Tip: Change system backgrounds to solid black for better visibility

[Xentropy]

I just started playing this great game fairly recently and was bothered by how difficult it was to see small ships and certain types of asteroids on the default background starfield.

All you need to do is replace the Starmap.bmp file in .\Pictures\Systems\800X600 (if you play at 800x600) or .\Pictures\Systems\1024X768 (if you play at 1024x768 or above) subdirectory with a solid black bitmap, 490x490 for the 800X600 directory or 660x660 for the 1024X768 directory. Don't forget to back up the original Starmap.bmp file if you want to be able to revert back. If anyone would like, I could send the appropriate replacement files to someone who hosts a web page with mods, but they're simple enough to create even for a novice with MS Paint.

I'm sure I'm not the first to figure out or do this, but I did a search of the forum and didn't see anyone else mention it at all, so I figured I'd post to help out anyone with the same issue. In my case, it reduced eye strain when playing for long periods (and how can anyone play this game WITHOUT it turning into a long session? ) and helped a LOT in viewing small asteroid belts and escort ships.

[Slynky]

There! NOW you've gone and done it!

I use the Praetorian shipset because all the ships are so tiny. I figured if it increased the chance of someone overlooking a ship of mine, so much the better! After all, I need every advantage possible .

PS: Just kidding. Good post!

[bearclaw]

Another good trick (actually, I guess this would be a dirty trick...) I've used to 'hide' in plain sight, is to have a small spyship or satellite in sector 0,0. It's easy to overlook a ship hiding behind the name of the system.

But, shhh. Don't tell anyone

[Slynky]

Originally posted by bearclaw:
Another good trick (actually, I guess this would be a dirty trick...) I've used to 'hide' in plain sight, is to have a small spyship or satellite in sector 0,0. It's easy to overlook a ship hiding behind the name of the system.

But, shhh. Don't tell anyone

HEY, what IS this anyway? The "reveal all of Slynky's dirty little tricks" thread?

[Alneyan]

I will retrofit this thread in "How to counter all of Slynky's dirty little tricks" then. *Smirks*

Alter any shipset you find too difficult to see. Put the images of another, clear shipset in the directory of the offending shipset. Remove the pictures of the actual shipset, and change the name of all the "mini" pictures (or you may need to change all of them for the shipset to work). And voilà! No more problems of squinting to see where Slynky is sending ships! Granted, things do become a bit confusing when there are six EEE Empires, nine evil EEE shipsets and a couple of Regency ones, but...

Alternatively, you could just put a few shipsets in your shipset directory, if you do not mind having a lot of similar Empires. And by the looks of it, an incomplete shipset calls generic pictures to fill in the gaps. So I guess that only altering one picture of a shipset may invalidate it, forcing the game to use the default shipset. But you would have to ask someone knowledgeable about how shipsets are handled by the game.

[ July 15, 2004, 16:47: Message edited by: Alneyan ]

[Slynky]

*grumbles*

[Fyron]

Originally posted by bearclaw:
Another good trick (actually, I guess this would be a dirty trick...) I've used to 'hide' in plain sight, is to have a small spyship or satellite in sector 0,0. It's easy to overlook a ship hiding behind the name of the system.

But, shhh. Don't tell anyone

That is not that good of a trick... you can still easily tell that someone has a ship in your system from the galaxy map. Only takes a little bit of time to locate it.

So I guess that only altering one picture of a shipset may invalidate it, forcing the game to use the default shipset. But you would have to ask someone knowledgeable about how shipsets are handled by the game.

For images that the game finds in the race folder, it uses. For images that it can not find, it uses generic images. One invalid image does not make the game use all generic images.

[ July 15, 2004, 17:58: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Alneyan]

Indeed Fyron; when running a test about this, I removed too many images and came to a wrong conclusion as a result (I only have a few full shipsets here, with all the other ones reduced to their flag and race portrait so that I can still see the difference between various Empires).

[Intimidator]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

---

Originally posted by bearclaw:
Another good trick (actually, I guess this would be a dirty trick...) I've used to 'hide' in plain sight, is to have a small spyship or satellite in sector 0,0. It's easy to overlook a ship hiding behind the name of the system.

But, shhh. Don't tell anyone

That is not that good of a trick... you can still easily tell that someone has a ship in your system from the galaxy map. Only takes a little bit of time to locate it.

So I guess that only altering one picture of a shipset may invalidate it, forcing the game to use the default shipset. But you would have to ask someone knowledgeable about how shipsets are handled by the game.

For images that the game finds in the race folder, it uses. For images that it can not find, it uses generic images. One invalid image does not make the game use all generic images.

---

Agreed Fyron, but in a large game (100 planets up) I can imagine that some one in a hurry will overlook the vessel little vessel in the corner (I do this often myself)

[Suicide Junkie]

Why not use hot-pink as a background then? It will certainly make the ships stand out