Biological POIs - Procedural or Placed?

[5AnaHalfHatsize]

Just wondering if anyone knows the mechanism behind the biological POIs like Brain Trees etc?

Are they generated as part of the Stellar Forge engine or are they specifically placed by the devs?

The only two places I've ever found them so far is on a planet that had a guardian site on it and the other one was a space-dongle quite near the bubble.

To me so far it feels like they've been arranged.

But have Frontier given any explanations? Or are there any theories out there?

 

[Stealthie]

I suspect they're procedural, purely based on the fact that I've seen some of them in really halfassed positions (half a field of brain-trees stuck to the wall of a canyon, for example).
If they were hand-placed, I'd assume they'd always be elegantly positioned.

 

[Riverside]

There are rules, the codex shows these and most biological POIs are regional. BrainTrees appear in systems near Guardian stuff. it may be that the Guardian sites are hand placed and some biological POIs may be hand placed for aesthetic or other reasons.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

I suspect they're procedural, purely based on the fact that I've seen some of them in really halfassed positions (half a field of brain-trees stuck to the wall of a canyon, for example).
If they were hand-placed, I'd assume they'd always be elegantly positioned.

Depends if you're the person who has to hand place 20 billion of those sites around the galaxy. After the first million I'd be putting them in some pretty ropey places too.

 

[5AnaHalfHatsize]

I suspect they're procedural, purely based on the fact that I've seen some of them in really halfassed positions (half a field of brain-trees stuck to the wall of a canyon, for example).
If they were hand-placed, I'd assume they'd always be elegantly positioned.

Not sure that logic stands, they may have tools to sprinkle "fairly dust" on a particular planet, but where the POIs appear is still procedural, or perhaps just kludgey.

There's always a number of biological sites that appear on a given planet and I don't think they ever place every single tree by hand.

 

[Thatchinho]

As a general rule, they're automatically placed not hand placed. (Just based on sheer numbers.) There might obviously be a few hand placed (or hand removed) examples on top of that.

Its not clear where the placement is actually done (i.e. whether it's done as part of the planetary generation, or whether the planetary generation is done and then the biologicals placed at that point.)

There's factors which determine which systems/bodies they appear on, and also factors which determine where/how many on a body. Some of those factors are known, some aren't (talking from a player side perspective, obviously).

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Some of the placement rules are probably more specifically written than others, as well. It's not a simple "yes they decided / no they didn't" question.

For example, many regions seems to have their own group of molluscs, that appear in one nebula in that region, in a few different species. In those cases it might not be random which nebula they appear in - but which specific systems they appear in is probably just set by the generation rules.

So, to take an example of the Umbrella Molluscs.

They exist: Frontier direct decision (obviously, since they had to model and animate them)
They're in Inner Scutum Centaurus: almost certainly a Frontier decision to put them here rather than a different type of mollusc
They're specifically in the Eol Prou (Colonia) Nebula: I'm pretty certain this one was a Frontier decision ... but some of the other mollusc species they might have let the game pick the nebula based on some basic constraints.
They're specifically in system X: This is almost certainly determined procedurally based on the location rules for the species (many of which can be read in the Codex) ... though it's possible that some of those rules were set up so that specific systems would be on the eligible list
They're at space/planet coordinates X,Y,Z: Definitely procedural.

In general I'd expect Thargoid/Guardian things to be in more specifically-chosen places than others.

 

[Kaocraft]

It's entirely possible that the systems they appear in (and maybe even the specific planets) are chosen by a person, but it's extremely unlikely that the art assets themselves (the brain trees, etc) are hand placed.

 

[Chaparral]

The procedural seed defines the positions, but the positions are fixed for all players.

 

[DNA-Decay]

The pumpkin patches in the California Nebula are hand placed.
Maybe not all of them, but definitely some of them.

Also maybe not where they are on a body, but that this body has them.

There was some sort of set up for some story out there. But the assets became integrated for procedural generation.
I think that story got shelved, certainly it didn’t get triggered into activity yet.
Lots of barnacles and bases next to biologicals, but no Thargoids.