Replace Hyperspace Animation with a Locally Accurate Galaxy Map 'Warp' Animation
- Thread starter Jon93
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Yes but as I stated in the OP; gameplay and sensation is more valuable than a tiny lore detail. To make it lore compatible they could just state that light also reaches witchspace or whatever. It's not difficult to come up with some technobabble to justify a better gameplay solution. Also, as shown in the early trailer above they already kind of have this idea, it's just not implemented.
Which is why I'm specifically referring to this as a feature mostly for explorers. For the exploration ships with 30+ Ly you'll be able to jump almost straight through many nebulae. The Orion nebula is just 12 Ly in radius e.g. Imagine jumping through Barnard's Loop..
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Since the problem of different PCs having different load times is there regardless one would expect this to have as much impact on all computers. Shouldn't be a very graphically intensive thing to have though since many games either play HD-videos during loading screens or load on demand. If one has low graphical settings they could just let the transition be of lower quality as well, like the galaxy map.
Hello, Jon93.
I'm not really in favour of this idea, sadly - and only partly for the reasons others have given. I think no matter how much time and love FD gives to this, it will probably just get boring again after seeing it a few dozen times. I like the hyperspace visual, although it would be nice if it were more obviously diverse. I prefer the dual FTL capability we have, since it's something fairly rare in SF.
Our current Supercruise and Hyperspace jump systems are derived from two of the three FTL systems in the original Elite. According to the DDF archive, it is explicitly meant to be two different kinds of travel - although given that it says Supercruise was originally intended to be sub-light-only, I'm uncertain how much weight accords to this.
At some point, we're expecting the Thargoids (deadly enemies from the previous games) to reappear. One of their best tricks - along with the Tharglets - was ambushing players in hyperspace, dropping them into open space midway between stars and attacking. It was very effective and I'd like to see it return. If FD updates this mechanic and has the fight in hyperspace itself, we could see some visually unique environments. I doubt being ambushed during an interstellar Hypercruise would have anything like the same impact.
I would also caution against anything that results in the game's FTL systems looking any more like Star Trek's warp drive than is absolutely necessary. Trek's corporate owners - CBS Television - have been getting legally fractious lately, even going so far as to sue the makers of one of their more prominent fan projects. We really don't want them looking in Frontier's direction.
On the topic of whether this would get repetitive, I think this hasn't happened with Star Citizen even though we've been seeing Quantum Drive jumps dozens of times. I still love it (although it appears they're going for some kind of hyperspace thingy as well between stars). On the other hand, the hyperspace animation got tedious very quickly for me since you have no outside stimuli or things to look at while traveling. The sense of traversing a galaxy feels like an essential component to exploration. Otherwise, it's just a billion disjointed instances, each with their own static galaxy backdrop.
Lore-wise I don't mind tiny retcons if it improves gameplay. They've already hinted at this idea in the trailers so it appears to have been their first idea.
As for Thargoids; I don't see how the impact would be different if you're just pulled out into regular space anyway. Another solution would be to just alter the lore of hyperspace and allow some visual feedback about the galaxy in it or something. I'm sure the writers could get creative and just come up with some technobabble for it.
I only used the term "warp" for this occasion. One obviously can't patent the notion of FTL travel... There are so many games out there using this concept that I really don't see how this would draw attention from anyone.
I fear we're not going to see eye-to-eye on this one, Jon93. 
I shall try not to argue with you too much - I know how annoying it is when people won't leave you be - but I shall answer your points.
I suspect you're not too familiar with Hollywood lawyers. You might be surprised by what they'll try to claim ownership of. As I write, Paramount and CBS vs Axanar is underway in the US courts. Amongst other things that genuinely are their property, they apparently seem to believe they own the concepts of warp drives*, Federations and - I kid you not - Science Fiction Action Adventure. Here's their latest amended filing, so you can see for yourself. It's on page 39, or thereabouts. While that case is a certain win for CBS and Paramount, they've gone to court in the past and wasted millions on far more questionable cases. A measure of caution, rather than creating more ammunition for a potential opponent, just seems wise to me.
I probably won't post any further on this thread, since we've made our respective positions very clear. Perhaps FD - being genuinely clever people - can think of a way that satisifies both our desires in the matter. I can only hope so.
*In case anyone's wondering, the concepts of both hyperspace and warp drives were apparently introduced to SF by the great John W Campbell Jr, in 1931. Gene Roddenberry was ten years old, at the time.
I shall try not to argue with you too much - I know how annoying it is when people won't leave you be - but I shall answer your points.
