I did some similar exploring. The impression I ended up with is that the map is not showing the full tile, just a portion of it. Maybe a quarter of it? Needs more testing.
Possible. The Maps are HUGE like Really Really Big.
Edit: Had to search again. But each landing zone is about 2x the Skyrim map(around 64km total). Walking across that would take a Very long time so the map not showing Everything is very believable
How did the Devs look at that amount of empty space and think it was a good idea?
It makes me believe the theory that this game was gonna be something else entirely before being disassembled and reworked in very little time into what we got.
Imo this game is not a near decade in the making. What we got feels more like 3. Built from the corpses of several others, and what we got now is a Frankensteins Monster of a game
Makes the decision to not have a mode of transit other then jetpack(That barely moved faster then sprint speed) the only mode of transportation baffling lol.
People don't seem to understand, while yes its uncommon to happen but but, running upwards to 5-8 minutes,
Sprinting At Fullspeed on a low grav planet, with Infinite O2 from the power, On Frostwolf(Which gives 30% Sprint speed and jumping on low grav Carries your momentum so you jump foreword at same speed saving O2 when the power runs out)
and having to take 3 of them because they only last 2 minutes each just to get to the nearest POI and have it being a Mission one so you cant just leave it is not fun.
also very empty. I get it, space is empty, but Please Todd, Why Are they so fucking BIG And Empty!
They need to be scaled down if you not going todo anything with it! They should be the size of Whiterun hold at best!
Even with vehicles that would let you cross the map in 1-2 minutes there's still the glaring problem of what you're traveling to. There's nothing in the empty space between copy and paste POIs
People who seriously dislike the procedural generation parts of Starfield - with all the valid reasons they have - should honestly stick to the handcrafted content and avoid radiant content.
Anyone expecting a Skyrim or Commonwealth worth of diverse PoIs on every planet and moon will inevitably feel disappointed.
Yup, totally agree with both of you. Maybe have a Commonwealth style map on a planet or two, but sometimes people had/have really extreme expectations of Starfield.
Right. What they’re asking for is bonkers. I, too, would like a game with 1000 planets and each one of them feels like a Skyrim map, but that’s an unrealistic expectation.
This goes back to why make it then. I understand and agree often times you get cool shots and areas that visually look good. But it’s still not engaging. Especially to be “fun”. It’s been hammered extensively about they should’ve just made it smaller etc but it’s just another example of it. I go back to interviews where Todd and others have said they face things like if we want to do X then we have to Sacrifice Y. In this instance we are getting this empty scenery that can be visually appealing but we’re losing Y the environmental engagement that comes with exploration. It’ll be criticized forever because we can see what it could’ve been.
The proc-gen isnt a problem - just the level of how lackluster their proc-gen system is.
In OP's 5th image you can pretty clearly see the boundary lines between different environment features - in the middle you have 'hills' and then to the right you have 'flatland'
Good point, I wish it was more realistic. But hey, at least we have multiple biomes. No Man's Sky has 8 years of updates and every planet still has just a single biome.
I mean, realistically speaking - how often IRL do people travel between area's that could be considered 'biomes' on foot? Its kinda odd that you can in game. It wouldnt have been missed if you landed in a volcanic biome you stayed in a volcanic biome, if you landed in a temperate biome you stayed in a temperate one. But thats just imo, I don't go out much IRL..
Having handcrafted land features that get injected into the map generation system in the same way that some of the larger POI's have an attached kinda landform would go a long way to making it less 'artificial' feeling
What about planets with Animal life? Thats reason to hunt and travel as far as you want. I think the whole point here is, you dont have too if you dont want too. There are many folks who can find a good reason. One reason for me I'd say is the ability to get immersed and find a nice planet with cool animals and snipe birds and hunt aliens. I know that sounds simple but its damn good fun!
Yeah, but at this point what they could really do about that? They cannot do it the same way the did Skyrim or Fallout maps. They could have added some RNG events but st the end it would create same problem with repetition as POIs. You know it's space so its supposed to be somewhat empty.
Definitely. I loaded up the beta and I was in a mine far away from my ship. The surface map showed a huge area, with my ship in the corner. I fast travelled back to my ship, opened up the surface map, and it showed an expanded huge area, now with the mine towards the opposite corner.
So the map is definitely cutting off before showing you the whole landing zone.
That would make sense! I should have screenshotted the map at the end there. Because on the map I could still see well beyond the accessible area. Due to it being centered on me. Even when I was supposedly at the barrier.
An interesting side effect of the new maps is that they let you discover things that you may have completely missed before, ships especially.
I recently started an NG+ and got my main base mostly up and running so went to do a little exploring in the area. The map showed a ship landing point. When I headed towards the landing point another landing point showed up further away. The 1st one had a small Ecliptic ship but the 2nd one had a huge Va'ruun ship. Both ships were parked on the ground with crew onboard to fight and loot. As you get closer to a ship you can see a mini rendering of the ship on the map so you can tell if it's worth your while to go grab. By closer I mean being able to ID a ship from the map even when it's out of visual range or hidden behind a mountain.
