Devs, I believe I heard somewhere that you wanted to change the look of the sector space. I'm just curious as to how you want it to look.
Personally I would want it to look like real space without grids, borders, titles, or colors to show which faction owns it. All that can be shown on the map as it is now. I think sector space should be black with stars. Also systems shouldn't have those bars coming up from the bottom, although I know that's been covered multiple times by many members. I don't mind seeing the name of the system and its distance though. I understand that you guys can't have open space like everyone wants, but getting rid of a lot of things you can make it look like its open.
If anyone has any other ideas feel free to post them, but I would really like to hear from a dev or GM to know if there has been any discussion about it.
Devs, I believe I heard somewhere that you wanted to change the look of the sector space. I'm just curious as to how you want it to look.
Personally I would want it to look like real space without grids, borders, titles, or colors to show which faction owns it. All that can be shown on the map as it is now. I think sector space should be black with stars. Also systems shouldn't have those bars coming up from the bottom, although I know that's been covered multiple times by many members. I don't mind seeing the name of the system and its distance though. I understand that you guys can't have open space like everyone wants, but getting rid of a lot of things you can make it look like its open.
If anyone has any other ideas feel free to post them, but I would really like to hear from a dev or GM to know if there has been any discussion about it.
Great post but without the grids I'd probably get lost and end up at Ceti Alpha V.
:eek:
Great post but without the grids I'd probably get lost and end up at Ceti Alpha V.
:eek:
Haha I'm talking about the grids at the bottom of sector space, it kind of looks like space has a floor lol. The map that you can open up would still look the same and lets face it, we all need that to find out way around.
Not sure why, but I find sector space to be a little less annoying when I am zoomed all the way out.
Probably because you can't see anything besides your ship lol. Honestly I don't find sector space annoying, I just think it can be improved to look like open space and bring another level of immersion to the game.
Why re do sector space? Why not completely scrap it and put in a more immersive system...like a warp bridge view or a stellar cartography room like the one Picard and Data were in during ST Generations.
Why re do sector space? Why not completely scrap it and put in a more immersive system...like a warp bridge view or a stellar cartography room like the one Picard and Data were in during ST Generations.
Because that is a large amount of work and would take way too much time that could better spent on other content. A stellar cartography room is fine, and can really just be used to view the entire galaxy in a nice floating holographic form. That could be nice, but you wouldn't fly through space in that room.
As for a warp bridge view, I think the devs said they wouldn't be doing that, but I could be wrong. Frankly I would love the idea of my ship being at warp and I can walk around doing whatever is necessary on board my ship.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the way they did the warping could have been better and more immersive, but this is what we were given and this is what we have to work with. Scraping something at this point of a game or any project for that matter is rarely an option. Its like building a house from scratch and realizing the walls of one room are the wrong color so you go and knock out all those walls to do it over instead of painting over it.
...I understand that you guys can't have open space like everyone wants...
I don't understand why they can't have space be 'open space'.
I've noticed two possible limitations to making the entire map one large, seamless expanse - physical game geometry and population capacity limits.
In regards to the game geometry -
Sector space doesn't seem to use very much actual geometry. The number of polygons on the floor and walls is minimal at best, and the planets are low-rez enough that you can see the polygon vertices. Remove the popsicle sticks and orbiting planets (which are overly stylized anyway), and you can reduce the number of polygons in half. Remove the ribbons and you go down even farther. If the walls and floors are gone, then enlarging the area we can fly in can be done infinitely without adding a single polygon.
I propose Cryptic takes a single sector, make it 20 - 30 times larger (to encompass all flyable space), place the worlds in approximately the same locations, and have those serve as the zone-points they are currently.
In regards to population capacity limits -
As I fly about, I occasionally check the populations of the various sectors I fly through. From my observations, I'm noticing between 15 - 25 players in any given area. I presume that there's a cap after which an additional instance of the sector is spawned. We don't often care about other players in other sectors anyway, so let's presume Cryptic has chosen the current population-per-sector cap based on immersion. That is to say, they find that 15 - 25 people in 'zone chat' is enough to remind the player that we're in a multi-player world.
I propose Cryptic continue to use their metric as the zone cap... but instead of 15 - 25 people per zone, it's 15 - 25 people flying in the open map. Given current LOD technology and the lack of any need for ship animations, that could easily be expanded to 100.
