4 ms·

I remember when NMS was announced. I was pretty excited about it. But of course when it was released it had huge problems. But, hey, at least it came out (cough

by cletus 7y ago

I remember when NMS was announced. I was pretty excited about it. But of course when it was released it had huge problems. But, hey, at least it came out (cough Star Citizen cough). So I skipped it. Fast forward 2 years to the Next update, which by all accounts was a huge improvement in many areas. So I picked it up earlier this year and played putting a fair number of hours into it. It wasn't problem-free but honestly I enjoyed it. Fast forward again to later this year and the Beyond update comes out. This has been another massive improvement. There are a couple of minor things I don't like but honestly, it's a decent way to aimlessly wander the galaxy. It still has RNG in getting the best ships, which I find annoying and tedious, but it's enjoyable. One of big problems in Next was that base building had SO many problems. Beyond fixed a bunch but it's still a problem. If Minecraft has taught us anything, it's that people will invest a huge amount of time in building a base. It's an expression of identity. It's a hobby that's an easy time sink. It's something the devs really need to double down on. But I really respect the fact that the devs have kept updating this game. It's easy to get 100+ hours out of this game now (and I have quite a few more than that). Still, I feel like there are a bunch of lost opportunities: - Climate is global on a planet or moon. Why no ecosystems? - No tidally locked worlds - Gravity is the same - No running water - No geological features (geysers, volcanoes, etc) I've built a giant glass cube on some random world. I don't know how long the servers for this game will be around but it amuses me that years from now someone may randomly come across what I built. So archaeology in games like this fascinates me.

haolez 7y ago
The lack of geological features turns me down as well. There are no huge canyons and no huge mountains. Everything kinda looks the same. Also, I think some worlds could be uninhabitable, just for show. For example: gas giants. On the bright side, the underground biomes are amazing! I’ve seen very complex sets of caves and tunnels with different fauna and flora. It’s a great game overall!
grawprog 7y ago
>Still, I feel like there are a bunch of lost opportunities: - Climate is global on a planet or moon. Why no ecosystems? - No tidally locked worlds - Gravity is the same - No running water - No geological features (geysers, volcanoes, etc) What would be awesome, though likely totally infeasible would be the universe of no man's sky coupled with the individual world building of dwarf fortress, maybe not the civilizations, but the geological stuff. The way the world gen simulates erosion, and change over time to landforms. With different variations to the types of worlds generated, you could get some pretty cool geologically unique worlds. Have worlds with different primary mineral types and atmospheres form differently than earthlike ones and stuff. I'm sure something like that is years and years away. Even if it was on a smaller scale, so you could have people actually end up meeting eachother and because different planets would be different geologically there would be different resources and opportunities for trading and stuff.... OK...I'm sorry, i've kind rambled on in a tangent and gotten away from the original premise now...I'll stop here.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  Why would that be impossible? Building a NMS GUI+game on top of dwarf fortress seems like a great side project.
- setr 7y ago
  In general, all such mechanics are a dramatic simplification of reality, and when doing such a procgen, you don't do such a from-scratch approach, because it's unfeasible. What you do instead is realize that you want a tidallocked world, then figure out the most important outcomes of it, then fiddle with your generation rules till you get something that looks mostly correct. More likely than not, it's perfectly feasible in the nms engine, but the devs themselves haven't put much thought towards it. Also see heredragonsabound; you can get really far with parameter fiddling.
- celeritascelery 7y ago
  This has been my dream game since I was a kid. MMO dwarf fortress set in space.
fao_ 7y ago
I played it when it first came out, then after the Atlas Rises update, and now the most recent one. I much, much prefer the original version. While it wasn't what most people expected or wanted out of the game, the environments were much more beautiful and less regular, and there was this overwhelming sense of loneliness about it that was enrapturing. It gave me the same vibes that MirrorMoon EP and Proteus gave me. Peaceful solitude. Unfortunately that's all lost now, since you can't select specific updates on the PS4 system.

by cletus 7y ago

haolez 7y ago

The lack of geological features turns me down as well. There are no huge canyons and no huge mountains. Everything kinda looks the same. Also, I think some worlds could be uninhabitable, just for show. For example: gas giants. On the bright side, the underground biomes are amazing! I’ve seen very complex sets of caves and tunnels with different fauna and flora. It’s a great game overall!

grawprog 7y ago

>Still, I feel like there are a bunch of lost opportunities: - Climate is global on a planet or moon. Why no ecosystems? - No tidally locked worlds - Gravity is the same - No running water - No geological features (geysers, volcanoes, etc) What would be awesome, though likely totally infeasible would be the universe of no man's sky coupled with the individual world building of dwarf fortress, maybe not the civilizations, but the geological stuff. The way the world gen simulates erosion, and change over time to landforms. With different variations to the types of worlds generated, you could get some pretty cool geologically unique worlds. Have worlds with different primary mineral types and atmospheres form differently than earthlike ones and stuff. I'm sure something like that is years and years away. Even if it was on a smaller scale, so you could have people actually end up meeting eachother and because different planets would be different geologically there would be different resources and opportunities for trading and stuff.... OK...I'm sorry, i've kind rambled on in a tangent and gotten away from the original premise now...I'll stop here.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
Why would that be impossible? Building a NMS GUI+game on top of dwarf fortress seems like a great side project.
setr 7y ago
In general, all such mechanics are a dramatic simplification of reality, and when doing such a procgen, you don't do such a from-scratch approach, because it's unfeasible. What you do instead is realize that you want a tidallocked world, then figure out the most important outcomes of it, then fiddle with your generation rules till you get something that looks mostly correct. More likely than not, it's perfectly feasible in the nms engine, but the devs themselves haven't put much thought towards it. Also see heredragonsabound; you can get really far with parameter fiddling.
celeritascelery 7y ago
This has been my dream game since I was a kid. MMO dwarf fortress set in space.

fao_ 7y ago

I played it when it first came out, then after the Atlas Rises update, and now the most recent one. I much, much prefer the original version. While it wasn't what most people expected or wanted out of the game, the environments were much more beautiful and less regular, and there was this overwhelming sense of loneliness about it that was enrapturing. It gave me the same vibes that MirrorMoon EP and Proteus gave me. Peaceful solitude. Unfortunately that's all lost now, since you can't select specific updates on the PS4 system.