Gaming No Man's Sky

[jedidia]

He could have used a normal left-click for most of the stuff instead of that weird left-hold. It's fine if you use it for some special functions but not all of the time.

Fixed that with a mod

 

[Face]

Yep, also remove all the real physics from it that confuse people, and it would be more or less NMS.

I just recently found out that Orbiter folks instinctively press the killrot key, while almost everyone else spin out of control and quit, not being aware even of a possibility of such a key.

The rotation seem to be easier to understand when you are in VR googles, but then people are having problems with the engine and with expecting the thing to go where it points.

Most of the time on that ride people acted like they spent their whole lives flying on a magical broomstick, and then were given a rocket-propelled one. They fly towards a wall, turn sideways when near it, then spend the last living second wondering why the hell are they still moving towards the wall at almost the same speed.

It's an almost universal lack of understanding. Perhaps thanks to the ST/SW/SO movies, perhaps just because it's unnatural to humans.

So, I'm yet to find such a crowd outside of the Orbiter community.

I'm really starting to think about the controls in terms of a drone - you don't killrot a drone yourself unless doing acrobatics, there is software to assist you. You don't bother tilting it to get the right speed unless racing, there is software to assist you.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to have the killrot always on unless disabled, to have an autopilot that doesn't take programming, but takes a click on a map, to have an auto-hover mode, and so on.

But... warp mode. If you make that the default mode and add your idea of auto-kill-rot, it should come very close to what the space-shooter crowd expects. I've made a quick turn in Spaceways yesterday, and found that I've pressed Q pretty quickly after take-off. It is just the way to travel around. Only for parking orbits or sane landings I turned it off.

Make the real physics the easter egg, so to say.

And still I think some extra procedural content like animals and resources to mine would make Spaceways the better NMS. Even if they are done with very rough edges.

P.S.: did you ever expand the short quest "script" there? I think that was a very promising way to give it content, too.

 

[Koloss]

When I heard about it the first time I was really, really, REALLY, excited. Wow, so many planets to explore. All the possibilities!

I played for about 20 hours. And I will stop now. These are the reasons:

1. It says that the planets are procedurally generated. This may be true but it seems that there are roughly 10 different planet "types". I once entered a system and I had 6 planets which looked all almost the same (wood, snow, no animals)
2. You can't fully control the ship. This is a real downer for me. You only can go perhaps roughly 50 meters above the ground. The ship can not be controlled any "deeper". For landing simply press square and the computer will do the rest. BTW, landing: It's not uncommon to land on the tip of a tree or something like that.
3. Aliens. Aliens everywhere. I hoped for a really wide and empty universe but there is an outpost/observatory on EVERY planet. Also every system has a space station which floats somewhere.
4. Resources. Resources everywhere. There is no struggle to survive/fuel your ship. Just look around for half a minute and you will have plenty of fuel and other resources.
5. You can't leave the ship in space. Might be a minor issue but coming from Orbiter this is a real downer for me, also.
6. The ships can't be customized. You can install upgrades, yes. But you can't change the outer appearance.
7. It gets really repetitive. Mining resources, fueling the ship, visiting an outpost, searching for a crashed ship. Off we go to another planet. Repeat.

These are my biggest "problems" with the game.
Perhaps the developer will include some features in the future (I think of building bases, customizing ships). We'll see. Right now I see no reason to continue.

 

[Artlav]

It says that the planets are procedurally generated. This may be true but it seems that there are roughly 10 different planet "types". I once entered a system and I had 6 planets which looked all almost the same (wood, snow, no animals)

Let me tell you the dark secret of procedural generation:
It does not replace actual creative work.

You can have a system that generates entire planets by mathematical models.
But someone have to make the models.

You can have a system that listens to you talking about a fictional animal, and makes a set of full animated models of such animals.
But someone have to come up with the descriptions.

What procedural generation does is expanding patterns into something larger - think about it as a fractal decompressor.
Without the compressed data at the input it's rather pointless.

So the problem is simply that coming up with planet class models is not an easy task.
I've learned it the hard way in Spaceway, which, curiously enough, also have about a dozen different planet and star types.

But... warp mode.
...
Make the real physics the easter egg, so to say.

Well, yeah.
That sounds like a tradeoff that there is no way to avoid.

And still I think some extra procedural content like animals and resources to mine would make Spaceways the better NMS. Even if they are done with very rough edges.

See above why it's easier said than done.
Hopefully i'm moving in that direction now.

P.S.: did you ever expand the short quest "script" there? I think that was a very promising way to give it content, too.

Not really. It's the same problem of there being only so many things to do with a learning curve too steep.
The script is just a plugin, however. I have made a few simpler ones since then, like the chair ride.

