' a black hole like in the movies, not a tiny black pixel with a randomly generated non-nonsensical name next to it. Maybe they could make a Hollywood one to place near some populated systems. Heck, name them HWBH-01 even. It'd be like a theme park for us! Then, leave the others out there in their current realistic state.

 

[[HJ]-RedRaven]

Agree ED's black hole rendering is a bit wobbly.

Interstellar's rendering of the 'Gargantua' black hole is the best available at the moment, but cannot be rendered in real time. Kip Thorne is an outstanding physiscist and his contribution to the movie's effects physics are well documented and peer reviewed papers outlining the work have been published.

The effects team brightened it up a fair bit for the movie shots but the overall distortion effect is mathematically consistent with what we should expect to see close up.

I think there are already BH shaders written that resemble the movie's effect. At work so can't search and post a link.

 

[Gingerwig]

OK so I went back and there is some slight distortion compared to the background. You can just make out the two in the picture. The distortion doesn't appear against the star though which is a bit disappointing as that would look really cool.

 

[Kalpa]

You're still so very far away from the black holes... try getting closer, say, 0.5Ls, you should see some more effects. Granted, they did break the black holes in 1.1, they were more impressive in 1.0.

 

[Gingerwig]

You're still so very far away from the black holes... try getting closer, say, 0.5Ls, you should see some more effects. Granted, they did break the black holes in 1.1, they were more impressive in 1.0.

I did try that and I got thrown out of SC for being too close costing me a few % in hull, not great when I'm 1000LY from the nearest station. How close can you get?

 

[Kalpa]

How close can you get?

Well, whenever you jump to primary black hole systems (or neutron stars, or white dwarfs), the game puts you at 0.22ls distance, so I'd suppose at least that close. I suggested 0.5, thinking that should be pretty safe in any case.

EDIT: For additional safety, UNLOCK your black hole target and the green ring indicating the edge of safe supercruise area should appear around the object. Then just stay outside it.

 

[Gingerwig]

Well, whenever you jump to primary black hole systems (or neutron stars, or white dwarfs), the game puts you at 0.22ls distance, so I'd suppose at least that close. I suggested 0.5, thinking that should be pretty safe in any case.

EDIT: For additional safety, UNLOCK your black hole target and the green ring indicating the edge of safe supercruise area should appear around the object. Then just stay outside it.

Much obliged.

 

[Kzak]

If I remember correctly, if you travel to black holes or neutron stars by supercruise, you can scan them at 5 LS or less distance. Hyperjumping in works as mentioned in the post above. I'll see if I can give you an example of a black hole system name from the 'top' of the galaxy when I get home from work.

 

[Kzak]

Let's see: Look up e.g. Croomaa VO-A F199 in the galaxy map. Filter so you can see non-sequential stars. There's a fair amount of black holes and neutron stars around in the region, 5-15 LY between each one.