I'd love to see this too, actually. I don't think it'd be difficult to do because I'm pretty sure this fluff already exists in a CCP database somewhere (I can't remember exactly where I saw it but I saw some really specific information on a whole bunch of planets, stuff like gravitational field strength, population, etc). I'm not a programmer though, so I have no idea how difficult that would actually be.

While I seem to be giving daily updates, I can't promise I will be able to keep with it, but so far, the responses.. the feedback--it is just exciting. Today CCP BaoZi told me he read someone post (I checked but couldn't find--maybe it was another thread) something about being able to still navigate the starmap while scanning, rather than have the controls locked out. The initial setup/plan was to have the camera be controlled by code (locked to the user) and move around the Starmap, similar to the loading screen you saw at Fanfest. He thought this request seemed more than reasonable and do-able, so we agreed today to change the course. Instead he is just going to pass a kismet event to me that contains the region being scanned, then I will (in Kismet) grab the [region] position and animate in a material effect at that coordinate. I can probably re-purpose the scan effect I had before, but have it radiate from region centers rather than pan down the y-axis. The scanning is purely cosmetic at this point; it will need to run while information downloads in the background, but we see no reason why you can't continue to interact with the map. All this is subject to change pending the feedback we get from other devs, but I wanted to thank, whomever suggested it.

Also, the feedback on the transition is really cool, but I may have confused some of you. I was only referring to transitioning between the Station and the Starmap (and back) --not into battles. Going to battles requires a loading screen because it is a totally different map file (that must load)--the Station and Starmap are actually always loaded together (and on top of each other). We were just looking at clever ways to fade one out while we fade the other in. Today I actually did a test using a similar technique we use to fade out the suit with the cloak--not bad. It sort of felt like all the pixels detached from the screen, swirled around, then re-settled. This technique uses a 2nd material that is overlayed on top of all current materials. That overlayed material can sort of 'intercept' the current material's channels and make changes to it. In this case, it plays with the alpha and emissive channels.