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*** Vendetta 1.8.312

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Nov 15, 2014 Kierky link
Changelog:
- Added dynamic lighting to asteroid mining effect.
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I can't be the only one rather underwhelmed about this update. :P
Nov 15, 2014 Serious.Person link
Heh. I've read the additional newpost and get the impression the devs focus a lot on the graphical aspects lately. That's surely cool but in my opinion VO's graphics are good enough. We need some dev-looks at the suggestions Forum!
Nov 15, 2014 Phaserlight link
VO's graphics may be "good enough" but they aren't at the level of its two probable most direct competitors: Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen. I think the devs spending some time and resources updating VO's graphics for rigs that can handle it is a good move.

This is one of those updates where you have to read the rest of the post:

This was actually a very productive week, as Ray has been working really hard to back-propagate many of the newer DX11 effects to OpenGL. Unfortunately, this also uncorked a whole slew of new issues, related to particular chipset drivers and various incompatibilities. He's pushed through and straightened out much of it, but we still have more work to do before this will be production-ready.

In the meantime, Curt has added some cool new lighting effects for those who can see it , with the mining impact-area now illuminating things (the asteroid, for instance). It is not currently colored, as the actual mining flare itself is always white. But, we may change that, to make the flare match the color of the mining beam, to add a little more color (and information) to the universe. For the moment though, we think it jazzes up those skyscapes of NPCs mining in the distance.

Have a great weekend, everyone.
Nov 15, 2014 cellsafemode link
Throw as many shader effects etc that you want in openGL land, it would be nice to make this R9 280 work up a sweat.

But before all that: Things like weapon fire passing through objects (unless this patch stopped that) would probably be a graphics fix on a bit higher priority than lighting effects. Also, thrusters rendered even when at full stop. That weird mining beam glitch that sometimes happens in Sed D14 where it's just stuck there in space nothing attached to it. The swarm streamer effect seems to do more harm when considering graphics quality look of the game than good. The effect is too opaque and looks fake/cartoonish.

I find those things noticably distracting in regards to graphics quality other than the dead horse that is certain ship models and textures etc. (not yet had the pleasure of playing with the dx11 effects ...tuesday i will)
Nov 15, 2014 Pizzasgood link
The stuck beam thing isn't tied to D-14. I've seen it in other places.
Nov 15, 2014 Inevitable link
They aren't on the level of it's competitors? You just listed games that aren't even released. I'm confused.
Nov 15, 2014 Phaserlight link
Hence I used the term "probable". Nothing is certain until release. Also, I was writing specifically about graphics, just going from YouTube videos I've seen, etc.

Dynamic lighting, shadows, and improved particle effects would all go a long way toward helping VO measure up against those titles in the graphics department if and when they come to market (E:D is like, a month away from release I think). A rendered ship interior is probably too much to hope for from a small-but-able dev team of 4... Limit Theory isn't bothering with this, either.

Graphical criticisms are about the shallowest that can be leveled at a game, but they are something I see Vendetta criticized for regularly across various web outlets (most recently Jef Reahard, managing editor of Massively whose articles regarding Vendetta have been ebullient to say the least, compared VO to IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946, DCS World and Space Engineers, calling it "definitely the most dated game on [the] list in terms of visuals"). So, while graphics may have little to do with the resulting gameplay experience, I think it's great the devs are taking a proactive approach toward improving VO's look, which will give it a broader appeal to a new generation being fed marketing videos from Frontier Studios et al.

That is just my opinion as a casual gamer, and in no way reflects special insight on Guild Software's true stance. I.e. I have no privileged information regarding this as a guide.
Nov 15, 2014 incarnate link
A couple of notes:

- Development priorities are chosen based on a lot of different parameters. For instance, if we're going to work on "Vendetta Online 2.0" next year, and want Curt to be developing graphics related to engine enhancements, then those enhancements need to actually exist before he can be prototyping new graphics. This is development parallelism, or just good project management. You need to develop things in the order that allows the most efficient use of multiple people working independently.

- Some artifacts are choices, and not bugs. For instance, shots passing through ships was a design choice, inherent to the fact that we are not doing total-scene collisions on the local device. If we were to do so, it would increase CPU usage for any given person, by probably a factor of 10. In a large battle that would be problematic for some people. So, while I'm always in favor of improving all aspects of the game, it should be considered that some may be architectural decisions, rather than "mistakes" of some kind. Engineering in general is more of a world of balancing trade-offs, as opposed to ideal solutions. It's kind of like asking why Minecraft graphics are so blocky, where that stems inherently from the choice of working with a dynamic voxel-based landscape, rather than a bug or error of some kind.
Nov 15, 2014 abortretryfail link
I can see that making sense for small stuff like Vultures and whatnot, but when missiles go through an object the size of a Hive Queen and fly out the other side, i have to wonder...
Nov 15, 2014 Conflict Diamond link
Kierky said:

"I can't be the only one rather underwhelmed about this update. :P"

No wonder you failed at making a mining guild. ;)

BEST. UPDATE. EVAR!!!!
Nov 16, 2014 abortretryfail link
Now your mining beam rave is going to be so much more dazzling.

