The Empire has fallen and a New Republic is born out of the conflict. But in the ashes of civil war, yet another life stirs...

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Improved Nebulae
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the_Farseer Author
the_Farseer - - 6,407 comments

New nebula is the violet version, while the old is the red/blue version.

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Jeroenimo
Jeroenimo - - 6,765 comments

I like how you mentioned that in anticipation that people possibly wouldn't be able to distinquish the originals from your own. Lost all faith in humanity after reading commentsections for years have you? It's a sad club, I welcome you to it.

*Wayne June narration* This squalid bitterness, these corrupted believes. They are yours now. And you are bound to them.

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the_Farseer Author
the_Farseer - - 6,407 comments

When one spends almost a decade answering questions that were addressed in captions or that seem obvious, clicking the comment button to draft a post like this immediately, is more an act of muscle memory than actual anticipation...

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Edna1
Edna1 - - 1,616 comments

Wow !

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Wed18
Wed18 - - 73 comments

looking swood

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Mirsh
Mirsh - - 1,776 comments

Nice.

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Omega117a
Omega117a - - 254 comments

I never really understood the whole 'let's put a nebula well within a solar system right above this planet' thing, but it looks great.

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the_Farseer Author
the_Farseer - - 6,407 comments

Well yeah, and real nebulae are so vast that their representation in the game is rather comical but they do add an interesting gameplay mechanic to space battles and help to fill out space maps.

I mean, if we were being ultra realistic, every space map would be pretty much empty, save for a planet and whatever moons it had. Things are so unimaginably spread out in space that all the various props that go into space maps are silly, actually. And the nebulae that we see on Google images aren't real either...as they are ultraviolet or infrared images because the real things are otherwise quite difficult to see with human eyes (they just look like stars or bright spots/blobs with the naked eye).

But then again, Star Wars isn't known for it's realism... Sounds in space, fire in space, the Force itself. The list goes on.

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Omega117a
Omega117a - - 254 comments

That's true enough. Still, that could have been gotten around by portraying each space map as a whole solar system, although that probably would have been too hard to do and too stressful for 2005-era computers.

It always seems that EAW had so much potential that was just stifled by cool **** taking too much time and effort. :(

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the_Farseer Author
the_Farseer - - 6,407 comments

Agreed. Such is the fate of most games...created by artists who want to make art, who are bound by the deadlines set by the producers, who want to make money. It's pretty sad really.

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Jeroenimo
Jeroenimo - - 6,765 comments

It's open space. There's little the game designers could do to encorporate actual game mechanics to break the monotoney of the vast, empty blackness that would otherwise be all of their maps. They had to compromise realism for playability and overall fun factor, something all modders also have to do. Of all the critique that can be leveled at the devs, this is possibly one of the lesser evils.

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LEOX2K
LEOX2K - - 441 comments

stunning

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verdprudii
verdprudii - - 253 comments

"Gelatinous space amoebas."

I'm dying. Thank you for that.

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the_Farseer Author
the_Farseer - - 6,407 comments

I'll be here all week!

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Wordsmith_Vithar
Wordsmith_Vithar - - 504 comments

I like these. More readily noticeable that the particle effect as well.

I also like how they have a bit of a more "ion storm" look to them now. Devs should've used that excuse. Ion storms make more sense than nebulae. At that size, anyways.

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the_Farseer Author
the_Farseer - - 6,407 comments

Eh, there's still a ****-ton that we don't know about space yet. Maybe there are small clouds of space dust out there that are too small for us to detect yet...ejecta from nebulae or pulsars or something.

Take the Pillars of Life for example... Part of a larger nebula but evidence shows that yet another stellar explosion has already destroyed them. Perhaps that explosion pushed small parts of the stellar matter out into space to form baby nebulae somewhere. Lol. Who knows...

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Wordsmith_Vithar
Wordsmith_Vithar - - 504 comments

That is actually a good point.

As far as in-game goes...the effect they have on ships seems to be more like an ion storm than a nebula (at least as far as the shield and ability lock goes).

Guess it wouldn't be hard to have an ionized nebula, though...

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Description

Not much description is needed here... I've simply improved the nebula props with a little creative texture work so that they look like cosmic dust clouds rather than gelatinous space amoebas.

The mesh itself is exactly the same and will still oscillate/animate idly while you do your space conquering. They also have the same effect on ship abilities, etc.

Hopefully this will be a huge boon for folks with older computers, who experienced serious lag with the particle effect application I used for these props in the last release.