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

[Viajero]

Probably not that odd really. When we got Horizons there was nothing to compare it to so we didn't really analyse it in anything like the depth of scrutiny that Odyssey is receiving. In some ways the scrutiny is justified tho - we've been presented with Odyssey as a significant upgrade to Horizons (and at great cost, the loss of every surface feature thus far mapped by the Galactic Mapping Project, the planetary circumnavigation club, the racing groups and untold others). Imagine if someone replaced your wife/husband/partner with someone else and said here, take this one, it's better. I think I'd be taking a long hard look before accepting that deal.

With regards to criticisms in general I think we forget easily the past but the community has been as critical at any given stage in Elite´s life, starting form the alpha and beta vanilla times. And that is good. You will find the same exact criticisms with regards to players considering [X] not ready or needing more work etc at most stages. It happenned with the base game, it happened with Horizons, it happened with fleet carriers, and what not. Horizons planetary surfaces in particular received tons of flak for diverse reasons, beigefication, alleged downgrades, lack of variety and overall dullness and what not.

The main difference with EDO now is "simply" the performance issues. First time these occur with this magnitude. Otherwise it would have been in essence no different to the criticisms received in all those previous occasions.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

Dr Ross said quite a lot of things in the pre-launch streams, which gave the impression that Odyssey terrain generation was based on specifics of the body involved, its own gravity, density and formation history from Stellar Forge. None of that tallies with an identikit tiling system.

To be fair, for Odyssey she did say, "... we're talking up 100km worth of terrain for example, which are now generated offline into terrain shapes that we know are formed."

 

[AdriánGuth]

Según Braven (En sus videos de generacion procedural) SIEMPRE hay repetición en la generación procedural, solo hay que hacerlo bien porque de lo contrario esto se nota.
According to Braven (In his procedural generation videos) there is ALWAYS repetition in the procedural generation, you just have to do it right because otherwise it shows. And That's Just With Math.
min Odyssey (ACCORDING TO Dr. Kay Ross) added SOME HAND MADE THINGS.
And this is what it shows. because it is not finished, because it has bugs, because they have to improve it as happened with Horizons and its craters placed in identical squares. or patterns on the ground.
final min.
Odyssey is still mathematically generated, just like Horizons. They should just fix it.

Braven

Ross

 

[CMDR Fnool]

According to Braven (In his procedural generation videos) there is ALWAYS repetition in the procedural generation, you just have to do it right because otherwise it shows. And That's Just With Math.

min Odyssey (ACCORDING TO Dr. Kay Ross) added SOME HAND MADE THINGS.
And this is what it shows. because it is not finished, because it has bugs, because they have to improve it as happened with Horizons

If Odyssey has 'hand-made things' and Horizons didn't, then it's still different to Horizons and inferior, because it will have MORE repetition as a result of those 'hand-made things'.

You finish by saying that 'Odyssey is still mathematically generated, just like Horizons' except from what we have learned this is not correct, Odyssey is PARTLY mathematically generated, that's the difference between them. The hand-made stuff is like a contamination that ruins the whole. (turd in the punchbowl analogy)

 

[Fishy]

Have you met my wife?

(Honey? Oh, didn't see you there. What's with the.... BLAM!)

Shouldn't have tried to scan her.

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

If Odyssey has 'hand-made things' and Horizons didn't, then it's still different to Horizons and inferior, because it will have MORE repetition as a result of those 'hand-made things'.

You finish by saying that 'Odyssey is still mathematically generated, just like Horizons' except from what we have learned this is not correct, Odyssey is PARTLY mathematically generated, that's the difference between them. The hand-made stuff is like a contamination that ruins the whole. (turd in the punchbowl analogy)

I think you will find it is the difference between having a slideshow at anything below 10Gb VRAM and 4000 cores, with a tenth or eleventh gen i9, and having a game that most people can still play on 5 year old, inexpensive gaming hardware.

Glad for most people we do not have you running the show!

 

[CMDR Fnool]

I think you will find it is the difference between having a slideshow at anything below 10Gb VRAM and 4000 cores, a tenth or eleventh gen i9, and having a game that most people can still play on 5 year old, inexpensive gaming hardware.

Glad for most people we do not have you running the show!

How did Horizons manage it, and have more realistic looking topography than Odyssey's 'Nintendo 64 ridge-bumps' then?

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

How did Horizons manage it, and have more realistic looking topography than Odyssey's 'Nintendo 64 ridge-bumps' then?

