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

[[VR] Merkir]

So catching up on replies to my posts, I say...

... the same restricted height limits others have complained about. That is, a limit of around 1000m, give or take. Note that I don't include atmospherics in this, as FDev appear to have optimised everything in Odyssey for atmospheric landables, at the cost of other planet types.

Then three players immediately reply showing mountains on atmospheric landables.

Seems a little disingenuous. And clearly a case of misdirection, if not downright white knighting, lol.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

So I'll repeat what I've been saying, even if it's a bit off topic. I've visited about 100 Rocky and HMC planets and my impression is that (leaving aside all the other issues) the terrain height seems to have been restricted to around 1000m, give or take. (I haven't actually measured. Perhaps some go to 2000m? I really don't know).

But here's a challenge to the atmospheric landable posters (btw, I love the atmospheric landables too - most are spectacular)...
Find a Rocky or HMC planet (not atmospheric landable) with tall mountains or deep canyons like we used to see in Horizons.

Note that I would be very glad if you found some. I want to feel some optimism that FDev can return to the types of unique and unusual terrain we had in Horizons.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

Active and powerful stars often just strip the atmosphere from planets. Especially if they don't have a magnetosphere, or a weak one. So I guess the Stellar Forge takes that into account, and those atmospherics are pretty rare.
But they are out there. Found a few and keep on searching. I also like to jump at random stars like that and hope to find atmos.

Personally I suspect that there aren't in reality many planets after all orbiting those really big stars. As they are very short lived, any planet system would have quite little time to evolve.

 

[Valorin]

So I'll repeat what I've been saying, even if it's a bit off topic. I've visited about 100 Rocky and HMC planets and my impression is that (leaving aside all the other issues) the terrain height seems to have been restricted to around 1000m, give or take. (I haven't actually measured. Perhaps some go to 2000m? I really don't know).

But here's a challenge to the atmospheric landable posters (btw, I love the atmospheric landables too - most are spectacular)...
Find a Rocky or HMC planet (not atmospheric landable) with tall mountains or deep canyons like we used to see in Horizons.

Note that I would be very glad if you found some. I want to feel some optimism that FDev can return to the types of unique and unusual terrain we had in Horizons.

Hm. I think those 1000km mountains are pretty common, but there's definitely higher ones around.
I am under the impression that planets very rarely go far below their surface level, if anything. I was in canyons about 2km deep, but even those come with a flat bottom for example.
That said, people are out there for about two weeks now. We'll see where we're at in a month.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

When it comes to the tiny horizon planets without atmo I didn't have any luck finding much, they are a big downgrade from Horizon to Ody. But I am currently on a planet where I finally found some high terrain, ridges from 6-9km high are plentyfull here alltough it has Atmosphere

Spoiler

6km

Atop a 9km peak

Also some Mountains reaching above 12km

Spoiler

Took me quite a while to find a planet with Heights like that and I'm really liking it here. But when it comes to tiny non atmospheric planets I'm not very optimistic.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

When it comes to the tiny horizon planets without atmo I didn't have any luck finding much, they are a big downgrade from Horizon to Ody. But I am currently on a planet where I finally found some high terrain, ridges from 6-9km high are plentyfull here alltough it has Atmosphere

Took me quite a while to find a planet with Heights like that and I'm really liking it here. But when it comes to tiny non atmospheric planets I'm not very optimistic.

This is more evidence for what I've been saying so far. Atmospheric planets seem to have the necessary tech for decent mountains (and canyons?) but not so for Rocky and HMC non-atmospherics. Again, I'll be very happy if someone finds some.

Back on thread topic, although atmospheric planets are better in other ways, they still have the "repeating tile" issue, the same as non-atmospherics.

 

[Valorin]

When it comes to the tiny horizon planets without atmo I didn't have any luck finding much, they are a big downgrade from Horizon to Ody.

What do you mean? Potato moons?

