Direct Response to PDF Information - August 2016

..... also, would it be feasible in Super Melee to have parts of the ship break off?! Like damage shown on the ship, aliens getting sucked into the vacuum, lights going out, wings blown off, etc?! That would be killer, and one of the updates you can make for the modern day Star Control. Not changing the base game, but updating it for a new millennium!

So, you were completely satisfied with this:

And now this isn't enough?

I mean talk about unrealistic expectations... I couldn't agree more with custom, one of a kind planets/star systems, but you will get 98% of them RNG'ed. Let's be real here, bud. Besides, critters are all non-PG. How long do you think it'll take you to get tired of seeing the same kind? Also, you can't expect every planet to have stuff to do on either... Just like in SC2.

On the side note. I'd much rather prefer 70% or more of planets to be lifeless. Just like SC2.

"The ONLY thing I don't like about the look of the planets, is that you can see all the features from space. It breaks my suspension of disbelief when I saw the fly-around video or the screenshot in the PDF and you can make out the cliffs, trees, etc from space."

Completely agree with this. Planet features are a gift under wrap and you remove it by visiting the planet. They definitely shouldn't be visible from exploration screen. What should be visible is maybe atmosphere if there's such?

"I'd like to see less floating text and bars, and more slick presentation. Maybe the physical computer terminal its shown on."

I hate UIs where 75% of UI graphics is the "border". I have to disagree with you here. Simpler = better in my UI experience. Endless Space has one of my favorite UIs to date. Floating text + floating icons is the way to go in the modern digital society.

"... also, would it be feasible in Super Melee to have parts of the ship break off?! Like damage shown on the ship, aliens getting sucked into the vacuum, lights going out, wings blown off, etc?! That would be killer..."

I second that. This is a MAJOR melee experience enhancer. More eye candy!!

"Without the quests, there's no direction. And without direction, all Star Control would be a game about flying a ship around a huge procedurally generated galaxy to land on planets to gather resources to upgrade your ship to continue exploring. And nobody would want to play a game like that..........."

Well, duuh! And that's why I wanna stress the importance of random contextual events that generate those quests. Apart from the main story-line of course. Obviously there could be limited amount of different type of those, but who doesn't like to bounty hunt or pirate about in space on regular basis, amiright? Especially after completing the main quest.

The controversial part is that Plaent Exploration just became a 3D race car driving game.  Where you're looking from the back of the car over (ala 3rd person view).

If you look back at Star Control 2 it captured an audience of "top down view" players.  Everything was top down.    The actual gameplay is top down.  You fight in supermelee top down.  You explore the planet topdown.

When you start changing the planet exploration to something other than top down game play, you now have another game that cancels out the main audience.

It likes playing one angle game and switching to another angle game.    For those who have complete motion sickness issues,  they'll be turned off when they get to doing the planet exploration.

The old exploration was not far off from the super melee part of the game.  You're controlling a ship top down and moving it with same controls basically.

The new exploration you're not looking from the back of the ship head off and you're 'steering' the ship from the back.  not from the top.   It's 2 very different style of game play.

The exploration of the planet just became  "Spores".   If you guys have ever played spores and got the space ship stage of the game, where you explore other planets/galaxy in Spores, this is what it looks like.  A big ball that you see and you're rolling the ball around in a 3D third person view.

Regarding the solar system planet display: I think they need a prominent atmosphere. That has the advantage of masking the excessive planetary features a bit (without actually removing them) - while also looking awesome.

The space stage in Spore was probably one of the best elements of the game, if you liked the economy game. The combat was a little lacking, and the flight controls were wonky as well (why they didn't just let you control it like a flying mount in WoW, I'll never know), but it had a lot of charm. Especially when you found your own races on other planets and subsequently forcibly removed their atmosphere. But I digress.

If the only reason you play Star Control is for the top-down experience, I don't feel like you really get the game. The game is more than that. And yes, I grew up with 2, hated 3. But this is 2016, we have the capability to do so much more, why are we complaining that progress is being made? 

I disagree.   Look at games like Stardew Valley.   There's a lot of games that go back to the 'old school style gaming play style.

I'm not saying that there's not demand for 2d, that would be asinine. What I'm saying is that Stardock wants to take it in an unexplored direction, and they are completely within their rights to do so. I'm embracing a fresh perspective, because I'm not a stick in the mud I kid, I understand the need for some form of familiarity. I just feel that everything they've shown has a lot of potential to be really good and fun.

Let's take the brief glimpse of the comms game, for example. I think that looks fantastic. The only real quip I have is I hope that there's more dialogue options on average, because 4's a little sparse. I understand if there's a few moments where there shouldn't be as much choice, but I feel like freedom of choice is key during dialogue to really make your experience truly yours.