Darkjedi, I'm not 100% sure but I think it has something to do with the engine they used, not if the tech exists or not. Obviously I'm not a dev so I can't say for certain, and perhaps the things you suggested aren't enough. The only way to know for sure is if you are a developer of the game and you know how the code/engine works.
Darkjedi, I'm not 100% sure but I think it has something to do with the engine they used, not if the tech exists or not. Obviously I'm not a dev so I can't say for certain, and perhaps the things you suggested aren't enough. The only way to know for sure is if you are a developer of the game and you know how the code/engine works.
True enough.
I've worked on several games for different platforms (PC, console), so I know level design, art, animation, and things of that nature. What I DON'T know is their engine and it's limits.
Remove the grid in Sector space but leave the galaxy map gridded. Since I use auto-pilot most of the time, not having the grid in sector space would be great. I would also like to see the systems be represented by just the star and have it be a natural hue (whatever color it is in the system space is the color it should be on the sector space). Also with a slightly smaller label and distance marker.
And I also agree with the idea of allowing you to travel while on your bridge. And it can work like this:
Go to bridge
Go to helm station
Select system
Travel (with a countdown timer to destination)
Walk around ship while traveling (take care of personnel and supply issues or sit in ready room)
Be notified by first officer for option of joining space battles that would be en route
Arrive at destination
Leave Bridge
That would take four or five load screens and turn it into just two (enter bridge, leave bridge)
Also, the viewscreen could display the Win 3.1 "flying stars" while at warp.
Remove the grid in Sector space but leave the galaxy map gridded. Since I use auto-pilot most of the time, not having the grid in sector space would be great. I would also like to see the systems be represented by just the star and have it be a natural hue (whatever color it is in the system space is the color it should be on the sector space). Also with a slightly smaller label and distance marker.
And I also agree with the idea of allowing you to travel while on your bridge. And it can work like this:
Go to bridge
Go to helm station
Select system
Travel (with a countdown timer to destination)
Walk around ship while traveling (take care of personnel and supply issues or sit in ready room)
Be notified by first officer for option of joining space battles that would be en route
Arrive at destination
Leave Bridge
That would take four or five load screens and turn it into just two (enter bridge, leave bridge)
Also, the viewscreen could display the Win 3.1 "flying stars" while at warp.
/signed, Excellent idea... Get rid of the grid, lollipop sticks and the blue ribbon highway to nowhere...
i heard part of the reason the game has such small sector divisions is because STO was gonna be console also, but that fell through. Computers can be more versatile so i think its prbably possible to get rid of the divisions.
Remove the grid in Sector space but leave the galaxy map gridded. Since I use auto-pilot most of the time, not having the grid in sector space would be great. I would also like to see the systems be represented by just the star and have it be a natural hue (whatever color it is in the system space is the color it should be on the sector space). Also with a slightly smaller label and distance marker.
And I also agree with the idea of allowing you to travel while on your bridge. And it can work like this:
Go to bridge
Go to helm station
Select system
Travel (with a countdown timer to destination)
Walk around ship while traveling (take care of personnel and supply issues or sit in ready room)
Be notified by first officer for option of joining space battles that would be en route
Arrive at destination
Leave Bridge
That would take four or five load screens and turn it into just two (enter bridge, leave bridge)
Also, the viewscreen could display the Win 3.1 "flying stars" while at warp.
How would you want the enemy signal contacts work? I'm not talking about the ones that are like red nebulas, I mean the ships that actually follow you. In my opinion the only way those would work is by getting a message saying "Captain to the Bridge. Red Alert." or something like that, then get thrown into the battle as we do now.
As I fly about, I occasionally check the populations of the various sectors I fly through. From my observations, I'm noticing between 15 - 25 players in any given area. I presume that there's a cap after which an additional instance of the sector is spawned. We don't often care about other players in other sectors anyway, so let's presume Cryptic has chosen the current population-per-sector cap based on immersion. That is to say, they find that 15 - 25 people in 'zone chat' is enough to remind the player that we're in a multi-player world.
I propose Cryptic continue to use their metric as the zone cap... but instead of 15 - 25 people per zone, it's 15 - 25 people flying in the open map. Given current LOD technology and the lack of any need for ship animations, that could easily be expanded to 100.
I"m not sure you understand that population limits in space are due to lag - not user hardware performance.
4 instances of 25 generate less lag than:
2 instances of 50 which generate less lag than:
1 instance of 100.
