I'd also like the ability to select that these things are hidden on the minimap. It was pretty obvious that you were in a holodeck just by looking at the minimap

This is amazing! I was actually not very excited when I first heard about the foundry, or when it was first pushed into beta, but with the triggers, and branching dialog and stuff, and now this, I REALLY want it to get on holodeck already.

Unfortunately we currently can't do portal style effects like you're describing. You can be assured I will make this happen if we ever do though

Do the doors open on the arch?

Bummer. Okeedoke. The holodeck will do! Muwahahaha!

Can't you fake it though? As in, the recent featured episode series had a "portal" in the asteroid that showed scenes on the other side that weren't actually behind the asteroid and the "City on the Edge of Forever" mission had an arch that showed various pictures. Just take an arch model and stick a static picture of a ships corridor on the arch texture and you'd achieve a decent effect for now with the current engine tech?

I'm surprised you can't use the same technology that lets the Guardian show 'past scenes' or the Iconian gateways show glimpses of other worlds. Granted, you couldn't have people walking by in revision one, but still...

Those are hard textures from the client files, not in-game generated.
You can achive the effect if you mod the textures.

I have 2 main issues with that:
- What happens to the stuff that re "inside" the holodeck when you "end the program"? Like enemies, turrets, etc. Will they spawn out automatically?

- What happens if you want use this in a tighter or more cluttered area like inside a ship, or in a forest? Will the objects not meant to be there be invisible until you "start" the holoprogram?


It will save a loadscreen in same cases. But you will still need one if you want to end a program in a crowded area or after a ship battle. Or if you want to actually leave the holodeck and get back to the interiors.

Since it is basically just a room, I suppose you have to place the holodeck somewhere with enough free room. But that's okay in my opinion.

What you could do is place some trees and stuff around you that appear once the holodeck fade-out is triggered. However, this means, of course, that these object wont fade in - unless Cryptic implements trigger effects (and effect that plays during the state change), which would be cool as these effects could also include warp or beam effects.


Another option is, of course, to have the holodeck on a separate map. The transition will not be as seamless but I assume for a lot of missions (especially if you want to do more outside of the holodeck) it will have to be like this.

Obviously this technique won't work in every conceivable situation... you all will have to be clever with when and where to use the holodeck effect. I'm not sure how it will work if there's a battle going on around you.

I could try the effect you saw in City on the Edge of Never, but I'm afraid it wouldn't look very good in this case. It would literally be a flat texture with no changing perspective or depth, and you would be able to walk right into it. With the Guardian, at least it was kind of a whispy flash of random images, but this would be a constant unchanging picture of a hallway.

In other news, I figured out how to get the Holodeck objects to NOT show up on the minimap, so yay for that

Also, I'm starting some discussions with the Foundry programmers for how we can set up better safeguards for teams so some team members don't get left behind when triggers are used to trap the player.