Was there an official reason for "flattening" terrain?

Aekero · Feb 22, 2017

I've read a few forums saying something to that extent, canyons are smaller, in some cases some very distinct features have been flattened out... was this for the sake of graphics requirements? realism? bug?

Also, just curious if it's worth doing planetary exploration beyond scanning when 10's of thousands of ly out of the bubble (basically just wondering if it's worth bringing an srv hangar.

Pirin · Feb 22, 2017

IMO, there are many planets which are far from being flat. Deep canyons, high mountains, etc.
But for me the most important reason to land on planets is: pictures. Some of them offer really great views. I made a lot of great pictures while exploring, incuding my favorite one (in the sig)
So yes, it is worth it, if you ask me.

goemon · Feb 22, 2017

here you go:

Anthony Ross said:
There were some changes done which will have affected the geology in some certain circumstances. These were only done as otherwise it was producing terrain that would crash in some cases or have other bad bugs like being able to fly through the terrain. It would result in players being kicked to the main menu, so the issues had to be addressed.
Rocky ice planets were a prime example of some particular combinations of geological data causing rifts too sharp and severe for sensible physics data to be produced. Sometimes the rift would be so sharp, unfortunate sawtoothing artefacts would be produced.
There were cases where overlapping large craters were not being handled quite right, causing drops sheer enough to look wrong and also cause bad physics data again. Sometimes the crater would get filled with very incorrect roughness - fixing this was a scientific accuracy concern.

Pirin · Feb 22, 2017

goemon said:
here you go:

goemon, thanks for sharing this. It seems i completely missed this announcement.
Wonder if it means that places like this dont exist anymore?

[VR] optimal_909 · Feb 22, 2017

Pirin said:
goemon, thanks for sharing this. It seems i completely missed this announcement.
Wonder if it means that places like this dont exist anymore?

http://i.imgur.com/BbYy7bp.png

Those exist on smaller worlds and look better than ever. Only those hilriously busy surface formations are hit and weird stuff like inexplicable mountain ranges within craters.

Witzo · Feb 22, 2017

goemon said:
here you go:

Does that mean places like this won't exist anymore?

Crater wall top was 2km up from the surrounding area, and 8km up from the bottom.

Strangepork · Feb 22, 2017

I rarely stumble over many cliffs either, most terrain seems undulating.

Mengy · Feb 23, 2017

Witzo said:
Does that mean places like this won't exist anymore?

http://i.imgur.com/NXFCw9N.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/pvrWX2z.jpg

Crater wall top was 2km up from the surrounding area, and 8km up from the bottom.

They already don’t, those kind of surface features were removed with the homogenization of 2.2. It didn’t just effect beige and colors, it reduced terrain features too.

That’s not to say you can’t find any interesting terrain anymore, it’s just much less common and far less crazy.

Witzo · Feb 24, 2017

Mengy said:
They already don’t, those kind of surface features were removed with the homogenization of 2.2. It didn’t just effect beige and colors, it reduced terrain features too.

That’s not to say you can’t find any interesting terrain anymore, it’s just much less common and far less crazy.

One the one hand, a pity. On the other, good that a crater is shaped like the squashed ball shape of an impact explosion, and not like a big cylinder punched into the ground.