Caves can't be procedurally generated perhaps but if the devs really want to make a cave they can probably make one manually.
UAs, Barnacles & other mysteries Thread 7 - The Canonn
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I think if there were a technical reason for not being bale to generate caves then it would be due to the Cobra engine rather than procedural generation, in er general.
Minecraft, for example, generates quite cool caves procedurally.
I imagine the problem is that the surface is generated as a heightmap which would rule out caves... but maybe they are just trolling us and we just have found any yet...
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Absolutely.
Theories are Darwinian - if you come up with something that captures other people's imagination then it might gain traction. There are numerous factors which influence that - chiefly among them the quality of the theory, how well it's communicated and the ease with which it can be tested. If something else is better in any of these measures, the crowd doesn't follow.
But if a person is convinced they're right, they don't allow a lack of enthusiasm from others to stop them - they go back, they work at it and improve it, or get proof, and try again.
Again - the morse discovery is a demonstration of that: early on hardly anyone 'got' it or thought it was true. Eventually the proof was found and everyone who'd been sceptical beforehand listened, read, and accepted it. And gave props to the people who they'd originally said were wrong.
People who take a lack of enthusiasm for an idea personally are misunderstanding the process and the motivation of the people here. You might be wrong today, but tomorrow you'll come along with proof and then you'll be lauded. That's science.
Anything of any note is here. There's also a lot which isn't. Nothing is hidden by anyone who engage with this community. There are other groups/communities who keep things to themselves - but not this one.
So anyway: If barnacles can be grown, for example: go prove it! Show us that they can, and it'll be accepted. That many of us are sceptical about it is because there are other things more immediately testable and new things which investigation (UPs and Merope 5c for example) which are making a theory which has no functional precedent in-game less than appealing. But those who think that's where they want to expend their energy should do so, don't let a lack of enthusiasm from others stop you.
And when you get a result, or some conclusion or whatever, we look forward to reading about that here and will appreciate the time taken in doing so.
o7
I don't think that's the case. If there were caves, we'd be seeing them.
We know the Cobra engine can deal with caves pretty nicely given the docking bays of stations are literally caves. I believe the issue with placing caves by PG was a time constraint and they didn't have time to implement it before 2.0 hit. With all the logic ED uses when generating planet surfaces, adding the same level of detail to a separate 'cave generator' from which stellar forge will get the results and place them on appropriate planets wasn't deemed a worthy time investment.
They could just use the same system they used for base generation from modules and used cave modules which can be connected in several ways. Then all you have to do is to check the planet surface for the appropriate height maps and place the cave inside one, making sure it opens up somewhere.
Also, there's the issue of scientific accuracy. I don't think lifeless and waterless planets would have too much to show for in terms of caves. Maybe they'll come with atmospheres and volcanism, who knows?
Yeah... I imagine the issue lies with the texture mapping technique. The bump map would be procedurally generated, but it'd be one layer, i.e points have different values for the height of terrain, and the texture gets mapped across that. It'd be the same for collision mapping, and is why you can "fall through" the planet in your SRV.
To do a cave, you would have multiple values for the same "point" on the texture map, which is much more complicated to do. PS this is the "Abridged" version.
And how! The killer for me was I simply couldn't get a UA of my own, I had to rely on other people doing recordings with all the relevant details present. Trying to get people to do that when the theory I'm trying to prove has "already been disproven" is not an easy bridge to cross
The functional precedent is crucial here. If there's no functional precedent in the game, people are loathe to accept a theory as a possibility. For me and the morse, we'd already heard morse emitted from Nav Beacons and Black Boxes... even though the morse had been "Disproven" which didn't help matters, and it was really hard to not take rejection personally, it had a functional precedent.
To date, there's been no (reliably recreatable) interactions that can be achieved by jetting cargo into random places / having jetted cargo "interact" with other objects (with the sole exception of UA/UP 'pointing'). But that doesn't disprove anything. Occams razor plays a big part here too, as does rational vs creative thought processes. Like others, I too don't think "growing" barnacles is a thing, but there's definitely a rational thought path you can move through to think it could be a thing.
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Sorry if my previous post came off harshly, partly venting partly joking around. I truly do admire the work you all do here. I may not agree with how some things are done, but it is hypocritical and wrong for me to discourage anyone else's ideas. If people believe the UP points to 5C at some object that has been missed, by all means scour every inch. I'm personally more inclined to believe it is directing our attention to the 5c barnacle to give more insight on how they grow.
