The Background

from GalCiv4 Forums

One thing that really bugged me all the way back to GalCiv III and now still with GalCiv IV, is the background for the map. I understand you want to have like a thematically cool looking backdrop, with stuff like nebula clouds and cool colors and lights and sparkles "behind" the map we are playing on; but sometimes is it just really annoying. It makes it hard to see the actually important stuff on the map at times. Fortunately I found a kind of "fix" for this long ago back in the days of GalCiv III, by just quitting out and reloading the game to get a different backdrop until I got one that wasn't annoyingly obscuring my vision right in the middle of the map. However, it is pretty annoying to have to reload the game just to make it so I can see the map.

Could you pretty please put something in the options to shut OFF the cool colorful sparkly backgrounds? I would be perfectly content to just play on top of a flat black backdrop; as a matter of fact I would prefer it.

Happy bug squashing!

 

galciv iv early access feedback
11,790 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Hurrah I get to post this again.

Yes, the map obscuring cosmetic eyesore clouds should go a simple option yes and no. In addition, the graphics window and the others, should have 100% of the options with a mouse over tool tip telling what they actually do.  

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Reply #2 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Yes, please give us an option to turn off the background. At first it was pleasant but it became very distracting when I needed to make a ship move and thought I needed to go around a gas cloud only to find out it was the background.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

I tried to create a mod removing the background, but for some reason it doesn't work.

Code: xml
  1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?>
  3. <RemoveList xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../Schema/Lib/RemoveDef.xsd">
  5. <RemoveDef>
  7.   <TypeName>StarboxType</TypeName>
  9.   <RemoveID>DefaultStarbox</RemoveID>
  11. </RemoveDef>
  13. </RemoveList>

A working solution is to backup files (PNG & DDS) in the game's folder

Gfx\Space

and replace them with empty (transparent) png's and dds'es.

Here are such files:

https://ufile.io/5j21drxd

Reply #4 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Quoting slemmu, reply 3

I tried to create a mod removing the background, but for some reason it doesn't work.

Code: xml

    1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?>

    1.  

    1. <RemoveList xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../Schema/Lib/RemoveDef.xsd">

    1.  

    1. <RemoveDef>

    1.  

    1.   <TypeName>StarboxType</TypeName>

    1.  

    1.   <RemoveID>DefaultStarbox</RemoveID>

    1.  

    1. </RemoveDef>

    1.  

  1. </RemoveList>


A working solution is to backup files (PNG & DDS) in the game's folder

Gfx\Space

and replace them with empty (transparent) png's and dds'es.

Here are such files:

https://ufile.io/5j21drxd

Why not just reduce Nebula Opacity to 0.

2 years ago, when I posted my reply above, I did not know about that setting.

It was there already though no Tool-Tip.

Reply #5 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Well I searched for solutions but did not find anything, so I had no idea that I could just reduce Nebula Opacity to 0.

Thank you for the reply.

And still there would be stars in the background. They can sometimes mislead, making me think there's an actual star in that cell.

Replacing graphics removes those pesky fake stars as well.