AFAIK, FDev doesn't pay dividends.
Can find it now, but it was a throw away comment I think from Dr Kay some where that one of the problem with totally procedurally generated planets was it makes is very hard to place hand made assets on them because you have to find a flat spot then try and make the asset blend with the rest of the terrain. When its mostly hand made assets for the terrain anyway you have more control - at the cost of truly unique planets, but it does seem like the majority of players simply don't care at that.
Good for you, enjoy it now, because it's only going to get worse. I've been playing 6+ years and have 3 accounts - but there are only so many disappointing 'updates' you can take for one game before you have to accept it's not moving in a good direction, downgrading features, not bothering to fully implement others, ie no VR for on foot - I bought a VR headset just for Elite a few years ago, Elite was one of the best games to play in VR and one of the first to really do it well - now they simply don't care - like Consoles, they don't care, like players that enjoy exploration more than shooting NPC's - they simply don't care.
One side of me thinks if I every decide to start playing Elite again I'll stick to Horizons, but then it's like watching a series that you know has already been cancelled! - Odyssey adds nothing good or interesting to me.
Too much work for the 5 developers left working on ED I'm guessing
F1 and Warhammer
It's interesting, and sadly seems to indicate the limit of their engine. Voxels games have no issues with that, as they "flatten" the land when they want to pop a PoI. And can, as such, use a perfectly randomly generated terrain. Games like NMS, Empyrion, or modded space engineer. While space engineer is not randomly generated, the PoI are still randomly placed.
A sad thing being that POIs are sometimes placed in rough terrain and half buried.. 
Nah, all there is here is a forum info issue. On the matter in question Dr Ross goes on to talk about it, and explains how they can manually insert areas onto the procgen stuff, and that’s how they do things like some of the engineer sites as an example. IIRC Dr Ross actually put their face onto a planet, but it never made it into the live game.
In general, it cannot be done without wiping discoveries.
Some specific cases can be done when they do not collide with already existing stuff (like how an existing proc-gen system was converted into TRAPPIST-1).
The 64-bit overflow issue (what is it, exactly?) probably can be fixed.
Issues with Sol’s skybox (like Epsilon Orionis or Duamta) probably could be fixed, but that would be quite a lot of work (although faking luminosities just for the skybox’s sake might be much easier to do).
Cubes of stars are impossible to fix without a total reset of the galaxy.
You guys don't have any staff left, do you?
While (as I recall) Dr Kay Ross did mention that as a bonus of the new terrain generation system, it was not said to be the primary motivation behind it.
The primary motivation were severe limitations of the old system as far as terrain variety (yes, variety) and realism are concerned.
To anyone who has any clue about geology, terrain generated by the old method looks really fake.
The old system cannot generate things like erosion features.
The old system has no notion of how terrain and volcanism should be connected.
The old system makes no distinction between rocky ice bodies and icy bodies.
And so on. Some people, too, have written on the forums about things that the old system gets wrong and the new system gets right.
I do enjoy exploration more than shooting NPCs, and guess what, I like the new terrain generator a lot more than the old one — because to me, Odyssey terrain looks a lot more realistic and varied than Horizons one. Yes, sometimes I do spot repeating features, but that is nowhere as common as some people make it seem; yes, dramatic landscapes like deep canyons, which used to be common, are now rare, but they are there to be found and enjoyed.
I'm sure pre made stamps and planet pattern really helps for variety over random gen.
I've seen the "fake volcano". Seen them ? Speaking of the one that are shaped kinda like a volcano. Sometimes the hole is misaligned. It's... bad.
Or the neverending lava fountain that disappear 50cm away from it.
Or the impossibly U shaped canyons that are the bread and butter of Odyssey worlds.
If that doesn't look fake, I don't know what can.
I did geological studies. University and all. Odyssey is no better at it than Horizon. It's a different kind of suck. Geological accuracy is not a big deal to me, I know I'm one of those rare people who likes rocks and why I'm not invited to parties anymore. But you can't claim it's better^^
Heightmap can't for some, while random gen probably can. Like caves. Or anything with any kind of overhang. It's just a limitation of heightmaps. Nothing that can be done besides doing it manually.
There are things Odyssey terrain does better. There are others where it does worse.
EDIT : I don't want to be rude toward Dr Ross or imply she lied or whatever. I believe her and I think she is right. I also believe the current tech we have is NOT the one she made, at least in a "full" version. Whether it's bugged, nerfed or whatever, it's a less good version.
The planet patch we had about a year ago made it closer, but it's still not it, by some margin.
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Erie, you rock!
Nature doesn't always follow the "classic" (conical) symmetric shape from the picture books, or even like Mount Fuji.
Mount St Helens blew the side out of the mountain, not the top ..
The hole is misaligned.
Let's say - just for a moment - the next step after ED release (galaxy generated), Horizons (galaxy was regenerated) then Odyssey (galaxy re-generated again) is thicker atmospheres and a further update to Stellar Forge and the galaxy regenerated again. IF that's the case - and it is the direction of travel so far - why would spending resource on fixing a relatively minor issue in Odyssey make sense, if you know relatively soon all that work will get wiped clean by a Stellar Forge update and your bug fix get's overwritten. I can say for sure, that if it was me I would be looking to fix (minor) tiling issues during a Stellar Forge update, not in the period preceding one.
The new planet generation seems to have taken the seamlessness of a planetary system out of the equation:
Vow. Many realism. Grate artiste. Very applause.
Sorry, can't read this thread anymore. I just put the issue tracker on ignore...
Lucky you, looks like Frontier put exploration on ignore back in 2019.
Thanks for the information, the decsion and the reasoning.
This is a much better communication than one which is unclear and results in customers feeling like they are being strung alone.
Looking forward to seeing the impact of this decision in the form of performance, bug fixes and new content updates going forward.
S!
Can we have a counter to know how many surface patterns we have left to discover/tread, like there is for plants ?
To some people it is so hard to accept that other people genuinely have a different opinion that they simply assume everyone is mistaken or confused instead. If only you and I had more information surely we would see how wrong we are for enjoying EDO.
But yeah, when things change some will always prefer the old way. Tomorrow the full release of eFootball releases. The demo was the worst reviewed game in the history of steam. Can't wait for people to explain why the demo was perfect and so much better, and how konami caved to whining noobs and casual gamers.
Well they could do this and reap untold monies
Federal dropship variants demand paint justice
Its established fact that the Federal Dropship, Federal Assault Ship and Gunship are the most industrial looking bad boys of ED. Muscular and purposeful, these angular ingots of win require suitably awesome paints. So I plead, can the Eagle Camo and Crossfire (shown below) paints come to The...