Planetary Tech with Dr Kay Ross: Recap
- Thread starter Zac Cocken
- Start date
Not since the FSS was introduced. My interest in realistic lighting is tied directly into my interest in exploring the galaxy. If I'm running cargo to a station with three suns for a CG, then I'm not thinking about lighting as much. But when I land on a newly discovered world (especially come Odyssey), the vista (which is painted by the lighting) takes top priority. So in a game where I can easily scan dozens of unexplored systems in an hour, looking for those scenic vistas, I can easily pick and chose between which systems I want to further explore and which I just want to "bag and tag" using the FSS and then move on.
Fair enough.
Now you mention those Odyssey worlds, I wonder if the performance hit of multiple light sources the Q&A mentions happens with the new light scattering and enhanced materials:
If you think about the number of days in real life that earth experiences aurorae though. And the fact it needs particles from the star to be emitted too. So without things like, is it coronal mass ejections? Without those being coded in, we wouldn't get aurorae anyway, regardless of atmosphere type
I think this is sort of a misconception that things happening in the game need to have the real world causality chain coded in. I bet there won't be planetary surface temperature and moisture variations modeled for the fog either.
I think they mean some light effects, like wind and dust at best. The Oddissey planets have tenous atmosphere.
I don't even expect full scale dust storms.
Need? No. Likely to? Maybe?
They created a life size realtime milky way galaxy, with a pretty decent Newtonian physics engine, and got the distribution of elements as accurate as possible according to modern science, to work out what planets would orbit what, at what distance, at what speed, and of which colours and temperatures.
Most of that has no bearing on gameplay, especially given that 99% of systems in the game nobody has ever been to, ever. And I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the vast majority of players wouldn't notice if a planet was a bit too cratered for it's position within a system, or it's colouration was inconsistent with science. That doesn't stop the developers from being as realistic as they are. I heard Frontier also consulted a bunch of scientists as the realistic timescale for when technologies would feasibly be developed. Hence lack of things like artificial gravity.
I'm not saying they shouldn't create aurorae. Some folks here are debating the atmospheric compositions that may or may not allow aurorae to happen. I'm simply adding in an extra element to the discussion. The earth in real life can have aurorae. That doesn't mean on any day it will.
Perhaps they'll add in a system state. Stellar storm. Maybe it'll be rare. And it may have no affect on players and be purely æsthetics, like a lot of the details in this game are.
As for planetary surface temperature day vs night side. To start with that's not a thing I imagine will be there. It might be added later on. It might not.
There's a large number of aspects of the game that they had no need to create, and yet still do so. Some players don't care either way, some players really love that realism
And on the other hand you have stuff like permanently stable orbits, completely fantasy stuff like lagrange clouds with permanent lightning occurence and volcanic activity just kinda being there in a tightly knitted POI clump.
Not saying that striving for realism isn't a good thing, but seems bit of a stretch to say that they need modeled coronal activity to have auroras, or that the game is so realistic it would need to have auroras happening only rarely (looking at you, space lightning).
Last edited:
And now when we are on the subject, here's a tidbit, quoting Finnish Meteorological Institute (translation mine):
"On Finnish territory aurora borealis are seen most often in Northern Lapland on Kilpisjärvi latitude. When the sky is clear during the dark time, aurorae are detected there approximately three nights out of four (75%). In Utsjoki Lapland this figure is about 10% lower. 100% occurence (auroras seen every night) is achieved on the coast of the Arctic Ocean in northern Norway."
jeebus - they just didn't do Auroras. Move on. There was me thinking there would mainly be gripes about caves 
She also said that existing landscapes are impossible to reproduce with the new version. if the geographical information is indeed different it will be funny to see horizons and odyssey players instancing together on a rocky planet
It's been confirmed that all old Horizons planets will be getting the same update as the new Odyssey planets, so there will be no difference between a Horizon player and an Odyssey player if they are both together on a Horizon's planet, they will be identical.