I can't honestly disagree with you at all, here. There's definitely a case to be made for an animation - hyperspace or otherwise - that conveys a better sense of crossing immense distances. As much as I like the existing loading screen, it does feel rather sedate and doesn't really fit with all the ships readouts going crazy.
Actually, their first idea was over thirty years ago. It involved Thargoids occasionally ambushing players during hyperspace jumps.
Sorry, I've not explained this well: as it was, you'd make a normal jump, but - instead of appearing in the next solar system - you'd unexpectedly find yourself in the middle of nowhere, hyperdrive jammed, completely surrounded and under instant attack by an alien military force, with each Thargoid spawning numerous Tharglet fighter drones for even more hurtage. I'm not quite sure how to describe the subjective experience, but 'surprise' and 'panic' are good words to start with. It's hard to see that working quite so well when something happens and everyone can see they haven't reached the next system yet.
Heh!
I suspect you're not too familiar with Hollywood lawyers. You might be surprised by what they'll try to claim ownership of. As I write, Paramount and CBS vs Axanar is underway in the US courts. Amongst other things that genuinely are their property, they apparently seem to believe they own the concepts of warp drives*, Federations and - I kid you not - Science Fiction Action Adventure. Here's their latest amended filing, so you can see for yourself. It's on page 39, or thereabouts. While that case is a certain win for CBS and Paramount, they've gone to court in the past and wasted millions on far more questionable cases. A measure of caution, rather than creating more ammunition for a potential opponent, just seems wise to me.I probably won't post any further on this thread, since we've made our respective positions very clear. Perhaps FD - being genuinely clever people - can think of a way that satisifies both our desires in the matter. I can only hope so.
*In case anyone's wondering, the concepts of both hyperspace and warp drives were apparently introduced to SF by the great John W Campbell Jr, in 1931. Gene Roddenberry was ten years old, at the time.
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Thanks for the input/feedback DocLooshkin
I can understand the appeal when that scenario of Thargoids is brought into the question but without having them implemented yet it's difficult to discuss how it would appear. Are you pulled out into just regular flight or are you pulled out into supercruise and surrounded? And isn't the current interdiction mechanics/visuals a good way to generate this tension?
It appears to be a bigger thing in the film industry. Pretty sure SC, NMS, and others aren't being sued over it so I'm sure FD can avoid it as well
Indeed, I hope there's some compromise as the opinions seem to go 50:40 on this according to the small sample above. The galaxy map is one of the few things I'm still astonished by in this game due to its visuals yet you spend so little time seeing it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clJwjraN_5Q It's just a great asset waiting to be used in a better way.
I can understand the appeal when that scenario of Thargoids is brought into the question but without having them implemented yet it's difficult to discuss how it would appear. Are you pulled out into just regular flight or are you pulled out into supercruise and surrounded? And isn't the current interdiction mechanics/visuals a good way to generate this tension?
It appears to be a bigger thing in the film industry. Pretty sure SC, NMS, and others aren't being sued over it so I'm sure FD can avoid it as well
Indeed, I hope there's some compromise as the opinions seem to go 50:40 on this according to the small sample above. The galaxy map is one of the few things I'm still astonished by in this game due to its visuals yet you spend so little time seeing it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clJwjraN_5Q It's just a great asset waiting to be used in a better way.
No, it is really fast supercruise. There is no Witchspace in ED. That is old technology. I even got a response from MB ages ago that the Cap ships use old tech, thus why they can jump to a planet. Not sure how lore accurate that is but there you go...
In ED it is all Alcubeer.
Having an eye for detail, I already noticed that the animations are never the same.. the most interesting part is the fact that you see the light from the drives of other ships, you know, like they look in supercruise.. I also see blue and red lights in the animation often. It is a stunning sight, even after thousands of jumps, and I regularly take a good look at the detail of it. I wonder about those other ships lights I see.. I expect to be pulled out by the Thargoids on more than a rare occasion.. and I think that's exactly what will happen in future updates.
I'm sorry for the OP that he lacks detail in his observational skills,. unfortunately people who are blind to something are hard to convince of the existence of what they are blind for
Oh, addendum: what we see in the game is not realistic anyway, as travelling faster than light would compress what you see in front of you and make everything behind you black.
But then.. the FSD is based on a principle of the ship being in a kind of 'bubble' that is not in actual space, but more piercing through space/time.. so the rules of physics would be different.
Perhaps we would see nothing at all when travelling in supercruise or hyperjump.. perhaps that would make the game immensely boring, but very realistic.