It didn't, doesn't (depending on your idea of reality - Horizon like features have yet to seen in our well photographed solar system) and because Horizons only scaled down to driving on surfaces level fidelity, not the extra level needed for on-foot interaction. (Known bugs notwithstanding!)

 

[CMDR Fnool]

It didn't, doesn't (depending on your idea of reality - Horizon like features have yet to seen in our well photographed solar system) and because Horizons only scaled down to driving on surfaces level fidelity, not the extra level needed for on-foot interaction. (Known bugs notwithstanding!)

Well i disagree with you, but 'which looks more realistic' is in any case irrelevant to my original point, which is about randomisation of topography. Copy/paste just isn't good enough, and an obvious retrograde step in quality from Horizons.

 

[Rat Catcher]

How did Horizons manage it, and have more realistic looking topography than Odyssey's 'Nintendo 64 ridge-bumps' then?

Mainly by having the majority of the Horizons bodies being particularly boring to both view from space or land on? "Interesting" bodies in Horizons are not the norm, bland balls of ice / rock / metal are, with the occasional "wow!" to be found.

 

[CMDR Fnool]

Mainly by having the majority of the Horizons bodies being particularly boring to both view from space or land on? "Interesting" bodies in Horizons are not the norm, bland balls of ice / rock / metal are, with the occasional "wow!" to be found.

So you think recognising the same 'hand-made' mountain ridge on different planets, 50k light years apart, is going to improve the wow factor? The whole point of exploration for many, was to keep looking to find something special they could claim they found, this is a very poor-trade-off in order to see something interesting 'right away'.

 

[Rat Catcher]

So you think recognising the same 'hand-made' mountain ridge on different planets, 50k light years apart, is going to improve the wow factor? The whole point of exploration for many, was to keep looking to find something special they could claim they found, this is a very poor-trade-off in order to see something interesting 'right away'.

Did you read my post?

 

[CMDR Fnool]

Did you read my post?

Lol yes, i did.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Lol yes, i did.

Nowhere in the post you allegedly responded to do I mention anything to do with your response... Just a copy / paste reply?

 

[CMDR Fnool]

Nowhere in the post you allegedly responded to do I mention anything to do with your response... Just a copy / paste reply?

mate i really can't be bothered with you, you said something along the lines of 'Horizons managed random topography by being boring and producing interesting bodies only very rarely', which quite naturally insinuates Odyssey's new method is either better or worth a shot', to which i completely disagree.

 

[AdriánGuth]

If Odyssey has 'hand-made things' and Horizons didn't, then it's still different to Horizons and inferior, because it will have MORE repetition as a result of those 'hand-made things'.

You finish by saying that 'Odyssey is still mathematically generated, just like Horizons' except from what we have learned this is not correct, Odyssey is PARTLY mathematically generated, that's the difference between them. The hand-made stuff is like a contamination that ruins the whole. (turd in the punchbowl analogy)

To much feeling.
Watch the videos.
Elite is not what your feeling tells you.
Elite is the way they create it and this is explained on the videos.
I know that there is bug, but you people are saying that Frontier choose not to make procedural anymore and that is a lie. Based only on how some people feels.

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

I forgot the rule that says not to feed...

 

[Rat Catcher]

mate i really can't be bothered with you, you said something along the lines of 'Horizons managed random topography by being boring and producing interesting bodies only very rarely', which quite naturally insinuates Odyssey's new method is either better or worth a shot', to which i completely disagree.

Don't bother with me then, pal.
I wrote only about Horizons, it was you who added the rest.

 

[CMDR Fnool]

All players like myself would like is a simple answer, is this copy/paste tile method going to remain in the game? Or will fully randomised planets make a return? I don't think it's much to ask. I'll keep an eye on this thread in the hope a developer finally answers at some point.

 

[Alec Turner]

All players like myself would like is a simple answer, is this copy/paste tile method going to remain in the game? Or will fully randomised planets make a return? I don't think it's much to ask. I'll keep an eye on this thread in the hope a developer finally answers at some point.

One of my issues with the CM statements acknowledging there are bugs in the planet tech is - they haven't said which things are bugs. Do they mean stuff like the clearly visible copy/paste replication we're seeing? Do they mean the obvious and rather silly height-mappy nature of some of the mountain formations? Do they mean the restricted height of the canyons we've discovered thus far? Or do they just mean the invisible rocks and poor LOD? We just don't know unfortunately.