LauriFB stated in Discord: stations will be visible from 200km, up to 1000km eventually

Vexus

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
280
#1
This is impressive. A 100m/s speed ship will have vision of a destination station for up to 2.7 hours of flying time.
 

Strite

Active endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
39
#4
This would be amazing navigation wise, possibly bad performance wise.
Pfft, who cares about performance when we can see our targets from hundreds of km's away!? :p In all seriousness, render distance is always a tricky thing to get right. It can definitely impact performance substantially, but it's also really useful to have a high render distance, especially in games with PvP. I guess it's about striking the right balance between performance and practicality. With that said, there are things that can be done to give the illusion of longer render distance without such a heavy hit on performance, such as replacing the actual models with sprites at extreme distances and such.
 

Vampiricdust

Learned-to-turn-off-magboots endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
47
#5
Would be good from a navigation perspective...
That's not necessarily true. Just because it's rendered doesn't mean it's a 100% accurate render. They could use 2D sprites to represent them or extremely low voxel renders. If the station looks 10cm x 10cm x 10cm, then there's only a few hundred voxels representing the station. I would seriously doubt they would fully render the station.
 

Morrgard

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
374
#6
This depends if it is just stations that have the render distance, or if ships have it too. Because if it were stations then it can just be a smeared blob on your screen from really far away, almost like the stars of the skybox.
 

DrunkRussianBear

Chancellor of the Argentavian Federation
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
313
#7
That's not necessarily true. Just because it's rendered doesn't mean it's a 100% accurate render. They could use 2D sprites to represent them or extremely low voxel renders. If the station looks 10cm x 10cm x 10cm, then there's only a few hundred voxels representing the station. I would seriously doubt they would fully render the station.
I'm sure the station won't be hugely off from its actual location though, so its still a blob on your screen to follow.
 

Morrgard

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
374
#8
That's not necessarily true. Just because it's rendered doesn't mean it's a 100% accurate render. They could use 2D sprites to represent them or extremely low voxel renders. If the station looks 10cm x 10cm x 10cm, then there's only a few hundred voxels representing the station. I would seriously doubt they would fully render the station.
They definitely won't fully render the station, there's no point. Even if they did you would not be able to see 200k away accurately enough to make sense of the fully rendered station.
 

Kane Hart

Veteran endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
153
#9
This would be amazing navigation wise, possibly bad performance wise.
Computing Wise this would have 0 impact. I think they talked about LOD being around 20km.

This would be nothing more then a simple directional location being sent to the client.
I think the 200km now and 1000km later is not rather tech limitation but player progression not really needing more vast distances yet. Our movement is slow and young and we are not going that far quite yet without proper navigation systems like being able create beacons and load them from outside or view distance.

But the good news is this should help us create some sort of basic location / gps system in the area depending how close other stations are. This is really going make early game GPS awesome and possible now.


EDIT:
Never Mind it was visually so yeah this not going be performance hungry if they do it right via LOD and fake magic... For example if it gets far enough they just use a couple textures and pretend to be at a spot.


Full Quote

transmitter signal strength is largest when close, so the tricky part navigating with them is to know the strength of the transmitter (but the transmitter could just broadcast it's strength among other information if it wishes)
the station view distance is currently 200 km but most likely will be around 1000 km in the final game, so plain visual navigation is a thing
So no real word on Transmit distance. I hope it's going be High Lauri already said they will probably be higher then default player set ranges.
 
Last edited:

DrunkRussianBear

Chancellor of the Argentavian Federation
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
313
#10
Computing Wise this would have 0 impact. I think they talked about LOD being around 20km.

This would be nothing more then a simple directional location being sent to the client.
I think the 200km now and 1000km later is not rather tech limitation but player progression not really needing more vast distances yet. Our movement is slow and young and we are not going that far quite yet without proper navigation systems like being able create beacons and load them from outside or view distance.

But the good news is this should help us create some sort of basic location / gps system in the area depending how close other stations are. This is really going make early game GPS awesome and possible now.


EDIT:
Never Mind it was visually so yeah this not going be performance hungry if they do it right via LOD and fake magic... For example if it gets far enough they just use a couple textures and pretend to be at a spot.


Full Quote



So no real word on Transmit distance. I hope it's going be High Lauri already said they will probably be higher then default player set ranges.
Fair enough.
 

Morrgard

Master endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
374
#11
Computing Wise this would have 0 impact. I think they talked about LOD being around 20km.

This would be nothing more then a simple directional location being sent to the client.
I think the 200km now and 1000km later is not rather tech limitation but player progression not really needing more vast distances yet. Our movement is slow and young and we are not going that far quite yet without proper navigation systems like being able create beacons and load them from outside or view distance.

But the good news is this should help us create some sort of basic location / gps system in the area depending how close other stations are. This is really going make early game GPS awesome and possible now.


EDIT:
Never Mind it was visually so yeah this not going be performance hungry if they do it right via LOD and fake magic... For example if it gets far enough they just use a couple textures and pretend to be at a spot.


Full Quote



So no real word on Transmit distance. I hope it's going be High Lauri already said they will probably be higher then default player set ranges.
It would be the best thing to do, as I mentioned earlier it would not be any idea to fully render a station at such ranges as it would not be visible to you anyway, would be better to just have it as a speck in the direction it is by some pixels.
 

Kane Hart

Veteran endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
153
#12
Yeah the visual rendering is going be like you said a pixel or if big enough a few of them ;) Maybe some sort of light or something like shinny material. I'm surprised by this I love it a lot as DU was doing some crazy LOD Tech from far away.
 

LauriFB

Administrator
Moderator
Frozenbyte
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
212
#13
200 km is current, 1000 km is indeed something where even largest stations most likely render only pixel-sized, which is the goal. Our station LOD's are more like smart LOD logic combined with well done hand-created LOD's than superior LOD tech. Even with Starbase it's not always tech first, but rather than smart thinking first :D. But of course this wouldn't be possible without our superior streaming technology :cool:
 

Kane Hart

Veteran endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
153
#14
200 km is current, 1000 km is indeed something where even largest stations most likely render only pixel-sized, which is the goal. Our station LOD's are more like smart LOD logic combined with well done hand-created LOD's than superior LOD tech. Even with Starbase it's not always tech first, but rather than smart thinking first :D. But of course this wouldn't be possible without our superior streaming technology :cool:
That is awesome. Is there any comment at this time about Transmitter Ranges on Stations? Would they be something equal or even further is distance?
 

Kane Hart

Veteran endo
Joined
Aug 9, 2019
Messages
153
#16
What is LOD ?
I am missing something here. :(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_detail


Pretty much the further you go away from the object the less complexity it has to cause less performance hit to your PC. Sometimes these systems can turn it all the way down to say a simple texture vs an object to be like 0 hit even.

LOD tech something devs always are working on to making better in the industrial especially in Multiplayer games.
 
Top