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

[Rybodhi]

WHAT A MESS!!! Not sure if it's fixable? To get Horizon's planet tech into Odyssey would be a massive task.
Actually really sad! Frontier have murdered my game!

 

[Old Duck]

I have some idea about why this might be happening. In Horizons they probably built Farseer Base into the procedurally generated terrain that they found on Deciat 6 A. But now that the procedural generation algorithm has changed, they have to recreate the previous terrain using a fixed height map that is stored in the game files as an asset. The resolution of that height map is too low to accurately recreate the original terrain, and that's why everything is softened.

You are very clever! I think you might be on to something.

 

[CMDR Fnool]

Horizons doing same thing.

To the same extent? I'm pretty sure that if that were the case, someone much smarter than me (which is not hard to find admittedly) would have noticed and pointed it out, someone like Obsidian Ant for example. Even Down to Earth astronomy has said in this thread:

The movie part between 6:08 and 6:40 looks... disturbing

So there you go, you know more than these guys?

 

[Erei]

I have some idea about why this might be happening. In Horizons they probably built Farseer Base into the procedurally generated terrain that they found on Deciat 6 A. But now that the procedural generation algorithm has changed, they have to recreate the previous terrain using a fixed height map that is stored in the game files as an asset. The resolution of that height map is too low to accurately recreate the original terrain, and that's why everything is softened.

Farseer base is hand crafted. As is probably most engineer's. They are unique, some with features than can only exist in specific situation (like the bridge for Farseer).

Someone changed the terrain to "fit" the base, the game probably did the rest for texturing.

 

[Agrar Therenus]

If somebody havent noticed these chunks are exactly the same.

Yea, I didn't notice it was THAT big. That's is like 10% or more of the planet's surface duplicated.

Uuuh, this is actually getting worse by the minute.

 

[J Michaelson]

What were people saying about repeated textures? Oh yeah. Sometimes they're just hidden better than others.

 

[BlackMaze]

Well, look what Ive found.

 

[SpaceIsHuge]

I would be happy playing Horizons as it is till the end of time. I mean, I'll be super sad that there is no future for the game, but at least the game I paid good money (three copies plus cosmetics) would be there.

Unfortunately Frontier is threatening to replace Horizon planetary tech with Odyssey tech this Fall, along with that terrible new UI.

I better die than touch Horizons again after beauty of Odyssey. It might be not perfect, but they will fix all that stuff that ppl unhappy about.

 

[Ettanin]

It's even worse, look from north to south.

 

[SpaceIsHuge]

Actually this.

 

[Deleted member 121570]

I better die than touch Horizons again after beauty of Odyssey. It might be not perfect, but they will fix all that stuff that ppl unhappy about.

Your hyperbole has reached new heights. Far higher than anything achievable in Odyssey, I'd say.

 

[fourrunes]

W

Do those formations exist on the ground ? Or it's just fake ?

With EDO, When you go to ground level most things look different. I would not be surprised if those are not represented on the surface

 

[Erei]

W
With EDO, When you go to ground level most things look different. I would not be surprised if those are not represented on the surface

I know, thus my question. I've noticed some formations exists (albeit they look slightly differently due to poor lod), but others simply vanish when you get close.

 

[fourrunes]

Your hyperbole has reached new heights. Far higher than anything achievable in Odyssey, I'd say.

Tbh we don't know - but yeah that's some SC level of hyperbole...

 

[Old Duck]

Holy Hannah, this thread just keeps getting more depressing...

I think I need to go to a circus and get cheered up.

 

[Lone_star]

Honestly? Horizons looked just fine to me..... wh

I would be happy playing Horizons as it is till the end of time. I mean, I'll be super sad that there is no future for the game, but at least the game I paid good money (three copies plus cosmetics) would be there.

Unfortunately Frontier is threatening to replace Horizon planetary tech with Odyssey tech this Fall, along with that terrible new UI.

They should have just released small content DLCs with bug fixes and feature flesh outs a la paradox. I have no doubt people would have funded bug fixing as long as it included things like a new ship or SRV here and there.

I actually think Horizons looks just fine - if it ain't broke - don't fix it

 

[Senzafine]

People are being honest about their settings, and what they are seeing.

It's more a question of how people think, they just focus on worst examples-- and that serves a purpose and is of benefit. It does seem though there's a bit of a refusal to acknowledge the game can actually look pretty good at times with the new tech. It's important to accept this because it strongly suggests much of this awfulness is broken code not just bad development.

This latest tile-cloning thing though? I don't know. It's getting pretty horrendous how widespread it is by each post.

Agree 100%.
There are obviously planets that are much worse in Odyssey, like the one where the advanced srv training mission is set - lovely canyons in Horizons, flat and ugly in Odyssey. That's featured in the comparisons video that's being posted frequently. It's the first thing I tried after the combat intro mission, expecting to see wondrous extra detail. Could have cried at how it had been ruined.
Then I got into the game proper and was immediately seeing stuff like this:

Doesn't look too shabby, does it?

There is some excellent procedural generation in Odyssey - and some truly dreadful too. It's good that people are pointing out where things are going badly wrong and finding patterns to it. I truly hope that the devs can fix this often broken, but at times wonderful looking, mess.

 

[Deleted member 121570]

Agree 100%.
There are obviously planets that are much worse in Odyssey, like the one where the advanced srv training mission is set - lovely canyons in Horizons, flat and ugly in Odyssey. That's featured in the comparisons video that's being posted frequently. It's the first thing I tried after the combat intro mission, expecting to see wondrous extra detail. Could have cried at how it had been ruined.
Then I got into the game proper and was immediately seeing stuff like this:

View attachment 230824

Doesn't look too shabby, does it?

There is some excellent procedural generation in Odyssey - and some truly dreadful too. It's good that people are pointing out where things are going badly wrong and finding patterns to it. I truly hope that the devs can fix this often broken, but at times wonderful looking, mess.

Of course, then you get down on the surface and realise all that stuff is barely higher than your ship. It takes the shine off somewhat.
It's probably nice to walk around in though.

 

[who?]

People here say this can be fixed by just adding more patterns ...can it? If a person cannot fly through the whole ED galaxy in his whole lifetime - there is equally no amount of additional pattern that will really fix this issue.

It could be mitigated to some degree, by having a great many more 'tiles', and smaller tiles. The larger and more distinctive the repeating pattern/tile, the more likely it is to be spotted.

Even a fully PG surface isn't guaranteed to avoid the problem. PG is basically just a random number generator feeding values into some kind of model based on what's physically possible and visually and game-playingly possible. If that model isn't generating enough detail/variety/entropy you could still end up with near copies. But at least with PG there's the potential for "pattern-free" surfaces.

 

[Agrar Therenus]

Of course, then you get down on the surface and realise all that stuff is barely higher than your ship. It takes the shine off somewhat.
It's probably nice to walk around in though.

It IS possible to have dramatic features though, well craters at least.

There was one on Enceladus that was genuinely over 25km deep. So it seems the terrain can support these kinds of depths (and presumably heights). So perhaps there's some hope, for these kinds of features at least.