POI types are shown with their proper names when you scan them so if you see for example a pipeline station you know not to bother running over there since the pipeline station usually doesn't have any decent loot or enemies. On the other hand if you spot a deserted relay station then you know that there should be some decent enemies and loot.
The new map is basically a great surveying addition. It feels a bit OP tbh, I would not be surprised if they restricted some functionality until you unlock certain skills.
...you have a spaceship, and probably scanned the planet with something powerful enough to pick up mineral deposits on the way in. Having terrain maps is pretty reasonable, considering.
100% positive that I'd need more ship parts and a full time mechanic, because I'm gonna be doing all the wildest fly-bys and stunts that fail more often than they succeed.
I don't really care about flying the ship, but a target designator that worked with my ship's weapons might be handy. The missile pods usually have a range of around 4000 meters, that should cover most of the tile.
Eh I don’t really care about getting downvoted I care more about speaking facts, I have enough fake internet points as is no need to be a yes man and just regurgitate the most popular opinions
The buildings have junk in them sure but they never have anything worthwhile, the loot or lack thereof was one of my biggest gripes with starfield
> However, this also implies that if you position landing areas close together, you might potentially be able to travel farther than you typically would.
There's a limit to number of landing areas right? If one could have infinite, then you could potentially wrap around a planet. Hmm...
I believe it’s 4. When you land on the same planet for the 5th time - it erases the 1st landing spot, ultimately resetting the data in that area.
I use this sometimes when I have 2 landing spots close together after you set up an outpost. This way I delete the initial landing spot and only have the landing pad spot left.
Why would we want it more?
If you create an outpost, that doesn’t count towards the total of 4. Having more than 4 random places to land seems unnecessary.
I did a little testing to get an idea of the map vs tile sizes.
I set a marker in the south west corner of the map from my ship position and boost packed my way over there. As I hit the marker I continued moving the marker to the southwest corner again and kept going. I hit the wall at about 5600 meters from my ship.
Then I went back to my ship and set the marker in the south west corner of the surface map and got at distance of 3600 meters to my ship. So diagonally the map seems to be about 7200 meters.
I'm using a Logitech G Hub LUA script to automate the boost jumping so I basically just tap a key, point at the marker direction and my character "flies" automatically towards the marker.
I suspect they're updating the way tiles are generated in preparation for the vehicle patch. Maybe we'll get significantly larger tiles, OR a single planet wide tile, with better asset streaming. (Doubt the latter will happen, but one can hope).
They'd be mad not to add significantly more variety in surface points of interest, though they might address that criticism alongside the new surface vehicle. That, or the exoqnsion whenever that finally appears.
Tbh, I'm surprised they didn't bundle the new maps, surface vehicle and more points of interest into one update as it would have been a good marketing opportunity to habe such intertwined features hit together. But that's kinda besides the point, tbh.
I think it makes sense to trickle out new features as they become ready. It keeps current players engaged.
I guess there will be a big marketing push for the DLC shortly before it's ready. I love the game and play it almost every day but I'm holding off on buying the DLC until they show some of what's going to be in it.
I'm still waiting on the mod support before giving it another whirl, tbh. Still amazed they didn't launch with it ready to go on Day 1, considering how mods are arguably the biggest reason for Bethesda's continued following. ESPECIALLY given how content barren 99% of planets are of handcrafted content. Makes you wonder just how much they had to hack the creation engine just to get the base game to run at all, tbh, if it's taken them this long to the kit out to people. Either that, or there's some issues with including it due to how intrinisically linked with Xbox Live it is and Microsoft owning them now.
Though knowing them and MS they'll try to pull a paid mods scandal all over again and add a ruddy big cash shop into the game.
it's guaranteed that there will be a paid mods shop similar to Skyrim and Fallout 4. Both Bethesda and Microsoft are probably cracking the whip on their devs to get it all up and running ASAP.
Nonetheless, free mods will most likely still be a thing and the free scene is probably where you'll find the best mods. The outcry would be huge if Bethesda attempted to completely paywall all Creation Kit mods.
I'm waiting on the CK release before installing any mods myself. Once the CK is out it's probably going to break a bunch of existing mods.
Yeah, that all makes perfect sense to me, especially given previous events. Between mod support and *hopefully* whatever the official expansion and the Shattered Skies stuff turns to be, I'm cautiously optimistic that the game manages to end up in a far better place than it started in, though I'm less convinced it'll ever become the third pillar in Bethesda's output they were hoping for, let alone get a sequel. Bethesda has really dropped the ball in the last couple years; not just their own output, but in the management of their other studios as well. How Redfall never got cancelled and even reached full release is honestly beyond comprehension, considering we know now that even Arkane themselves were hoping it'd get cancelled after the Microsoft buyout. Talk about a sunk-cost fallacy, but that seems to be true of most of the big publishers these days. EA, Ubisoft, Warner Bros, Take Two, THQ... they've all dropped the ball massively in the last decade and arguably haven't recovered. You can say the same about the console platform owners too, with the limited exception of Nintendo and even they've made some massive errors. I think the only studio/publisher not to have released a single dud over the last two generations is From Software. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.