How would you want the enemy signal contacts work? I'm not talking about the ones that are like red nebulas, I mean the ships that actually follow you. In my opinion the only way those would work is by getting a message saying "Captain to the Bridge. Red Alert." or something like that, then get thrown into the battle as we do now.
Make it random. If you remain outside the ship and fly it "manually", you can fly around enemy contacts. If you decide to do it via the bridge, the game basically "decides" whether or not to send you into battle. But it would be completely random and can be based on a number of things.
Going from Sol to Vulcan: Short flight, never leave Fed space. Likelihood of enemy encounter: 0%
Going from Risa to Qo'nos: Long flight, leave Fed space. Likelihood of enemy encounter: 40%
Going from Cardassia to Romulus: Really long flight, starts and end in enemy territory. Likelihood of enemy encounter: 80%
But the enemy encounters would occur at the most likely times.
Takes 5 mins to travel from Risa to Qo'nos: Enemy encounter likelihood increases the closer you get to destination but never gets over 40%.
Takes 10 mins to travel from Cardassia to Romulus: Enemy encounter likelihood high at beginning of travel; decreases during middle of travel; and increases the closer you get to destination but it is cumulative (40% at the beginning becomes 80% near destination).
Ye Ghods - YET ANother post about "the "Sector Space" navigational display. Who woulda thought?
Really, people - GET SOME IMAGINATION.
The "sector space" screen ihas been opretty much a standard in terms of radar/3-D displays since the days of ELITE, for Chrissakes.
ELITE used it.
FREESPACE used it.
X-Wing/TIE Fighter used it.
HOMEWORLD and it's sequels used it
Many other space-based games used it as well.
You have a grid for the basic ECLIPTIC, which in space is a arbitrary designaiton - usually a plane through both Earth's orbit and the galactcc core. It's only purpose is reference.
You have symbols representing various things - with a connecting line to the reference ecliptic to give a sense of how "high" or "low" something is in reference to the ecliptic.
in Star Trek, they borrowed a trick from HOMEWORLD and made the usual grid a 3-D view - save that in this game you move through it, instead of using it as a Overview the way Homeworld did.
One BIG error they made was using the ecliptic as a "bottom" of the view - there should have been worlds both above and below the grid - THEN a liot fewer people would complain, as then it would make better sense.
Once you look at the secotr space view as a NAVIGATIONAL REFERENCE, instead of a actual space view (which, given Star Trek physics, you would have had nothing but BLACK outside the windows at warp),
- you'll be a lot happier.
Remove the grid in Sector space but leave the galaxy map gridded. Since I use auto-pilot most of the time, not having the grid in sector space would be great. I would also like to see the systems be represented by just the star and have it be a natural hue (whatever color it is in the system space is the color it should be on the sector space). Also with a slightly smaller label and distance marker.
And I also agree with the idea of allowing you to travel while on your bridge. And it can work like this:
Go to bridge
Go to helm station
Select system
Travel (with a countdown timer to destination)
Walk around ship while traveling (take care of personnel and supply issues or sit in ready room)
Be notified by first officer for option of joining space battles that would be en route
Arrive at destination
Leave Bridge
That would take four or five load screens and turn it into just two (enter bridge, leave bridge)
Also, the viewscreen could display the Win 3.1 "flying stars" while at warp.
The issue here is that they want ONE part of the game to be a form of forced socialization and sector space happens to be it.
Remove the grid in Sector space but leave the galaxy map gridded. Since I use auto-pilot most of the time, not having the grid in sector space would be great. I would also like to see the systems be represented by just the star and have it be a natural hue (whatever color it is in the system space is the color it should be on the sector space). Also with a slightly smaller label and distance marker.
And I also agree with the idea of allowing you to travel while on your bridge. And it can work like this:
Go to bridge
Go to helm station
Select system
Travel (with a countdown timer to destination)
Walk around ship while traveling (take care of personnel and supply issues or sit in ready room)
Be notified by first officer for option of joining space battles that would be en route
Arrive at destination
Leave Bridge
That would take four or five load screens and turn it into just two (enter bridge, leave bridge)
Also, the viewscreen could display the Win 3.1 "flying stars" while at warp.
Ye Ghods - YET ANother post about "the "Sector Space" navigational display. Who woulda thought?
Really, people - GET SOME IMAGINATION.
The "sector space" screen ihas been opretty much a standard in terms of radar/3-D displays since the days of ELITE, for Chrissakes.
ELITE used it.
FREESPACE used it.
X-Wing/TIE Fighter used it.
