It would be nice if a stormy sector would have fog, lightning, be darker and have limited radar range. This would make it an excellent place to hide (from enemies), or to lure on traders. Maybe some of these sectors could even have a hidden station or hidden resources (if implemented).

There needs to be SOME graphical hint that there is a storm of some sort around you. As it is now your ship just exits warp in a funky way and then you inexplicably have to fly through a normal sector to a "storm exit point." There's no indication that you're actually in a storm.. or that there was any reason at all for your ship to exit warp.

For the storm exit point, perhpas you could put a temporary particle sprayer that jetted blue glow balls out randomly, and the same for the ship... not enough that you couldn't fight or fly if you have to, but enough color and flickering to give some indication that there is some reason for your ship to have been ripped from warp.

The skybox should have lightning in it. And the sector should get really dark, and limited radar range. And any roids in the sector should have lightning zapping all around them.

I like the fog idea the best. We NEED fog.

this sounds awesome, almost better than my idea with a pitch black sector with a giant ass roid in the center that has spurts of lightning in it and a giant (worm, extraterrestrial monster, etc) inside of it that if you get too close it will fire a gas at your ship that slowly eats away at the metal. Plus debris everywhere and it would be very hard to navigate through the sector, but mining the roids would reveal a very expensive type of ore. Oh yeah, and for measure, a bunch of random flying things attack your ship for no apparent reason :-p.

But yeah, lighting and fog for the storm sectors would rule

It would be cool if your radar would static randomly too, or mayby your HUD could flicker?

Yes, we agree, all of that would rule. Now if we just had time to work on effects..

This sounds an awful lot like the freespace2 nebulae... which would be (pretty much) *exactly* what is needed here (for ultimate coolness, at least). :)

Realistically, there really should be some sort of basic indicator that it's a storm, and the storm is still going on. Even something like a blinking "EMP interference" light on the HUD that only lights up in the storm sectors, when not in the "exit" wh.

It would be EM interference as storms aren't really pulses.

And put a lot of stuck Frigates in there with the name [NPC] I-Am-Stuck-here-and-will-attack-everyone-who-comes-near-me.

A new skybox (sector 0's!) would be nice at least. (To Devs) are there any plans on making some kind of (good looking) effects?

I think there needs to either be some basic effect or remove the "storms". Just a particle sprayer centered on the players ship would suffice. Otherwise storms are just frustrating inexplicable occurances that don't seem to serve any purpose but to make it take longer to get places. A small effect would at least give the impression that something was going on beyond a code event.

i like the whole idea of "exit points"...

ditch the storm "idea" and give every sector 1,2,3 or 4 "exit points"

and get rid of the "nearest large object" txt that uglifys the HUD..

or make a nice border HUD for it... or just place the counter on the top right...

or just ignore me...


MorbidlyWrong[VC]

I just wanted to reiterate that I mean this all with respect, naturally. I just wanted to be a little direct in language.

As it stands, right now, I question the use of storms at all. Is there any intent to add anything to the storm at all? Some unique circumstance, other than pretty graphics? As it stands, it serves as a time-waster. If I were paying a monthly fee to play this game, I would be offended at, every so often, being forced to spend a minute or two doing nothing. Even pretty graphics, in terms of the game (which has a classic mob-grind to it now) enforce the idea of wasting time when warping.

If the popping into storms were random, it may serve as a means of shedding pursuit, although I imagine just jumping from empty sector to empty sector and counting on a faster reload or random positioning might work as well. Ultimately, I wonder: What will be the purpose of the storms? Or is this it?

Storms are for pirates, I'm pretty sure. So they can hide, and wait for the trader to get stuck.

Right now, obviously storms are dumb and boring because there's nobody playing the game and the AI isn't all there. The intent of the mechanism is to provide some means for you to actually encounter any sort of danger on a "go from A to B" mission. Without it, you can't. The only choke points are wormholes.

So what's supposed to happen is when a storm is discovered, savvy pirates or just mean bots will make their way into the center of it, and try to waylay people getting caught in it. Then savvy traders will plot courses around the known storms to avoid the danger, or just hire a contingent of do-gooders to eradicate the menace.

I discovered that storms can form inside stars, effectively lodging you in an unclickable sector. Not a lot of fun.

Bug report already submitted.

What was the skybox like?

Well it wasn't entirely orange. (As the Helios sun would be expected to be) just a normal sector, with asteroids

Did you saw a sun? Or was you like 'inside' the sun, so there was no sun at all?

The sun was there. bout 3.5 cm in diameter on a 800x640 window.