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

[djadjok]

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;

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!

Oh, on page 30 of this thread I have already posted an illustrative screenshot from the earlier days of the "old-good true procedural Horizons".
However this have no chances to stop this ongoing discussion =))))

EDIT: Imgur says that I've uploaded this image 4 years ago - so the screenshot was not taken during the "first week of Horizons official release", but more than a year after...

 

[dawud]

personally i am searching for real mountains for days now
all i found was either smoth surfaces with fake-shadows to imitate depth or those small wavy hills, that are everwhere now
really sad to see what that new planet-tech really is.. a fasade thats repeptitive and gives no posibility of variations other than color.

 

[Just]

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.

I agree that it's hard to draw very reliable conclusions from interviews with Dr. Ross.
But what the hell, if it's about putting the pressure on FD to make things better any fragment is an eligible and demands legitimizing citation

 

[varonica]

personally i am searching for real mountains for days now
all i found was either smoth surfaces with fake-shadows to imitate depth or those small wavy hills, that are everwhere now
really sad to see what that new planet-tech really is.. a fasade thats repeptitive and gives no posibility of variations other than color.

There were certainly mountains in Alpha, I posted some screenshots of me climbing some, but the roughness of the terrain was adjusted to give the SRV complainers smoother plains to drive on, I can't help but think a lot of the current problems stem from last minute changes made to please a few people;

 

[dawud]

Well, that loud minority also killed the (really not good) exploration mini-game.
But i really do not care how and why.. i just want our planest to have Mountains, Cliffs and Canyons and not just those tiny bumps.

Edit\
thats some weird ass screenshot

 

[joaotextor]

I don't understand why the new tech even has repeating textures, whereas Horizons didn't (or at least it was so subtle noone picked up on it)? Are they using tiles, whereas they didn't before? I've seen so much complex geometry in Horizons (like that SUPER craggy planet during DW2) yet have never seen anything like this -

View attachment 232143

Is it just the tech not working properly, or is this going to be it?

Wow....this is so ugly!!

 

[dannysquid]

Well, that loud minority also killed the (really not good) exploration mini-game.
But i really do not care how and why.. i just want our planest to have Mountains, Cliffs and Canyons and not just those tiny bumps.

Edit\
thats some weird screenshot

I think I've seen some pretty good mountains (maybe I'm just imagining it). We were told they were still working on mountains and canyons and they'd come on release, but I don't think they have. At least I haven't seen any good canyons so far. I think they just ran out of time.

I'm a bit torn about people wanting Horizons-style canyons, because a lot of them looked ridiculous (although that was partly the ice cream colour schemes). If they could come up with something similar but a lot craggier with better edges, I'd be delighted.

 

[Just]

personally i am searching for real mountains for days now
all i found was either smoth surfaces with fake-shadows to imitate depth or those small wavy hills, that are everwhere now
really sad to see what that new planet-tech really is.. a fasade thats repeptitive and gives no posibility of variations other than color.

New tech definitely can generate uneven and rough terrain, I have already found some nice looking examples.
Now the question is:
are all those boring, flat and "wet plastic" surfaced planets that we usually find just a failed usage of new tech
or maybe
we have to put some effort in searching for interesting landscapes?
As usual, there will be no answer to this question from FD,
until they will have changes ready and will include them in some update.
They usually comment on such subject only then, leaving community confused for long time.

(notice that I am 47 km over ground level, it gives some perspective on the size of those ground features)

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

I think I've seen some pretty good mountains (maybe I'm just imagining it). We were told they were still working on mountains and canyons and they'd come on release, but I don't think they have. At least I haven't seen any good canyons so far. I think they just ran out of time.

I'm a bit torn about people wanting Horizons-style canyons, because a lot of them looked ridiculous (although that was partly the ice cream colour schemes). If they could come up with something similar but a lot craggier with better edges, I'd be delighted.

There are no canyons, everything is flat... Not...

OK, a bit of bait to catch the fishes.. Deriso (Colonia) - a few minutes ago - and I'm departing the station for my FC. The body in front of me is non-atmo landable. Quick exit to Horizons: A few canyons... Odyssey: Vaguely interesting - I'll take a peek at that big scar top left... Quick...

forums.frontier.co.uk

But I know what you're going to say: It's not Horizons!

I agree with you in that some of the things we had in Horizons were ridiculous, but once they put them in there, they could not take them out... like that moon that orbited so quickly you could sit there and watch it do a full orbit in 2 minutes... Way below the Roche limit, but because it got in there, and got attention, they left it in.

 

[InertFurry]

I think I've seen some pretty good mountains (maybe I'm just imagining it). We were told they were still working on mountains and canyons and they'd come on release, but I don't think they have. At least I haven't seen any good canyons so far. I think they just ran out of time.

Release is still a ways off, at least development-side. A release is rarely a development decision in games owned by a corporation. They likely had a sudden directive to release far before they were prepared and before they were previously told they'd be forced to release.

 

[Phoenix195]

New exploration goal - find screenshots to debunk the thread

Emergent gameplay ftw

 

[InertFurry]

New exploration goal - find screenshots to debunk the thread

Emergent gameplay ftw

You're going to have to sift.

 

[dannysquid]

Release is still a ways off, at least development-side. A release is rarely a development decision in games owned by a corporation. They likely had a sudden directive to release far before they were prepared and before they were previously told they'd be forced to release.

I think the way these things work is that everybody is miles behind schedule and the manager is asked "can we release on time?" and he says "yes" in the hope that reality can be bent to his will, and in some cases it simply can't. Particularly during lockdown where nobody has a clear idea of how anybody is really doing with their workload and what terrible things might be going on in people's lives when zoom isn't switched on.

 

[varonica]

Well, that loud minority also killed the (really not good) exploration mini-game.
But i really do not care how and why.. i just want our planest to have Mountains, Cliffs and Canyons and not just those tiny bumps.

Edit\
thats some weird screenshot

That's me halfway up the mountain, stopped on a little ledge just to show how steep it was!

 

[who?]

That's me halfway up the mountain, stopped on a little ledge just to show how steep it was!

Wait... how do we know it's not you planking on a very small hill, turned 90 degrees?

 

[Conflictx]

There were certainly mountains in Alpha, I posted some screenshots of me climbing some, but the roughness of the terrain was adjusted to give the SRV complainers smoother plains to drive on, I can't help but think a lot of the current problems stem from last minute changes made to please a few people;

There are planets with a lot of mountain-like features. The planet not being spherical here, is like Olympus Mons on Mars being a gigantic Volcano you can barely see the difference in height if you're there. Even if there are flaws in the generation of planets, the possibility is there at the moment.

 

[CMDR Crustatious Cornelius Pig]

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;

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!

^^THIS^^

 

[Frankymole]

I had a weird thing today where in my continuing tests of flying very quickly at low altitude, I was getting the thing I had before where the landscape became lower resolution the further I went, eventually being a sort of rolling Zarch landscape with huge patchwork squares for textures (not quick enough on the F10 to show this, but will try again)

Patchwork like this?

 

[Bomba Luigi]

If the new planet tech is currently borked and needs fixing I'm totaly fine with this, but unless I'm missing something FD has not said they will try to fix it, or that anything is wrong with it at all.

 

[tomimt]

This is the most common issue with planet textures that has been bothering me since Odyssey launched. It doesn't seem to be tied on quality settings either, as I get the same messed up textures on all quality settings.

https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/35818