Planetary exploration is a lot of fun just from what I've seen. I don't want to feel like I'm just looking at screens on a ship, I want to feel like I'm there. Stardock seems to be cranking up the cinematic quality of the game, making every shot look like a movie, and I want more in that direction (without, of course, sacrificing gameplay. That's totally possible).

I'm going to have to see more of the system exploration and combat before I can comment, though from what I've seen, it's very clear that top-down perspective is going to be highly disadvantageous. 

Volusanius is right. RonPimpster - the WHOLE REST of the entire game us still top down! This is just one subsection that had advanced with technology. Sure, I'd love the game to be completely hand-drawn again, but I don't think that's necessary. 

It makes sense when you think about it that the space portions are top-down pseudo-2d and the ROUND planets are 3d because... Well planets are actually round! It makes less sense to make a planet a flat plane... What are you, a 7th century philosopher? Lol!

And it can't be just any purple.. it must be a purple that reaches out and tweaks your medula oblongata!

(Points if anyone remembers THAT reference.  Hint: SC1, not actually in the game, but in the box)

Never played SC1 - is that heresy? Is it worth a play? I thought it was only melee, right? 

Oooh, it was more than melee. It was a glorious strategy game. It was the actual war. Not just any war, THE war.

Well SC2 has basically the same melee only with both generations of ships. SC1 has a conquest style strategy game while SC2 has the adventure quest. But actually I spent tons of time in the scenario builder of SC1, making challenges for myself and my brothers. It was a great game in its own right, but SC2 is the true classic.   Definitely worth a whirl if you've never tried though.

This would not be my first time suggesting this but I'd love to see Stardock offer some type of strategic gameplay mode in addition to other gameplay modes. Not just different types of melee (e.g. capture the flag, base defense, etc.) but also some type of alternate strategic mod in honor of SC1.

We all know that SC2 defied categorization by being a combination of genres -- this fact was just explicitly acknowledged in the August Developer Log, after all -- but the different genres discussed are obviously all drawn from SC2's adventure. SC1's strategic element is ignored like the redheaded stepchild of the franchise, which is a shame because I always enjoyed it.

Anyone familiar with Paul and Fred's CV should also know about Archon, a title which I could argue heavily influenced Star Control's melee combat. Archon was basically like chess combined with melee combat. In chess, the attacking piece always takes the defending piece, however in Archon or Star Control, the victor is determined through combat regardless of who attacks. It is entirely possible that a very weak unit could achieve victory and hold their ground, which was an element of both Archon and SC1 that I always found really intriguing.

SC1 really embraced that idea as an additional strategic layer on top of melee, and I'd love to see it return in some form. I think a simple alternate "conquest" play mode could be incorporated to pay homage to a gameplay element not unique to just SC1, but to other classic TFB titles as well, and I think it would be a cool homage to Paul and Fred as it was a gameplay idea shared by more than one of their titles.

*Ahem*.... I think we ALL know who the red-headed step-child of the franchise  is... And it's NOT SC1 lol!! 

Lastly, I feel like someone could mod in a conquest game play type. I'd play that, awkbird! 

OH, HUNAM with the NMS defense again! Were you on the development team or something? Do you get paid royalties for every copy not returned? Sheesh. Lol, I can't explain why - but NMS's "life-filled" worlds somehow felt entirely lifeless to me and no amount of "pretty vistas" are going to change that.

And I can't explain why, but YES - the screenshots you posted from the planetary lander screen from SC2 somehow DO excite me, far more than the dull worlds of NMS. Can't explain it but it's true. Maybe it's just me??? (it's not.)

Either way, like I said before you and I usually agree on most stuff, and the two points about not showing planetary features and showing ship damage while fighting is some common ground I think would be AWESOME! Glad you agree! 

I've always felt there should be dead zones on ships that, while they don't deal crew damage, impact the performance of the ship.

I actually enjoyed sc1.    I would either go over to my friends house or he comes over and we would be playing against either other on the same keyboard.   Left side    and right side.           Now that we have internet technology  been able to do sc1 would be fun with other players with some quick matches.  

I completely agree with having exploration mode be an angled view.  Top down is more than restricting for the artists, it takes away almost everything they can do to make the scene look good.  There is no depth perception from a perfectly centered top down view... which is what makes it so much better for the arcade style combat.  But in exploration where you don't need to fight, they really do need to take the handcuffs off of the artists and let them work.

