In the interest of compromise, I've upped the ambient lighting a bit. It is still darker than old sector space, but lighter than it is now. I've also increased the brightness of the light put out by stars, and increased that light's radius by a hundred feet or so (roughly 1LY).
as I see it the current lighting is spot on, it adds to the realism of the impression that you are in the void between planets and it doesn't seem so much like your passing something every second or two of your journey, and for anyone who wants to ogle their ship theres plenty of opportunity for that if you happen to pass by a star system on route or when you reach your destination.
having said that I had no problems seeing other ships or asteroid clusters and such, have you tried tweaking your in game brightness settings.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
What do you mean Sector Space needs more light? Cryptic did a fantastic job on the sector space revamp. I think the new sector maps look amazing and the darkness is a great touch. Don't like it? Transwarp everywhere then!
Remove the VISUAL with "Make it too dark because it's Hella-Kewl", then you have crippled the MEDIUM.
Turn the damn lights back on.
<center><font size="+5"><b>Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day... Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
In case anyone else does this and ends up with the same problem after changing a setting, all you have to do is find the file named GamePref.pref in one of the subdirectroies in your C:\users\public\Games..etc (Windows 7) or wherever it might be on your system and delete it. Then you can log in with default settings.
Remove the VISUAL with "Make it too dark because it's Hella-Kewl", then you have crippled the MEDIUM.
Turn the damn lights back on.
I think you'll spend much of your time in this game seeing your ship considering you'll spend more time in a system space shooting or clicking on stuff than in sector space, like Taco implied.
And I believe it's good to have a game that makes people realize that yeah, space is dark, and in real life, it's even worse if there isn't a star nearby!
While I wouldn't mind being able to see my ship sometimes, we already have one easy solution:
-go near the many, many systems
For the rest who aren't satisfied with that, I'll say this again: Maybe you could ask the lighting team and see if it's possible to make a device that allows your ship to be fully visible in sector space.
Who the hell hung out in Sector Space so they can look at their ships before season 10? Sector space was crowded and fugly.
And that artsy-farsty TRIBBLE about crippling the medium is just pure snobbish bs.
True.
Also since S10 i spend 80% of my playtime in sector space. Can't stop looking. Heck, I usually have a Star Trek episode running in the background while whatever I do on comp. Now I just start up STO and leave it in the background as a living wallpaper.
For those complaining about it being too dark, you can adjust the brightness, contrast, and gamma in the display options. The only issue I have is that screenshots come out too dark, but look fine otherwise on my monitor.
I believe what I told you last time was not "no," but "I want to wait and see how people feel about it more than a day or two after launch."
I'm sure I'm biased here, but that doesn't sound like "I know better," that sounds like, "Let's see how this shakes out a bit before knee-jerking back the way it was."
So far, I am continuing to hear mixed reviews. Some people like it darker, some people don't. I don't see a preponderance on either side.
In the interest of compromise, I've upped the ambient lighting a bit. It is still darker than old sector space, but lighter than it is now. I've also increased the brightness of the light put out by stars, and increased that light's radius by a hundred feet or so (roughly 1LY). I'm afraid I don't know exactly when that will make it onto Holodeck, but can we lay off the accusations until then, at least? I'm ok with people expressing their feelings about the light in sector space. I'm not ok with being called a hypocrite for doing my job.
I actually really like the dark in between the stars, it makes it that much neater when I approach a star and get lit up, or pass by it on the way to some other deep space destination.
I hope the light increases don't alter the "darkness of in-between space" too much. This wouldn't be the only Star Trek game to have dramatic darkness used to good effect. Bridge Commander is one that comes to mind, and it always looked awesome when in a dark location.
Though, like some of the others have suggested, it might be helped if ships themselves had more "self-lighting." Like the light that reveals the (Federation) ship's name on the hull. Some ships in the game do this better than others, so was thinking that might be part of it, though I know ship art isn't what you do.
Regardless, I like dark space punctuated by the light of stars in a vast sea of space, and I can see my ship plenty when passing said stars and other objects that may light my ship currently. I love it.
Remove the VISUAL with "Make it too dark because it's Hella-Kewl", then you have crippled the MEDIUM.
Turn the damn lights back on.
This doesn't make too much sense, since Sector Space gameplay isn't at all crippled by it being dark between approachable and lit stars, which there are many of in the game currently. It's an overworld map (common for computer and console RPGs and other genre that may use it) for getting to points of interest, which you usually then enter to do things within, nothing more than that for gameplay purposes.
There's nothing to see except those points of interest which are usually star systems, with the stars lighting things up as you approach. It's also unlikely you'd be manually flying across the quadrant to your destination, so you'd mostly be using the game map to click to autopilot to your destination for the most part anyway, which is how it was usually used before this Season 10 update.
So, basically, the lights are on at most points of interest, and no gameplay suffers since most players have likely always used the map to select and autopilot to their destinations. No combat, no danger, nothing required to really see anything, with the things you can see being the points of interest, which are the only important things in Sector Space.
Though it could also be monitor settings. I know some people who have their monitors so dark that it's impossible to see anything in even a semi-dim game setting.
For those complaining about it being too dark, you can adjust the brightness, contrast, and gamma in the display options. The only issue I have is that screenshots come out too dark, but look fine otherwise on my monitor.
That is not even remotely a valid solution, as we would have to re-adjust those settings "every single time" we transition to and from sector space.
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
But that would mean doing something to fix what they see as a problem for themselves instead of complaining to Taco and trying to get him to change things.
Now that is not really a fair statement. I have 4 computers in my house - 1 for each member of my family. Each of those computers was set-up with the recommended setting, based on their video card type, when STO was installed. None of those computers had this issue until the Season 10 changes.
If I start messing with the gamma, lights, bloom, etc I am not only adjusting Sector Space. I am changing the balance in the whole game. That is probably not something everyone wants to do - as they like how all the non-Sector areas look. And as I said in my other post, my son did adjust: he turned off the Astrometrics to make Sector Space brighter for his Romulan. But that does not mean I feel he should have to play the game that way simply because Cryptic decided to make a change on their end.
I am looking forward to seeing how much brighter things become when Taco's changes are implemented. But if my son still cannot see his ship after the changes I will be right back here saying so. It is not like I spend a lot of time bytching on this forum. I need to get my bytch post count up.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
On the topic of new sector space, has anyone else noticed the difference in camera position when changing from system to sector space and back?
I feel like I'm constantly having to adjust the zoom levels to get it where I want when transitioning, whereas before I could set it and forget it.
Is that a bug?
"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true. Except for a T5 Connie. That would be f*%#ing awesome." - Mr. Spock
Hang on, how many of the people complaining are using black skins, and how many of us liking the change are using light skins? (Though I think we all want the running lights upped a bit, contrast is cool.)
I'm in the shiny Veteran skins most of the time, and it all looks good.
My Scimitar with the Veteran skin and green highlights (so basically shiny white with green lights) looks awesome.
My Cell Ship looks good as well, but that's because even though the hull is dark (brown/tan) there's a lot of lights on it.
My JHDC with the purple skin looks fine. Darker, but not "lost in space" dark.
Who the hell hung out in Sector Space so they can look at their ships before season 10? Sector space was crowded and fugly.
And that artsy-farsty TRIBBLE about crippling the medium is just pure snobbish bs.
Actually, NO.
The Arty Farty bit is the thing about making space darker because it would be "cool".
Every space game in the last 30 years NOT made by David Braben has at one time or another either tried adding 'realism' or had players demanding game mods to add 'realism' to space.
These attempts invariably fail. Scale thge planets. stars amd ships so they are realistic compared to each other, star fills 3/4 of the screen your ships too small to see.
Scale travel time to be realistic, at warp 1 it would take weeks or months to get to a close star, never mind the Alpha Quadrant.
I don't spend time in Sector space looking at my ship, I spend it traveling from place to place.
I actually liked the "representative not realistic" style of sector space BEFORE the dis-improvements, made a nice change from all the other 30 years worth of failed attempts to add 'realism'.
All this new system gives me is more time getting from A to B, with inflatable star systems and broken autopilots. Only way to avoid it is pay money.
Basically "We added more time consuming grind, bad graphics, and inconvienience, if you wish to avoid this, sink credits, thus adding more grind! Have a nice day!"
<center><font size="+5"><b>Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day... Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Basically "We added more time consuming grind, bad graphics, and inconvienience, if you wish to avoid this, sink credits, thus adding more grind! Have a nice day!"
And this one, I believe, paying member or not, we're all treated the same way.
The Autopilot takes you to the star system (unless you used the full impulse button to trigger slipstream, in which case you just keep going forever). Is it really too much trouble to spend an extra five seconds to manually fly to the planet itself, where the interact is?