Yes I want to grow my own barnacle, and I am still of the mind that I can. At the very least if I can't plant a barnacle, I can influence it to grow and reproduce by treating it like any normal sustainable crop. Looking at it from a scientific, game design, and biological point of view it makes sense and is more than possible. My main issue is that I can never properly test the theory by myself, as the community will go and shoot the spikes and do what they will, so my test subject is not isolated aand any results would be inconclusive.
This is what gets me frustrated, as I have tried asking for assistance or at the least a gentlemans (or gentlewomans) agreement to have a barnacle left alone and protected for pure observation. If I'm wrong, well no harm done. But if I am right, wouldnt that be amazing? Everyone could stop searching for barnacles, and we could end up with forests of the them!
Quick note also to the fella doing the recon on barnacle sites; you will be able to scan the barnacle trunks once each time the state changes. I speculate there is a state change maybe weekly? If my theory is correct on their reproduction cycles, the barnacle state will change depending on what was done to it in the previous week. This would turn out to be a weekly source of easy funds that requires no damage to be done to the barnacle whatsoever.
Yes I want to grow my own barnacle, and I am still of the mind that I can. At the very least if I can't plant a barnacle, I can influence it to grow and reproduce by treating it like any normal sustainable crop. Looking at it from a scientific, game design, and biological point of view it makes sense and is more than possible. My main issue is that I can never properly test the theory by myself, as the community will go and shoot the spikes and do what they will, so my test subject is not isolated aand any results would be inconclusive.
This is what gets me frustrated, as I have tried asking for assistance or at the least a gentlemans (or gentlewomans) agreement to have a barnacle left alone and protected for pure observation. If I'm wrong, well no harm done. But if I am right, wouldnt that be amazing? Everyone could stop searching for barnacles, and we could end up with forests of the them!
Quick note also to the fella doing the recon on barnacle sites; you will be able to scan the barnacle trunks once each time the state changes. I speculate there is a state change maybe weekly? If my theory is correct on their reproduction cycles, the barnacle state will change depending on what was done to it in the previous week. This would turn out to be a weekly source of easy funds that requires no damage to be done to the barnacle whatsoever.
Been catching up with this thread after a LONG absence. I have a question tho'. This image of the probe "pointing at 5C". I'm slightly confused as this image appears to show the probe quite clearly not pointing at 5C but rather, pointing tangential to it. Perhaps I'm missing something.
Also, a follow-up question. Assuming I'm wrong and there is not doubt about these probes pointing to 5C ... I find myself at somewhat of a loose end and was thinking of joining you guys. What's the most useful thing that a lone pilot like me could do? Shall I just spend some time combing the surface of 5C looking for ... something new?
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I have a few questions about the UP's
- Does the cargo bay get damaged when carrying an UP?
- What is the behavior of the UP near an UA?
- What happens if you drop both UP and UA near the intact/not intact barnacles?
- Is there morsecode?
- What about the meta alloys, does the UP interact with (uncanistered) Meta Alloys?
- Has the UP been scanned with different types of scan or weapons?
- Does the UP point to 1 direction, on the surface of 5C?
- Does the UP point to a different direction if it is taken far away from merope?
- The UA points to Merope, UP points to 5C, Is there another alien object that will help us find an specific location?
Nope, it's pointing directly at it? First image is angled slightly so you can see what it's pointing at, second picture is directly behind the probe, which is basically pointing straight at the planet.
Either combing 5C or hunting in Ross 47 for another UP. Even if you are not winged up enough to capture one, a Wake Scanner should allow you to follow the convoy. You never know, it might lead somewhere, it might lose its escort and allow you to prirate it, it might even eat its way out and allow you to grab it without fireing. Those are the good outcomes. It might also eat its way out while is SC, the convoy might split before you arrive, or it might Hi-wake out by jumping through a star. In which case, you lose it, and feel terrible. Thats Science !
LOL - OK, I see what's happened. There's no space between those two pictures so at first glance it looks like one big picture with the UP pointing tangential to 5C. Apologies for the confusion.
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It's an interesting idea, but is always going to be difficult. If you ask the Canonn to leave one particular barnacle alone they probably would, for science. But the barnacle locations are publicly available, meta-alloys are valuable, and there will always be people who care not one jot for science and will trash your barnacle at every opportunity. Your only recourse would be to find a new barnacle and keep the location secret. And hope nobody else finds it later. The Canonn would probably help you look for one, but obviously they're all preoccupied right now chasing weather balloons
(I could be tempted, if I weren't a few dozen ly away filming some time-lapse footage)That's something I was wondering myself - if the UAs form a shell around the thing they are pointing at, perhaps the UP are doing the same. Could there be a UP shell around Merope 5c? If there is I would expect it to be relatively close to the planet; since M5c is in orbit around M5, it may be problematic for a shell to maintain position at a distance.
