Well, one major factor in the decision to completely replace the terrain procgen engine, was supposedly to lay the groundwork for adding new terrain types in the future, and presumably do it in a way that "artists" can do much of the work, and not just maths wizards.
If every different type of terrain and geological feature is essentially the exact same thing to the compositing engine (a heightmap in bitmap form, along with a set of rules determing how and where to place it), then you can "just" "draw" the appropriate heightmaps for rolling hills, or eroded canyons, or tectonic formations, or artificially levelled ground, or whatever, without needing someone to figure out clever fractals to produce realistic approximations of each, and the rendering cost will be identical for them all, no matter how complex.
(Personally I feel they lost a bit too much with the changeover; Things look better in many ways, but the grid-iness, and cookie-cutter-ousity of it all has a tendency to jump out at you, where things, whilst having other problems, used to exhibit some semblence of natural-ish flow; But nothing comes without sacrifices... :7)
I would expect each new class of body opening up to be part of a whole paid expansion of its own; Each adding new gameplay pertaining to the new environment, along with the one-or-a-few new shaders, geometry-generators, and assets neccessary to produce them, and each adding those elements to the toolbelt, for later, more complex planets, which will require them all (gas giant expansion, maritime expansion, and so on).
Exactly how they may make things, eventually, so that a forest canopy "carpet" mesh layer un-jarringly resolves to individual trees and plants on approach, I have no idea -- much less whether fluids will be made to pool, and run downhill, and dry up, after hypothetical passing precipitation events.
If every different type of terrain and geological feature is essentially the exact same thing to the compositing engine (a heightmap in bitmap form, along with a set of rules determing how and where to place it), then you can "just" "draw" the appropriate heightmaps for rolling hills, or eroded canyons, or tectonic formations, or artificially levelled ground, or whatever, without needing someone to figure out clever fractals to produce realistic approximations of each, and the rendering cost will be identical for them all, no matter how complex.
(Personally I feel they lost a bit too much with the changeover; Things look better in many ways, but the grid-iness, and cookie-cutter-ousity of it all has a tendency to jump out at you, where things, whilst having other problems, used to exhibit some semblence of natural-ish flow; But nothing comes without sacrifices... :7)
I would expect each new class of body opening up to be part of a whole paid expansion of its own; Each adding new gameplay pertaining to the new environment, along with the one-or-a-few new shaders, geometry-generators, and assets neccessary to produce them, and each adding those elements to the toolbelt, for later, more complex planets, which will require them all (gas giant expansion, maritime expansion, and so on).
Exactly how they may make things, eventually, so that a forest canopy "carpet" mesh layer un-jarringly resolves to individual trees and plants on approach, I have no idea -- much less whether fluids will be made to pool, and run downhill, and dry up, after hypothetical passing precipitation events.
