Just a few notes on the lighting before you guys get too carried away with the release ;)

For one, it's a very, very, very, very DARK game. Of course, this is space, so TECHNICALLY, it SHOULD be dark. On the other hand, though, it's a game, and no one likes running into the back side of an asteroid they couldn't even SEE. Not to mention that in every screenshot I've taken, you can't tell what color my ship is, because it's completely washed out in orange light.

So, for the purposes of beautification, how's about whitening up the light a bit, so we can see the "normal" colors of things. Maybe add in a bit more ambient (Yes, there's no ambient light in space, but it's a GAME, we need to see, heh). And for the love of all that is interstellar, we NEED headlights. Not even hugely long range ones, just enough that we can see that asteroid from about ~150m before we hit it, heh. I mean, certainly there's room on my 'Hog for a little 20th century technology, eh? ;D

Option>Graphics>Gamma

Up the gamma and it should brighten right up.

I don't think it's *that* dark... did you try increasing the gamma in-game? What kind of monitor/video card/drivers do you use? Does it look darker than the screenshots that are posted on the official site?

Magus:
There is no gamma option in Linux.

fleabait:
See above. KDS 19" with the Contrast cranked, nVidia GeForceFX 5200, Latest Linux Drivers.

All:
It's not "dark" in the sense that there's something wrong. The lighted stuff looks quite nice. And you can take away the Orange thing above, I need to leave Dau more often, heh.

When I said it was dark, I was literally refering to the in-game lighting scheme. The Direct Light is beautiful, but the ambient needs to be boosted a tad. While it's unrealistic to have Ambient light in space, it'd aid in visual clarity if we could make out even a bit of definition on the back sides of objects.

No gamma option? You poor poor bastards.

I haven't had any problem seeing the dark sides of objects. Even with the Gamma set at default. Some sectors are a bit darker than others, but in most places it's fine. You mind taking a screen dump (F12) and showing us?

But the gamma option was put for the sake of customizing the ambient lighting to personal taste. I generally like it a bit low. But, I guess you LINUX guys don't have that.

...and we'd all like headlights, but there appears to be no provision for mobile dynamic light sources in the engine...

Magus:
No sweat.

Here's a lovely chunk of rock in Dau L-10.
http://home.comcast.net/~justinrcalhoun/stuff/Front.jpg

And the same rock from the back:
http://home.comcast.net/~justinrcalhoun/stuff/Back.jpg

roguelazer:
Really? Darn. Too bad. Maybe something for future engine versions, heh.

That's way too dark.
Sounds like you need to consider dual-booting XP ;-)
My graphics are perfect on BFG GeForceFX 5950 256 megs, latest drivers in WinXP.
I actually couldn't ask for better.

The nvidia control panel program lets you easily adjust gamma in Linux, as well as FSAA and other goodies. You should check it out Houn.

Maelstrom:
Yeah, but one of the reasons I signed up for the beta in the first place was native linux support. You don't see that every day ;)

Moofed:
You know, I totally forgot about that, lol. Still, I wonder if there's a setting in-game (or via wgaf.cfg) for it; the engine seems to have commands for everything else. Using the Nvidia-Settings tool, I'd have to constantly be setting it back and forth for the game and for my desktop...

I dunno, I can see that rock just fine. It looks like a rock. From both sides.

The only time I majorly smacked into a rock was when I pointed my towards the ion storm exit point, hit my turbo lock button and stepped away from the 'puter. Since the exit point was 6000m away, I figured that I had a minute or two to get a snack. I get back to the computer and the first thing I see is a giant rock ramming itself into my ship. It probably would have been a good idea for me to zoom check to make sure my course was clear, but I just was lazy.

Oh yea. There was that time I flew backwards into a rock while fighting a swarm of bots, but that's another case of not looking where I was going.

Houn, I think it's just a gamma problem.

FWIW, I can see it fine too. The most general way to change gamma under X is to use `xgamma'. I never investigated to see how xgamma works internally until now; seems it uses the XF86VidMode extension, which is the same one I use to change resolutions. I have added gamma support to my todo list.

For the record, whenever I'm playing a space game of any type (or indeed any game where gamma could potentially affect your gameplay) I turn all the lights in the room OFF. You can see almost anything when your monitor is the only light source in the room (and it isn't nearly so hard on the eyes these days, what with 85+hz refresh rates. At 800x600 I refresh at 100hz.) I know that might not be the most socially ACCEPTIBLE option for some folks, but it works great.

a1k0n:
Sweet. Thanks man. Using the Nvida tool helps greatly, I just have to go to windowed first, adjust, then go FS again, lol. Having it in-game would be nice at some point, and thanks for the consideration on that ;)

Forcystus:
I do tend to turn off most of the lights when the option presents itself, hehe.