Midnight Universe

Description
Unexpected. That's the word that springs to mind when playing this mod (and no, I'm not just a fan of one word intros). Unexpected in arrival, unexpected in delivery; they go hand-in-hand it seems. So why, with a good mod, am I finding it hard to give full marks? It does everything right; give me stunning backgrounds, planetary textures (guys, he's only put on frikkin' clouds that move!) and a few new features above the previous package, but there are just a few things niggling away at me that just make me scream 'patch'! So, lets get the bad stuff out of the way first.

The introduction of planetary clouds and rotation is phenomenal, but those who played stock Bridge Commander will remember that planets had those weird 'blocks' of textures because that's how they were done and that appears here. Yes, the planets look lovely, but they also can look quite garing as well. The further back you are though, the better they appear to be, so hold that in mind (and it also seems as if zoom-out has been increased, so for those with a slightly more powerful PC can hold to zoom out and observe more of the battle). The Latinum nebulae, even though changed in the previous version as well still bug me, being basically a yellow rock with slightly darker yellow spots on them. That, but very small too. It just seems inconsistent that miners would dart back and forth to a rock that is the size of a freighter bridge. I've heard of density, but a size increase couldn't harm. A fix of planetary atmospheres (as seen in Legacy) seems to have rendered them...well, non-existent. Did Q not like them? As you can see, there are just these little points that collect up to be quite frustrating and I hope are addressed in a future, but not too future, patch.

That said, there's still lots of great stuff in here. The mod nicely splits game-play with graphics, with new asteroids both being stunning to look at and dangerous, as dust damages your shields (hiding place, but not for too long). As mentioned previously, the man has put in clouds that rotate on planets that should have them. Okay, so they're a little quick, but I didn't think you could build a Galaxy class starship in 30 or so seconds. The replaced textures are generally a notch above their previous incarnations, with the detail on dilithium moons being simply phenomenal and the best for them I have ever seen (and I've seen a LOT of dilithium moons). The hues for everything just right and the backgrounds fitting in seamlessly.

All-in-all, it's very decent, but I'm afraid only decent and not fantastic. Perhaps I was expecting a bit more from this (and as such, believes it warrants a patch, especially to fix seeming non-features) and perhaps it's not quite as exciting because its been done before, in 1.0. It remains to be seen though for a mod to break the graphical barrier (and hint of game-play changing elements) that Yacuzza has done and for this reason, I still salute him with this piece of work.

[Note, .exe for installation included]