It's really not a discussion about the game absolutely needing to have auroras, or at least that's not what I'm arguing. Lack of auroras is an insignificant detail compared to my hunch that the weather effects will be quite boring.
I hate to mention it, but No Man's Sky has set the bar quite high for planetary terrain with the recent updates.
Yet what could really be stunning is the geome diversity being bound to geographical areas of a planet, plus binding a planets geography to it's physical features (like gravity, being tidally locked etc.). And I am sure the audio and graphics immersion itself will be great ...
Yet what could really be stunning is the geome diversity being bound to geographical areas of a planet, plus binding a planets geography to it's physical features (like gravity, being tidally locked etc.). And I am sure the audio and graphics immersion itself will be great ...
Really?
I took NMS for a spin few months ago, so don't know if they have updated after that, but I found it rather disappointing that NMS planets don't actually have any sort of geological consistency - geography doesn't seem to truly exist. For instance there seems to be no actual mountain ranges, craters, poles, rivers or such, but the terrain just like, undulates as an uniform procedurally generated carpet of planetary biome.
Not sure if you are saying Lagrange clouds are fantasy, or those with lightning are, but the earth does have Kordylewsky clouds at our Lagrange 4 and Lagrange 5 points. As for lightning? 
hmmm, I mean I can't see that being likely. Low density of particles is my guess for why wouldn't be likely.
But yeah I'm more bummed out by lack of caves, as we have "caves" at Thargoid surface sites. And didn't she say they'd sorted volcanism to be more realistic with Odyssey? Rather than the relative Hodgepodge it is. For the most part, I'm not that overly fussed with the realism of the science as it is a game primarily, but I'm very happy with the realism they have done on the whole.
hmmm, I mean I can't see that being likely. Low density of particles is my guess for why wouldn't be likely. But yeah I'm more bummed out by lack of caves, as we have "caves" at Thargoid surface sites. And didn't she say they'd sorted volcanism to be more realistic with Odyssey? Rather than the relative Hodgepodge it is. For the most part, I'm not that overly fussed with the realism of the science as it is a game primarily, but I'm very happy with the realism they have done on the whole.
The first statement is not the same thing as the latter assumption (unless the latter was a specific statement too), explecially considering this answer:
However i think you're right afterall and that was just poor wording, and they will not put horizons and odissey players on separate instances on horizons' planets because horizons players didn't get the tech upgrade (i see unrealistic for them to maintain both systems)
Last edited:
The ones with lightning are absolutely fantasy. You also actually wouldn't see the clouds when inside them (then again, nebulae wouldn't look like anything in the game when you are inside them, so...). But it's a game. Merely wanted to point out that there already several things in the game that aren't a causal result of some underlying mechanism.Not sure if you are saying Lagrange clouds are fantasy, or those with lightning are, but the earth does have Kordylewsky clouds at our Lagrange 4 and Lagrange 5 points. As for lightning?
pls help meh i cant figure out how to make a friken forum
I am not sure where you are going with this because it has no bearing on the issue at all. A Horizons console player and a Odyssey PC player cannot be on the same body together at all, so console players not getting the update doesn't matter at all, all console players will still be experiencing Horizons planetary tech together, all PC players will be experiencing Odyssey planetary tech together and at the moment never the two shall meet!
No, it's quite clear and not poorly worded at all, console players won't get Odyssey the same time as PC players, they will still be playing Horizons and experiencing the Horizons planetary tech. There's no issue maintaining both systems because they are irrelevant to the galaxy itself. FDEV maintain the galaxy model, terrain is generated on the players hardware, consoles will use the Horizons tech to generate planetary surfaces, PC's will use the Odyssey tech to generate planetary surfaces. All players on each separate platform will see identical surfaces to other players on the same platform, there is no cross play so it will never happen that a player using Horizons tech will be in the same instance as a player using Odyssey tech.