Anyone else have their energy weapons "disappear" during game play?

jkwrangler2010 · May 2014

I've been having this weird bug since S9 update. My energy weapons like to disappear from the screen when energy weapons from other ships fill up my screen. The weapons are still functioning, just no visuals. This happens in pve mostly. Before S9, I could see my weapons no problems, even during Fleet Defense. Could it be one of the settings got changed [as did all of them] or just another bug?

straenge · May 2014

Pre-Season 9, I had the same issue with Antiproton cannons. For some reason, they changed the details in them so that you had to raise Visual Fx quality I believe? before they could be seen. After Season 9, I noticed that it spread across other power types though not all. I am not sure of the reasonings behind it.. but it is a bit odd. However, raising Visual Fx quality is what I believe that did the trick for me.

hypl · May 2014

Could possibly be a new form of graphics culling implemented with S9. Turning away from all the intense action makes my weapons visible again.

wtfforumnamesuck · May 2014

Your not the only one. Pre-Season 9, I never had this issue pop up. Now, my weapons completely disappear in most fights. Setting my visual FX quality to low helps, but it still happens often enough to annoy me. I dont know what they changed, but something got screwed up.

Cryptic needs to address this issue, and at least let us know that they are working on a fix. Right now, this bug is making all of the new content unplayable.

stevel1728 · May 2014

Yes and I have also started to experience very low frame rates & lag especially where a lot of things are going on (Like starbase 24) , where pre season 9, I had none of these problems.

I have a fairly powerful rig/graphics cards and do not have problems with any other game out there.

I even tried lowering all the graphical setting to see if it made a difference and it really doesn't help much.

Whatever Cryptic did, they really dropped the ball on this. Very disappointed that all these issues keep slipping thru "quality control".

bones1970 · May 2014

stevel1728 wrote: »

Yes and I have also started to experience very low frame rates & lag especially where a lot of things are going on (Like starbase 24) , where pre season 9, I had none of these problems.

I have a fairly powerful rig/graphics cards and do not have problems with any other game out there.

Whatever Cryptic did, they really dropped the ball on this. Very disappointed that all these issues keep slipping thru "quality control".

Yes, got the same problem, when there are lots of ships my beams disapear.

nathrael · May 2014

Have this problem a lot. Mostly in the Undine Battlezone but have rarely seen it in ISE as well. The weapons are cycling, and the logs show them doing damage-but the visuals are gone.

No trouble with lag, and this all started with s9 launch. One other thing of note with regards to the mention of Antiproton cannons. The only ships I have seen this on all mount antiproton weapons (Arrays or DBB's). The Omega torp one ship carries always shows, and other ships with plasma, disruptor, etc do not show this problem.

snoggymack22 · May 2014

Have this happen allllll the time. It really gets annoying in CE since I don't know if they're hitting unless I can see the damage spam, but on the CE, the spam is sometimes hard to see because of the CE's size. So I get lulled into thinking I'm not hitting anything.

hunteralpha84 · May 2014

Yep same issue.

I get it in undine battle zone and crystalline entity. Starbase 24 is almost unplayable after the second wave shows up.

Nice to know its not just me.

Unknown · May 2014

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breadandcircuses · May 2014

jkwrangler2010 wrote: »

I've been having this weird bug since S9 update. My energy weapons like to disappear from the screen when energy weapons from other ships fill up my screen. The weapons are still functioning, just no visuals. This happens in pve mostly. Before S9, I could see my weapons no problems, even during Fleet Defense. Could it be one of the settings got changed [as did all of them] or just another bug?

I've seen the same, at times resorting to watching my weapons tray to make sure my weapons were going through their firing cycles. So yeah, my guess is the "just another bug" since suggestions have been made to both raise and lower your graphics settings; that indicates folks have run into the issue both at higher settings (and thus suggested lower settings) and lower settings (and thus suggested higher settings).

aelfwin1 · May 2014

I haz this too , and I'd like to give it back plz .

sunfrancks · May 2014

The engine of the game cannot handle all the spam on the screen, so some of it disappears. I only get this happen in the Undine Battlezone.

Unknown · May 2014

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longasc · May 2014

If they just can't work around the culling issue, make at least our very own weapons exempt for it, it is indeed very irritating.

Unknown · May 2014

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mikearoo · May 2014

Yeah, JUST started noticing this too (haven't played the game much since s8). I have everything set to maximum in the graphics department, no dice, my beams were still disappearing, even during an ISE of all things, didn't think that mission was THAT spam heavy.

daboholic · May 2014

colonelmarik wrote: »

Yep, same thing. In addition, I've gone from about 45-60fps to somewhere around 6-10 at times in big fights (Like Starbase 24).

Something has been broken, if you ask me.

Glad I'm not the only one affected by this. Pre-Season 9 I could run SB24 and even with dozens of Klingon ships on screen I had no noticeable performance issuses.

I tried it for the first time since Season 9 launched a couple of days ago, what a disaster. Whenever there was more than a handful of ships on screen all the flashy FX (including weapons fire) seemed to disappear and appear at will and my frame rate almost fell through the floor.

