You don't understand how procedural generation works, with a programmed ruleset the devs dont need time to put things everywhere, the game will do it for them. There will be stuff thats never found, but it will be out there.
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- Thread starter Exmortis
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You don't understand how procedural generation works, with a programmed ruleset the devs dont need time to put things everywhere, the game will do it for them. There will be stuff thats never found, but it will be out there.
I already knew about the procedural generation, but there were some other comments he made in that article that did help answer my question. Thank you for linking it. Especially this: "So what you need is as many differentiators as possible".
I think I get it now. The more variables you have, even when they're randomly assigned, the more chance those variables can come together to form something interesting. For example, it may take a lot of searching to find a planet that is Rich, Industrial, produces a very special material needed for a special ship upgrade, and also has a rare engineer present who can manufacture and/or apply that upgrade. All these things would be randomly assigned and just doing the math you can see how rare it would be to find it. This would make continuous exploration worth it I think.
Worry not, ED will be bundled with a paper based game map drawn at scale, so you never get lost. 
Regarding universe content, probably there are lots of variables in the systems (start, planets and other orbital bodies) and respective content (stations, factories, ...) to create diversity. On top of that pseudo-random placed events/agents/entities.
Regarding universe content, probably there are lots of variables in the systems (start, planets and other orbital bodies) and respective content (stations, factories, ...) to create diversity. On top of that pseudo-random placed events/agents/entities.
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at least they've said that they are restricting some areas for further elements/content that hasnt been created yet and will be placed there later.
so you never know when they're gonna put something interesting in some close aera yet outside of colonised space, perhaps at the very limits of explorers reach, it would make no sence to put it at the other side of the galaxy, but if the dev can keep up with the rate of exploration itself limited by the rate of colonial expension, you should still be able to find stuff... i think they mentioned something about limiting your acces to those regions(a bunch of systems?) though, until they are ready.
though we dont know much more than that, maybe we'd find some abandoned thargoid colony, handcrafted, or something else, it could be much more than some simply randomly generated and generic content.
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No, I do understand how it works. My concern is that eventually you will have seen all the combinations of procedurally generated planets and further exploration wouldn't be compelling. As I mentioned above though I think I can see how if they use enough variables it could remain interesting. It will still be somewhat like pulling the lever on a slot machine, but that's ok.
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That's the whole point of procedurally generating stuff though, you don't need to do anywhere near as much by hand, you just need to set up some well thought-out parameters and then let it rip.
Even if they went for something as simple as only four possible features on a planet (let's say desert, ocean, grassy and mountainous) and ten basic presets for each of those four feature types (so let's say full surface of the planet, one ninth coverage, one eighth coverage etc). Then even something as basic as that system is going to give you a possible ten thousand different planet configurations at it's most basic level, many more permutations if you randomise coastlines and terrain heights.
And we know that FD have a vastly more complex and feature-rich planetary generator than that because we've seen a preview of it, which is based on all kinds of stuff such as type and proximity of stars, orbit and tilt of the planet etc, etc, etc.
When you bear that in mind, the chances of running across two planets even vaguely the same as one another is probably going to be minuscule. They will all look and feel different, so you are always going to see something new.
There is no reason why FD cannot apply this methodology to things such as creatures which might populate a planet, or derelict vessels, or bits of old technology you might find that you could add to your ship. All it needs is a dice roll when you jump into the system to see whether it gets plonked in the systems somewhere, or not.
Granted, it wouldn't be the work of five minutes to set it up, but neither would it be a lifetime's work, so long as it was fairly well thought out and tested.
Think we are going to need an in-game Astro-photography section once the game is released
You mean like something like this?
Taken from the DDF:
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6561
I shall be trying very hard to find something very interesting, i couldn't afford to name a space station but it seems that the first explorer of a system will get their name noted as such in that systems information and as I am using the name of a close mate i lost last year as my first commader name i have been following all the exploration threads very closely.
I am determined to get his name linked with something amazing in the Elite galaxy so while i have no idea what will be out there for us to find from all the info we have so far I expect to be occasionally amazed at what we can discover..
I am determined to get his name linked with something amazing in the Elite galaxy so while i have no idea what will be out there for us to find from all the info we have so far I expect to be occasionally amazed at what we can discover..
Yes imagine leaving your computer on for the day with your ship set to travel and it texting you in real life. You'd need to have an emergency routine for hostile U fo contact but I could see it being made to work.
Would take months to get anywhere if you just left it flying, if you're in unknown territory you will need to do careful sensor readings and analysis of the data before you can make a jump, if you're in known space you will just choose a destination off the map.
Frame shift drive is for in system travel and not fast enough for anything else.