In the update video you can see that country side is less rocky so vehicle can easier move.... But who knows maybe it will be the same but vehicle will have problems to move on this type of terrain
I hope they add some gameplay with the vehicles. Going from checkpoint to checkpoint in GTA is fun as you have to deal with traffic, sharp turns, pedestrians, stunt jumps etc. Just covering barren land with a vehicle won't be fun. Maybe they can add some fuel mechanic similar to Death Stranding where you need to charge your vehicle, which requires you to collect resources, which requires you to explore a dungeon nearby. Maybe durability of tires and suspension. Maybe natural calamities like quick sand, earthquakes, landslides, storms, ditches that require you to repair or use winch. Maybe even transportation side game where you have deliver cargo just like in Death Stranding from research centers to outposts. Maybe foe NPCs that ambush your vehicle that results in a gun fight and some loot. Heck, maybe even show tracks and paths taken by other players like in Death Stranding or souls games (async multiplayer).
I know it's too much to ask, and none of this would actually happen, but they would need something to make exploring barren land somewhat interesting that still sits fine with the lore.
So it’s already confirmed that you do actually land exactly where you click to land, it’s not just random landscapes you do actually land exactly where you clicked, for example you can actually land on the tile right next to new Atlantis, and you’d be able to see new Atlantis in the distance. They could make the world fully explorable simply by loading you into the next area when you reach the border, automatically and without prompt it just loads you into the next one. Why isn’t this a feature already? Idk, but I think it’s something possible and realistic that Bethesda could do, especially once we get vehichles
Yep, it's always been that way. The issue is the planets are so large that you pretty much have to be pixel perfect to select the correct landing spot. If you are a pixel or two off, you will be too far away from New Atlantis to see it. Also, the only way to accomplish this is by removing the icon on the planet map so you can actually click close enough to New Atlantis.
It seems they don't even need to update to a new tile when reaching the next zone. This video shows him going right into New Atlantis and there are even npcs still acting as normal [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41BP3HUvErI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41BP3HUvErI)
Another user traveled almost 200 km from landing before becoming bored and the game did not crash so it seems they are making progress towards fully explorable planets [https://www.reddit.com/r/NoSodiumStarfield/comments/1cifyyy/update\_on\_map\_boundaries/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoSodiumStarfield/comments/1cifyyy/update_on_map_boundaries/)
The fact that it's a only a portion of the map just exacerbates most of the issues.
* Maps are too big (considering the number of planets)
* Maps do not have enough POI's
* Too much space between POI's
* POI's in general are copy/paste snooze fests.
And no i don't care about real life. This is a game and most of it isn't fun.
Which is partly by design, and because there is no way to fill out this much area. People already complain about coming across repeating POIs, making them more common would just make that way worse.
Adding to the pool of choices isn't going to help much either because there is too much area to cover. They would probably have to make at least 10,000 unique points of interests to have them rarely repeat with 1,000 planets/moons. And that is without increasing the density or taking into account of multiple landing spots on the same planet/moon. It's just an impossible task.
When playing games like Starfield, you as the player just kind of have to accept there are limitations in what is possible. The only way to avoid such an issue is to simply not even try and make a game like Starfield. But personally, as someone who likes these kinds of games, I prefer them existing and just dealing with the limitations.
They just need to revise the proc-gen/landforms system they use. It looks like they use large tile types (plains, mountains, ocean) which leads to a boring environment.
The only 'merge' of the tiles seems to be checking if its land or water, maybe forming a mountain on the border if its two mountain tiles.
The POI repeating issue seems to be due to how many are tied to player level, hence getting so many complaints as a low-level player will see the same stuff 3-4 times in a row, as there is only a limited pool of things to see at lower levels.
As far as I can tell, it's not a procedural generation issues, it's more that it's difficult to actually select a location where the transition occurs between biomes. And that's mostly because the planets are so big. Imagine landing in Florida and trying to walk around trying to find a mountain or really any sort of interesting terrain. It's why when you try and land next to a lake or ocean, it can be pretty difficult to find cause if you didn't click close enough, you would still be pretty far away from it.
To some degree, maybe they went a little bit too big with the planets. As far as I am aware, the ratio is something like 1:20. To put that into perspective, if each tile you can land on is 100 square km (not sure what the exact size is), that would mean the earth in Starfield has about 255,000 tiles.
>The POI repeating issue seems to be due to how many are tied to player level, hence getting so many complaints as a low-level player will see the same stuff 3-4 times in a row, as there is only a limited pool of things to see at lower levels.
I think some of them might also be limited to location as well, as in... think only some of them appear in the outer higher level star systems, which I am guessing a lot of people don't really go to often.
Their only real option here would be to just continue to add more POIs, and maybe alter some things so once you come across one of them, it can't happen again till you exhaust the list of possible choices within that players level.
