No mans sky question

[carlos9759]

How was it even possible to have 18 quintillion planets(correct me if im wrong) in a single 10 GB game?!??!?!

 

How did developers do it?

 

How is all this possibe lol???

[HelplmChoking]

It's procedurally generated, so it generates worlds as you play. Think Minecraft but space.

[Tosa]

The planets could be generated on the fly using an algorithm 

[dalekphalm]

6 hours ago, carlos9759 said:

How was it even possible to have 18 quintillion planets(correct me if im wrong) in a single 10 GB game?!??!?!

 

How did developers do it?

 

How is all this possibe lol???

As others have said, it's procedurally generated.

 

The devs just make some basic art assets - Green Planet Texture - Brown Planet Texture, etc, and then the various worlds discovered will use various assets from the "pool" to create something relatively unique looking. The planet might mix several biome textures to create a unique looking tundra location, for example.

 

In all honesty though, I assume a game like that is going to have the same problem as Elite: Dangerous - after a while, you'll start to encounter repeats - worlds that are similar or identical to ones you've already been to.

 

 

[Commander Llama]

31 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

In all honesty though, I assume a game like that is going to have the same problem as Elite: Dangerous - after a while, you'll start to encounter repeats - worlds that are similar or identical to ones you've already been to.

I'm a little hesitant to call it a problem, because I'm about to use a Minecraft analogy. Minecraft is a fantastic game (and tool), so this isn't the end of the world...

 

But at a certain point these procedural generated games become marketing. 18 quintillion planets is something for a marketing feature list about a game. It is completely irrelevant to the player experience. The Minecraft world size is absurd. It can be a few lightyears across, if you take the world size variables to their maximum values. No one plays on a world that big, or even the tiniest fraction that size. Same deal for wildly different feature than world size: Borderlands guns. There's a few billions guns in that game. Again, pretty irrelevant to the player. In all these cases, the player will be interacting with a few hundred things, maaaaaybe a few thousand for the truly dedicated.

 

It's cool, but it's just combinatorics. And as far as "how" they create a world that big. They don't. They will be streaming chunks of the world and creating new chunks on the fly. Only a fully realized galaxy where the player has explored everywhere would have the full world size, and not only would no computer run that, it is mathematically impossible for a player to do in their lifetime. Also, it probably deloads world chunks far away from the player.

[GeekJump]

Others above me have mentioned it so not going to repeat it. I just think this will be the overhyped game of the year  (even tho I want it to be amaz-balls)

 

A team of dozen or so devs (the size of the initial team) can't pull off the stuff they are advertising. All the previews I see show the same worlds with slight difference. I hope it will become the adult version of Minecraft but I am not keeping my hopes up 

[dalekphalm]

23 minutes ago, Commander Llama said:

I'm a little hesitant to call it a problem, because I'm about to use a Minecraft analogy. Minecraft is a fantastic game (and tool), so this isn't the end of the world...

 

But at a certain point these procedural generated games become marketing. 18 quintillion planets is something for a marketing feature list about a game. It is completely irrelevant to the player experience. The Minecraft world size is absurd. It can be a few lightyears across, if you take the world size variables to their maximum values. No one plays on a world that big, or even the tiniest fraction that size. Same deal for wildly different feature than world size: Borderlands guns. There's a few billions guns in that game. Again, pretty irrelevant to the player. In all these cases, the player will be interacting with a few hundred things, maaaaaybe a few thousand for the truly dedicated.

 

It's cool, but it's just combinatorics. And as far as "how" they create a world that big. They don't. They will be streaming chunks of the world and creating new chunks on the fly. Only a fully realized galaxy where the player has explored everywhere would have the full world size, and not only would no computer run that, it is mathematically impossible for a player to do in their lifetime. Also, it probably deloads world chunks far away from the player.

Oh certainly, it's a "problem" in the sense that it's a technical limitation that they've used trickery and ingenuity to solve.

 

I'm sure there will still be a ton of diversity, even with repeating.

 

Personally I won't likely play this game because of how vast and seemingly unfocused it is. For those who just want to fly around and explore new planets and discover resources and life forms and whatever - this game will be great. I feel like I will be aimless in it though. I need goals and focuses. And I can't even play it for "completionist" sake (Like I did with Fallout 3 - had to explore every part of the map), since it's probably impossible to explore every single possible location - if there even is a practical upper limit.

 

Still looks fucking amazing though.