New Planet Tech is KILLER of Exploration (all terrain is tiling/repeating/not procedural/random)

Just

Just
Allin said:
Funny that most people here defending the new tile system argue WHAT COULD BE vs what IS.
(...)
Click to expand...
When you think about it, both points of view are based on some assumptions.

One side is claiming, that what we currently have is more or less what current tech is capable of
Other side is claiming, that current iteration of planetary tech is simply broken/unfinished

In other angle:
First are assumming, that planetary tech of EDO is actually working as intended, in contrast to the whole rest of the game (stability, performance, multiplayer etc)

Second "team" assumes, that planetary tech, is in the same or even worse state then all core parts of game I have mentioned already, because it's just "aesthetics layer" and as such it was not prioritized in rushed release of the game

I just find second option more plausible, but it's of course totally subjective. It's just good to really know what your opinion is implicating, therefore I find this discussion very useful for the community :)
 

CMDR Crustatious Cornelius Pig

CMDR Crustatious Cornelius Pig
Moochan said:
You knew what I meant, but I'll say it explicitly that what you said is what I meant. Sometimes I wonder why everyone is foaming at the mouth to be as pedantic as possible.

I have edited my original post to use more accurate language.
Click to expand...
I agree with you, people have their opinions, and darn it everyone is going to hear all of them. :D

note, replace hear with read. lol
 

Gwallt

Gwallt
Just said:
When you think about it, both points of view are based on some assumptions.

One side is claiming, that what we currently have is more or less what current tech is capable of
Other side is claiming, that current iteration of planetary tech is simply broken/unfinished

In other angle:
First are assumming, that planetary tech of EDO is actually working as intended, in contrast to the whole rest of the game (stability, performance, multiplayer etc)

Second "team" assumes, that planetary tech, is in the same or even worse state then all core parts of game I have mentioned already, because it's just "aesthetics layer" and as such it was not prioritized in rushed release of the game

I just find second option more plausible, but it's of course totally subjective. It's just good to really know what your opinion is implicating, therefore I find this discussion very useful for the community :)
Click to expand...
Spot on again. Actually, I'm not making those assumptions - at least, not in my head! I don't know if it's broken, or as intended - though I sincerely hope the "tiling" effect in some of the images here isn't as intended!

I think the "second team" as you call it is stressed because it's more than the aesthetic layer. Many players find their enjoyment of the game in exploring the geological features of planets - and canyon hooning, as they call it. Exploration, racing, SRV high-jump competitions and many other activities rely on the planet generation system to generate geology that is suitable for these activities, or at least, that makes these activities interesting. So while FDev have a huge amount on their plate at the moment, and the last thing I for one want is to further stress the devs, it is, as you say, important to have these conversations. Because this is more than just visual fluff - for some people e.g. @Sanderling - the new system has greatly undermined their enjoyment of the game.

Personally, I think the whole thing was rushed and that explains the curious use of "alpha" to describe the testing phase. It really was an alpha. We're now in the beta. That's OK by me, and makes this thread part of the beta testing discussion. I'm very comfortable with that view of the current state of affairs, and will continue to contribute my feedback :)
 

CMDR Sheehy

CMDR Sheehy
Are we talking Infinite Monkey Theorem here? Is it not likely, no matter how randomly you seed your procedures, you are going to end up with this somewhere in the world. The Garden Tomb in Jerusalem is there because a British man looked from the walls and saw a pattern in the cliff opposite that looked like a skull. He started digging and found an unfinished tomb, a cistern and a wine press and next thing you have a location that 'might' be the place...

The more we point this out, the easier we are going to see the monkey's pattern? So simply discussing the issue actually makes the problem seem worse because we then go out and look intensely for something that we would not otherwise even consider!
 

Gwallt

Gwallt
anthonycsheehy said:
Are we talking Infinite Monkey Theorem here? Is it not likely, no matter how randomly you seed your procedures, you are going to end up with this somewhere in the world. The Garden Tomb in Jerusalem is there because a British man looked from the walls and saw a pattern in the cliff opposite that looked like a skull. He started digging and found an unfinished tomb, a cistern and a wine press and next thing you have a location that 'might' be the place...

The more we point this out, the easier we are going to see the monkey's pattern? So simply discussing the issue actually makes the problem seem worse because we then go out and look intensely for something that we would not otherwise even consider!
Click to expand...
True - but if we don't discuss it, the more egregious examples will not be dealt with as the devs will assume it's not a problem for most players. And some examples are impossible to miss, look at some of the pics earlier in the thread!
 

fourrunes

F
anthonycsheehy said:
Are we talking Infinite Monkey Theorem here? Is it not likely, no matter how randomly you seed your procedures, you are going to end up with this somewhere in the world. The Garden Tomb in Jerusalem is there because a British man looked from the walls and saw a pattern in the cliff opposite that looked like a skull. He started digging and found an unfinished tomb, a cistern and a wine press and next thing you have a location that 'might' be the place...

