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

CaptainPugwash

CaptainPugwash
Sethioz said:
WOW I had no idea they've done this .. I don't get it, did Frontier hire some cheap indian or russian programmers just so they can quickly push the game out?
It sure has signs of extremely poor programming, similar to what those greedy "money grabbers" do. No racisms intended here, but usually indian and russian devs are the ones who copy paste as much as possible so that they can push broken game out with minimal efforts and call it "finished".

I don't understand, why it was necessary to change how planets were generated? works fine in Horizons ... why was it necessary to completely break it in Odyssey? On top of that, it's extremely laggy .. I can run Forza Horizon 5 in 4k with AMD upscaler on "Quality" and it runs solid 60fps with 50-90% GPU usage, while in Odyssey I have AMD upscaler on "performance" and I barely get 15 - 45 fps in stations / bases and GPU usage is always 100%, sometimes on planets it randomly lags down to like 30 fps too.

Perhaps devs will migrate Odyssey onto Unreal Engine 5, it seems very impressive so far. from what i've heard, UE5 also supports massive scale random generator, so it should work fine for planets.
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Planet generation isn’t random so UE5 will be no help at all.
The main problem that I see is the weird variation in color as you descend through the various ‘layers’, and once on the surface as soon as you go anywhere the PC gets pushed to its maximum as it tries to load in the terrain.
My personal problem is also that I get constant disconnect, making surface prospecting almost impossible: I may have network issues but I can’t see what they are exactly and I’m curious to know why the game needs such frequent server updates while simply driving around on the surface, as I don’t remember this from horizons.
 

[VR] Bac Ho

[VR] Bac Ho
Rat Catcher said:
Youtubers follow the 'money' - even I get 'suggestions' from youtube on what I should be screening to gain viewers, and it isn't ED.
As for the die-hard commanders? Obviously, they aren't, are they? (think about it)

Die-hard commanders like ones that did organized the two largest player events or have written official elite dangerous books, oh please :ROFLMAO: (had a thought about it and , yup they sound die-hard to me.)
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St0rmFury

St0rmFury
[VR] Merkir said:
It's always a little surprising to me how many people end an otherwise reasonable discussion with words like, "I'm happy, you're not". Since I'm sitting beachside on the glorious south coast of NSW, Australia, all I can bring myself to say is, with full sincerity, have a wonderful Christmas break and new year everyone! :)
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Great response. 👏
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
"Die-hard commanders like ones that did organized the two largest player events or have written official elite dangerous books, oh please :ROFLMAO: (had a thought about it and , yup they sound die-hard to me.) "

Yup, so die-hard that they abandon the game, that is just soooo "die hard" :ROFLMAO: 👋 (like not at all?)

Obviously we have a different interpretation of exactly what "die hard" means, I suppose it is a phrase that can be modelled to suit one's preference.
 

[VR] Bac Ho

[VR] Bac Ho
Rat Catcher said:
Obviously we have a different interpretation of exactly what "die hard" means, I suppose it is a phrase that can be modelled to suit one's preference.
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I think so, lets leave it there.(y)

Don't get me wrong I love this game, but is so frustrating seeing so much potential being wasted, with a bit more imagination and depth the game could be and should be, but alas its not :(.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
It must be heartbreaking for those who perceive the game's development to not be following their own wishes of what it 'should be'.

I have no idea of what 'potential' is being wasted, the game manages to provide recreation for me each time I play, over 5,000 hours in the game to date and still a long list of things I'd like to do, I just get distracted by enjoying the new play introduced by EDO. (but, I will mention that I have never had any perception what the game "should or ought to be", I just play what is there, it works for me.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
St0rmFury said:
Hey now, they felt abandoned by FDev so at least it was a mutual separation.

Just like respect, loyalty has to be earned and maintained. Wouldn't you agree?
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Dunno, respect is a tough one, I have none for many that others consider deserve it (both here and IRL)

They 'felt' abandoned is a good phrase... puts the onus directly on them, surely?

ETA: It is a common theme on this forum, Frontier are evolving the game, some folk dislike (or even loathe) the evolution as it doesn't agree with their personal interpretation of what the game should be, so they announce to all and sundry that their emotions have been ravaged by evil Frontier and they will never play again... Mature folk would just stop playing and not have to throw a tantrum, surely?

