terraformer problems?

reaperLeviathenfood

So i noticed a post saying that the terraformer may or may not be removed and that it is causing problems and crashes. I used it and have not noticed anything of the sort yet, what is the problem with it? Also if its a problem digging into things that should not be tamperable, would it save it to change how it works to only suck up / absorb terrain that already has the quality of being able to 'dig' in? that way you can absorb sand but not dig new holes inside cave walls. Just guessing, im not sure what the issue present with it is. I would prefer to keep it, i love the item and recently built a base 4-5 tiers high with only the top layer (scanner room) above the sand and that would blow to try to dig by hand xD. Also if it is kept (big if) it would be cool to have the mouse scroll adjust the intensity of the terraformer like high medium low, so if u want you can do a thin layer to cover the outside walls of your bases to help it bled or do huge chunks as is now. On a side not, could we also get something similar to glass walls for the base of the multipurpose room so we can see below it? might be cool, or have the option of using the enameled glass instead of normal glass and have it add a little support? it is what we use for Cyclops to go even deeper.

Avimimus

reaperLeviathenfood wrote: »

So i noticed a post saying that the terraformer may or may not be removed and that it is causing problems and crashes. I used it and have not noticed anything of the sort yet, what is the problem with it? Also if its a problem digging into things that should not be tamperable, would it save it to change how it works to only suck up / absorb terrain that already has the quality of being able to 'dig' in? that way you can absorb sand but not dig new holes inside cave walls. Just guessing, im not sure what the issue present with it is. I would prefer to keep it, i love the item and recently built a base 4-5 tiers high with only the top layer (scanner room) above the sand and that would blow to try to dig by hand xD. Also if it is kept (big if) it would be cool to have the mouse scroll adjust the intensity of the terraformer like high medium low, so if u want you can do a thin layer to cover the outside walls of your bases to help it bled or do huge chunks as is now. On a side not, could we also get something similar to glass walls for the base of the multipurpose room so we can see below it? might be cool, or have the option of using the enameled glass instead of normal glass and have it add a little support? it is what we use for Cyclops to go even deeper.

My understanding was that the biggest problem is that it leads to an ability to modify terrain. Having to save the terrain leads to large save game files which are incompatible with console releases. So, the terraformer would mean that the PC release would have to be a substantially different branch (and load times might not be optimised etc.)

I personally love the terraformer because it allows for excavating during base construction - this gives more control and allows doing things like building bases into cliff faces. I do hope they release the terrain editor someday so that we can do that in dev mode!

Avimimus

I'm actually assuming that a minimum of two of my largest bases and my aurora will disappear in the next patch.
It'd be nice to have more warning if this is the case so that I can document them with screenshots first!

Racer1

There was talk about this a while back, but nothing has happened. In fact, in the farming update in Feb, the terraformer got an remodel. So I wouldn't count it out just yet.

reaperLeviathenfood

hmm...but for saving terrain, don't they have to do that anyways? 1 i could dig up and modify (which i rather think it would be cool if you could do that to hide from big monsters), and 2 isnt the map random generated? like the biomes are set but the features inside biomes randomized?

Avimimus

reaperLeviathenfood wrote: »

hmm...but for saving terrain, don't they have to do that anyways? 1 i could dig up and modify (which i rather think it would be cool if you could do that to hide from big monsters), and 2 isnt the map random generated? like the biomes are set but the features inside biomes randomized?

The impression I got is that all terrain would be frozen (i.e. no more digging).

I also believe that the terrain isn't randomly generated - the spawn points for some resources and creatures are randomised - but the basic terrain is hand-crafted.

nekozji

Avimimus wrote: »

I also believe that the terrain isn't randomly generated - the spawn points for some resources and creatures are randomised - but the basic terrain is hand-crafted.

This is my experience as well. Landforms are recognisable between saves. The exact location of quartz, sandstone, etc seems to vary, as does the starting location for your pod which can give the impression of a different map for a while. Wrecks are always in the same place and always have the same contents. Creature spawns seem to be random - my current game has a kelp forest with zero stalkers in it. Makes a nice green location to call home

(Which is a bit of a shame, because I would love to see procedural terrain. However I suspect the devs made the decision that they would rather see a commonality of experience between players, and not have one person get shafted by a challenging map on their first game, while someone else gets silver ore right under their pod.)

Halios

Terrain is fixed. Resource placement is semi-random (seem to be set locations they can spawn and new games randomly distribute nodes amongst those). Fish shouldn't be random - not like you say here.

nekozji wrote: »

Creature spawns seem to be random - my current game has a kelp forest with zero stalkers in it. Makes a nice green location to call home

My experience has been that fish spawns are fixed - apart from changing with some updates. But they are not just evenly distributed throughout their respective biomes. There are a few spots with fewer or just no aggro fish at all. And those spots are the same in every game.

reaperLeviathenfood

IMO i hope they leave terrain forming ability, and also if they could have maps randomized that would make the game a lot better. As discovery is a key component in the game, with a static map the re-play isn't nearly as good. If they had tiers of depth range for zones so around the pod your could only get red kelp or stalker zones, that way you still have some control but also a degree of random which would add to an explore game.

Sidchicken

The terraformer takes away a lot of the exploration factor though. When you can just tunnel to wherever you wanna go, there's less need to find that entrance to the Lost River or wherever. And you can get vehicles places you shouldn't - like bringing the Cyclops into the Jellyshroom Caves. Some limited excavation for base placement seems reasonable, but what the Terraformer allows you to do is pretty powerful and in a way game-breaking.

Jacara

If I remember right the problem is the way the game saves the changes. Each sphere that is terraformed is saved separately, this leads to ever increasing data amounts in the save files. The save become so large that they can no longer be played correctly. Removing the terraformer is only a band-aid though as a similar effect can be done with base units as well, and as someone plays the game the file keeps growing larger and larger anyways.

reaperLeviathenfood

Sidchicken wrote: »

The terraformer takes away a lot of the exploration factor though. When you can just tunnel to wherever you wanna go, there's less need to find that entrance to the Lost River or wherever. And you can get vehicles places you shouldn't - like bringing the Cyclops into the Jellyshroom Caves. Some limited excavation for base placement seems reasonable, but what the Terraformer allows you to do is pretty powerful and in a way game-breaking.

so then would a good resolution to that be if they changed it to where its an empowered 'dig' function? only absorbing what you can dig because most of those areas have some kind of rock around it preventing you from digging into it. Then you could still use it for base building just not getting vehicles somewhere you shouldn't. As for the save file problem...no idea xD but if its the same problem with base building then hopefully they think up a good resolution other than terraformer because you cant get rid of base building in a game like this lol. idk though i have no idea for coding or anything like that, but i don't mind if my file gets bigger i have space!

Sidchicken

reaperLeviathenfood wrote: »

Sidchicken wrote: »

i don't mind if my file gets bigger i have space!

The memory issue has more to do with console ports than with PC.

Racer1

I believe it is actually worse than that. The game used to save ALL terrain (in areas where the player had been), regardless of if it had been changed. This is, of course, an enormous amount of data. The overhead to save each sphere of changed data is minimal, if done properly.

The real problem is UWE may not have the time to update the save logic to just save what has been changed, from what it currently does.