I say get rid of the wireframes unless the ship is equipped with a radar extender - I'd prefer the option and excitement of a high speed run through asteroid fields with very limited visibility (like in ion storms) than a normal, boring run with the wireframes. If there is no reason to slow down within a fog bank then it's just green space.

Multiple, overlapping clouds (perhaps emanating from all or selected asteroids) would be more dramatic than the universal fog. It would make more sense too as you could than escape the fog within the sector by getting far enough away from the asteroids producing it. Popping in and out of a fog bank would be awesome. Or imagine a fleet hiding within one....

EDIT: And give the EC-line of ships built-in radar extenders, perhaps with a shorter range than that of the Raptor, so that new players aren't unduly penalized by their inability to buy radar extenders from Xang Xi and Ineubis.

EDIT: After flying through the fog a few more times, I've noticed it's not quite as monochromatic as I thought; there is a slight variation in fog density. Perhaps too subtle though; maybe increase the contrast a tad to give it a more billowy feel.

I do not think giving a radar to EC ship is a good idea. There are not storms in capital systems (where newbies are born) and, maybe, it is going to be the same with fogs. Moreover, devs are working on special newbie starting areas.

As of wireframes, I vote for removing them. They should appear only when radar extender is used.

I like the wireframes. It makes sense to me that the station would have mapped its own sector...

Giving the ECs radar extenders also extends their utility beyond their current role of mere starter ships; some of the variants would become viable scouts. In can any case, the idea was advanced in conjunction with getting rid of the wireframes in foggy sectors.

Fog is very ugly. It completely covers one of the best looking stations in Vo at I-5.
And as an addition it affect framerate on low end comps (64 MB video cards) even worse then BS.

I was rather ill the day this fog came out. it is a nice puke green. I am not sure if I can handle psychadelic space but how about fogging several adjacent sectors with alternate color choices so we can better judge it....

wire frame - extender only

range of sight should vary constantly....from 100 to 3000 meters

are roaming cloads of this possible?

At one time space seemed so colorless but after hubble.....bring it on...and Yes I really mean pink and blue clouds floating in a haze of green...

oh and the stations will need fog lights at thier entrances turned on....

Hi, I said this in the first post, but I guess it wasn't clear:

"Yes, we are going to reduce default radar range for fogged areas."

The "wireframe" effect is your radar range. Any time in a fog situation when your radar can see further than you can, it displays the difference in wireframe. The current 5000m radar range in fog was not intended, but something that will require some further development. This effect will generally be an extender-thing only.

Also, truly dynamic clumping fog is not possible with the low-end per-pixel fog effect we're using. It would be really neat to do dynamic clouds, but far more computer intensive. We might be able to do something vaguely like that kind of effect with the sprites, but not in the near future.

I am noting all the feedback on colors and such. We will be tweaking it further.

The sun(s) showing through was unintended, but actually looks kind of interesting (even if it totally doesn't make sense). Thoughts on whether we should remove it?

It does look cool. Keep it.

On a cloudy day, (At least where I live) you can still see the sun just barely shining through the clouds.

If you dim it a bit, it makes more sense.

This fog effect is an Excellent And Cool Thing.

Nice.

I like the sun effect through the fog and actually think it's more realistic than otherwise; the fog filters the sun's light just as the atmosphere on a planet does. Still want more billowy fog though.

Give a story explanation other than "Some corporation decided it would be really cool to use toxic gas in space."

I think that "magic green fog" won't cut it.

Ummmm...lots of Xith mining/refining sends cloud of Xith out into the sector? That's pretty much what they've said it was from the start.

Also, light filtering through a green fog would shine green light on roids and stations, rather than the regularly coloured light. I'm not sure if it's been mentioned here yet, but the illumination of objects in the fog should be tinted the colour of the fog.

dusty sectors should look like this, im pretty sure its impossible but damned it looks better (in my opinion anyways)

Why would that be impossible? Looks neat though... although I'm stuck on my stance about how it shouldn't be the entire sector, but some pocket of space within the sector, probably near asteroids or something.

Many computers wouldn't be able to handle that pocket of fog It's all very well in a single-player game where the variables and perspectives can be tightly controlled, but it would be rather taxing in an MMO.

idea for fog backstory: just pretend it's a (valuable) gas cloud, and let's say that stations are refining it.

A limited cloud would be cool though, a thing we can enter/exit. Would be nice near wormholes also :)

Dalek: the fog is supposed to be Xith fog and stations are refining the xith, which causes the fog IIRC.

bout the color inc, in my opinion storms need to be way darker and less thick, one thing that vo needs is dynamic lighting, since right now the lighting in a storm is the same than the sector without the crazy blue fog, oh yea and twould be neat to have muzzle fash too, bah now im just nitpicking. :P

If done right the pocket of fog wouldn't be taxing at all to even the worst computers. Its not really a big technological leap - I don't see how it would affect anyone more than havin a sector full of fog would.

We could simplify things drastically and pull an EVE Online - make all the fog static sprites.

/me laughs.

There are a lot of different ways of doing fog-like effects. Yes, it would be possible to do "clouds" in such a way that wouldn't be too slow, but it would require a fair amount of experimentation and tweaking. Take a lot of time, that we're basically not going to budget on such things at present.

I am attempting to utilize fog to the maximal extent that it will impact gameplay and allow new.. interesting things to happen in the game. Beyond that is window dressing, and I have so many other things to fix and improve, that it isn't a priority. I would rather have like.. player-owned stations or expanded/improved Border Skirmish or a myriad of other things, rather than spending a month trying to make "awesome" fog.

The cost/benefit analysis doesn't support it yet.

Tweaking color and density and other stuff is easy though, and we're planning to make that all possible on the fly.. so the server-side can change "weather" as it goes along, and perhaps have different fogs for different.. purposes, I dunno. As long as it's possible to adjust dynamically. The fundamental effect, however, will remain similar for the foreseeable future.