2nd ETA: I forgot loyalty, quite deliberately, initially, as it seems an odd thing to attribute to a game. I play games until I no longer wish to do so, there is no loyalty from me to either game or developer, why should there be? ED / EDO is exactly the same, I am not loyal to either the game or FD, so fail to understand the significance of the comment.
 
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thistle

T
Sethioz said:
WOW I had no idea they've done this .. I don't get it, did Frontier hire some cheap indian or russian programmers just so they can quickly push the game out?
It sure has signs of extremely poor programming, similar to what those greedy "money grabbers" do. No racisms intended here, but usually indian and russian devs are the ones who copy paste as much as possible so that they can push broken game out with minimal efforts and call it "finished".

I don't understand, why it was necessary to change how planets were generated? works fine in Horizons ... why was it necessary to completely break it in Odyssey? On top of that, it's extremely laggy .. I can run Forza Horizon 5 in 4k with AMD upscaler on "Quality" and it runs solid 60fps with 50-90% GPU usage, while in Odyssey I have AMD upscaler on "performance" and I barely get 15 - 45 fps in stations / bases and GPU usage is always 100%, sometimes on planets it randomly lags down to like 30 fps too.

Perhaps devs will migrate Odyssey onto Unreal Engine 5, it seems very impressive so far. from what i've heard, UE5 also supports massive scale random generator, so it should work fine for planets.
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They (Dr. Ross) said they changed it because it needed to be changed so it could be built upon for future additions. Presumably the previous generation system wouldn't allow for the future additions they wanted.
 

Sunyavadin

Sunyavadin
thistle said:
They (Dr. Ross) said they changed it because it needed to be changed so it could be built upon for future additions. Presumably the previous generation system wouldn't allow for the future additions they wanted.
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I imagine they hit a snag in introducing terrain features such as overhangs and caves for the planned ice world update, with the previous terrain system, and of the several potential solutions to it, this was the one requiring the least additional work.
 

andrewg_oz

andrewg_oz
thistle said:
They (Dr. Ross) said they changed it because it needed to be changed so it could be built upon for future additions. Presumably the previous generation system wouldn't allow for the future additions they wanted.
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The most likely reason I can think of for the Odyssey terrain generation is to support walking on bodies in the Sol system, where there are IRL planetary bodies that have been mapped. The Moon is a frequent request for landing on. I expect Mars might be a close second. Both these bodies have well-known features that people will expect to be able to visit. It would simply be impossible with Horizons terrain generation, but relatively easy to do with the bitmap tiled-based Odyssey system.
 

baron_V_S

B
andrewg_oz said:
The most likely reason I can think of for the Odyssey terrain generation is to support walking on bodies in the Sol system, where there are IRL planetary bodies that have been mapped. The Moon is a frequent request for landing on. I expect Mars might be a close second. Both these bodies have well-known features that people will expect to be able to visit. It would simply be impossible with Horizons terrain generation, but relatively easy to do with the bitmap tiled-based Odyssey system.
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That would be nice, but as usual we're just guessing.

It's frankly an absolute disgrace that Frontier have promised more communication and continue to give us absolutely zero information about the future of the game more than half a year later. I've been reading the Glassdoor reviews on Frontier recently and it doesn't make for good reading at all. People leaving constantly and absolutely fed up with upper management. They clearly have a major major issue with their management and decision making, and also the not fit for purpose Cobra game engine by the sounds of things.

Dr Kay Ross, the main person in charge of the new planet tech, has left the company too! Clearly fed up as well and has moved to another British game developer.
 

baron_V_S

B
What, are we not allowed to speculate about employee movements? I can't excuse the low-lives that troll people on twitter but I think it's perfectly acceptable to speculate in the forums about the state of Frontier Developments and why a key person in the planet terrain design has left the company when there's still clearly lots of work to do?

Odyssey release in May and people would very much like to know if Frontier plan to keep working on the planet terrain generation system. A simple, brief answer that they are indeed working on it and plan to develop it further would suffice, in the interest of all that communication and change they promised.

After all, I think we can all agree Odyssey was released far too early and the planet terrain system we received was also therefore unfinished and underdeveloped.
 
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