 

[Viajero]

I've come back with another comparison. I mentioned the loss of Taylor Keep before. That was a beautiful INRA base in a crater, in a crater, between the central pillar in the crater.

I've just gone to check out a Guardian Site in Vela Dark Region JS-T b3-0, planet A 3 and it had the guardian site set in the most incredible location, with the circle overlooking the vast terrain much lower:

Horizons:

Horizons:

And here is the same location in Odyssey. To no surprise it looks like every other planet:

Wow... Just wow...

I have missed much of the thread so apologies if discussed already. Dr Ross mentioned in some of her appearances on stream that the new tech was more realistic in the particular aspect of irregularities / heights based on mass. I.e. planets with larger mass would be flatter due to gravity effects over time than (presumably) planets with lower mass. Have you tried to check if smaller planets or even potato ones look as flat as larger ones? I am thinking also about the "hooning" crowd.

 

[Valorin]

I have missed much of the thread so apologies if discussed already. Dr Ross mentioned in some of her appearances on stream that the new tech was more realistic in the particular aspect of irregularities / heights based on mass. I.e. planets with larger mass would be flatter due to gravity effects over time than planets with lower mass. Have you tried to check if smaller planets or even potato ones look as flat as larger ones? I am thinking also about the "hooning" crowd.

I did actually. Many low-gravity worlds are a lot more bumpy than high G ones.
Here's a more extreme example:

Spoiler: Bumpy world

On some bigger worlds there are also areas where the crust is broken up which also comes with a lot of up and downs.
I didn't measure any mountains though. I just thought it looks cool and is great for flying around in.

 

[Nerix]

So I'll repeat what I've been saying, even if it's a bit off topic. I've visited about 100 Rocky and HMC planets and my impression is that (leaving aside all the other issues) the terrain height seems to have been restricted to around 1000m, give or take. (I haven't actually measured. Perhaps some go to 2000m? I really don't know).

But here's a challenge to the atmospheric landable posters (btw, I love the atmospheric landables too - most are spectacular)...
Find a Rocky or HMC planet (not atmospheric landable) with tall mountains or deep canyons like we used to see in Horizons.

Note that I would be very glad if you found some. I want to feel some optimism that FDev can return to the types of unique and unusual terrain we had in Horizons.

In the latest Supercruise News Arthur stated, that there are planets like Pomeche out there but that they haven't been found yet. I don't know if that is true in a literal sense, but at least there is much more in that regard than what we found so far. So let's keep on searching.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

This is more evidence for what I've been saying so far. Atmospheric planets seem to have the necessary tech for decent mountains (and canyons?) but not so for Rocky and HMC non-atmospherics. Again, I'll be very happy if someone finds some.

Back on thread topic, although atmospheric planets are better in other ways, they still have the "repeating tile" issue, the same as non-atmospherics.

Yes, it does has atmosphere but it shows that the Odyssey Tech is capable of Kilometer high ridges and Mountains. If it can do it on a planet with atmosphere I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be able to do it on a planet without one - unless the valuas are set to not do so.

Which is why Pomeche is interessting, it has more extreme height diffrences but they also manually increase the values on that one planet to get that. Meaning the general value for that planet type is too low set in general for a planet like pomeche to get kind of terrain without manual adjustment.

But I'm also not sure its about atmosphere, to me it just seems the numbers for planets types are set diffrent compared to Horizons. Best Candidates for big canyons and Mountains in horizons where small, low gravity Icy/rocky Ice planets. 500-800km radius seemed like the golden spot me, but it could happen below or bit above that, with the gravity being below 0.1g.
To a bit lesser degree also rocky ones, but HMC never really reached the heights of those (and definitly not Metallic ones, but that seemed right for that planet type)

I have found a couple planets/moons in that range but with atmosphere in ody and they where pretty much the same as the ones without atmo in ody of the same type. The planet from the pics above where I'm currently on is a HMC planet of 1000km radius and 0.14g - I'm pretty sure I never found anything of that height on a planet like that without atmosphere in horizon.