Either way you can't just point the ship "outwards" and let it travel, hyperspace travel is a series of almost instant jumps that require a destination rather than just going really fast for a period of time like Star Trek ships use for getting around.
Another thing that increases the combinations is interactions between systems - have a look at some of the topics on the world and economy simulation - a low-population independent mining colony on the borders of Imperial space is going to be very different to a system with roughly the same parameters for population, economy, technology, etc. on the very edge of inhabited space.
Even the few tens of thousands of those systems inhabited at the start of the game will take quite some time to explore - sure, if you go exploring out past inhabited space it'll mostly be empty systems, but the one time it isn't is your chance to make it big...
Yes, this makes sense. I'm starting understand some of the possibilities. The original Elite was the last Elite game I played so my perspective started with the problem that game had which was once you've been to ~50 places you've been to them all.
That is what I hope too. Compared to handcrafting, procedural generation is cheaper but harder to do. So you don't need to create everything by hand, but you need programmers and technically oriented artists to create your universe.
Of course it's a valid concern that everything might feel the same, that there are not enough variables or the variables just appear random. That could happen if they don't invest enough time.
But what happens if you invest MORE time into generating the universe than the minimum to keep it interesting?
For example NPCs and missions will be generated too. If you make the system more and more complex, you could have story arcs and crew that have their own agenda or other NPCs you could meet again and again. Mission generators would use the simulations, you could have a recurring (but initially random) wingman missions. You could find stranded explorers in the void and help them out. Also all those independent systems have a lot of potential for political and military turmoil, that you can actually influence. Anything will go there, since it's not linked to any big faction and you can have "throwaway" systems. So the game will give you more freedom to influence than in a handcrafted universe.
I'm really curious about this because it hasn't been really done before. Of course it just won't be possible with the initial release, but the vision is there. So we'll have to wait for expansions to get "new" stuff but the new stuff won't just be new content, not just more of the old, it will be new gameplay and a more and more complex and interesting universe, e.g. the story of your voyage will not just go on but get more personalized and interesting. The stuff some indie games done with the "roguelike" stories and emergent gameplay have never been brought into a big feature project. I trust David Braben in this vision and hope he pulls it off.
I'm afraid you are overrating possibilities of procedural generating algorithms.
The biggest concern with the procedurally generated content is that it almost always look very generic and after visiting a few locations it's easy to see repetitions of the same elements in various permutations. I havent seen a game or program that get rid of this problem. Also key elements such as alien races and important locations propably will be made by artists hand, otherwise they will look very generic.
It's like Minecraft. Every mountain, forest and river is different, but at the same time they are all pretty similar because they are all made by the same algortithms and exploration soon became boring. I agree with Exmortis, it's a big chalange for devs not to make exploration monotonous.
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If you haven't already done so i suggest you go back and watch the the dev diaries and look at the entries in the DDF, there is much effort going into making sure things are not "samey".
I've seen that. I'm sure that Braben's ambition is to make the game as much interesting as possible, but it not change the fact that procedurally generated contend usually look very generic, repetitive and is boring after a while.
As I said before important elements propably will be made by humans hand.
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I'm really hoping that every so often, maybe even every couple of years, a new space-faring race is found out in the void, just to shake the game up.
I'm not so sure of that, there will be hand crafted things and places the devs have said as much, but PG does not have to be just placing modules together in different ways.
It may be sophisticated enough to grow flora and fauna on planets in many different ways for instance not necessarily just placing plants and animals down in a random order.
Don't forget DB has been working on this for many years and is dab hand with squishing code down small.
I've never seen a game that used procedural generation really well though. Like using procedural generation to create mission and story as well as pretty landscapes. And have a simulation that feeds these story and missions. Sure you have every right to be skeptical, but I wouldn't write the idea off.
There is a lot of talk about non linear story telling etc, and ultimately story is what you're after, visit a place and find details that mean something. But most games provide linear or slightly mixed up linear gameplay. Games still cutscene, gameplay, cutscene, gameplay. There is no branching of stories, it basically boils down to 2 or 3 different ending cutscenes. Sure cutscenes and voice actors are really nice but ultimately it's only linear storytelling.
Elite will have some handcrafted events also, but what it boils down to is that you can consume content and then it's finished. You can continue to play the gameplay but the linear gameplay still follows you. You can't permanently destroy a house or kill a story NPC in an MMO, because that would break the game. You can't add to the game either because without procedural generation it will never become part of the game, it would remain empty. Procedural generation "forces" the developer to implement features that allow for more player agency.
So the unlimited content isn't there to provide unlimited uniqueness, it is there to allow for more player agency. You can influence the world and the game doesn't break, because the game isn't dependent on some hand crafted content. If you have 100 million star systems, every player can blow up a whole planet and the game doesn't even notice.