“No space dust” option or mod

[Mynock]

Anyone else find the little space mist that constantly streams by your ship more distracting than helpful? I feel like the effect is overkill in this game and makes me feel like I’m flying through a snow storm in space, especially while boosting. The old X-Wing series had a way to turn this off. Can we get that option in Squadrons please?

[AstronomerWithAGun]

Yep! I watch a Let's Play and the space dust is way overdone. Its so distracting, I don't think I'll buy the game unless there's a way to remove it.

[Racer D]

Originally posted by AstronomerWithAGun:

Its so distracting, I don't think I'll buy the game unless there's a way to remove it.

After this thinly veiled threat in no uncertain terms EA allegedly had no other option but to assemble a dev team to remove space dust.

[Twelvefield]

I found the space dust distracting. I found the cartoony colours distracting. I found the kazillion flashing lights distracting. I found that there are no battles in space where space looks like space distracting. Then I realized that every futuristic game since Homeworld was this way, so: oh well.

The space dust helps to understand drift, especially in VR (and for TrackIR, if the devs had bothered to put that in). It also gives a sense of speed, which you need when you realize the capitals ship models are much too small. From those points of view, I can see why there is a lot of space dust. I guess blowing up two Death Stars and a Super Star Destroyer would leave a lot of particles.

I agree, though, it would be nice to have the option to turn it down and/or off.

[Mynock]

I find that on a 1080p EPSON projector the speed particle effect is so obnoxious that half the time I can't tell if I'm being shot at. Maybe if the particle count and opacity was turned down to 10-20% of what is it would be ok, but when flying a TIE with such limited cockpit visibility already, all my brain focuses on is a blizzard blowing past the cockpit and how cartooney it looks. Do people really need this much directional noise to feel like they're moving in space? Or maybe it's better in 4k? I've also tried this on an Oculus Quest 2 (on lower resolution as my Oculus Link cable is in the mail), and looks just as goofy and breaks immersion. I've been turning this effect off in X-Wing games since the 90s. Such a shame they made it permanent in Squadrons.

[Bryan]

I dislike it too, and I have the same complaint about Elite Dangerous.

It would be nice to turn it off at least for "instruments only" mode. Or whatever that mode is that's harder.

[Mr. Stagger Lee]

Originally posted by Mynock:

Anyone else find the little space mist that constantly streams by your ship more distracting than helpful? I feel like the effect is overkill in this game and makes me feel like I’m flying through a snow storm in space, especially while boosting. The old X-Wing series had a way to turn this off. Can we get that option in Squadrons please?

They won’t let us turn it off because they are too proud of their space dust as it’s the only thing outside of the cockpit that is drawn at higher than 60fps. LMAO

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Mr. Stagger Lee:

Originally posted by Mynock:

Anyone else find the little space mist that constantly streams by your ship more distracting than helpful? I feel like the effect is overkill in this game and makes me feel like I’m flying through a snow storm in space, especially while boosting. The old X-Wing series had a way to turn this off. Can we get that option in Squadrons please?

They won’t let us turn it off because they are too proud of their space dust as it’s the only thing outside of the cockpit that is drawn at higher than 60fps. LMAO

Nice burn. And also true. ^_^

[Mynock]

Originally posted by Bryan:

I dislike it too, and I have the same complaint about Elite Dangerous.

It would be nice to turn it off at least for "instruments only" mode. Or whatever that mode is that's harder.

A while back someone made a mod for Elite that turns this off. Maybe someone will make one for Squadrons too 🤞.

Despite what people are saying about it being useful to see vectors, which would make sense for simulators like Space Engine, in games like the Xwing Series, your vector is always in the direction your nose is pointing. Yes in Squadrons you can drift, which changes the vector, but only for a second or two. Certainly doesn’t justify the amount of floaters they have just for that.

Turn your throttle to zero and just sit there looking around, you can see all this lint floating everywhere like in an aquarium. It’s just weird and totally kills immersion.

On a side note, the cockpits in VR are absolutely gorgeous tho, holy hell!

[ledpup]

Originally posted by Bryan:

A while back someone made a mod for Elite that turns this off. Maybe someone will make one for Squadrons too 🤞.

Ha, and that someone was me!

I just bought Squadrons after finding out about TrackIR being newly supported. Next thing was "OMG, I can't see for all the dust."

After a quick google, I find there is no option to remove and no-one has fixed it yet.

It was quite the effort to fix ED. Dunno if the same technique would work. Dunno if I have the energy to do it again for Squadrons.

[Jimmy]

I like it, feel like things would feel much slower without it. I don't see it as any more immersion breaking than the weird kinda-in-atmosphere flight in space stuff, or the ai that don't shoot but just fly around to be shot That said if people want it off on their end I'm certainly not going to stop them, no more than I'd force everyone to use instruments only.

[Hannibal0216 도마도 재배자]

Originally posted by AstronomerWithAGun:

Yep! I watch a Let's Play and the space dust is way overdone. Its so distracting, I don't think I'll buy the game unless there's a way to remove it.

I've played this game for 20+ hours and I've never noticed it. I literally had no idea what anyone was talking about.

[Fax_the_Sender]

it's a frostbite thing, any devs that use this engine always over do the post fx. just because the engine looks amazing, doesn't mean ALL effects should be used.

[Herald_UK]

It's hardly Frontier: First Encounters. Go play that for a few hundred hours with the dust effects on MAX. That'll cure you right enough....

[Fax_the_Sender]

battlefront II has dust and pollen that floats around the player on various maps like Yavin, looks crap.

mods get rid of that.

can't wait for modding to work on this game...whenever that might be.

[Alcom (I'm trans, lol!)]

Originally posted by William Shathere:

battlefront II has dust and pollen that floats around the player on various maps like Yavin, looks crap.

mods get rid of that.

can't wait for modding to work on this game...whenever that might be.

Modding Squadrons would require disabling EAC. We know how to do that for singleplayer, but not for multiplayer, and the big modding team for frostbite games gets jumpy about disabling anti-cheat for games.