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Some Vanity Shields not displaying properly (Sometimes)
garabalde
Member Posts: 18 Arc User
See this post also on the same topic: I posted in the wrong forum to begin with.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1262598/some-vanity-shields-not-displaying-properly
This seems to occur in older maps of the game, such as Sherman, Risa, Sierra, Vulcan, ect. Systems that have been more recently updated, such as Sol, DS9, New Romulus, Dyson Sphere, do not seem to be affected. Also, certain ships, such as my T5-U Defiant, seem to not be affected even in the older systems.
So, what exactly is this bug? Guess I should have started there. Some, but not all, of the vanity shields, or any shield with a visual effect, are not displaying properly in certain systems.
At first glance, this would seem to be a lighting thing as some have mentioned to me on my first post. But this seemed odd due to how drastically different the shield looks compared to normal. The Reman shield for example shows up still shiny, but pure bright white. This is normally one of the darkest shield effects in the game. So then as part of my troubleshooting I decided to remove and put back the shield, but when I opened the character sheet and went to my starship (on the left) and the Status tab (up top of the character sheet), the shield suddenly displayed properly.
I actually tested this first with the Section 31 Vanity shield, which worked the same way. And then with several others. Some of the changes are more dramatic than others, and some were not affected at all. So far, I have found 6 shields that are affected in some way, and at least 3 that are not. I do not have access to all vanity shields, and so cannot test everything.
Affected shields I have found: Dyson rep shield, Jem-Hadar shield (From mission, not rep), Bajoran shield, Reman Shield, Section 31 Vanity Shield, Platinum Vanity Shield, The Medical Vanity shield seems affected as well, but it is very subtle.
Unaffected shields I have found: Assimilated Shield (Rep or original mission reward versions), Omega Force Rep Shield (which I believe was originally available for the items you could spend on Omega Taskforce, which predate the Rep system. Feel free to correct me on that though, it has been a long time.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1262598/some-vanity-shields-not-displaying-properly
This seems to occur in older maps of the game, such as Sherman, Risa, Sierra, Vulcan, ect. Systems that have been more recently updated, such as Sol, DS9, New Romulus, Dyson Sphere, do not seem to be affected. Also, certain ships, such as my T5-U Defiant, seem to not be affected even in the older systems.
So, what exactly is this bug? Guess I should have started there. Some, but not all, of the vanity shields, or any shield with a visual effect, are not displaying properly in certain systems.
At first glance, this would seem to be a lighting thing as some have mentioned to me on my first post. But this seemed odd due to how drastically different the shield looks compared to normal. The Reman shield for example shows up still shiny, but pure bright white. This is normally one of the darkest shield effects in the game. So then as part of my troubleshooting I decided to remove and put back the shield, but when I opened the character sheet and went to my starship (on the left) and the Status tab (up top of the character sheet), the shield suddenly displayed properly.
I actually tested this first with the Section 31 Vanity shield, which worked the same way. And then with several others. Some of the changes are more dramatic than others, and some were not affected at all. So far, I have found 6 shields that are affected in some way, and at least 3 that are not. I do not have access to all vanity shields, and so cannot test everything.
Affected shields I have found: Dyson rep shield, Jem-Hadar shield (From mission, not rep), Bajoran shield, Reman Shield, Section 31 Vanity Shield, Platinum Vanity Shield, The Medical Vanity shield seems affected as well, but it is very subtle.
Unaffected shields I have found: Assimilated Shield (Rep or original mission reward versions), Omega Force Rep Shield (which I believe was originally available for the items you could spend on Omega Taskforce, which predate the Rep system. Feel free to correct me on that though, it has been a long time.
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The other thread was just a discussion about the issue, this thread is an official bug report about it. The kind GMs tell you to post when you report an issue via the in-game system.
The visual issues in Risa were around in 2019 and quite likely long before that. I did some additional testing using the info discovered by the OP and found the differences with the ship UI open/closed are directly tied to the image preview of your current ship. If you change tabs/subtabs without closing the window, the visual changes revert too.
The Aegis shield and obviously Aegis based Pink vanity shield are also not affected. However the differences don't seem to be due to age since the Reman shield is highly affected and the Romulan reputation is as old as Omega. The Omega vanity shield is also not affected. Romulan non-vanity shield is barely affected. I suspect there is some sort of lighting effect that either isn't present or isn't working in Risa System and other affected maps that is being used by the ship preview window. (Like for example how much light the shield's texture absorbs/reflects.) The interesting thing is that the change affects the non-preview ship model too, suggesting the two are linked?
Just tried another experiment: Turning lighting 2.0 off causes the issue to go away entirely, so that seems to be a good place to look for answers. Even Reman/Romulan Vanity shields show up normally with Lighting 2.0 off.
Edit: The issue also affects the Legendary Light Intel Warbird's Mirror hull texture. It does not look as expected with Lighting 2.0 on but does with Lighting 2.0 off, and no shield visual effects active. (Same thing happens with Aegis vanity shield active too.) The mirror hull texture (also used by other Mirror Universe Warbirds, and potentially usable on T6 ships if you own the mirror T5) seems to have unusual lighting properties, which is what made me think of trying it.
There certainly does appear to be a thick layer of dust on ships when we don't have the character sheet open. I reported it back on Feb 2020, but the issue persists.
I just had a note on this one detail: