Please make all settlements visible from supercruise

[vallor]

Hi,

I posted this in the Horizons forum, didn't get a response.

It would be very cool to be able to see _all_ settlements from a reasonable distance in supercruise. Currently, settlements like INRA bases don't show up until you drop out.

This video illustrates the issue:

[video=youtube;_s9OEvYBTns]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s9OEvYBTns[/video]

Seems like this would turn "beige patrol" into a more exciting endeavor. What do you think?

 

[varonica]

Hi,

I posted this in the Horizons forum, didn't get a response.

It would be very cool to be able to see _all_ settlements from a reasonable distance in supercruise. Currently, settlements like INRA bases don't show up until you drop out.

This video illustrates the issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s9OEvYBTns

Seems like this would turn "beige patrol" into a more exciting endeavor. What do you think?

The INRA bases were/are lost or secret bases of a clandestine imperial/federation operation, from the lore;

Many stories are tied to INRA, that cannot ever be verified without being killed or joining their ranks. Such rumours include that they are based at the mythical planet of Raxxla.

It would seem passing strange that all INRA bases suddenly appeared on the HUD, the pilots federation supplies the data for the location of planets and bases which would mean that they had access to information not available to the general population. There are some things we need to hunt down ourselves and if someone gives you coordinates to an INRA base you should need to fly there to see it, not have it appear on your HUD when you enter the system or orbit the planet its on.

Opinions will vary on this point, but that's my opinion.

 

[vallor]

I'm not talking about the base appearing on the HUD -- just being visible. In my video, the buildings aren't visible when I fly by in supercruise -- but then I drop out and turn around, and they are plainly visible.

I _do_ like the feature that after scanning a base, it appears on the HUD. That is a very nice QoL feature.

 

[varonica]

I'm not talking about the base appearing on the HUD -- just being visible. In my video, the buildings aren't visible when I fly by in supercruise -- but then I drop out and turn around, and they are plainly visible.

I _do_ like the feature that after scanning a base, it appears on the HUD. That is a very nice QoL feature.

Ok I see what you mean, however I think it depends on whether these are "local" features or system features, and FDEV are probably the only ones who know exactly how it works. By system features I mean that all the bases and features that appear just after entering the system, these are loaded during the hyperspace travel, including all orbital stations, system bodies and stats and ground bases. Local features are loaded during exit from SC to an area, so a USS appears in space for instance, you scan it, exit SC and then the resources spawn while you are exiting SC. I expect the INARA bases work like vulcanism, the location is stored in the system database but the resources, ie smoke, chimneys etc aren't actually loaded until you get within about 10km of them (that's just a guestimate based on some experience). Once you travel to far away the resources are unloaded, presumably to prevent to much memory space being consumed by features that aren't close enough to be visible.

Whether that can or will be changed with the new planet shaders and etc in 2.4 I don't know, only FDEV does, but that's my take on it. Of course I may be completely wrong!

 

[Riverside]

I would like to be able to see surface features from SC, but you could think about it this way:

In SC your view cannot be real, you are travelling at a significant fraction of C, or significantly above it relative to the bodies & objects you are viewing. So what you see out of the windows is generated from knows data (from the ADS/DSS or nav beacon etc) from within your ship. It can't show you something it doesn't know about, but once you have discovered it (in normal flight) you should be able to see it.

I do find the pop up distance for surface features to be too close though. If I can see the ground any features on that bit of ground should be drawn, however crudely and however small & distant.

 

[Sylveria]

Visual identity is also affected by distance...

You can't see every populated settlement on Earth from orbit, either.

 

[Ronzer]

I posted something about LOD stuff. One thing I noted is how the draw distance for settlements has improved over time. Settlements used to pop into existence at around 100 km away, whereas now they pop in around ~500km away, so this is definitely improving with time.
The thing that irqs me is that in reality, lights are visible before unlit objects. The first things you'd see, for settlements but moreso stations, are lights on buildings and navigation lights. Currently, objects pop in then a short while later the lights show up. Just seems a bit backwards to me.
It'd be great seeing settlements, or at least their lights, from supercruise. But stations show only as a point of light until you're a certain distance away, out of supercruise. So maybe at most, they'd be shown like that.

 

[vallor]

Hi, wanted to follow up to this:

Low supercruise is 2500m/s, which is a good velocity for searching a lot of ground...if only the searched-for items would be visible within (say) 20km.

As the video shows, draw distance isn't a problem, because I flew over the site, stopped, and turned around. Distance was 8.something K, buildings clearly visible, when in normal space. But in supercruise cruising overhead, buildings are not visible, even though they were even closer when I overflew the settlement.

Don't confuse the HUD marker with what I'm talking about, which is being able to see the settlement itself. But the HUD marker does show where one theoretically _should_ be able to see the buildings, especially that close in supercruise.

Does that make better sense?