Planetary Bodies Should Reflect Different Colored Light

[Colonel Kenney]

Mars shows up as a reddish light to us here. It would out in space too. But all the planetary bodies tend to just be your average white.

The transition between being a light and then to a planetary body is also lacking and very very visible. I'm glad atleast they did make some effort into this! I just would like to see some improvement!

 

[laz001]

Mars shows up as a reddish light to us here. It would out in space too. But all the planetary bodies tend to just be your average white.

The transition between being a light and then to a planetary body is also lacking and very very visible. I'm glad atleast they did make some effort into this! I just would like to see some improvement!

I don't understand what you are saying. Planets look fie to me. Can you post some screeshots/pictures with examples?

 

[EAGLE 5]

I get what OP is saying and I agree up to the Mars part. Mars in Elite has been terraformed so it looks a bit like Earth not what it is now. That said I have said it time and again that different color stars (especially at a distance) don't affect the coloration of planets and stations. You would think that a whiteish object like a relatively mild looking gas giant would appear reddish but most of the times it does not it looks white as if a white yellow/white star is shining on it. Same thing for blue stars. If you want a great example of how this should be have a look at space engine it has that right. Even Frontier Elite 2 did this right back in the day.

 

[NatoNine]

I get what OP is saying and I agree up to the Mars part. Mars in Elite has been terraformed so it looks a bit like Earth not what it is now. That said I have said it time and again that different color stars (especially at a distance) don't affect the coloration of planets and stations. You would think that a whiteish object like a relatively mild looking gas giant would appear reddish but most of the times it does not it looks white as if a white yellow/white star is shining on it. Same thing for blue stars. If you want a great example of how this should be have a look at space engine it has that right. Even Frontier Elite 2 did this right back in the day.

I agree with this. I've also noticed that planets only reflect the light of the most dominate light source in multi star planetary systems. It would be good if each star created a different daylight which overlapped on the planets and also if very near planetary bodies did the same (moon light on planets and planet light on moons) . This is not to mention city lights, bioluminescence, lightning, and volcanic activity (I think lava might be accounted for already) over planets especially on the night side... When it comes to terraformed worlds under non standard lighting conditions it would be a nice detail if the city lights provided ballance to the light spectrum so a red star would have green-blue city lights and a blue star would have red-yellow city lights (although any other advanced indigenous life would copy the light spectrum of their home star instead) .

 

[EAGLE 5]

Yep the biggest visual letdown for me was Arcturus. In Frontier Elite 2 it was a crazy red glowing nightmare with the red supergiant and the dwarf stars. Discovery was an awesome landing spot for sightseeing. Then the gas giants with their atmospheres.. Great stuff for the early 90s. Nowadays pick up Space Engine for free. The planets are breathtaking.