Perhaps geeks like you and me should take the realism part with a grain of salt, because we never actually had a man travelling faster than light (and live to tell about it) to tell us what he saw.
Perhaps we can calculate what it would look like, but like I said, it might be nothingness, and it might change the way everything looks when we fly in supercruise.. which is where we spend most of our time anyway.
Perhaps Fdev made a compromise, so we could enjoy the majestic views of the galaxy without being bothered by the limitations of the speed of light.
Perhaps we have the same ideas about the light-barrier as sicentists (!) used to have about the sound barrier.. that it would be unachievable or kill the person who travelled that fast.
Science is in an infantile state.. although we may think it's impressive. Science is being held back by our lust for war.. and it will be held back as long as we have war.
Spaceflight will remain a dream, as long as one group of humans thinks he is better than another group of humans. We will probably all die before we ever get colonies on other planets.
So that's why I enjoy this game.. it allows me to experience a future that humanity will never reach.
I'm sorry for the OP that he lacks detail in his observational skills,. unfortunately people who are blind to something are hard to convince of the existence of what they are blind for
Oh, addendum: what we see in the game is not realistic anyway, as travelling faster than light would compress what you see in front of you and make everything behind you black.
But then.. the FSD is based on a principle of the ship being in a kind of 'bubble' that is not in actual space, but more piercing through space/time.. so the rules of physics would be different.
Perhaps we would see nothing at all when travelling in supercruise or hyperjump.. perhaps that would make the game immensely boring, but very realistic.
Perhaps geeks like you and me should take the realism part with a grain of salt, because we never actually had a man travelling faster than light (and live to tell about it) to tell us what he saw.
Perhaps we can calculate what it would look like, but like I said, it might be nothingness, and it might change the way everything looks when we fly in supercruise.. which is where we spend most of our time anyway.
Perhaps Fdev made a compromise, so we could enjoy the majestic views of the galaxy without being bothered by the limitations of the speed of light.
Perhaps we have the same ideas about the light-barrier as sicentists (!) used to have about the sound barrier.. that it would be unachievable or kill the person who travelled that fast.
Science is in an infantile state.. although we may think it's impressive. Science is being held back by our lust for war.. and it will be held back as long as we have war.
Spaceflight will remain a dream, as long as one group of humans thinks he is better than another group of humans. We will probably all die before we ever get colonies on other planets.
So that's why I enjoy this game.. it allows me to experience a future that humanity will never reach.
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#1 I've made several thousand jumps now and have yet to see anything out of the ordinary. If you find a couple of pixels different interesting then that's more like cherry picking irrelevant details rather than addressing the crux of my and many other people's issues.
#2 This isn't about realism. It's about what's best for gameplay and if it could fit the lore.
#3 If you would -- theoretically -- travel faster than c then you'd most likely be blinded/destroyed pretty quickly with the photon build-up and the ever-increasing radiation pressure from high frequency rays (not to mention all the weird aberrations, Doppler effects, etc. you'd observe and oh.. you'd be frozen in time according to any outside observer... making the ED-supercruise trails impossible to observe as moving when they're traveling past speed c). I don't know the exact details however since astrophysics isn't my focus.
#4 A compromise was discussed above.
#5 Completely off-topic.
#2 This isn't about realism. It's about what's best for gameplay and if it could fit the lore.
#3 If you would -- theoretically -- travel faster than c then you'd most likely be blinded/destroyed pretty quickly with the photon build-up and the ever-increasing radiation pressure from high frequency rays (not to mention all the weird aberrations, Doppler effects, etc. you'd observe and oh.. you'd be frozen in time according to any outside observer... making the ED-supercruise trails impossible to observe as moving when they're traveling past speed c). I don't know the exact details however since astrophysics isn't my focus.
#4 A compromise was discussed above.
#5 Completely off-topic.
I agree. This would be so awesome, specially for explorers, since it gets pretty boring to the "almost" the same thing (with, possibly some different pixels here and there) over and over again. And although there would have to be the loading (server) time, we could have a similar animation from the cruise flight (as you mentioned).