The more we point this out, the easier we are going to see the monkey's pattern? So simply discussing the issue actually makes the problem seem worse because we then go out and look intensely for something that we would not otherwise even consider!
Click to expand...
But it's human nature! are you offering the blue pill here?
This was not an issue in Horizons,. Yes, there were other issues but not this one.
 

Mack Winston

Mack Winston
Sakashiro said:
It's PRNG. Deterministic, but still random numbers. So what?
Click to expand...

NO, it's absolutely not, and it is a reductio ad absurdum argument to claim that it is.

A PRNG (pseudo random number generator) is indeed an algorithm, that with a given seed, will produce a deterministic result. However, the design behind a good PRNG is to ensure that if you don't know the seed, it is very hard (as in, impractical) to determine the upcoming sequence of numbers at any scale.

The Elite Dangerous procedural generator is not like this. While there are almost certainly peturbations put into the system by a PRNG, the overarching procedural system provides results that are at many scales something that is predictable. For instance, the content of a system will be determined in part from its position in the galaxy, this in turn will inform the procedural generator what kind of bodies to generate, and where to generate, which in turn determines what those bodies may be like. See Dr. Ross's video from a couple of years ago about how they run a simulation to create the procedural star systems we see.

While PRNG is undoubtedly used for at least some of the peturbations we might find on a Horizons planet surface, this doesn't mean the whole system is a PRNG. Arguing that because a PRNG is deterministic, and Elite's procedural generation is deterministic, means that they are the same kind of things is a bit like arguing "My dog has four legs, a cat has four legs, therefore my dog is a cat".
 

dannysquid

dannysquid
Allin said:
Which is nonsense, because contrary to the use of pre-existing stencils (that are the same by definition) even if the procedural generation inevitably would reach some point of similarity in the results due to the limitation of the script, chances of it being EXACTLY the same on a sample of Elite's planet surface size are infinitesimally smaller than 1:400.000.000.000
Click to expand...
I don't think it matters how it's done as long as it works. It doesn't work at the moment, but it's tweaks needed rather than going back to Horizons. I do worry that the new system is asking more of the shaders than they're able to deliver, but I guess we'll soon find out!
 

varonica

varonica
dannysquid said:
I don't think it matters how it's done as long as it works. It doesn't work at the moment, but it's tweaks needed rather than going back to Horizons. I do worry that the new system is asking more of the shaders than they're able to deliver, but I guess we'll soon find out!
Click to expand...

Thought it was about time I should pop in here. As an explorer who has been around since Horizons dropped I read this thread with many players demanding to return to the nirvana of Horizons planetary generation due to a tiling but in Odyssey as if Horizons is some sort of miracle solution, but you know, it didn't magically start out that way, many months into Horizons deployment we were getting stuff like this;

lkqWyLD.png


It didn't fix itself, and rolling back to Horizons planetary tech won't help and will break a lot of thing that now rely on the new planetary tech. It's only been a week, this thread is way over the top in drama and hyperbole, give them a chance to fix it!
 

Allin

A
dannysquid said:
I don't think it matters how it's done as long as it works.
Click to expand...

By all means, if anything I would prefer the new state of planets to work and include level of terrain variety at least on par with Horizons on a regular basis (and not someone hunting screenshots for day finding 1 planet in a day worth showing and tons of dusk/dawn screenshots that hide everything else). New tech surely looks CAPABLE of doing great things, not denying that.

I'm not doing "let's get back to the old tech" at all. My personal "rage" comes from the difference between what we had and what was supposed to be/was delivered and charged for, nothing else.

varonica said:
Thought it was about time I should pop in here. As an explorer who has been around since Horizons dropped I read this thread with many players demanding to return to the nirvana of Horizons planetary generation due to a tiling but in Odyssey as if Horizons is some sort of miracle solution, but you know, it didn't magically start out that way, many months into Horizons deployment we were getting stuff like this
Click to expand...

As much as you indeed have a point it is important to remember that they BROKE their own tech mid-horizons leading to the crater copy galore and brownificatins of planets.

I did about 10 bug reports one after another, refusing to accept QA-Mitch (that has a years long history of misunderstanding my tickets, not to my fault) that the brownballs are fine and working as intended.

Also, isn't implying and making an argument around it that we want to return to either initial or brownified versions of the tech a bit dishonest in itself? I'm sure it is safe to assume that people talk about the up to date engine.
 
Last edited:

Ereshkigal2

E
Just said:
And pressure can be put by citing Dr.Ross "pre release promises",
like the one about variety above:

"Dr. Ross promised more variety, but we are noticing more repetitions instead. You have to fix it because it's false advertising."

This is CURRENTLY a fact and it does not matter who of us is right about the exact cause of this state.
Click to expand...
I would note that I think there is more variety on a single planetary surface - whether that was the context of the quote I'm not sure. But I have driven across planets where I transition from smooth desert to rocky outcrops to more chaotic terrain, in a relatively short drive.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom