Hack Request: Upping the Show Limit for Equipped Lights (to enable Flare Stars)

EDIT: I’ve altered the title from simply “Flare Stars” to the present one, to emphasize what I’d like to achieve.

I finally found the time to test the flare star idea I mentioned a few weeks ago. The idea was the increase a regular blinking light up to a stellar scale, to create a variable star.

It works, and looks great I must say! But only within a limit of 9.9 K (K being the FL in-game unit). Beyond that, the whole thing disappears from screen. Also, when the center of it disappears from screen, the entire thing also becomes invisible. Which is too bad. I’m hoping you can help me with expanding this limit!

I assume this problem might typically be overcome with a hack, like most of the game’s default limits.

The entries I used:

In Light_Equip.ini :

[Light]
nickname = STAR_LIGHT_RedGiant
inherit = Red
bulb_size = 5000
glow_size = 10000
flare_cone = 180, 90
avg_delay = 20
blink_duration = 30

In SolarArch.ini :

[Solar]
nickname = STAR_SUN_RedGiant
type = MISSION_SATELLITE
DA_archetype = solar\misc\gravity_buoy.3db
material_library = solar\Solar_mat_misc02.mat
LODranges = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
distance_render = 500000 <–---- *
mass = 10000.000000
loadout = STAR_LOADOUT_RedGiant
solar_radius = 7500
shape_name = NNM_SM_SUN
hit_pts = 999999961690316250000000000000000000.000000

• I took this one from planet_storm_5000, and expanded it to 500000 to test if this does what I want, but it doesn’t

In Solar/Loadouts.ini :

[Loadout]
nickname = STAR_LOADOUT_RedGiant
equip = STAR_LIGHT_RedGiant, HpRunningLight01

In the Star System’s ini:

[LightSource]
nickname = Aa01_System_Light
pos = 0, 0, 0
color = 255, 223, 127
range = 320000
type = DIRECTIONAL
atten_curve = DYNAMIC_DIRECTION

[Object]
nickname = Aa01_STAR_SUN_RedGiant
pos = 0, 0, 0
rotate = 90, 45, 0
archetype = STAR_SUN_RedGiant
ids_name = 0;GENERATESTRRES(“Red Giant” )

Bump

I’m not impatient, but I don’t wanna let this one sink down.

Although FL is a beautiful game, there is not much we can do with the scenery (other than making up textures, arranging objects and setting the system lights) and this flare stars will really add something, visually.

I wish I would know how to make (and post) video’s, so I could convince y’all…. Anyway, just imagine a slowly blinking light bulb like you can put on the stations and ships, but then enlarged by a few 1000 times. It’s like a star that grows and shrinks (sounds silly maybe, but it looks great - and many real stars actually do this - even the sun, by 0.1 % over an 11-year cycle) I guess it’ll be nice to superimpose this on a regular star, but I didn’t do so in my testing. And even that looked great.

Except that you had to get withn 9.9 K to see anything at all, and make sure the center of the ‘star’ was within you screen. These are the things that need to be fixed.

I’m quite sure the first one is a simple hack.

No clue about the second one - it is reminiscent of the problem with custom ships in the old days, which, iirc, was overcome when custom SURs were improved. But there is no SUR for a light bulb… So, I hope this is also just a simple hack. BTW doesn’t this issue also occur for the neutron star effect?