Beam and Cannon Visibility Through Glass/Crystal

[Cryptex]

Whether considered a bug or just unintended from some setting - currently any kind of weapons fire or support beam fire cannot be seen through crystal armor wedges and blocks. Not sure if this still occurs for regular glass blocks. Makes armored command bridges or cockpits impossible because the pilot is unable to see the effects of their weapon systems firing. A fix would be nice.

If it's some visual graphic setting causing this to occur, could someone share how to fix? Thanks.

 

[Megacrafter127]

This is a known, and sadly mostly unfixable bug.
It does not originate from the game's code, but from how OpenGL handles transparency.

 

[NeonSturm]

but from how OpenGL handles transparency.

so bad? maybe report the bug there to break other things in SM depending on this bug :D

Perhaps SM could render the beams like the sky-box background.

Just not in front of other ships (use some least-significant bits in colours as you don't need THAT many anyway to store the origin of the colour? own, enemy, docked, skybox, (2*2*2=8 combos))

 

[Snk]

It should be fixed. It's a really important bug

 

[Viridis00]

It should be fixed. It's a really important bug

How have the maintainers of OpenGL not fixed such a bug is what I want to know. It is really sad because at certain angels blocks with transparency can't be seen behind other blocks with transparency as well, not just lasers and cannons.

 

[NeonSturm]

Perhaps fixing it would make performance worse.

After all you need to calculate more texture overlaps.

 

[Snk]

Perhaps fixing it would make performance worse.

After all you need to calculate more texture overlaps.

Maybe, but not seeing stars or atmospheres or missiles or beams through glass really hurts immersion.

 

[ResonKinetic]

How have the maintainers of OpenGL not fixed such a bug is what I want to know. It is really sad because at certain angels blocks with transparency can't be seen behind other blocks with transparency as well, not just lasers and cannons.

don't forget players. you can't see players through glass

 

[Ithirahad]

Fixing this will take an entire update cycle (3 weeks?) of rewriting the entire rendering pipeline, and then probably another two or three weeks of bugfixing. A fix for this is possible, but would probably be a bad way to allocate time at the moment. I really want it fixed too, though... :|

 

[Gamel]

schine said this is fixable, but it will take A LOT OF TIME
Which is not worth to fix at the moment. It have a low priority and extreme high work load
I think that it is better to complete all the planned systems first, and fix this before or in beta

 

[Snk]

It should be high priority, though. It really destroys a lot of the game's immersion.

 

[Ithirahad]

It should be high priority, though. It really destroys a lot of the game's immersion.

Not sure about "high priority" (There are many more important issues to deal with) but I agree that it really needs to be dealt with sooner than later... Later this year, maybe?

 

[Thalanor]

Not even OpenGL people can fix it - the very paradigm used to make transparency possible will always force the engine programmers themselves to render stuff in the correct order.

This could only possibly be fixed in starmade if projectiles were always rendered before any transparent blocks.

 

[Cryptex]

Well thanks for the input. I've just known it to be an issue in the game for a long time and was wondering why it hadn't been fixed yet. Didn't know it was such a simple issue with such a complex fix.

 

[Edymnion]

It should be high priority, though. It really destroys a lot of the game's immersion.

"Immersion" is not a priority.

Priorities are (or at least should be):
1) Game is stable. Whatever you do doesn't cause the entire game to crash, it doesn't cause unexpected reactions, or cause the game to behave in unpredictable ways.
2) Game is mechanically functional. When you put thrusters on your ship, it lets you move forwards. If you link two weapons together correctly, you get the new weapon type to activate.
3) Game is playable. Assuming what you've done doesn't crash the game, and it basically works as intended, next priority is making sure the player can interact with this new whatever in an intuitive and easy to manipulate way. Example, if they added attitude thrusters to make turning large ships easier, they need to be something you can just drop in the ship and have them work, not be something you have to core jump to each thruster individually in order to make it fire. Such a system might not crash the game and technically works as intended, but is so clunky as to be unplayable.
4) Immersion. Adding cool textures, sound effects, etc.

Immersion is literally the *LAST* thing on the priority list. Make the game stable, make the game functional, make the game playable. Those are the priorities.

 

[Ithirahad]

This goes a bit beyond immersion, though. If you can't see heavy weaponry being fired at you through glass, that's a playability issue.

 

[Gamel]

This goes a bit beyond immersion, though. If you can't see heavy weaponry being fired at you through glass, that's a playability issue.

but we are still at the stage of "Game is stable" and "Game is mechanically functional"

 

[Edymnion]

This goes a bit beyond immersion, though. If you can't see heavy weaponry being fired at you through glass, that's a playability issue.

One that you can fix by simply not putting your core/camera inside of a glass box.

You're free to make a cool glass cockpit, but just put the camera somewhere else.

Its an issue that has a minor effect on playability, requires a MASSIVE undertaking to fix, and the workaround is basically "Don't intentionally activate the glitch in the first place".

Its only a "problem" when you intentionally set it up to be a problem due to your aesthetic concerns.

 

[Ithirahad]

One that you can fix by simply not putting your core/camera inside of a glass box.

You're free to make a cool glass cockpit, but just put the camera somewhere else.

Its an issue that has a minor effect on playability, requires a MASSIVE undertaking to fix, and the workaround is basically "Don't intentionally activate the glitch in the first place".

Its only a "problem" when you intentionally set it up to be a problem due to your aesthetic concerns.

I'm not saying that it should be fixed immediately. All I'm saying is not to dismiss it as a non-issue.

 

[Edymnion]

I'm not saying that it should be fixed immediately. All I'm saying is not to dismiss it as a non-issue.

I don't think anyone is saying that it should never be fixed, just pointing out that it is a known issue, and explaining why it has a very low priority.