Possibly.
I have read much less of his work and apart from bits of The Drowned World remember none of it.
Is it just me, or is FDev changing something in E.D.?
- Thread starter TLY400
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I have read much less of his work and apart from bits of The Drowned World remember none of it.
Well...
The Stellar Forge certainly supports time-based modifications (we do have orbits and movement after all). ...and the Forge could be amended to add additional time-based features (or other calculable static additions). Terrain generation (as you point out) certainly was one of those things...
Just sayin'...
Commanders, I know, it's a video of the SC "tech demo", but do you think that someday we could see something like this, for example flying the Panther Clipper MK2 in our favorite title?
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw8T715ob8Y
Every gaming forum is inhabited with AAA developers these days, it would appear. With intimate knowledge of every gaming engine in existence, willing to share their immense knowledge with all & sundry...
5 fps...
I also think it would be quite complicated overall, given the numerous systems it incorporates and the potential limitations of the Cobra engine and what that would mean in terms of frame rates, at least at that level of detail, considering that it's also quite unlikely they'll incorporate any more modern DLSS or FSR technology. The only thing I don't know is if they could do it as a general upgrade of main systems like SOL, now that after the victory over the Thargoid attack, in the midst of reconstruction they'll release more detailed planets, with more infrastructure, or with more detailed ven if it were in the form of DLC.
Ok the thing is, Stellar Forge doesn't change when creating the galaxy, every time you run it, it will generate the same planets with the same stats, atmospheric pressure, mineral composition, temperature and etc, that is absolutely true, the galaxy doesn't change, but here's the thing, the Stellar Forge doesn't control planetary generation, that's a separate process, some planets in the galaxy don't even have surfaces yet. Before thin atmospheric planets were released with Odyssey they also didn't have surfaces, that generation process was added when Odyssey was released.
Fdev can, if they desire, update the planetary gen for planets that are not yet landable to start giving them surfaces and other features like clouds and etc, and still keep them non-landable. Now I am not saying they have done that, as far as I have seen in my exploring there have been no changes, but the Stellar Forge is a separate process to planetary generation. The Stellar Forge generates the data for the planets, it doesn't control what is done with that data.
Here is an exampe of FDEV updating planetary generation without altering the Stellar Forge;
This is what small planets looked like in the early days when I first started playing:
The closer to the minimum possible radius they approached the rounder they became because I am assuming the planetary mesh used at the time couldn't handle curves smaller than a certain radius.
This is what they look like now, same data, same planet:
All nice and bumpy and knobbly. So the same data is used to generate the planets, but the way that data is applied can be changed by FDEV independent of the Stellar Forge. If they make more planets landable that's probably when they decide how they will look to us players, I can't imagine them doing it now and haven't seen any evidence of it happening.
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I think that was my point - to change bodies, the generation parameters of the Stellar Forge need to be altered and the generation part of the Stellar Forge needs to be re-run (which happened when Odyssey was released). The state we have now is fixed unless they rerun the galaxy with a different generation ruleset.
Yes, but this happened when they re-ran the galaxy generation for Odyssey, right? And Odyssey changed the terrain generating rulesets. This is why paces like Pomeche 2C and Mount Neverest "disappeared".Here is an exampe of FDEV updating planetary generation without altering the Stellar Forge;
This is what small planets looked like in the early days when I first started playing:
The closer to the minimum possible radius they approached the rounder they became because I am assuming the planetary mesh used at the time couldn't handle curves smaller than a certain radius.
This is what they look like now, same data, same planet:
All nice and bumpy and knobbly. So the same data is used to generate the planets, but the way that data is applied can be changed by FDEV independent of the Stellar Forge. If they make more planets landable that's probably when they decide how they will look to us players, I can't imagine them doing it now and haven't seen any evidence of it happening.
I think the point being made by @varonica (correctly, I believe) is that the Stellar Forge is about the star generation, not the planetary body generation, so when EDO came along, they didn't reroll the whole galaxy, just the planets. So yes, planetary surface features changed.
I think that is semantics. The Stellar Forge generates and runs the whole galaxy, with a whole bunch of rulesets for what the galaxy contains. Doesn't matter what part needs rerunning; point is: the planets don't change dynamically.
A categorically important semantic distinction, though. -The terrain generation engine may have been replaced with a new one, but it takes the exact same "parameters" from the Stellar Forge as the old one did, and is argueably its own thing, set apart from SF, although I see nothing wrong with thinking of it as subset of it.
I am pretty sure what was talked of as: "rerolled" in one of FDev's video streams, was the finding of new placements for settlements on bodies, after that geological upheaval. (EDIT: ...with mixed results... especially in the handful cases where the location had originally been handcrafted, and tailored to fit into the terrain as it was at the time -- probably also the cause for the odd location marker that hovers kilometres up in the air, above the place.)
All as-far-as-I-reckon, of course.
I am pretty sure what was talked of as: "rerolled" in one of FDev's video streams, was the finding of new placements for settlements on bodies, after that geological upheaval. (EDIT: ...with mixed results... especially in the handful cases where the location had originally been handcrafted, and tailored to fit into the terrain as it was at the time -- probably also the cause for the odd location marker that hovers kilometres up in the air, above the place.)
All as-far-as-I-reckon, of course.
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If memory serves, during the development of EDO's 'new' landable bodies, Dr Ross mentioned that it had to be adjusted a few times before it was acceptable - remembering the very spiky terrains when the bump mapping wasn't quite right turning into just lumpy...
I'm fairly certain that on the same stream that it was mentioned that all EDO settlements were hand placed over quite a long time, which must have been fun!
I also remember some of the engineers locations being a bit odd, but can't say I've visited them enough to notice if they look right now.
Yes, I imagine it can be tricky to balance the permissable ranges with the procedural mixing of one's heightmap layers, to get results which are usually both plausible, and offering enough variety.
I suspect this statement may be one of Obi-Wan's truths... from a certain point of view...
-What I personally believe, based on my observations when doing mission to Odyssey settlements, is that there are hand-placed locators per prefabbed heighmap bitmap, but that the geographical location for the individual settlement is procedural (...although maybe with a manual "approve" tickmarking stage). This would explain why you always find yourself landing on the exact same end of the exact same canyonscape plateau, oriented the exact same way, as on numerous other planets.
What they did change after Odyssey was change the colours and (I think?) the distribution of reused shapes etc that make up the surfaces of some planets, making the planets look better. This was after release, and wasn't a regeneration of the whole galaxy as far as I remember. I think it was just one of the Odyssey updates during the period they were trying to fix performance etc.