Any Consensus on New Odyssey Planets?

[CMDR_Halceon]

Sometimes explorer here.

During the alpha, I felt that I saw mostly good reviews of new planets, but perhaps tinged by the expectation that it would get even better.

Now I feel that I'm seeing negative reviews on DD of the change to planets, but I'm not sure if they're from people who've yet seen a wide enough variety.

I was curious if there is any consensus yet among explorers who've seen more new planets about whether the changes are for the better.

My experience is that thought "ooh, that's pretty" with the new planet tech, but that's what I used to say as well. I haven't been able to carve out the time yet to get a more holistic view.

 

[Codger]

Like the rest of the release, planets are buggy. Some are awesome, some are just broken. Most are somewhere in between.

So it's hard to say what they're going to be like once all this mess is sorted.

 

[marx]

Well, I've been going around and logging new life left and right, which meant visiting a good number of planets so far.

My opinion is that the changes from the alpha to the beta (which is officially called the launch) that we have now were good. Terrain seems more varied, biomes somewhat easier to tell apart, we have deeper parts too now, and the skies look better. However, there were some oddballs, so I guess there will be further changes as the beta progresses.

 

[CMDR_Halceon]

Thanks for the replies. I'm weighing what to do with my second account. This is helpful.

 

[roryclague]

It seems like some of the parameters that led to the planets having a lot of varied terrain were altered between the alpha and release builds, probably as part of an optimisation pass. A lot of people were also complaining about rough terrain in the alpha making their SRVs difficult to drive. But even on flat surfaces the SRV drive assist seems more like a toggle and less like a rheostat now. So something else besides the terrain is going on with the SRV. But there might also be some bugs in the textures for planets that popped up in the change. I’m confident that planets aren’t in their finished form. They really did look better in the alpha. They seem to have turned down the rock scatter, the noise that created jagged, bumpy surfaces, and the fog effects that made distant mountains and crater rims look distant. Although the last item seems to come and go, sometimes depending on where the camera is pointed. A jarring phenomenon.