Needless to say that's another piece of content I won't be playing again anytime soon

captainpugwash1 · May 2014

Me to, weapons & shields but only forward facing if i look from the side or front its ok...!!!!,,,changing the settings dident help...

sophus84at · May 2014

same issue, since season 9, in CE, undine battlezone, sb 24, and vicious cycle my beams (no matter what energy type)
disappear when more than 5 ships are firing...
not only that also my visuals for shield FX disappear.. AND the set part visuals disapear also. borg deflector for example.. all gone (just visuals)

when before season 9 i never had any problem..
i tried switching the visual fx quality... i had it on max when the problem started but changing to low doesnt help at all

lordsteve1 · May 2014

See even if the engine can't hack it the game should only remove the weapons fire you see from other ships, not yours. Otherwise it's impossible to tell what ins going on some of the time.

What your ship is doing should be the priority, followed by any enemy vessel inside your weapons range. Then anything else happening should be lower priority for it to render.

SB24 was already pretty hairy when the second wave decloaked on top of you en mass but not it's crazy.

philosophere · May 2014

Intermittent loss of f/x visuals are OP. Please nerf.

zbzzn · May 2014

Yes, I have this problem sometimes too. Prior to Season 9, I would occasionally lose the visuals for torpedoes where I would only see the ring shaped auras leaving my ship, but now it occurs with all weapons and shield effects.

As others have said, if the engine is struggling then the drawing of player's weapons should have highest priority. In addition, any enemies firing upon you should also have priority.

somebob · May 2014

lordsteve1 wrote: »

See even if the engine can't hack it the game should only remove the weapons fire you see from other ships, not yours. Otherwise it's impossible to tell what ins going on some of the time.

What your ship is doing should be the priority, followed by any enemy vessel inside your weapons range. Then anything else happening should be lower priority for it to render.

SB24 was already pretty hairy when the second wave decloaked on top of you en mass but not it's crazy.

That would make sense. Problem is that the Cryptic Engine is not capable of doing this.

Long story short - this issue has been around SINCE LAUNCH. And it's an issue in both STO and CO (not sure if NW gets 'busy' enough any time to have issues, but it would have it there too).

The Cryptic Engine is only capable of displaying so many effects on the screen at once (any type of energy weapon, any type of torpedo, shield arc display, visuals like plasma fire, etc etc etc). Once you exceed that limit, things get removed RANDOMLY to keep under that limit.

There is absolutely utterly nothing you can do to fix it. It is an engine issue.

And again, this has been an issue SINCE LAUNCH. It has been an issue in Crystaline Entity since ALWAYS. It has been an issue in Starbase Fleet Defense (the 20 man) since ALWAYS.

This has not been around since just Season 9. It has ALWAYS been an issue. The engine can not keep up with huge numbers of players and NPCs all shooting each other, space or ground (although I dunno if I've ever seen it happen on ground, as the Voth Battleground would be the only busiest place to see it really).

EDIT: Cryptic also refuses to say anything in any thread talking about it because they know there's nothing they can do fix it (short of reduce the ship spam, which won't happen).

wtfforumnamesuck · May 2014

There is something they can do to fix it. Pre-Season 9, this issue was extremely rare. Personally, I never saw it in Crystalline entitiy, or even Starbase 24. After season 9, it shows up in Tau Dewa Patrol missions. Something got changed that made this problem a hell of a lot worse. Whatever got changed, thats what needs to be fixed, or at least rolled back.

lordsteve1 · May 2014

Yeah I've occasionally seen this in starbase defence prior to S9 but since then it is happening a lot more often and in a wider variety of settings.

Dunno, maybe they've added too many particle effects to the new and revamped content and it's getting bogged down rendering it all?

nativejoe · May 2014

I'm Posting to add my 2 cents. I have the same issue.

I run at max settings for everything and in 30% of fights my Antiproton cannons are completely invisable.

rustiswordz · May 2014

Yep getting this too. its annoying because i think there is something wrong with my ship and i pull out of the fight when i shouldn't. This only happened since undine went live, it needs a fix its highly distracting.

flyingshoebox · May 2014

Ive been noticing this also. Where I really noticed it was on crystal entity. My graphic settings are maxed and I dont get any chugging and torpedos sometimes being rendered as circle things like I sometimes can see in the 20 player star base defense. Something I did noticed while playing with the camera angle that if I rotated my camera vertically so I was looking down over my ship I could see my beams again. Its like they have no cross section depending on what angle you see them from.

legetdumar · May 2014

I have been seeing this as well, with CC and my VERY brief foray into the Undine content being the worst offenders. And, in a CC I did the other night, enemy weapon visuals cut out as well, so I couldn't tell where I was getting hit from, nor by whom, I would just take too much invisible abuse and blow up!

I really hope this gets fixed soon.

nynik · May 2014

Alongside the load window requirement for instance switching (vs seamless phasing), this is one of Cryptic's most detrimental longstanding unsolved technological weaknesses. It is encountered across all their games.

We can only hope it gets better.

Anyone else have their energy weapons "disappear" during game play?

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