It would be so cool to see something like this https://youtu.be/gUuPGB0SvmQ
It would be so cool to see something like this https://youtu.be/gUuPGB0SvmQ
I can assume, that the game engine of "Elite Dangerous" is able to give the boot of the new system way faster, as shown on a video, in case if:
- begin downloading new data, at the beginning of the countdown (graphics card)
- after arriving in a new system, will only available a beacon - star (target of the jump), while all other objects will be loading (jump out of nowhere) gradually - because of the "twilight zone" (graphics card)
- after arriving in a new system, all downloaded objects are low-resolution, gradually improving the quality of the textures (graphics card)
* as an option (not a very good option) - is to maintain information in memory about all stars within jump (RAM)
But. Any of the above items, will significant increase the system requirements of the game, which should not be increased, if we want to "console use players" remained in the world of "Elite".
The idea is good, perhaps after the implementation of the MORE SIGNIFICANT elements of the game, it will appear, but personally, I doubt that the load time of the new system will be much less.
If we started talking about the "FSD" flight, I have a question to the developers:
At the time when information of system "A" has been removed from the "RAM", and new information about system "B" only starts to be loaded - for a short time, some of the texture of the instrument panel of the ship, are lose the high resolution, because of the "quality / speed" game engine.
- Is it possible to put a restriction on the minimum quality of the textures? Say instead, reduce the number of polygons or mask the reduction in the resolution, by the effect of "pilot's reaction to the overload caused by the sudden stop".
The answer is "buy better computer", also take into consideration.
Yes. But (though I'm not sure if it works like this) I believe the main issue is when you're kind of changing servers. Because, if I'm not mistaken, when you jump from a system to another or from station to cruise, you seem to change server or server state (not sure how to call it), that's why sometimes if you see someone jumping and try to follow him you might not find him in the same system, but you might see other players that he can't see (since you're both on this different server). I read about this about a year not, not sure if it still works like this, but I believe it does, since sometimes when I'm jumping it takes too long to drop and I get a message saying ("matchmaking failed" or "could not connect to frontier servers") as if I was getting into another small server.
Therefore, if this is true, I believe the main issue is not with the graphics not loading fast enough, but with there not being enough time for the server to change.
Edit: something like this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/359320/discussions/0/594820656466267683/ Different game instances.
Therefore, if this is true, I believe the main issue is not with the graphics not loading fast enough, but with there not being enough time for the server to change.
Edit: something like this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/359320/discussions/0/594820656466267683/ Different game instances.
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This would be visually interesting, but if we really travel through witchspace then it should look at least somehow different. Add some ghostly clouds or something, just like we have now but less boring and repetitive.
What I'd really really really want is for FD to preload all graphics BEFORE starting the jump, to avoid that annoying juddering that is always present, on every-single-jump.
EDIT: BTW they should really do something about that sound.... it's the same sound over and over on every jump... it get's boring.
What I'd really really really want is for FD to preload all graphics BEFORE starting the jump, to avoid that annoying juddering that is always present, on every-single-jump.
EDIT: BTW they should really do something about that sound.... it's the same sound over and over on every jump... it get's boring.
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This video.... HELL YES!
Topic at hand... Well, I could live without it being totally accurate, but I wouldn't mind a hyper space jump that looked more hyper and spacey and wasn't quite so indentical looking all the time. Heck, I wouldn't mind going to plaid once in a while.
[video=youtube;JBVqygvinzw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBVqygvinzw[/video]
Imagine being in the "tunnel", seeing a flicker of light in the distance, somewhere ahead, but off center, then seeing the same nebular effects you are passing through expanding as a sphere from the point of the flash, like an explosion in the impossibly distant background, then seeing this sphere expand bigger, bigger, BIGGER, filling the whole view. The ship starts to shake, buffet, and lurch like it's suddenly caught in a wild storm as the tunnel is suddenly swept away, the ship lurching to orient itself facing straight into the onrushing "wind". Then just as the ship rights itself, you drop back to realspace, but you are not in you're target system, you are a few lightyears from where you intended, in the next system over. You got lucky. Hyperstorms are a b---h like that.
This could be varying levels of impact, from seeing the shockfront approach, and dropping to realspace just before it hits, to several shocks back to back. Perhaps the further you travel, the more likely it is to happen (extremely unlikely, and with jumps below 25ly, but becomes more prevalent after that, and perhaps more common in certain sectors of space, at certain times. Either way, the first person to figure out how to map and predict this hyperspacial "weather" could become very rich!
This could be varying levels of impact, from seeing the shockfront approach, and dropping to realspace just before it hits, to several shocks back to back. Perhaps the further you travel, the more likely it is to happen (extremely unlikely, and with jumps below 25ly, but becomes more prevalent after that, and perhaps more common in certain sectors of space, at certain times. Either way, the first person to figure out how to map and predict this hyperspacial "weather" could become very rich!
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