Do the scanner sweep next! While you're at it, make different FX for different types of scanners and fix the wrong-port problem. :D
Nov 16, 2014 Pizzasgood link
+1
Nov 16, 2014 Conflict Diamond link
Oooh yeah, scanners! While you're at it, make it so beams and scanners light up ice crystals, making it visible beyond radar or even same-sector detection range.

While I'm at it, knowing this is a suggestion forum topic: is it really fair that scanners are passive and use no energy per scan?
Nov 16, 2014 SkinWalker link
I'd be happy if scanners fired individually on their respective ports. I want desperately to fly a hornet with chain-fired mineral scanners in a Ecka-style roll at the front of the Grey Pride parade. Disco lives.
Nov 17, 2014 abortretryfail link
CD, yeah it's fair. If you put little things like scanners in the context of directed energy weapons that create things like antimatter or neutrons and fire them at things, their power use is negligible.
Nov 19, 2014 cellsafemode link
Incarnate:
Regarding the weapon fire passing through ships due to moving scene collisions to the server side. I know scene collisions were previously also handled on the client side so that code existed. Since this was done both for more stable (reliable) detection of collisions and performance reasons, would it not be possible to re-apply the code but only have it affect the graphics displayed on the client and not apply the detection logic to the physics frame (since that's still handled on the server side)?
This can then be enabled as a graphics option so computers that can handle the added load can do so to enjoy the aesthetic of not seeing things passing through models.
Nov 19, 2014 incarnate link
Umm. I think there are a bunch of mistaken assumptions in there, but I have to run off to a meeting shortly and can't really parse too much right now. But it really depends on what you mean by "weapons passing through models", because there are very different cases that could be lumped in together by the end-user. Capital gauss that hits something and still has a visible effect for some distance, is very different from rockets going through Queens, which is very different from certain other cases.

There is a network-based "object remove" packet that is received by the client, which removes objects from the scene. You would not want the client to visually remove an object that was still considered "live" by the server, as you could then run into it (now invisible to you) and die.

Anyway.. there are a lot of different moving parts here (visual effect lifetime, physics timestep resolution and iteration over sub-frame periods, network latency, etc), depending on the specific example "issue". If you want to cite the exact, specific case that bothers you the most, and raise it in a Suggestions forum post, we can continue discussion there.
Nov 19, 2014 Darth Nihilus link
+1 incarnate
Nov 19, 2014 abortretryfail link
The capgauss thing is more than just a visual effect. The client hits you with a concussion that deals no damage when the server-declared-removed capgauss projectile passes through and hits you.

As for the rocket going through queens: I'm talking about support ticket 2448. Stingray missiles can pass in one end of a hive queen, out the other side, never detonate, and turn around to try and make another pass at her until they eventually hit or time out.
Nov 20, 2014 incarnate link
The capgauss thing is more than just a visual effect. The client hits you with a concussion that deals no damage when the server-declared-removed capgauss projectile passes through and hits you.

The "force" from the impact of a capgauss goes out in a sphere, that is not trivially small. So, yes, if you're on the far side of an object that is impacted by a capgauss, you may be impacted by the "force" of the detonation of the capgauss, based on the distance between you and the impact point. This is not a bug. To prevent that would require factoring in occlusion to splash damage, which is not something we currently do.

But none of that has anything whatsoever to do with capgauss visual effects passing through objects. We could remove the visual effect entirely and the "force" impact would still happen. The visual effect passing through as it "ends" is an effects-side issue that is totally unrelated to any of this, but again, is causing people to make some mistaken assumptions.

As for the rocket going through queens: I'm talking about support ticket 2448. Stingray missiles can pass in one end of a hive queen, out the other side, never detonate, and turn around to try and make another pass at her until they eventually hit or time out.

And like I said, if anyone wants to take one specific issue, like this, and roll it as a Suggestions forum post or something, I can respond more there. Then at least it's a reference-able specific thread and not some random General release thread.

I'm not saying there aren't times when collisions fail, or that there aren't things we should probably fix. I am saying that what is broken and what needs fixing, and why, are widely misunderstood by the player-base.. which is fine, and understandable, it just makes it complicated for me to make a cogent response to posts that crop up in release threads.

That's also why breaking out the cases individually on Suggestions is helpful, then at least that specific thread can be referenced down the road.