So yeah, I do think we have a case here of not just the terrain being a bit diffrent (ody planettech seems to go the high km heights in much more gradual way then those of horizon) but also those kind of hight diffrences seems to have shifted away from the small icy ones, I have yet to see one providing anything close to the same of horizons, being with or without atmosphere.

Which by the way just doesn't seem realistic at all. When I come across a small icy moon of 600km radius and 0.05g in close orbit of a gas giant and he hasn't much going on other then a few craters and hills that seems weird. Giving the low gravitiy of the planet and the high gravity of the gas giant pulling on him there should be more happening there.

 

[Frankymole]

I have missed much of the thread so apologies if discussed already. Dr Ross mentioned in some of her appearances on stream that the new tech was more realistic in the particular aspect of irregularities / heights based on mass. I.e. planets with larger mass would be flatter due to gravity effects over time than (presumably) planets with lower mass. Have you tried to check if smaller planets or even potato ones look as flat as larger ones? I am thinking also about the "hooning" crowd.

Sadly, "hooning" is a bit rubbish on low-G worlds. Hi-G worlds are great to drive on.

 

[Frankymole]

Which by the way just doesn't seem realistic at all. When I come across a small icy moon of 600km radius and 0.05g in close orbit of a gas giant and he hasn't much going on other then a few craters and hills that seems weird. Giving the low gravitiy of the planet and the high gravity of the gas giant pulling on him there should be more happening there.

Tidal forces. A lot of the surface features would depend on whether the body is solid or has plate tectonics.

 

[BlackMaze]

Something I hope they improve on is the "canyon" walls that appear incredibly stretched out because their height map or texture system doesn't really account for it properly.

In Horizons the walls of a canyon always looked fine. In Odyssey they look like the textures were stretched out too far and it is just awful:

High preset with max terrain work and model draw distance

 

[Just]

High preset with max terrain work and model draw distance

"high is the new low"

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Something I hope they improve on is the "canyon" walls that appear incredibly stretched out because their height map or texture system doesn't really account for it properly.

In Horizons the walls of a canyon always looked fine. In Odyssey they look like the textures were stretched out too far and it is just awful:

High preset with max terrain work and model draw distance

Yeah, the stretching textures is bad. It's not just canyons.

 

[Valorin]

Something I hope they improve on is the "canyon" walls that appear incredibly stretched out because their height map or texture system doesn't really account for it properly.

In Horizons the walls of a canyon always looked fine. In Odyssey they look like the textures were stretched out too far and it is just awful:

High preset with max terrain work and model draw distance

Funny enough I saw that in Horizons here and there, not in Odyssey so far. At least not to this extend. Then again, I saw a lot more planets in Horizons over the last 5 years, so there's some time left I guess.

 

[hunvagy]

Yeah, the stretching textures this is bad. It's not just canyons.

Someone shall be along shortly to either
a) question your loyalty to FD based on this remark or
b) reinforce their world view that FD killed their goldfish based on this remark

Also, holy crap, it's melting.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Someone shall be along shortly to either
a) question your loyalty to FD based on this remark or
b) reinforce their world view that FD killed their goldfish based on this remark

Also, holy crap, it's melting.

I'm sure that Mogen guy will pop in to criticize my ability to both like the game and find fault with it all at the same time.

 

[dannysquid]

In Horizons the walls of a canyon always looked fine. In Odyssey they look like the textures were stretched out too far and it is just awful:

I don't think they "always looked fine" in Horizons.

They seem to be rotating the textures to match the slope so I'm guessing it won't be a huge deal to scale the textures too. I think the current long canyons aren't particularly great to begin with and the texture stretching will be less of an issue if they were craggier and more interesting. At the moment most of the ones I've seen look like a bell curve that's sliced through everything.