I'll be happy even just with a secret code for top down that only people over 40 who won't complain about it, or think less of Stardock for having done, are allowed to have:-)

You don't get it? Both of those games landscapes were built by a computer. SC2 landscapes as well as NMS are both randomly generated by a lifeless CPU. If you say that uh oh these NMS computer generated lifeless trashscapes suck, then what does it make SC2 landscapes?

I understand the NMS frustration - no story, no interactivity, limited game mechanics. Very much unlike SC2. But you can't just trash the game's aspects that are actually amazingly fleshed out (like planets) just 'cause you hate the game. As a matter of fact there's more to do on the planet surface in NMS than in SC2. Which still sucks donkey balls 'cause mechanics ain't nearly deep enough...

The secret code can be "Iamover30".

I like NMS but I think the problem with NMS was that the devs got quite lazy and used Procedural Generation (henceforth Proge) toooooo liberally.

In fact I think they spent more time playing around with the Proge math than the actual game and gameplay.

Also the Proge universe provided the seed that created the planets. This probably led to nonsensical planets and the sameness across the universe. Meaning that all planets end up having the same content (all planets contain aliens, ruins, monoliths, buildings, etc)

Although I haven't explored the vast universe to ascertain some other things but the level of customization they used appears to be very minimal. At most they have limited the appearances of aliens to some sectors of the universe. Like having all stars with seed numbers ending or starting in 1,2,3,4 have one kind of alien, etc.

Yet they failed to account on the age of the star based on distance to the center of the galaxy/universe, and therefore the planetology based on the age and size of the star. Leading to a blinding miss on the flora and fauna (if any) and mineral composition of the planets in question. 

It is also sickening how all stars seem to have 3 planets (so far). With some planets having a moon or two or none at all.

It's as if they have dumbed down the universe and instead of a survival adventure game it feels more like a survival arcade game.

I think the RNG galaxies of MOO was more realistic than the trash NMS generates. I still can't comprehend how with today's tech they could still make such a simple game. Sure the graphics and Proge engine are smart and do produce some amazing topography and scenes but the complexity is in the scale of 1 out of 10 when compared to the randomly generated galaxies of MOO.

Couldn't they have just used the MOO maths in defining stars and planets and then applied their Proge to that?

What SC Origins can do right is in making sure that the Proge is used to flesh out the frame and direction created by the devs and have the Proge be the means to an end and not the end itself. So a good guideline would be to have a special set of rules used to flesh out the galaxy.

Then the galaxy is tweaked to make it fit the game.

A new set of parameters is then created based on location of stars, planets, etc.

Proge is used to flesh out the terrain on all planets according the parameters. Mountainous, rocky, flat, watery, etc.

Which is obviously based on the age of the planet and the distance to the sun and if it has any atmosphere at all. Young planets having more mountains and tectonic activity than old planets.

Again important planets or locations are tweaked to fit the purpose of the game.

Then you can start using another Proge engine designed to create the flora and fauna of the FEW planets that will have some sort of life in it.

I guess the biggest problem with NMS is that they had to make it so that you wouldn't end up being stranded on a planet or star hence it turning into more of an arcade game than adventure sim. So every planet had to have pretty much the same general content but with different skins.

A point to make is that HG announced to the world how more species of flora and fauna had been discovered in NMS than currently found on earth. This I think is laughable because EARTH is one planet. If they had done NMS right you would have to have find X times as many species on earth as you find X planets with life in NMS.

So therefore they should have made 90% of all planets lifeless and concentrate the flora and fauna to 10% of planets. Of those 10% of planets only 1% should be earth like planets containing as much richness in flora and fauna as our earth (that is multiple biomes), the other 9% should have been single biome planets with much less diversity. Meaning that you would have to sometimes find desert planets containing only desert kind of lifeworms I mean lifeforms. And ocean worlds containing only water lifeforms like in Subnautica, etc. Or ice worlds with Yeti-like and Yak-like creatures. Then you can have the gas giants Easter planets with gassy lifeforms floating....... and ONLY (IF AT ALL) should these planets with at least some sort of life have alien outposts.

That would have turned NMS into a more enjoyable game in finding these rare gems, these 10% of planets, especially the 1% of earth-like planets.

I hope that SC Origins can keep some aspects of the space exploration realistic and fun.

After about 120 hours in NMS I found out that about 8 planets out of 10 have life. I, personally, think this is a mistake. But I can understand HG reasoning - who wants to visit lifeless planets. They didn't want players to not spend time on planets. But after all this I still "skip" planets even with life on it, 'cause there's just too much of it and it starts repeating itself. The funny thing is that now I spend more time on lifeless (no fauna) planets... One less thing that gets in your way (especially when the milestone is achieved)...

