Stellar Forge: So Amazing and still a "little" bit off....

jijik2

jijik2
How smart you must be (in my eyes), to create something like the Stellar Forge we have in this game.
Really above anything i consider my level of smartness : -).
How sad it is that the view is off.... The sea of stars and then nothing.
Everytime i go out and come near the centre of the core, i think WoW....... i supercruise a bit and then think ahhhhhh, nothing to see only "sectors of stars".
Alas they can't change it.......
Would be so amazing if it showed correctly.
I Hope that will be the case for the Next Elite Game!

Edit: that would be an amazing new feature for me :)
 
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Vandaahl

Vandaahl
RymdLazer said:
What do you mean? Elaborate.
Click to expand...

When you're going towards the core, the star density increases a much-fold. In order to keep numbers under control, they've organised star fields in sectors, and these 'edges' or 'borders' get a little too obvious when you are in the wrong place or are looking from the wrong perspective. I think thats what he means.

It is immersion breaking indeed, but I think there is little that can be done about it.

Btw, Stellar Forge is - I believe - the concept of generating a star system (star, planets, moons, stuff) from a seed when exiting a Hyperspace jump.
 
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Sapyx

Sapyx
I assume the OP is talking about the "cubes" of stars that occasionally form in certain sectors and subsectors, particularly towards the Core. Like this:
2dujscl.jpg


RnxqRkM.jpg
 

Autoculto

A
That's not a design problem.
They are cloaked Borg cubes. FD will set them free when the thargoids are close to destroying humanity. The Borg will then proceed to assimilate human and thargoid tech. Then when all hope is lost we will be rescued by the guardians
 

RymdLazer

RymdLazer
Ahaa. Ok yes I get it. Immersion breaking indeed. Bummer. Hope they can (will) fix it. Some sort of snazzy sector blend.
I feel a bit dirty after seeing those pics. A bit of magic dissipated :( :D
 

Micha

Micha
It was explained in some level of detail during one of the tech talks at LaveCon. Very interesting. It's mostly to do with the ultra-bright stars (O & B) being visible from much further away.

I can't remember all the details (someone else can chime in, or find a transcript if there is one?) but roughly speaking:

There are well-defined rules for how much mass is in each cube depending on where the cube is in the galaxy, then more rules as to what that mass should be preferentially split up into. For example, the bands of non-main sequence stars we see above and below the galactic plane have actual astronomical theoretical backing on star distributions in the real Milky Way.

The graphical artifact occurs if one cube generates more of its mass in ultra-bright stars than neighbouring cubes, and because these ultra-bright stars are visible from so far away, we get to see these cube borders.

I guess they either never explored their own galaxy in that much detail prior to release, or figured nobody would bother flying out there anyway as there's really not much there from a game content perspective. (Some of the original design concepts of how exploration should work would have prevented, or at least hugely delayed, this).

Pretty much the only way to fix it would be to ensure that the sectors doesn't deviate too far in stellar make-up from their neighbouring sectors. But then you run into issues going from a spiral arm into the inter-spiral areas where you DO get significant density differences in (relatively) short distances.

In either case it's too late now - unless they do a NMS and reboot the galaxy (amount of salt: infinite!) we're stuck with the way it is, warts and all. It still remains one of the most accurate representations of our Milky Way galaxy according to our current scientific understanding, although the amount of stars in it is at the lowest possible estimate of the real number of stars, and given the in-game data from 2MASS and other sky surveys, is highly likely to be at least half, if not less, than what the real galaxy holds (mostly in brown dwarves).
 

krylite

krylite
The stellar forge is done well with what the infrastructure and tech can support. It divides the space by cubes at larger to smaller levels as mentioned ^ and still one of the most accurate to theory representations possible in a gamesim , considering the scope of space represented is astronomically far more immense than the Flight Simulator gamesims' worldspaces.
 

tafkabb

T
The mechanics behind the stellar generation are really interesting:
RMEQ1Ik.jpg


Screenshot from this Frontier developer livestream:
[video=youtube_share;Vz3nhCykZNw]https://youtu.be/Vz3nhCykZNw[/video]
 

Dash

Dash
I guess they could have potentially had an overlap approach where the edges blur making it less artificial looking.

As it's been noted though, it was never supposed to be easy to get out into deep space in the original plans. From memory it was something like a route to the next star would have to be worked out before it could be jumped to. But instead, every system was jumpable. I doubt we would have been anywhere near the centre by now if that was the case.

The other thing that annoys me about the engine is the inability to stream in different maps without jumping. In the core the systems are closer together than a lot of the binary pairs are out near the bubble. Flying between them is only a few minutes work, but you can't hop systems that way.
 

RymdLazer

RymdLazer
I will propably never see this effect in game (although exploration HAS gotten under my skin lately) and the majesty of space has never hit me as deep as in this awe inspiring simulation. The more I play the more it impresses me. Straight out of neuromancer stuff.
And I'm sure some eggheads at FD keep mulling over how to fix it in idle hours. The stellar forge is clearly a work of loving dedication :)
 

jijik2

jijik2
RymdLazer said:
I will propably never see this effect in game (although exploration HAS gotten under my skin lately) and the majesty of space has never hit me as deep as in this awe inspiring simulation. The more I play the more it impresses me. Straight out of neuromancer stuff.
And I'm sure some eggheads at FD keep mulling over how to fix it in idle hours. The stellar forge is clearly a work of loving dedication :)
Click to expand...

it is an amazing feat of science to create something like that.... still it falls short a little bit....
Still happy with it though.
 
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