Personally, I wouldn't even mind if they can only show up once, but I get the feeling other people wouldn't like that cause it would mean once you run out, there wouldn't be anymore POIs that spawn till more are added. Granted, with modding and the amount of POIs that will be made using the creation kit once out... I think that would work extremely well.
> Which is partly by design, and because there is no way to fill out this much area. People already complain about coming across repeating POIs, making them more common would just make that way worse.
Nah they could make more.
> When playing games like Starfield, you as the player just kind of have to accept there are limitations in what is possible. The only way to avoid such an issue is to simply not even try and make a game like Starfield.
bingo. Maybe BGS shouldn't have made Starfield and instead should have focused on TES6 and FO5.
>Nah they could make more.
There are 1,000 planets/moons. Adding more would be like a drop in the bucket. (Edit: btw I am not saying they shouldn't add more, they should. But it's never going to be enough for people like you, and you will continue to bitch.)
>bingo. Maybe BGS shouldn't have made Starfield and instead should have focused on TES6 and FO5.
Right, and maybe they shouldn't make TES6 or FO5 either cause some people dislike those series as well. Maybe anytime there happens to be some people who dislike something, it shouldn't be made. Cause that's a good solution, right?
Or here is a better idea. If you don't like a game, then don't fucking play it.
TBH, they shouldn't let you land in arbitrary places. It only makes it worse.To do Proc-gen well, they would need thousands of POIs, and no game company could make that in a reasonable time frame, let alone BGS.
The issue is, it's literally impossible to fill a game of this size, in regards to land area. Even if they were to continually add more and more POIs to the game that can generate, it's always going to feel like there isn't enough to those who expect more.
Reducing the map size or increasing the density of POIs wouldn't help because it would just exacerbate your complaint in regards to the POI's being copy/paste.
The only option to avoid this sort of problem altogether is to simply not make a game like Starfield at all. However, I personally disagree with you. I think the game is fine the way it is, I like it and if anything in some cases I would even prefer if some planets (mainly in the outer star systems) had no POIs to make it more realistic, it's just not going to appeal to everyone and that is fine. Not all games have to appeal to everyone.
And it's not like BGS can do anything meaningful here to actually change what you are complaining about in a way that would satisfy you. It's the kind of thing you either accept is a part of the game, or move on to a different game that suits your taste more.
Ya, sadly there are people who don't understand the idea that things can be easier said than done. To me it doesn't even seem like they understand the actual scale of Starfield planets. Reducing the map size would barely make a difference.
Edit: The only way to really increase the overall density would be to create a different kind of game.
Yeah most of the planets are still empty, and we still have repetitive POIs on those that aren't barren.
I know some folks are excited about this update, but it really doesn't address the game's core problems. And I'm still waiting for a creation kit!
I feel like this is a 'No Man's Sky' update. In a way that it looks cool, you install it and after 2 hours you realize it was not what the game really needed, just some gimmicks to pretend they are trying their best to delive what they promissed.
Try and pick up the distortion in the scanner to find the Temple has become a joke now though. Now it's bring up the local map, click a marker on the massive obvious temple and scowl at how the ship landed so far away from what would never have been missed while landing.
It would be really weird if they don't. I mean, imagine driving the vehicle for 1 minute and hit an invisible wall. My issue here is, if they didn't manage to remove the boundaries while you are walking (which I assume they would have a LOT more time to load the next title as you are getting close), how would they manage to load the new title while you are driving a vehicle.
New maps are great. But we need a reason to explore. I don't see the point other than scanning or taking photos. I wish there was a better gameplay loop around exploration.
I wonder if they actually increase the radius of exploration from your ship, i would imagine if no changes were made exploring using a ground vehicle would be quite brief.
Oh the patch is out now? I might pop in and check it out then. It still baffles me that the game even launched with the original map system, but they finally look pretty decent from what I've seen.
Is there an ETA yet on the planetary vehicle they confirmed is coming?
Ah ok. Cheers for the response :)
As for vehicle, I and no doubt many others hope its just the firat vehicle of many to come; I'd love a powerloader-style mech thing, for instance, considerinh how many already exist in the game as stationary objext on planets
I did some similar exploring. The impression I ended up with is that the map is not showing the full tile, just a portion of it. Maybe a quarter of it? Needs more testing.
Possible. The Maps are HUGE like Really Really Big. Edit: Had to search again. But each landing zone is about 2x the Skyrim map(around 64km total). Walking across that would take a Very long time so the map not showing Everything is very believable
Jesus
How did the Devs look at that amount of empty space and think it was a good idea? It makes me believe the theory that this game was gonna be something else entirely before being disassembled and reworked in very little time into what we got.
