Why Isn't Camera Zoom on Console Smooth Like on PC?

dana · April 2022

Is there a reason why camera zooming on console is only possible from three distances from your ship instead of a smooth zoom in and out like on PC?

It's been this way on console for years and it's really annoying not to be able to see your ships close up. Many of the ships are gorgeous with lots of fine details, but you can barely see any of that while your ship is in orbit—especially smaller ships—because the camera doesn't get close enough.

I keep expecting to see zooming improved with each update, but it never gets addressed. Seems like smooth zooming like on PC would be a given across all versions of STO, but the console versions don't have that parity.

Why?

rattler2 · April 2022

I think the main issue is the lack of controls available for console. We PC players have a whole keyboard and a mouse, typically with a scroll wheel. That scroll wheel makes zooming in/out a LOT easier than any combination of buttons could be. As I don't play on console I don't know how its done, but as someone who has played console games and some PC ports/versions of those games... yea there is a noticable difference on control schemes.

dana · April 2022

I get that it's easier to spread the STO controls out across a keyboard and mouse for the PC version than it is to fit those same controls onto an Xbox or Play Station controller. That said, on Xbox the right trigger and right bumper are completely unused while viewing your ship in orbit (in Sol System, for instance). Wouldn't need a combination of buttons; just map one to zoom in and the other to zoom out. That seems like the easy win to me and simpler than the current method of having to hold down the A button until the Action menu appears and then scrolling down to Cycle Camera Distance.

And that clumsy method only cycles through three preset distances from whatever's coded in the game as the center of your ship, regardless of your ship's size. For small ships, you can't see any of the detail the devs have put into them because the closest preset camera distance is still too far away.

If implementing zoom on console truly isn't a viable option, could the current camera distance presets be reconfigured to show players' ships as a series of percentages of screen width rather than specific distances from the center of the ships themselves? For instance, the close-up distance could present the entire length or width of the ship (whichever is greater) to appear 90% of the total screen width. The farthest distance could show the ship no smaller than 25% of the screen width. Maybe a middle distance of 50%. Or maybe step the distances at 10% intervals. The same ranges could be used for combat as well. Allowing console players to view their ships as percentages of the entire screen would allow for even the smallest of shuttles to be displayed in as much detail as the designers can cram into them.

I love that the STO ship designers continue to put such passion into their work. The recently introduced Legendary Miranda Multi-Mission Cruiser—featuring the TOS-era Miranda Mk I and Miranda Mk I Beta skins—is simply gorgeous and a real tribute to classic Trek! IMHO, the ship designs in STO are MUCH better than anything that's come out of the Abrams films, Star Trek Discovery, or Star Trek Picard—with the notable exception of the Discovery-era Enterprise. THAT is a beautiful interpretation of the Constitution Class, and wonderfully rendered in STO. Like the Miranda however, the existing preset camera distances on console don't get close enough to it in orbit to fully appreciate it. It's tragic that STO's ship designers' artistic talents don't get to shine as brightly as they should on console because the zoom is implemented so poorly!

Sorry for the rant. I'm just frustrated that this "issue" on console has persisted for so long.

Why Isn't Camera Zoom on Console Smooth Like on PC?

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