Personally, I love the new sector space. I'm actually just flying around to see what's about now, just randomly exploring. Sometimes I stop to admire the stars, especially in a multiple star system. I forget which one, but yesterday I found a trinary star system lurking about. Twas a thing of sheer beauty. And if you really want to admire your ship in sector space, do what I do. Just pull up at the nearest star. Although to be honest, I've had no trouble seeing my ship, and that's a Tuffli with the Reman shield visuals on.
*******************************************
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
Erm, care to explain this?
I fail to grasp this one.
Hate spending more time traveling in dis-improved space... use the transwarp to mission button for a hiked fee...
<center><font size="+5"><b>Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day... Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
"Hiked" fee? You make more than enough off of selling vendor trash drops in one mission to cover the cost.
Depends on the mission and the drops, I was quoted a fee of 34k to transwarp to one relatively close mission, I know i didnt get 35k selling the poor drops from said mission.
<center><font size="+5"><b>Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day... Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Not for nothing but if 34K EC is a lot to you, you're not playing right. It's fairly easy to make that much in a single mission off of vendor trash. DOFF missions are a good way to generate EC too. There are a lot of simple ways to earn it.
To me? Now? no not a lot at all... I make most of my EC selling rare particles to crafters via the exchange.
To me when a lvl 1 new toon, 35 k was a lot.
The whole larger space, higher transwarp fees, lower payouts on missions combo we've seen last couple of weeks is just more and more grind.
Inflatable star system booby traps that pop a planet in front of your ship in slipstream too late for the autopilot to evade because your route takes you past a system at less than 2 ly, autopilots that dump you on the wrong side of a vast inflatable sun from the tiny planet that actually has the under sized interaction radius, and the whole Emo Too Dark is Way Kewl thing.
New Sector Space is without a doubt the worst thing in Season 10, why couldn't they just drop the walls between the old decent to look at, usable sector blocks.
<center><font size="+5"><b>Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day... Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Comments
If I am paying stupid amounts of money for a ship I would at least like to see it.
Starts to write a long, substantiated reply...
Looks at the thread again...
Erases everything and writes:
)
No, it does NOT.
That sounds just right for me. Thank you!
having said that I had no problems seeing other ships or asteroid clusters and such, have you tried tweaking your in game brightness settings.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
How do you know? Those damned Iconians are popping up EVERYWHERE!
I heard that they even hit one of your servers. IT'S TIME TO PANIC!!!
:: sees Tacos sign ::
Oh. I guess it isn't.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Oh... Way to ruin the tension.
Remove the VISUAL with "Make it too dark because it's Hella-Kewl", then you have crippled the MEDIUM.
Turn the damn lights back on.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
I think you'll spend much of your time in this game seeing your ship considering you'll spend more time in a system space shooting or clicking on stuff than in sector space, like Taco implied.
And I believe it's good to have a game that makes people realize that yeah, space is dark, and in real life, it's even worse if there isn't a star nearby!
While I wouldn't mind being able to see my ship sometimes, we already have one easy solution:
-go near the many, many systems
For the rest who aren't satisfied with that, I'll say this again: Maybe you could ask the lighting team and see if it's possible to make a device that allows your ship to be fully visible in sector space.
True.
Also since S10 i spend 80% of my playtime in sector space. Can't stop looking. Heck, I usually have a Star Trek episode running in the background while whatever I do on comp. Now I just start up STO and leave it in the background as a living wallpaper.
The new sector space is magnificent!
I actually really like the dark in between the stars, it makes it that much neater when I approach a star and get lit up, or pass by it on the way to some other deep space destination.
I hope the light increases don't alter the "darkness of in-between space" too much. This wouldn't be the only Star Trek game to have dramatic darkness used to good effect. Bridge Commander is one that comes to mind, and it always looked awesome when in a dark location.
Though, like some of the others have suggested, it might be helped if ships themselves had more "self-lighting." Like the light that reveals the (Federation) ship's name on the hull. Some ships in the game do this better than others, so was thinking that might be part of it, though I know ship art isn't what you do.
Regardless, I like dark space punctuated by the light of stars in a vast sea of space, and I can see my ship plenty when passing said stars and other objects that may light my ship currently. I love it.
This doesn't make too much sense, since Sector Space gameplay isn't at all crippled by it being dark between approachable and lit stars, which there are many of in the game currently. It's an overworld map (common for computer and console RPGs and other genre that may use it) for getting to points of interest, which you usually then enter to do things within, nothing more than that for gameplay purposes.