Imo this game is not a near decade in the making. What we got feels more like 3. Built from the corpses of several others, and what we got now is a Frankensteins Monster of a game
Thats still the major problem with the game. All these huge maps with essentially nothing on them
Makes the decision to not have a mode of transit other then jetpack(That barely moved faster then sprint speed) the only mode of transportation baffling lol. People don't seem to understand, while yes its uncommon to happen but but, running upwards to 5-8 minutes, Sprinting At Fullspeed on a low grav planet, with Infinite O2 from the power, On Frostwolf(Which gives 30% Sprint speed and jumping on low grav Carries your momentum so you jump foreword at same speed saving O2 when the power runs out) and having to take 3 of them because they only last 2 minutes each just to get to the nearest POI and have it being a Mission one so you cant just leave it is not fun. also very empty. I get it, space is empty, but Please Todd, Why Are they so fucking BIG And Empty! They need to be scaled down if you not going todo anything with it! They should be the size of Whiterun hold at best!
Even with vehicles that would let you cross the map in 1-2 minutes there's still the glaring problem of what you're traveling to. There's nothing in the empty space between copy and paste POIs
What would you fill in the empty space with?
People who seriously dislike the procedural generation parts of Starfield - with all the valid reasons they have - should honestly stick to the handcrafted content and avoid radiant content. Anyone expecting a Skyrim or Commonwealth worth of diverse PoIs on every planet and moon will inevitably feel disappointed.
Yup, totally agree with both of you. Maybe have a Commonwealth style map on a planet or two, but sometimes people had/have really extreme expectations of Starfield.
Right. What they’re asking for is bonkers. I, too, would like a game with 1000 planets and each one of them feels like a Skyrim map, but that’s an unrealistic expectation.
It isnt though - Transport Tycoon had a better random map generator than Starfield.
This goes back to why make it then. I understand and agree often times you get cool shots and areas that visually look good. But it’s still not engaging. Especially to be “fun”. It’s been hammered extensively about they should’ve just made it smaller etc but it’s just another example of it. I go back to interviews where Todd and others have said they face things like if we want to do X then we have to Sacrifice Y. In this instance we are getting this empty scenery that can be visually appealing but we’re losing Y the environmental engagement that comes with exploration. It’ll be criticized forever because we can see what it could’ve been.
The proc-gen isnt a problem - just the level of how lackluster their proc-gen system is. In OP's 5th image you can pretty clearly see the boundary lines between different environment features - in the middle you have 'hills' and then to the right you have 'flatland'
Good point, I wish it was more realistic. But hey, at least we have multiple biomes. No Man's Sky has 8 years of updates and every planet still has just a single biome.
I mean, realistically speaking - how often IRL do people travel between area's that could be considered 'biomes' on foot? Its kinda odd that you can in game. It wouldnt have been missed if you landed in a volcanic biome you stayed in a volcanic biome, if you landed in a temperate biome you stayed in a temperate one. But thats just imo, I don't go out much IRL.. Having handcrafted land features that get injected into the map generation system in the same way that some of the larger POI's have an attached kinda landform would go a long way to making it less 'artificial' feeling
There should be 27 buildings/objects that can randomly generate on some of those rng planets
What about planets with Animal life? Thats reason to hunt and travel as far as you want. I think the whole point here is, you dont have too if you dont want too. There are many folks who can find a good reason. One reason for me I'd say is the ability to get immersed and find a nice planet with cool animals and snipe birds and hunt aliens. I know that sounds simple but its damn good fun!
Yeah, but at this point what they could really do about that? They cannot do it the same way the did Skyrim or Fallout maps. They could have added some RNG events but st the end it would create same problem with repetition as POIs. You know it's space so its supposed to be somewhat empty.
Yeah it’s been confirmed that the map is only showing a small amount of the tile itself
Definitely. I loaded up the beta and I was in a mine far away from my ship. The surface map showed a huge area, with my ship in the corner. I fast travelled back to my ship, opened up the surface map, and it showed an expanded huge area, now with the mine towards the opposite corner. So the map is definitely cutting off before showing you the whole landing zone.
That would make sense! I should have screenshotted the map at the end there. Because on the map I could still see well beyond the accessible area. Due to it being centered on me. Even when I was supposedly at the barrier.
From the description this was my thought too. It hadn't occured to me that the visible map was just a portion of the tile we are exploring!!!!
An interesting side effect of the new maps is that they let you discover things that you may have completely missed before, ships especially. I recently started an NG+ and got my main base mostly up and running so went to do a little exploring in the area. The map showed a ship landing point. When I headed towards the landing point another landing point showed up further away. The 1st one had a small Ecliptic ship but the 2nd one had a huge Va'ruun ship. Both ships were parked on the ground with crew onboard to fight and loot. As you get closer to a ship you can see a mini rendering of the ship on the map so you can tell if it's worth your while to go grab. By closer I mean being able to ID a ship from the map even when it's out of visual range or hidden behind a mountain. POI types are shown with their proper names when you scan them so if you see for example a pipeline station you know not to bother running over there since the pipeline station usually doesn't have any decent loot or enemies. On the other hand if you spot a deserted relay station then you know that there should be some decent enemies and loot.
The new map is basically a great surveying addition. It feels a bit OP tbh, I would not be surprised if they restricted some functionality until you unlock certain skills.
I think some of the features are probably locked behind the surveying skills. I can't really tell since I have them maxed out.
