Nitpicks and suggestions regarding audio and visuals

Merchteen

M
Intro

Hi! First, i'd like to go ahead and thank the team at Frontier for making an absolutely breathtaking game. It's been long since i last played a game with this much effort poured into it! Stunning visuals, marvelous immersive potential and surprisingly fleshed out game play for a game in early access, all running at a smooth 60 fps on my outdated rig. With that out of the way, i want to hop right into the little nitpicks and details i would love to see changed!

Disclaimer: Some of these suggestions are extreme nitpicks. Proceed with caution.

Audio
I must note that i've yet to play the game with a speaker/woofer setup, so these suggestions mostly only apply to headphone use!

Hyperspace

  • The sound effects when entering and exiting a hyperspace jump are overwhelming, but not powerful enough. There is a large amount of noise coming at the player, especially when entering hyperspace, but overall the impression lacks power.
My suggestion would be to have a brief pause of the noise just before crossing into hyperspace. This could be accompanied with either a thud or looming rumble. Additionally, exiting hyperspace does not feel very dramatic despite the "trumpet" sound implying such. I'd like to see the rumble buildup around the 30hz range under the trumpet sound boosted a bit. Along with that, there could be an additional pause right after the trumpet and right before the "exit".

  • In hyperspace, there is no audio indication that your ship is shaking.
I'd like to hear creaking, rattling, basic indications that the ship is shaking as violently as the visuals suggest.
  • In hyperspace, objects passing by are not reflected in audio.
I'm not actually sure whether there are any sound effects for when the colorful nebulae and stars and stuff fly past the viewpoint, but it is not obvious enough. The prerendered sound effect that plays with every jump does not reflect what you see when you jump, and i suggest it's cut entirely once proper situational sounds are implemented.

Supercruise

  • When exiting supercruise, there is a jarring transition where suddenly the FSD engine background sound is much louder while the game is "loading".

UI


  • The sound when a side UI panel is opened gets overly repetitive.
This becomes evident when for example hovering over a well-trafficked star in a Cobra waiting for victims while staring non-stop at the contacts tab.

Starport


  • The reverb/echo inside a starport is overwhelming. It's hard to hear what is said by the announcer.
I suggest the insides of starports are coated with rubber foam sound isolation sheets, to dampen the sounds a bit. This might also help with collision damage when flying unshielded!

Visuals

Hyperspace


  • The visual effects that pass the viewpoint inside hyperspace appear too close to the viewpoint.
  • Additionally, they are easily identified and repetitive.
  • Upon exiting hyperspace, sometimes it appears as though you've travelled in a different direction than you're facing because of the blue particles.
  • Upon exiting hyperspace, the entry speed is much too slow.
I want to elaborate on how i want to see this changed. Currently when you exit hyperspace, you are greeted with the destination star travelling towards you, finishing that movement in about a second with a "slow" deceleration. What i would like to see is a much more drastic deceleration, with the star first appearing the size of a couple pixels for about a third of a second, and rapidly moving towards the player before coming to an almost-instantaneous stop another half-second later. This might conflict with how currently other ships appear around a star, mirroring what happens in first person by slowly decelerating after appearing. That would have to be changed to something instantaneous like what happens when observing someone exiting supercruise. I understand that there is a thematic conflict here since you're supposed to "exit" hyperspace into supercruise and then decelerate, but it doesn't feel quite dramatic enough.

Supercruise


  • Upon exiting supercruise, entry speed appears slow.
This has mostly to do with linking the visuals for when you watch another ship exit supercruise. The ship appears instantaneously, with a flash and trail of smoke. It feels wierd that this is not mirrored in first person view. It could be mirrored by having the destination appear with a flash, appearing warped for a split second.

Stellar objects
  • In a system with several stars, there is one light source. Am i missing a graphics setting for this?
  • Black holes need to actually be black holes and have accretion disks and all that jazz but you know this already.
  • Arches over stars are billboards with no gameplay purpose. It would be really, really cool to have to actually dodge them when fuel scooping.
  • Closely orbiting stars do not "siphon" gas from eachother.​
Getting that last effect right with procedural generation must be difficult so it is understandable that it's left out for later. It is however a rather jarring sight to see a type O giant and a black hole orbiting each other with a distance of less than half the O star's diameter, without the O star getting deformed or leaving a gas trail.

first post! sorry if lists are frowned upon in suggestions, sorry if something was already mentioned elsewhere, etc
 

Psycho Romeo

Psycho Romeo
Audio
I must note that i've yet to play the game with a speaker/woofer setup, so these suggestions mostly only apply to headphone use!
Click to expand...
As a headphone user, I've not noticed any issues. And from what I understand about audio, if you don't notice it, it's probably doing a good job. Some of your complaints I find a little absurd (specifically the UI sound issue). However, now that you bring it up, I do wish I heard more creaking and rattling in my ship.

Visuals
Click to expand...
I've not seen them for a while, but don't the blue lines you see upon exiting always point to the nearest star?




  • Arches over stars are billboards with no gameplay purpose. It would be really, really cool to have to actually dodge them when fuel scooping.
Click to expand...
Also, what are these star arch billboards you speak of?

While I commend your stellar powers of observation, I would be ecstatic if FD spent exactly zero percent of their time dealing with these issues in the near future.
 

Merchteen

M
Psycho Romeo said:
Also, what are these star arch billboards you speak of?

While I commend your stellar powers of observation, I would be ecstatic if FD spent exactly zero percent of their time dealing with these issues in the near future.
Click to expand...

What i meant are solar flare arches, these ones.
nzvC66o.jpg
Since they often stick out of the "gravity border" of the star, it's weird to be able to fly right through them without a single indication that you did.

Fair point though, i'd also like to see the game fleshed out a bit more before these minor, minor details are taken care of.
 
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