It's just conjecture, though.
For the record, I've been checking out some areas within and outside of the shell I consider "hotspots" by my own loose criteria, that is places which are:
- Part of the UA shell, but distinctly different in some way traditional parameters. Only UAs to date.
- 135-150LY or within 50LY of some other distinct landmark
- Other parameters.
To date, nothing of interest.
You are and always been a true wise leader sir: King in the North!
Being "old" like you, that's exactly what I'm trying to achieve with the convoy since my first discover: following it, hoping it will loose the escort, and eventually drop the cargo
Nice of you to remind it to everyone!
We did drop the UP and UA together. It's in my video earlier in the thread - the one were we test it in Merope, before we go down to Merope 5c. Nothing special seemed to happen.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...7-The-Canonn?p=4158296&viewfull=1#post4158296
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If there is another shell, it might either be smaller or larger than the UA shell depending on distance. If we take the distance of the UA shell and substract the distance of the UP shell, you end up with the distance between those shells. From there you can calculate where there could be a third shell and alien object. UA's are green, UP's are red so the next Unknown Object will be blue. If we have all 3 Objects we can unlock the master sword at the barnacles!
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I want you to be able to carry on with this, I hope you're right, it would be awesome.
But seems to me that there's a real fly in the ointment that I'm not sure you can overcome, even if you could get everyone who posts here to agree not to abuse a given barnacle site.
It can best be illustrated with the ideal scenario:
- You find a brand new barnacle that has never been reported before and you keep it to yourself to reduce the chances of it being harvested. When you discover it, it's pristine.
- You park next to it and stay online for a week to observe it. Nothing changes - which is not surprising because things rarely change before your eyes in Elite.
- So you log out and in again to see if the barnacle has grown, to discover that the spikes are now all broken.
There are two scenarios that could have led to this:
1) Loads of commanders also found the barnacle and harvested it so much that the spikes are now broken, thus interfering with your experiment.
2) The server state-change only supports pristine-broken-pristine state changes, and doesn't require player involvement to trigger that. In this case the likelihood that keeping a barnacle pristine to encourage it to grow is incredibly unlikely, since the sim doesn't need human interference to break them. I.e. the very idea of protecting a barnacle to encourage it to grow doesn't work, because factors outside of all our control determine whether they are broken or not.
However, in both cases your conclusion will be the same: your experiment failed because other people interfered and the possibility that barnacles can be grown is still on the table - because you can't distinguish between player-caused destruction and server-determined destruction.
So, at what point do you accept you can't grow them? All the time they're not growing and instead are getting broken, it only reinforces the idea that harvesting is stopping that from happening - an idea nobody can disprove even if nobody actually harvested that barnacle (something else we can't prove). In effect - your experiment has no end.
Because even if a new barnacle does show up somewhere nearby - you can't be certain that you're the cause, because there is definitely some kind of growth mechanic around the barnacle population - it is unquestionably the case that there are more of them now than there were when they were first found. But I'm not seeing anything in their spread, beyond correlation, that suggests it's caused by, or can be influenced by, human - i.e. gamer - involvement.
IMHO the barnacle explosion is due to something else that's being modelled/controlled separately from behind the the Wizard's curtain - because 'the nebulae where barnacles are found relates to their origin'. Therefore it's that same condition in these nebulae which give rise to an increase in the population, because it's that's the reason they're there in the first place. Finally, from a behind-the-curtain pragmatic standpoint - if there is already one established way for the barnacle population to grow - i.e. bounded procedural generation - then why program in a second one?
I hope you take this as meant: scepticism based on the facts as I see them only, not on personalities. I like reading your posts, and I love the vision you promote. I hope I am proven wrong in my scepticism, but right now I can't see any way to prove a successful outcome for this, I'm sorry.
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Actually, I was thinking that the UP shell might only be light minutes across, rather than light years. Even at that size, if it is only sparsely populated it would still be very difficult to find. Especially if nobody's looking!
And I'd be careful about putting a UA, UP and UO together; it could summon our Lord and destroyer, the great and mighty Barnacthulhu.
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