Make space look large at last - Dev ThomastheCat reveals Field of View settings

Over on Reddit's STO subreddit, UI Design Dev ThomastheCat has revealed some very interesting graphic settings for STO, which can be changed via chat commands.

These settings will alter STO's field of view, allowing you to make the game look a lot more cineastic. Especially in space objects like ESD, planets and ships will look more realistic and not like the small toy ships they are. A true change of perspective, which might enhance your enjoyment of STO.

The commands in question:

/setregionfov

can be one of the following:

CharacterCreator
Ground
Indoor
None
PvP
SectorSpace
Space
SystemMap

is 55 by default and can reach from around 20 to 80.

Examples:
/setregionfov ground 75
/setregionfov interior 75
/setregionfov space 25

A recommended setting for space is 25. Your ship will appear closer to the camera, objects in the background appear much larger - including planets! The effect is especially amazing in the Dyson Sphere Space Zones!

On ground/interior, a setting of 25 results in characters appearances sticking out much more. This setting works beautifully on smaller interiors (ESD docking bay, Defiant Interior, Q'noS). However, the lack of scale on many interiors will extremely stick out - many objects, ceilings, etc. are way too big and characters appear very tiny. Another option on ground/interior is 60 - 75, which will result in some kind of 'fish eye view'. This effect gives you a better overview of all the surroundings and is similar to games like Mass Effect.

The original post by Thomas:Changing your Field of View
The article contains some more details and even some other screenshot commands. It also contains some image examples. However, these images don't do the effect justice! Try it out ingame and be amazed, especially in space!

pretty interesting.. im going to try that out... hope i can get it back to normal if i dont like it :P

Just remember the default value is 55 if you mess it up redo the command with 55 and you will be back to normal

Cool! Waiting for maintenance to be over and I will be trying this out. Thanks for posting!

Now that I've played with it, interior and ground 55 just doesn't really feel like it used to. Default wise.

So, I looked at the reddit post, especially the screenshots of the ships parked just outside ESD. I'm not currently at home to check it out ingame, but it doesn't appear to do anything except change the zoom level? Perhaps I just don't understand the difference between the two? My playstyle usually is zoomed out as far as possible so my dreadnought/carrier style huge ships look as small as possible. What's the benefit of changing my field of view?

Gave this a go last night with a space FOV of 20. It's quite a dramatic difference, pretty cinematic looking. You can properly scrape the hull of your ship with the camera. Using it in combat is... interesting... those Borg cubes look *enormous*.

@Sthiss it can vary a lot for people. In short it is how much you can see. How wide your view is. Although usually less important in 3rd person games it can be a killer for some people in FPS type games as it can cause severe headaches and eye problems.

TotalBiscuit is a major proponent of FoV options in games as he finds narrow FoV too painful to actually play. Any of his videos about FPS/3rd Person games will usually mention it.

A clear benefit I could see currently would be chasing the Q's around the Academy etc. You would see if they spawn off to your side better with a wider FoV.
Most console FPS have a FoV restricted to around 65. Most good FPS should be around 90.

I set space to 85 last nice omg love it! I don't accidentally zoom into my ship anymore when doing space battle.

This is pretty cool to mess around with.

I set my space at 25 and my ground at 35. Things definitely seem larger, and I like being able to zoom in closer.

Yeah... i set space to 25 last night, and about came unglued! LOL FINALLY this game looked to Trek to me. The planets were huge, and you could zoom in and get the proper angles of the ship when traveling through sector space that you see in the shows. Even the Sovereign from it's rear 3/4 view looks more proportionate and similar to what you see in the films.

I'm not ever changing it back. Need to ISE ASAP--I want to see the size of the cubes now.

thanks so much for posting this really cool :S :S :S

although I can't seem to see any difference no matter what number I type in space, I get variation on ground ... but nothing in space......strange. :evil:

I set ground to 150, just for fun.
The result was a bit trippy :p

its like the borg assimilated view lol

Well I was able to edit it at first, but now it's all locked. I checked the preference file and they're there at the old settings I entered via the slash command, but when I'm in game I can't change it at all.

Try to mess around with different location settings, e.g. "SystemSpace" instead of "Space". The game isn't very coherent when it comes to these location definitions. The same goes for ground (e.g. "interior" instead of "ground").

If the right location is selected, the game will always change the FOV.

I did. It's really disappointing that it worked for me at first, and then not later, but I'm not going to fret over it too much.

Quote by Angelsilhouette

I did. It's really disappointing that it worked for me at first, and then not later, but I'm not going to fret over it too much.

I had similar problems...
I know it was mentioned ealier.. but have you tried deleting the commands in the root notebook file? It worked perfectly for me.

• Go to your Star Trek Online install directory.
• Then go to live/localdata/Gameprefs.Pref
• Open it in Notepad (open as admin if you need to)

Find the lines:

PrefEntry FOV.Ground
PrefEntry FOV.Space
(and sectorspace, interior if its there)

You can delete those lines - the game should then revert to what the general default FOV is set to.
and you can try this trick again.
it worked well for me... I found this advise out on the official forums

I'll give that a try.

=Edit=

It worked, thank you. :)