Flickering screen, model, and hero issues

[Napoleon1992]

To the devs:

Good evening to you all! I would like to start out by saying that I enjoyed the newest release of the mod as of yesterday. However I do have a few quibbles with the game in terms of some screen flickering that I can't seem to fix and the models of the vessels in game.

To the first point, I run the game at 1920x1080 144HZ. In the course of going through the options of a game and actually playing it, for some reason the screen and all the graphics on it flicker or at least appear to do so. I am not sure why it happens. When I play Star Trek Armada III, this same effect doesn't occur. I was wondering if you had experienced anything like this and had a solution to stop it.

To the second point, the recent update of the base game Sins of a Solar Empire to 1.9, I believe, saw the original developers at support for 4k resolutions and higher graphics options than originally present. I was wondering if the models and textures currently included in the game received this kind of boost in quality as well. The reason I bring it up is because on inspection, the engines of most of the vessels of the New Republic have really lackluster geometry. Instead of approximating the round circular shape they should have, they are hexagonal. In addition, the textures leave something to be desired. In terms of the models, the only one I really have a major issue with is the Nebulon B Frigate. The overly round almost watermelon shape of the fore of the ship doesn't resemble at all the ship in the movies or any other mods I have ever played. I wonder if this was an aesthetic choice or if this model is going to be improved in future.

Also, when playing the New Republic last night, I noticed that Talon Karrde kept spawning. I had three before I noticed it and turned off the autocast. Is this supposed to happen?

Finally, I noticed some spelling errors throughout the mod. I would have to play through it again to find them, but I will compile a list when I do.

Believe me that I understand this mod is developed free of charge for us the general public to use and enjoy, and I thank you for all your hard work and diligence. I hope that my questions and comments serve only to better the mod, not criticize and demean it. Keep up the good work!

Long Live the New Republic!

[Corey]

To the first point, I run the game at 1920x1080 144HZ. In the course of going through the options of a game and actually playing it, for some reason the screen and all the graphics on it flicker or at least appear to do so. I am not sure why it happens. When I play Star Trek Armada III, this same effect doesn't occur. I was wondering if you had experienced anything like this and had a solution to stop it.

I've personally never had this happen, and I can't think of any reason one mod would have it happen and another wouldn't- there's nothing that could or would effect how the game renders or actually functions within any mods. Has this happened every time you've tried to run the mod? Have you tried setting to a lower refresh rate, and then setting it back to that one?

To the second point, the recent update of the base game Sins of a Solar Empire to 1.9, I believe, saw the original developers at support for 4k resolutions and higher graphics options than originally present. I was wondering if the models and textures currently included in the game received this kind of boost in quality as well.

The reason the developers were able to do that is because the essentially plugged in LAA support directly to the game, which was necessary for some mods to run at all. It isn't that the game couldn't load 4k textures before, the issue is that Sins can only use so much memory before crashing, since it's a 32 bit game. LAA used to be used by mods to avoid crashing right away, since it allows more memory access than you could use before. The base game using higher res textures now is done taking advantage of that extra space, but for the amount of content we cover/plan to cover, which is significantly more than the base game, using 4K textures and significantly higher poly models would mean the game runs into stability issues. This is also why it used to be suggested that people never run mods at the old Highest graphics settings, before 1.90 optimized how things were handled.

Also, us using 4K textures and higher poly models would involve actually making every single asset in the mod again from scratch, a process which took years in their lower poly/res versions. This is not possible in the space of a couple months, so no, we have not done so. It would be a huge undertaking. We also don't plan to bump things up that high, for the reasons stated above. We've always aimed to optimize more for performance and allow more people to play the mod at reasonable performance and settings than to try to squeeze every possible polygon out of the game, especially when doing so risks sacrificing game stability.

The reason I bring it up is because on inspection, the engines of most of the vessels of the New Republic have really lackluster geometry. Instead of approximating the round circular shape they should have, they are hexagonal.

Round things take the most polygons, the rounder you try to make them. Any additional polygons used for making engines more circular are polygons which can't be used for the actual defining details of the ship, and many New Republic ships have up to a dozen engines, which adds up very fast. By going from Hexagonal to ten or twelve sided engines, you're adding thousands of polygons to the ships.

In addition, the textures leave something to be desired.

Which textures in particular do you have a problem with?

The overly round almost watermelon shape of the fore of the ship doesn't resemble at all the ship in the movies or any other mods I have ever played. I wonder if this was an aesthetic choice or if this model is going to be improved in future.

We regularly go back and update ships with the resources we have, however those are not unlimited and the Nebulon-B isn't near the top of the priority list.

Also, when playing the New Republic last night, I noticed that Talon Karrde kept spawning. I had three before I noticed it and turned off the autocast. Is this supposed to happen?

This is the result of a typo within the code, which was supposed to have been fixed before the release but the person responsible made a mistake. It has been fixed since release, and will be included in the next patch.

[Napoleon1992]

Yeah, not sure what is up with the flicker. I tried different refresh rates and resolutions and nothing changed. I guess it might be the skyboxes since the stars flicker a lot. I would like to withdraw my point about the textures given that you have indicated it would take a lot of resources to improve them. I usually only play the New Republic so it would be most of those textures that are not as detailed as I would like, but I will live with it. Otherwise, you and the team have done a great job.

[Napoleon1992]

Corey, I think that I figured out why I get the flickering. As I mentioned earlier, my monitor runs at 144hz. I checked the FPS and compared it to the two other SoSE Rebellion mods. Star Trek Armada III runs at 110-144 FPS, SoGE runs at 120-144 FPS, and Ascendancy runs at 200-370 FPS. My screen can't display frame rates of that magnitude. I think that Ascendancy is overly optimized from my machine... which is interesting because it isn't top of the line by any stretch. Anyways, just thought I would let you know.