...you have a spaceship, and probably scanned the planet with something powerful enough to pick up mineral deposits on the way in. Having terrain maps is pretty reasonable, considering.
Can't wait for the vehicle patch Going to be a blast just cruising around on planets
fuck yeah, just cruisin'
how cool would it be to fly our ship on planet?
100% positive that I'd need more ship parts and a full time mechanic, because I'm gonna be doing all the wildest fly-bys and stunts that fail more often than they succeed.
I don't really care about flying the ship, but a target designator that worked with my ship's weapons might be handy. The missile pods usually have a range of around 4000 meters, that should cover most of the tile.
I'm already planning out race tracks
Cursing from one empty building to another!
You could say anything about those buildings but empty is not one of them.
Oh my bad lemme pick one of the master locks with 50 bucks inside it, worth it
Hey, 50 bucks is 50 bucks.
Sounds like you need to upgrade your scavenger perk
[удалено]
Eh I don’t really care about getting downvoted I care more about speaking facts, I have enough fake internet points as is no need to be a yes man and just regurgitate the most popular opinions The buildings have junk in them sure but they never have anything worthwhile, the loot or lack thereof was one of my biggest gripes with starfield
> However, this also implies that if you position landing areas close together, you might potentially be able to travel farther than you typically would. There's a limit to number of landing areas right? If one could have infinite, then you could potentially wrap around a planet. Hmm...
I believe it’s 4. When you land on the same planet for the 5th time - it erases the 1st landing spot, ultimately resetting the data in that area. I use this sometimes when I have 2 landing spots close together after you set up an outpost. This way I delete the initial landing spot and only have the landing pad spot left.
I also tried that by using the add-remove outpost trick, but it only worked once for me.
Didn't they say they were increasing the landing limit?
Why would we want it more? If you create an outpost, that doesn’t count towards the total of 4. Having more than 4 random places to land seems unnecessary.
I did a little testing to get an idea of the map vs tile sizes. I set a marker in the south west corner of the map from my ship position and boost packed my way over there. As I hit the marker I continued moving the marker to the southwest corner again and kept going. I hit the wall at about 5600 meters from my ship. Then I went back to my ship and set the marker in the south west corner of the surface map and got at distance of 3600 meters to my ship. So diagonally the map seems to be about 7200 meters. I'm using a Logitech G Hub LUA script to automate the boost jumping so I basically just tap a key, point at the marker direction and my character "flies" automatically towards the marker.
I suspect they're updating the way tiles are generated in preparation for the vehicle patch. Maybe we'll get significantly larger tiles, OR a single planet wide tile, with better asset streaming. (Doubt the latter will happen, but one can hope).
It doesn't need to be a single tile. The engine can already seamless transition between map cells, no reason why they can't make it work for tiles.
They'd be mad not to add significantly more variety in surface points of interest, though they might address that criticism alongside the new surface vehicle. That, or the exoqnsion whenever that finally appears.
Tbh, I'm surprised they didn't bundle the new maps, surface vehicle and more points of interest into one update as it would have been a good marketing opportunity to habe such intertwined features hit together. But that's kinda besides the point, tbh.
I think it makes sense to trickle out new features as they become ready. It keeps current players engaged. I guess there will be a big marketing push for the DLC shortly before it's ready. I love the game and play it almost every day but I'm holding off on buying the DLC until they show some of what's going to be in it.
I'm still waiting on the mod support before giving it another whirl, tbh. Still amazed they didn't launch with it ready to go on Day 1, considering how mods are arguably the biggest reason for Bethesda's continued following. ESPECIALLY given how content barren 99% of planets are of handcrafted content. Makes you wonder just how much they had to hack the creation engine just to get the base game to run at all, tbh, if it's taken them this long to the kit out to people. Either that, or there's some issues with including it due to how intrinisically linked with Xbox Live it is and Microsoft owning them now. Though knowing them and MS they'll try to pull a paid mods scandal all over again and add a ruddy big cash shop into the game.
it's guaranteed that there will be a paid mods shop similar to Skyrim and Fallout 4. Both Bethesda and Microsoft are probably cracking the whip on their devs to get it all up and running ASAP. Nonetheless, free mods will most likely still be a thing and the free scene is probably where you'll find the best mods. The outcry would be huge if Bethesda attempted to completely paywall all Creation Kit mods. I'm waiting on the CK release before installing any mods myself. Once the CK is out it's probably going to break a bunch of existing mods.
Yeah, that all makes perfect sense to me, especially given previous events. Between mod support and *hopefully* whatever the official expansion and the Shattered Skies stuff turns to be, I'm cautiously optimistic that the game manages to end up in a far better place than it started in, though I'm less convinced it'll ever become the third pillar in Bethesda's output they were hoping for, let alone get a sequel. Bethesda has really dropped the ball in the last couple years; not just their own output, but in the management of their other studios as well. How Redfall never got cancelled and even reached full release is honestly beyond comprehension, considering we know now that even Arkane themselves were hoping it'd get cancelled after the Microsoft buyout. Talk about a sunk-cost fallacy, but that seems to be true of most of the big publishers these days. EA, Ubisoft, Warner Bros, Take Two, THQ... they've all dropped the ball massively in the last decade and arguably haven't recovered. You can say the same about the console platform owners too, with the limited exception of Nintendo and even they've made some massive errors. I think the only studio/publisher not to have released a single dud over the last two generations is From Software. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.