HOMEWORLD and it's sequels used it
Many other space-based games used it as well.
You have a grid for the basic ECLIPTIC, which in space is a arbitrary designaiton - usually a plane through both Earth's orbit and the galactcc core. It's only purpose is reference.
You have symbols representing various things - with a connecting line to the reference ecliptic to give a sense of how "high" or "low" something is in reference to the ecliptic.
in Star Trek, they borrowed a trick from HOMEWORLD and made the usual grid a 3-D view - save that in this game you move through it, instead of using it as a Overview the way Homeworld did.
One BIG error they made was using the ecliptic as a "bottom" of the view - there should have been worlds both above and below the grid - THEN a liot fewer people would complain, as then it would make better sense.
Once you look at the secotr space view as a NAVIGATIONAL REFERENCE, instead of a actual space view (which, given Star Trek physics, you would have had nothing but BLACK outside the windows at warp),
- you'll be a lot happier.
First of all you didn't get my point of the post. It isn't meant to just discuss sector space, I heard that the devs were thinking of changing the look of it and I was curious as to what they had in mind, but I also wanted to talk about my own thoughts.
Second, sector space shouldn't be a navigational reference, it should be an actual space view, that's my whole point. I don't need anything to tell me how high or low I am, I can tell based on the where the systems are. If a system is above me I won't say "oh no there is nothing under me, which way do I go?" I know I'll have to go up. Sector space can be made to look like actual space, it doesn't need to be the way it is.
Since it seems like you enjoy it the way it is then I'll make another suggestion to Cryptic, add an option to let uses switch between the two views. One way to look like it does now, the other as if it were actual space.
Comments
Great post but without the grids I'd probably get lost and end up at Ceti Alpha V.
:eek:
Haha I'm talking about the grids at the bottom of sector space, it kind of looks like space has a floor lol. The map that you can open up would still look the same and lets face it, we all need that to find out way around.
Probably because you can't see anything besides your ship lol. Honestly I don't find sector space annoying, I just think it can be improved to look like open space and bring another level of immersion to the game.
Because that is a large amount of work and would take way too much time that could better spent on other content. A stellar cartography room is fine, and can really just be used to view the entire galaxy in a nice floating holographic form. That could be nice, but you wouldn't fly through space in that room.
As for a warp bridge view, I think the devs said they wouldn't be doing that, but I could be wrong. Frankly I would love the idea of my ship being at warp and I can walk around doing whatever is necessary on board my ship.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the way they did the warping could have been better and more immersive, but this is what we were given and this is what we have to work with. Scraping something at this point of a game or any project for that matter is rarely an option. Its like building a house from scratch and realizing the walls of one room are the wrong color so you go and knock out all those walls to do it over instead of painting over it.
I don't understand why they can't have space be 'open space'.
I've noticed two possible limitations to making the entire map one large, seamless expanse - physical game geometry and population capacity limits.
In regards to the game geometry -
Sector space doesn't seem to use very much actual geometry. The number of polygons on the floor and walls is minimal at best, and the planets are low-rez enough that you can see the polygon vertices. Remove the popsicle sticks and orbiting planets (which are overly stylized anyway), and you can reduce the number of polygons in half. Remove the ribbons and you go down even farther. If the walls and floors are gone, then enlarging the area we can fly in can be done infinitely without adding a single polygon.
I propose Cryptic takes a single sector, make it 20 - 30 times larger (to encompass all flyable space), place the worlds in approximately the same locations, and have those serve as the zone-points they are currently.
In regards to population capacity limits -
As I fly about, I occasionally check the populations of the various sectors I fly through. From my observations, I'm noticing between 15 - 25 players in any given area. I presume that there's a cap after which an additional instance of the sector is spawned. We don't often care about other players in other sectors anyway, so let's presume Cryptic has chosen the current population-per-sector cap based on immersion. That is to say, they find that 15 - 25 people in 'zone chat' is enough to remind the player that we're in a multi-player world.
I propose Cryptic continue to use their metric as the zone cap... but instead of 15 - 25 people per zone, it's 15 - 25 people flying in the open map. Given current LOD technology and the lack of any need for ship animations, that could easily be expanded to 100.
True enough.
I've worked on several games for different platforms (PC, console), so I know level design, art, animation, and things of that nature. What I DON'T know is their engine and it's limits.