There's nothing to see except those points of interest which are usually star systems, with the stars lighting things up as you approach. It's also unlikely you'd be manually flying across the quadrant to your destination, so you'd mostly be using the game map to click to autopilot to your destination for the most part anyway, which is how it was usually used before this Season 10 update.
So, basically, the lights are on at most points of interest, and no gameplay suffers since most players have likely always used the map to select and autopilot to their destinations. No combat, no danger, nothing required to really see anything, with the things you can see being the points of interest, which are the only important things in Sector Space.
Though it could also be monitor settings. I know some people who have their monitors so dark that it's impossible to see anything in even a semi-dim game setting.
That is not even remotely a valid solution, as we would have to re-adjust those settings "every single time" we transition to and from sector space.
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
If I start messing with the gamma, lights, bloom, etc I am not only adjusting Sector Space. I am changing the balance in the whole game. That is probably not something everyone wants to do - as they like how all the non-Sector areas look. And as I said in my other post, my son did adjust: he turned off the Astrometrics to make Sector Space brighter for his Romulan. But that does not mean I feel he should have to play the game that way simply because Cryptic decided to make a change on their end.
I am looking forward to seeing how much brighter things become when Taco's changes are implemented. But if my son still cannot see his ship after the changes I will be right back here saying so. It is not like I spend a lot of time bytching on this forum. I need to get my bytch post count up.
I feel like I'm constantly having to adjust the zoom levels to get it where I want when transitioning, whereas before I could set it and forget it.
Is that a bug?
Do a Google search for "sto fov" for instructions on how to tweak it yourself with one command.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
I'm in the shiny Veteran skins most of the time, and it all looks good.
My Scimitar with the Veteran skin and green highlights (so basically shiny white with green lights) looks awesome.
My Cell Ship looks good as well, but that's because even though the hull is dark (brown/tan) there's a lot of lights on it.
My JHDC with the purple skin looks fine. Darker, but not "lost in space" dark.
Didn't had this before.
Spockout is right.
And again, light is good as is.
Just leave it as is.
This is a GAME, not a space ship model agency.
Actually, NO.
The Arty Farty bit is the thing about making space darker because it would be "cool".
Every space game in the last 30 years NOT made by David Braben has at one time or another either tried adding 'realism' or had players demanding game mods to add 'realism' to space.
These attempts invariably fail. Scale thge planets. stars amd ships so they are realistic compared to each other, star fills 3/4 of the screen your ships too small to see.
Scale travel time to be realistic, at warp 1 it would take weeks or months to get to a close star, never mind the Alpha Quadrant.
I don't spend time in Sector space looking at my ship, I spend it traveling from place to place.
I actually liked the "representative not realistic" style of sector space BEFORE the dis-improvements, made a nice change from all the other 30 years worth of failed attempts to add 'realism'.
All this new system gives me is more time getting from A to B, with inflatable star systems and broken autopilots. Only way to avoid it is pay money.
Basically "We added more time consuming grind, bad graphics, and inconvienience, if you wish to avoid this, sink credits, thus adding more grind! Have a nice day!"
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
I fail to grasp this one. And this one, I believe, paying member or not, we're all treated the same way.
Personally, I love the new sector space. I'm actually just flying around to see what's about now, just randomly exploring. Sometimes I stop to admire the stars, especially in a multiple star system. I forget which one, but yesterday I found a trinary star system lurking about. Twas a thing of sheer beauty. And if you really want to admire your ship in sector space, do what I do. Just pull up at the nearest star. Although to be honest, I've had no trouble seeing my ship, and that's a Tuffli with the Reman shield visuals on.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
Hate spending more time traveling in dis-improved space... use the transwarp to mission button for a hiked fee...
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
Depends on the mission and the drops, I was quoted a fee of 34k to transwarp to one relatively close mission, I know i didnt get 35k selling the poor drops from said mission.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>
To me? Now? no not a lot at all... I make most of my EC selling rare particles to crafters via the exchange.
To me when a lvl 1 new toon, 35 k was a lot.
The whole larger space, higher transwarp fees, lower payouts on missions combo we've seen last couple of weeks is just more and more grind.
Inflatable star system booby traps that pop a planet in front of your ship in slipstream too late for the autopilot to evade because your route takes you past a system at less than 2 ly, autopilots that dump you on the wrong side of a vast inflatable sun from the tiny planet that actually has the under sized interaction radius, and the whole Emo Too Dark is Way Kewl thing.
New Sector Space is without a doubt the worst thing in Season 10, why couldn't they just drop the walls between the old decent to look at, usable sector blocks.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life...</b></size></center>