I get the concept, your sensory equipment can provide more information than your eyes can see. The thing that bothers me though is that I wouldn't think such an advanced sensory technology would fall back on "wireframes" which are an inherently low-tech solution. For me it kills the experience, and makes the game feel more like a shooter from the early 90's. I can't quite rationalize why an advanced sensory technology would try and approximate polygons?

I personally would like to turn the effect right off (the wireframe) and rely on my radar and such to navigate through the fog. I love the look of the station in the fog when you're docked, and would love to experience that as I come in to dock.

The space shuttle cannot mount CPU's that are equal to the power of a modern desktop. Why should these ships? I love the wireframe, personally.

The space shuttle?! Are you serious? The space shuttle was designed long before the first wireframe 3d games!!

So you're saying that, for some reason, however many thousands of years in the future, we can have neutron blasters, rail guns, heads up displays, etc etc, but we can't mount a mac mini into the cockpit?

Either way, I'm not saying the wireframe isn't for everyone, but personally I would like to be able to turn it off, as it cheapens the effect for me.

I'm used to it, but my first reaction to it was kinda the same. But for those storm radars in ion clouds, I wonder how else they would preserve the "can't see shit from this range" aspect while enhancing the radar to pick up the objects out of range.

For me it kills the experience, and makes the game feel more like a shooter from the early 90's

+1

Lemming I skimmed that as it's juuust a bit too long and obtuse, so if I'm not critiquing the right point here, then please could you paraphrase the point you're trying to make?

If the point you are trying to make though has to do with the part about Digital Damage, and the use of more robust, albiet larger equipment which can withstand that, then I really think you and inoguy should go find some 1970's shuttle sim to play :P

It's the frickin future man!! The greatest Sci-Fi minds throughout history have made a point of solving problems like these in their works; not ensuring that they were bound by problems that have plagued mankind for decades (and yes, we're only speaking decades here, whereas in game we're speaking millenia)!

I just dont see a viable substitute for the wire frame....

How would you represent the radar portion of the display?

I'm not quite sure I follow what you're asking. Even with the wireframe, the radar works exactly as it always does. The wireframe is simply a visual indicator of objects in the fog. You could completely remove it, and it would simply be like an ion storm without any radar inhibition.

I'm actually not even suggesting they come up with another effect. I understand why they did what they did (it was probably an easy, effective solution), and anything that I could suggest would be, in my eyes, not really worth the time to implement it.

What I'm asking for is simply a switch, to turn it on and off. It's not needed for navigation at all (the radar works just fine), and I personally like how it looks without it much more than with it (as seen through the station screen). In fact I think the green fog looks fantastic (as seen through the station screen), but sincerely feel that the wireframes cheapen the effect.

Actually, if you've ever read any of the decent sci-fi in this world, you might have noticed that rather than focusing on idiotic details the authors preferred to write about things that are actually relevant.

Then again, you probably think that firefly was amazing and the deepest thing in the world, so I guess you wouldn't know, would you?

...things that are actually relevant.

How ironic. Would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Thanks for the airlifting of support Whistler :)

"Instrument Only Flight Conditions"

Make it so that in an Ion storm, the roids would read as something like ships or widgets on the radar. This would force the pilot to fly on his instruments, not his eyes.

Just like a modern-day aircraft in the dark in a storm.

Implemented and I missed the opportunity to boast about it! Bloody hell... looks mint. Nice work devs :)

We aren't done with the wireframe effect, as should be evident from its changes over the last couple of months. Plus, there are few sectors that really show off its intended use-case. Expect more tweaks as we go along and drop in more of the Universe Redux (higher density sectors, more fogging).

(I was working on some test sectors before I recently came down the goddamn plague)

I know everyone isn't sold on the effect, but.. we'll see. Also, different storms can have different properties (visible distance, radar distance, etc), so "instruments-only" sectors are possible. I think limited-visibility gameplay has a lot of interesting potential.

Really? I was in Verasi and there was no wireframe. It exists in other sectors though? Whereabouts? I would like to see the sectors that show off your intentions...

Hm...

I won't compete on technobabble ground, because there you're actually right.

I personally like the wireframe effect. It looks cool, to me.

Snax: did you have a radar extender? And, there aren't really any that show my intentions yet. Although you might get some idea from flying in Latos M7 with a Raptor+extender (maybe? I'm not even sure.. I'm working on the test server).

Nope, no radar extender. In fact, I think it was essentially the exact same config I had the last time I was in Verasi and experienced the wire frame (Posi Greyhound).