Polish Suggestions

With the 1.0 release just around the corner, I figured I'd mention a few graphical or UI things (not bugs) that I think need some polish, either short or long term.
Feel free to add to the list!

1. Metal Spots

While most of us have grown accustom to the current metal spot model, it's obvious that it's a placeholder once you take a step back and consider it (especially on metal planets). Biome or planet-specific metal spots would definitely look nicer.

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2. Unclamped Textures / mipmaps

Many afterburner and particle effects in the game which should have clamped mipmap textures don't seem to. This is most noticeable on the Halley afterburner effect, but is also noticeable on many other effects, such as the air / orbital unit afterburners, the nanolathe particles and even weapon projectile particle effects.

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3. Projectile Particles

They are currently dim-yellow specks with short yellow tails. Not very epic (or even noticeable) if you ask me.

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4. Trees

Especially those with hexagonal canopies. They look particularly sketchy up-close, and for some reason the texture detail on them is disproportionate to both the tree's model detail and that of the ground and units. I don't feel they fit the rest of the style all too well.
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5. Chronocam Slow Playback Button / more controls

While there are controls for slow-motion playback, they can only be used with key binds right now. Fast-forward is also limited to 3 modes, the fastest of which doesn't always feel fast enough. It would be nice if we had UI controls for slow-motion playback, or better yet, a slider control for playback speed instead of the current outdated fast-forward controls.​

The projectiles definitely need to be improved.

The Statera mod uses lasers that cast light and whatnot. The Dox battles look EPIC. Especially on the dark side of the planet.

I want to see projectiles flying back and forth between the armies, not just stuff exploding.

Also,

6. The Skybox

Right now, the skybox in PA is a navy blue background with some nebulous swirls and a few blurry stars. Look at the second image in the OP, for instance. I feel it could do with an update. Maybe darker, have more stars (and sharper ones), perhaps a bit more that just a few swirls scattered about. Right now, I don't find it does space justice.
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YES x 1000000

I am glad you noticed. I am not responsible for it, but always wondered why lasers are balls in PA. When it was changed in Statera, I thought it was how it should have looked

It is an art style. Real space clashes just a little bit. HOWEVER, it is a fairly easy and personally satisfying mod, to change the background. You can take real pictures of space and make it a background. I personally just use "twinkly stars on a solid black background", call me old fashion and boring...

With the amount of pollution these robots are bound to produce it's a wonder you can see any stars at all.

I also think this game needs more Polish robots. Where is my Fryderyk Chopin bot?? Game disaster without best Poland bot.

I'm not saying space in PA needs to be photo-realistic here, just that it could be better (while maintaining the art style and themes). I think it should be pretty clear in those screenshots that the current skybox is lacking.

Harr-dee-harr-harr
Polish, polish, same spelling, different pronunciation.

Best polish suggestion thread ever. I agree wholeheartedly that those hexagonal trees look very ugly atm. I hate them so much I try to get only alpine trees on my maps (which look absolutely amazing.) I remember bgolus talking about improving water a couple months ago, which would be amazing. I'd like to know how that's going!

I still think that early game building is very buggy and needs some fixing. Every skeleton should be able to be built - no line builds should look okay, but end up no being built. Also it seems that if you mix up the factories it makes it impossible to build them in a sequence. Building a few tank factories side by side - no problem. Trying to put a bot factory next to a tank factory - cluster f***.

I'm still hoping they'll fix the Orbital Launcher animation ._. The clamps that are supposed to hold onto the rocket don't grab the rocket. It's been bugging me for the longest time

I knew I was forgetting something! Thanks for bringing that up

+1 for projectiles. Sometimes you can't even see them on the day side of the planet.

Why does your suggestion matter more because you're Polish?

Terrible jokes aside I agree with all of your points. Especially the one concerning the Halley thrusters being detatched from the Halley

New projectiles would be great, especially if different units got different projectiles.

Actually, I didn't have a point about that I've never experienced that bug.
By clamped/unclamped, what I mean is that the texture's mipmaps are generated as though the texture is supposed to be tiled (which it isn't). The top part of the texture 'leaks' into the bottom, creating a flat bar at the tail end of the effect.

To be honest, I think terrain most certainly needs a fair amount of polish. I'm not talking about making the terrain features look like the concept art (as many people bring up). I'm just talking about the fact that buildings and units frequently clip through terrain brushes, that buildings cannot be built on top of many of them, and that ammo interaction is very hit and miss (pun not intended). That alone would pave the way for many interesting interactions, and it would certainly make the game look more polished.

Ah ok. I don't know if the problem I'm talking about is still present in the latest build.

We also use quite a bit of team coloured projectiles.

These makes battles look a lot more colourful when you have battles. Some use secondary colours, others primary.

Oh yeah, and another minor one; the Theta's eye is still kind of sketchy. I think it needs to be more detailed.
Also, the the Theta graphic used throughout the game still shows the old Theta head, with the chin.

'New System' Button in Game Lobby

The 'New System' button will generate a random system, and the planet generation begins immediately. The fact that it begins immediately can cause the client to lag; this is particularly annoying when you want to continue shuffling for a new system, as the game will freeze intermittently. This affects all players in a lobby. There should be a 'confirm' button (or something of the sort) that must be pressed before planet generation starts to prevent this from happening while shuffling through systems.​