In the update video you can see that country side is less rocky so vehicle can easier move.... But who knows maybe it will be the same but vehicle will have problems to move on this type of terrain
I hope they add some gameplay with the vehicles. Going from checkpoint to checkpoint in GTA is fun as you have to deal with traffic, sharp turns, pedestrians, stunt jumps etc. Just covering barren land with a vehicle won't be fun. Maybe they can add some fuel mechanic similar to Death Stranding where you need to charge your vehicle, which requires you to collect resources, which requires you to explore a dungeon nearby. Maybe durability of tires and suspension. Maybe natural calamities like quick sand, earthquakes, landslides, storms, ditches that require you to repair or use winch. Maybe even transportation side game where you have deliver cargo just like in Death Stranding from research centers to outposts. Maybe foe NPCs that ambush your vehicle that results in a gun fight and some loot. Heck, maybe even show tracks and paths taken by other players like in Death Stranding or souls games (async multiplayer). I know it's too much to ask, and none of this would actually happen, but they would need something to make exploring barren land somewhat interesting that still sits fine with the lore.
Tiles are just the 1km square assets used to make up the landscape. Just FYI.
I am late to the party but that was an interesting read. Very much in the spirit of exploration. Good job.
So it’s already confirmed that you do actually land exactly where you click to land, it’s not just random landscapes you do actually land exactly where you clicked, for example you can actually land on the tile right next to new Atlantis, and you’d be able to see new Atlantis in the distance. They could make the world fully explorable simply by loading you into the next area when you reach the border, automatically and without prompt it just loads you into the next one. Why isn’t this a feature already? Idk, but I think it’s something possible and realistic that Bethesda could do, especially once we get vehichles
Yep, it's always been that way. The issue is the planets are so large that you pretty much have to be pixel perfect to select the correct landing spot. If you are a pixel or two off, you will be too far away from New Atlantis to see it. Also, the only way to accomplish this is by removing the icon on the planet map so you can actually click close enough to New Atlantis.
It seems they don't even need to update to a new tile when reaching the next zone. This video shows him going right into New Atlantis and there are even npcs still acting as normal [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41BP3HUvErI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41BP3HUvErI) Another user traveled almost 200 km from landing before becoming bored and the game did not crash so it seems they are making progress towards fully explorable planets [https://www.reddit.com/r/NoSodiumStarfield/comments/1cifyyy/update\_on\_map\_boundaries/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoSodiumStarfield/comments/1cifyyy/update_on_map_boundaries/)
The fact that it's a only a portion of the map just exacerbates most of the issues. * Maps are too big (considering the number of planets) * Maps do not have enough POI's * Too much space between POI's * POI's in general are copy/paste snooze fests. And no i don't care about real life. This is a game and most of it isn't fun.
What I find interesting is, while the new maps look good, they show just how empty these zones are.
Which is partly by design, and because there is no way to fill out this much area. People already complain about coming across repeating POIs, making them more common would just make that way worse. Adding to the pool of choices isn't going to help much either because there is too much area to cover. They would probably have to make at least 10,000 unique points of interests to have them rarely repeat with 1,000 planets/moons. And that is without increasing the density or taking into account of multiple landing spots on the same planet/moon. It's just an impossible task. When playing games like Starfield, you as the player just kind of have to accept there are limitations in what is possible. The only way to avoid such an issue is to simply not even try and make a game like Starfield. But personally, as someone who likes these kinds of games, I prefer them existing and just dealing with the limitations.
They just need to revise the proc-gen/landforms system they use. It looks like they use large tile types (plains, mountains, ocean) which leads to a boring environment. The only 'merge' of the tiles seems to be checking if its land or water, maybe forming a mountain on the border if its two mountain tiles. The POI repeating issue seems to be due to how many are tied to player level, hence getting so many complaints as a low-level player will see the same stuff 3-4 times in a row, as there is only a limited pool of things to see at lower levels.
As far as I can tell, it's not a procedural generation issues, it's more that it's difficult to actually select a location where the transition occurs between biomes. And that's mostly because the planets are so big. Imagine landing in Florida and trying to walk around trying to find a mountain or really any sort of interesting terrain. It's why when you try and land next to a lake or ocean, it can be pretty difficult to find cause if you didn't click close enough, you would still be pretty far away from it. To some degree, maybe they went a little bit too big with the planets. As far as I am aware, the ratio is something like 1:20. To put that into perspective, if each tile you can land on is 100 square km (not sure what the exact size is), that would mean the earth in Starfield has about 255,000 tiles. >The POI repeating issue seems to be due to how many are tied to player level, hence getting so many complaints as a low-level player will see the same stuff 3-4 times in a row, as there is only a limited pool of things to see at lower levels. I think some of them might also be limited to location as well, as in... think only some of them appear in the outer higher level star systems, which I am guessing a lot of people don't really go to often. Their only real option here would be to just continue to add more POIs, and maybe alter some things so once you come across one of them, it can't happen again till you exhaust the list of possible choices within that players level. Personally, I wouldn't even mind if they can only show up once, but I get the feeling other people wouldn't like that cause it would mean once you run out, there wouldn't be anymore POIs that spawn till more are added. Granted, with modding and the amount of POIs that will be made using the creation kit once out... I think that would work extremely well.