 

[Hielor]

After watching some of the disappointment videos (such as the "angry no man's sky review") and reading some posts (like this one) talking about how the game that was delivered was totally not the game that was promised, I'm really glad I didn't pre-order NMS.

Maybe I'll pick it up on sale at some point. Maybe not.

Edit: Is it possible that stuff was removed in order to get it running well on PS4 as a result of the Sony partnership?

 

[jedidia]

Is it possible that stuff was removed in order to get it running well on PS4 as a result of the Sony partnership?

It's possible that some things were downgraded, but that doesn't account for all the mechanics that are missing. The way the "final" product feels (hopefully not so final), I'd rather say that they ran out of time and had to cut a lot of things that didn't quite work right yet to get a playable game for release (I go somewhat more in-depth in my blog post, though there's still a part missing... I keep getting distracted by the game, to be honest).
I do still have faith in the developers that they'll deliver on most of their promises through updates, but I generally would not recommend buying the game right now unless you're absolutely sure that you're the right type for it.

 

[SolarLiner]

Edit: Is it possible that stuff was removed in order to get it running well on PS4 as a result of the Sony partnership?

Could be a reason, but that wouldn't explain why entire planet and ship classes went away. Decreasing the CPU load by reducing draw distance, fewer NPC and graphics settings, sure, but entire planets ?

 

[mojoey]

Well, how many asteroid fields are there?

 

[jedidia]

Well, how many asteroid fields are there?

One. That is, everything!

 

[Artlav]

Is it possible that stuff was removed in order to get it running well on PS4 as a result of the Sony partnership?

Looking at the PS4 hardware specs, this sounds dubious - that console beats all but the top tier gaming PCs.
I would have expected problems going the other way.

 

[Hielor]

Looking at the PS4 hardware specs, this sounds dubious - that console beats all but the top tier gaming PCs.
I would have expected problems going the other way.

Not sure what you consider "top tier," but according to the specs I found:
- 1.6GHz base CPU clock
- 800 MHz GPU clock (and a Radeon, so ick)
- 8 GB RAM

Not really top tier...

 

[jedidia]

Looking at the PS4 hardware specs, this sounds dubious - that console beats all but the top tier gaming PCs.
I would have expected problems going the other way.

The GPU is pretty advanced, and has more vram than what you usually have in a PC card (that's normally what makes optimising PS4 games for PC tough).

The CPU is almost negligible when compared to even a mid-range PC. And I know that No Man's Sky's generator runs mostly on the CPU.

 

[Artlav]

And I know that No Man's Sky's generator runs mostly on the CPU.

Ah, ok. I was thinking in terms of Spaceway, which tends to do the heavy computations on the GPU.

The CPU does have 8 cores, however. If they did a good job on parallelism, then that might help along, but by now it's just guesswork.

 

[C3PO]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEVdLMHs8xI&feature=youtu.be&t=1006

:rofl:
:tiphat:
:rofl::rofl::rofl:

 

[jangofett287]

The GPU is pretty advanced, and has more vram than what you usually have in a PC card (that's normally what makes optimising PS4 games for PC tough).

The CPU is almost negligible when compared to even a mid-range PC. And I know that No Man's Sky's generator runs mostly on the CPU.

The PS4 has no discrete VRAM. The GPU shares main RAM, which is GDDR5, with the CPU. They're all lumped together on an APU, so the GPU gets a really fast bus anyway.
Also the CPU is actually 2 x86-64 quad core units. I wouldn't count on all of them being usable by the game though, and the clock speed doesn't fill me with excitement.

 

[Koloss]

Well, how many asteroid fields are there?

They are everywhere. In each system each planet has an asteroid field. And you can mine Thamium9 (which is the fuel for many systems). Also you can mine other things like Copper, Emeril, Iridium and so on. Again: Resources everywhere.

I'm really missing the feeling of "My god, I will never survive this. I will strand on a planet and will never be able to reach space again."

 

[Evil_Onyx]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjP8PCM-5pQ"]The SCIENCE! Behind No Man's Sky - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Notebook]

Could have put a warning about the wording on the start of the video, may upset some.

Now I've watched it, it wouldn't make much difference.

N.

 

[jedidia]

I'm really missing the feeling of "My god, I will never survive this. I will strand on a planet and will never be able to reach space again."

The modders are working on it. They've just been busy with more important stuff so far. :lol:

 

[jedidia]

I've seen things...
Magnificent herds of flying catterpillars populating the sky (largest herd I've seen was over 30 animals!), and an honest to God triceratops (well, the horns were significantly shorter, and it had a bit of a hunchback, but otherwise, totally a triceratops. I named the species "totally triceratops" ).