[Klaustrophobia]

that's just a COMPLETELY uncalled for amount of bombs.

[Fury]

Not really, no. What you see in those screenshots is the weakest of UEF bombs, launched in swarms of four. Four of them is only tiny bit better than single cyclops.

[Droid803]

Then that's about...eight cyclops right there? (in the second picture)
I count 33 trails.

[General Battuta]

Their big advantage is that they're hard to shoot down. They may be fairly weak, but they're functionally four times tougher than a Cyclops, and they saturate point defenses very well.

Of course we could always slap some armor on various types of bombs too to make things interesting.

[Fury]

There were quite a few UEF bombers in that test scenario the screenshots were from. In addition there was a Karuna, Sanctus and another, much larger UEF warship nearby bombarding Tev warships present. Deimos wasn't alone.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, and don't forget that the UEF doesn't field bombers like the GTVA does. You'll see squadrons of Boanerges or Artemises doing massed tactical strikes, but when it comes to the UEF, usually it's a wing or two at most. They're just crazy powerful.

[manwiththemachinegun]

Reminds me of "Stalin's Organ" style massed rocket strikes.

That's a good thing.

[Snail]

Then that's about...eight cyclops right there? (in the second picture)
I count 33 trails.

The point is that they saturate the GTVA's point defense. You can't shoot down all 33 warheads, even if a few hit it's still better than none hitting.

[Dragon]

I guess that in case somebody will be making a TEV campaign for WiH, he will have to hint using EMP missiles for defence.
Nothing but them would be able to stop these torps.

[Fury]

Original version with post-processing


New version without post-processing and after ambient lighting overhaul.

As you can see, general tone of ambient lighting is dark. Which fits mood and setting of the campaign as well as brings some flavor of realism into play. In WiH missions you will see that amount of ambient lighting will vary depend on how far away from the Sun mission is taking place. Battle in above screenshot is taking place near Europa, quite far away from the Sun.

Post-processing has been moved to experimental in 3.6.12 RC2 due to buggy implementation causing memory leaks and other issues that may cause crashes.

[NGTM-1R]

brings some flavor of realism into play.

No it doesn't.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Aww, I liked the shinyness; this new shot looks kinda bland, - dare I say it - retail...

[General Battuta]

Aww, I liked the shinyness; this new shot looks kinda bland, - dare I say it - retail...

Sorry, mate, nothing we can do:

Post-processing has been moved to experimental in 3.6.12 RC2 due to buggy implementation causing memory leaks and other issues that may cause crashes.

brings some flavor of realism into play.

No it doesn't.

See the Astrography thread. It's a distant flavor (ambient lighting, for instance, is still present, and local light sources aren't included) but it's at least 'more realistic'.

[Pred the Penguin]

Will the settings you use in the launcher have any effect?

[Fury]

Aww, I liked the shinyness; this new shot looks kinda bland, - dare I say it - retail...

That effect was achieved by using low saturation and high contrast. Even if post-processing wouldn't have issues, the effect wouldn't have been used much. You don't want low saturation in all missions. In other words, the effect in question was only ever used for that specific cutscene.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Mmh, if it's too shiny, I feel it's too unrealistic, and don't like it. This is the main reason why I prefer Spidey's light settings over Herra Tohtori's.

[redsniper]

That second screenshot looks atrocious. It's like you turned off specular lighting or something.

Changing the ambient lighting based on distance from the sun makes sense, and turning off the desaturation is fine too, but something just isn't right there.

[The E]

Well, Fury HAS said that he prefers his missions as dark as possible. Personally, I would go crazy playing it that dark, but using HerraTohtori's lighting settings from the wiki's Sample Lighting Settings page makes everything look rather cool.

[Herra Tohtori]

That second screenshot looks atrocious. It's like you turned off specular lighting or something.

Changing the ambient lighting based on distance from the sun makes sense, and turning off the desaturation is fine too, but something just isn't right there.

The problem at the moment is that the sun is in the same plane as the mission and therefore has relatively little lighting effect on the upsides of the ships, which are mostly facing the camera.

I'm inclined to agree that it needs to be addressed, either by tilting the skybox or by tilting the whole mission.

[SpardaSon21]

I use ColeCampbell666's settings for my FreeSpace experience.  It's beautiful to see all the light weapons fire throws out with those settings.