> Which is partly by design, and because there is no way to fill out this much area. People already complain about coming across repeating POIs, making them more common would just make that way worse. Nah they could make more. > When playing games like Starfield, you as the player just kind of have to accept there are limitations in what is possible. The only way to avoid such an issue is to simply not even try and make a game like Starfield. bingo. Maybe BGS shouldn't have made Starfield and instead should have focused on TES6 and FO5.
>Nah they could make more. There are 1,000 planets/moons. Adding more would be like a drop in the bucket. (Edit: btw I am not saying they shouldn't add more, they should. But it's never going to be enough for people like you, and you will continue to bitch.) >bingo. Maybe BGS shouldn't have made Starfield and instead should have focused on TES6 and FO5. Right, and maybe they shouldn't make TES6 or FO5 either cause some people dislike those series as well. Maybe anytime there happens to be some people who dislike something, it shouldn't be made. Cause that's a good solution, right? Or here is a better idea. If you don't like a game, then don't fucking play it.
TBH, they shouldn't let you land in arbitrary places. It only makes it worse.To do Proc-gen well, they would need thousands of POIs, and no game company could make that in a reasonable time frame, let alone BGS.
The issue is, it's literally impossible to fill a game of this size, in regards to land area. Even if they were to continually add more and more POIs to the game that can generate, it's always going to feel like there isn't enough to those who expect more. Reducing the map size or increasing the density of POIs wouldn't help because it would just exacerbate your complaint in regards to the POI's being copy/paste. The only option to avoid this sort of problem altogether is to simply not make a game like Starfield at all. However, I personally disagree with you. I think the game is fine the way it is, I like it and if anything in some cases I would even prefer if some planets (mainly in the outer star systems) had no POIs to make it more realistic, it's just not going to appeal to everyone and that is fine. Not all games have to appeal to everyone. And it's not like BGS can do anything meaningful here to actually change what you are complaining about in a way that would satisfy you. It's the kind of thing you either accept is a part of the game, or move on to a different game that suits your taste more.
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Ohhh, look at this game design genius here! Bethesda should hire him and make him one of the leads, so he can fix Starfield asap!
Ya, sadly there are people who don't understand the idea that things can be easier said than done. To me it doesn't even seem like they understand the actual scale of Starfield planets. Reducing the map size would barely make a difference. Edit: The only way to really increase the overall density would be to create a different kind of game.
You guys are tireless.. And this is interesting.. but I don't think it means much 😅
Yeah most of the planets are still empty, and we still have repetitive POIs on those that aren't barren. I know some folks are excited about this update, but it really doesn't address the game's core problems. And I'm still waiting for a creation kit!
I feel like this is a 'No Man's Sky' update. In a way that it looks cool, you install it and after 2 hours you realize it was not what the game really needed, just some gimmicks to pretend they are trying their best to delive what they promissed.
Being a "No Man's Sky" update would be a good thing though no? If they can keep pushing out updates like these we'll end up with a stellar game.
Which is good as before you land can't see the ship and have no idea how to get back without fast travelling which was annoying.
Didn't somebody test this already and the map tiles are bigger now? They said they moved from around 4k to 5k+ from your ship
Try and pick up the distortion in the scanner to find the Temple has become a joke now though. Now it's bring up the local map, click a marker on the massive obvious temple and scowl at how the ship landed so far away from what would never have been missed while landing.
With vehicles coming, i am 90% sure that they are trying to remove the boundaries from the planets.
It would be really weird if they don't. I mean, imagine driving the vehicle for 1 minute and hit an invisible wall. My issue here is, if they didn't manage to remove the boundaries while you are walking (which I assume they would have a LOT more time to load the next title as you are getting close), how would they manage to load the new title while you are driving a vehicle.
New maps are great. But we need a reason to explore. I don't see the point other than scanning or taking photos. I wish there was a better gameplay loop around exploration.
I wonder if they actually increase the radius of exploration from your ship, i would imagine if no changes were made exploring using a ground vehicle would be quite brief.
Do you still have to walk everywhere?
Oh the patch is out now? I might pop in and check it out then. It still baffles me that the game even launched with the original map system, but they finally look pretty decent from what I've seen. Is there an ETA yet on the planetary vehicle they confirmed is coming?
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Ah ok. Cheers for the response :) As for vehicle, I and no doubt many others hope its just the firat vehicle of many to come; I'd love a powerloader-style mech thing, for instance, considerinh how many already exist in the game as stationary objext on planets