Topography totally sucks for a planet (if compared to RL), but perfect for an area... How did that get OK'ed?.. They took an area topography and copy-pasted it all over whole planet. I mean it's freaking awesome looking, but there's no reason to go explore the rest of the planet, 'cause you know it'd just be the same. I guess that's made that way, so you don't have to spend time to explore the whole planet to know what it's like?.. I feel like they could at least tweaked it to where some planets have huge ass plains and mountain ridges instead of all plains (haven't found one yet) or all hills or all mountains etc..

From the WIP I assume SCO will be the same way - one biome + topography per globe. Which is fine since the planet size is not nearly as big as NMS planet size. Which is another issue of NMS. You either get an Earth size planet or a moon size planet... I really hope SCO will have land-able asteroids (which NMS was supposed to have) and overall a wide size scale for celestial bodies (unlandable gas giants). Even if there will be nothing to do.

Cool bonus

Well they do have floating "rocks / pieces of earth" you can land on.

I actually find the survival mechanics of NMS so absurd they all seem arbitrary.

I was on this planet were during the daytime the temperature would rise to 40 degrees celsius and I would be getting thermal damage. But thankfully during the night cycle the thermal damage disappeared. The problem was that at night the temperature would rise to as much as 58 degrees!!! It was actually hotter at night than during the day yet you got thermal damage during the day!!!! Bummer for realism. At least it was cool you could find shade to escape the thermal damage. You can even use grenades to dig a hole to escape the sunlight.

That planet goes to show some very independent and arbitrary measurements and rules being used.

The devs made the mistake that they wanted to have every single player as close as possible a uniform gameplay experience.

And since players are randomly placed across the universe then you need to "spread" the uniformity across the galaxy to ensure a similar game experience.

Imagine if you ended up in a Venus-like planet where you could not survive outside for more than 10 minutes.....

Or you ended up in a planet so small that it did not have the required mass to have the correct chemical composition to contain the required resources to allow you to travel into space.... in other words if you were stuck on a huge lump of rock composed of 90% iron and 10% copper.

However this will not be so for SC origins since the start is the same for everyone. So there is not need to spoil the galaxy to try and create a uniform experience.

OMG! NO! I will not let another thread be derailed by back-and-forth arguing over No Man's Sky AGAIN!

I can't explain my hatred for NMS trashscapes. But I think it has to do with the fact that no matter WHAT planet you land on - no matter HOW MANY planets you land on - no matter how many hours you put into landing on Computer-made crap planets in that game - you will NEVER find anything cool. I think that's it.

It's like - in Terraria? That's computer made, procedurally generated, however, you're always going to dig down and find a carefully curated and fun Jungle zone. Or a cool dungeon. Or a hell-landscape that's intriguing. Whereas, in Starbound, a very very similar game - you just... never do. Same with NMS.

Star Control II, on the other hand? Besides being visually hamstrung by tech of that day - you ALWAYS found something f-ing righteously cool after exploring 80% of the vapid planets. NMS you NEVER find anything unique or cool. Remember finding the remains of the Androsyn cities? Remember the Talking Pet at the crash-landed dreadnaught? Remember the long extinct Taalo planet, where you found the beacon on a nearby moon? These are thrilling and interesting finds and HUMAN-CURATED in an AI-built world. NMS, you will always just find trees if there are trees, which are made of carbon. Creatures, if there are creatures, made of carbon. Rocks which are made of iron. Crystals which are made of plutonium. Some random items. Multiple bases that all host the same one alien, saying vaguely the same thing. No curated, awesome content. Everything just built by the AI. That's gotta be the difference to me. Nothing thrilling or intriguing to EVER find. That's why it feels so lifeless.

Can we put this to bed and move on? Haha! Maybe we can just talk about visible gravity wells in this thread now................

Yes, NMS is missing hand-made content, period. The game was made for hardcore sci-fi fans that like to relax and read, hence all those sci-fi novel snippets sprinkled across the planets, space stations, buildings and monoliths. Have you paid attention to those texts at all? That is the supposed appeal of NMS. Travel/explore, sight-see, READ, sometimes "survive"... SC2 had exact same thing. 90% of planets are total duds. 10 planets had some text on them. SCO will have a good bit more of planet fun than SC2 and NMS put together to my understanding. So let's not discuss a non-issue here.

As I said before, they messed up because they had to have a uniform game experience to randomly placed players. Meaning that you HAVE to find the same crap all the time else your gameplay may be too hard or too easy. HG appear to be good programmers but sure don't know how to design a game.

I could use what they have and design  much better, more fun, and balanced game.

They just got lazy with thinking.