Remove the grid in Sector space but leave the galaxy map gridded. Since I use auto-pilot most of the time, not having the grid in sector space would be great. I would also like to see the systems be represented by just the star and have it be a natural hue (whatever color it is in the system space is the color it should be on the sector space). Also with a slightly smaller label and distance marker.
And I also agree with the idea of allowing you to travel while on your bridge. And it can work like this:
Go to bridge
Go to helm station
Select system
Travel (with a countdown timer to destination)
Walk around ship while traveling (take care of personnel and supply issues or sit in ready room)
Be notified by first officer for option of joining space battles that would be en route
Arrive at destination
Leave Bridge
That would take four or five load screens and turn it into just two (enter bridge, leave bridge)
Also, the viewscreen could display the Win 3.1 "flying stars" while at warp.
/signed, Excellent idea... Get rid of the grid, lollipop sticks and the blue ribbon highway to nowhere...
How would you want the enemy signal contacts work? I'm not talking about the ones that are like red nebulas, I mean the ships that actually follow you. In my opinion the only way those would work is by getting a message saying "Captain to the Bridge. Red Alert." or something like that, then get thrown into the battle as we do now.
I"m not sure you understand that population limits in space are due to lag - not user hardware performance.
4 instances of 25 generate less lag than:
2 instances of 50 which generate less lag than:
1 instance of 100.
Make it random. If you remain outside the ship and fly it "manually", you can fly around enemy contacts. If you decide to do it via the bridge, the game basically "decides" whether or not to send you into battle. But it would be completely random and can be based on a number of things.
Going from Sol to Vulcan: Short flight, never leave Fed space. Likelihood of enemy encounter: 0%
Going from Risa to Qo'nos: Long flight, leave Fed space. Likelihood of enemy encounter: 40%
Going from Cardassia to Romulus: Really long flight, starts and end in enemy territory. Likelihood of enemy encounter: 80%
But the enemy encounters would occur at the most likely times.
Takes 5 mins to travel from Risa to Qo'nos: Enemy encounter likelihood increases the closer you get to destination but never gets over 40%.
Takes 10 mins to travel from Cardassia to Romulus: Enemy encounter likelihood high at beginning of travel; decreases during middle of travel; and increases the closer you get to destination but it is cumulative (40% at the beginning becomes 80% near destination).
This would simulate travel in enemy space.
Agreed. Let us have the open space feel. Remove the grids etc.
Really, people - GET SOME IMAGINATION.
The "sector space" screen ihas been opretty much a standard in terms of radar/3-D displays since the days of ELITE, for Chrissakes.
ELITE used it.
FREESPACE used it.
X-Wing/TIE Fighter used it.
HOMEWORLD and it's sequels used it
Many other space-based games used it as well.
You have a grid for the basic ECLIPTIC, which in space is a arbitrary designaiton - usually a plane through both Earth's orbit and the galactcc core. It's only purpose is reference.
You have symbols representing various things - with a connecting line to the reference ecliptic to give a sense of how "high" or "low" something is in reference to the ecliptic.
in Star Trek, they borrowed a trick from HOMEWORLD and made the usual grid a 3-D view - save that in this game you move through it, instead of using it as a Overview the way Homeworld did.
One BIG error they made was using the ecliptic as a "bottom" of the view - there should have been worlds both above and below the grid - THEN a liot fewer people would complain, as then it would make better sense.
Once you look at the secotr space view as a NAVIGATIONAL REFERENCE, instead of a actual space view (which, given Star Trek physics, you would have had nothing but BLACK outside the windows at warp),
- you'll be a lot happier.
The issue here is that they want ONE part of the game to be a form of forced socialization and sector space happens to be it.
But when I'm flying my ship, I'm less likely to talk to other people than on a station.
THIS is Ceti Alpha 5 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
/QFE
I really like this idea!
First of all you didn't get my point of the post. It isn't meant to just discuss sector space, I heard that the devs were thinking of changing the look of it and I was curious as to what they had in mind, but I also wanted to talk about my own thoughts.
Second, sector space shouldn't be a navigational reference, it should be an actual space view, that's my whole point. I don't need anything to tell me how high or low I am, I can tell based on the where the systems are. If a system is above me I won't say "oh no there is nothing under me, which way do I go?" I know I'll have to go up. Sector space can be made to look like actual space, it doesn't need to be the way it is.
Since it seems like you enjoy it the way it is then I'll make another suggestion to Cryptic, add an option to let uses switch between the two views. One way to look like it does now, the other as if it were actual space.