Starfield Planet Size and Exploration

[worm82075]

Ok everyone it's time to talk about the elephant in the room. There is currently some wild speculation and some hurt feels over not being able to explore entire planets seamlessly. From what i have gathered from Todd in all of his Starfield interviews and from the other devs is that the procedural terrain DOES wrap around the planet so there should be nothing stopping us from circumnavigating the globe.

 

However let me put into perspective the precise reason Bethesda wants us to only explore the areas near our ship. It is very unlikely these planets are 1:1 scale so for the sake of argument let us say they are 1:16 scale. A 1/16 scale Earth would have a circumference around 1500 miles. Running at sprint speed(10mph) non stop it would take 150hrs or about a week to circumnavigate the globe. To fully explore a total area of that size would probably take 2-3 years. 100 planets would take 2-3 lifetimes.

 

So you see everyone needs to put the idea out of their minds because even if they turn out to be 1:64 scale it would be impossible the explore 100 of them fully let alone 1000.

 

The planets are very big for the sake of realism and the ability to land anywhere on them and have the content come to us is another way for us to feel free to go anywhere while not spending 300 years trying to find all the goodies.

[HeyYou]

I think it would take a LOT longer than 2-3 years if only exploring on foot.... I would expect that most of the 'mapping' will be done from orbit..... at least, the major POI's....

 

A lot depends on just how much of the planet is 'mapped' as you approach the first time. I would expect it's going to be a background process, that happens as you fly your approach.... The level of detail though, that is open to question.

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Does anyone know for comparison what the scale is for FO4?

[worm82075]

Does anyone know for comparison what the scale is for FO4?

I believe FO3 and 4 are both 1:8 scale. FO4 approx 5x5 mile area represents an approx 20x20 mile area of greater Boston. Same for FO3, the approx 3.5x3.5 mile area represents an approx 15x15 mile area of Washington DC.

 

Scaling down a planet is much easier than a known area of civilization here on Earth because landmarks. Which makes me wonder after seeing the St. Louis Archway just how many landmarks survived Earth's destruction. Surely the pyramids of Giza still stand and possibly the Great Wall of China. Also natural features have to be there as well such as Mount Everest, the Grand Canyon or the Marinas trench. Question is, how far did Bethesda go to include such features because all of them are possible at 1:8 scale. Mount Everest would only be 3/4 of a mile high. At 1:8 scale Olympus Mons on Mars would still be 2 miles high which might be harder to pull off than Earth's much smaller features.

[363rdChemicalCompany]

 

Does anyone know for comparison what the scale is for FO4?

I believe FO3 and 4 are both 1:8 scale. FO4 approx 5x5 mile area represents an approx 20x20 mile area of greater Boston.

 

Thank you. :)

[evilhippo]

I wonder if the planetary surface gets generated as you enter an area without limit, or does it produce a certain number of tiles around where you land the ship & then in put boundary?

 

Also, am I right assuming you can land anywhere on a world? Or just where you get a scan result of something produced procedurally, or (obviously) some other pre-placed location?

[worm82075]

I wonder if the planetary surface gets generated as you enter an area without limit, or does it produce a certain number of tiles around where you land the ship & then in put boundary?

 

Also, am I right assuming you can land anywhere on a world? Or just where you get a scan result of something produced procedurally, or (obviously) some other pre-placed location?

1. Todd(in Lex Fridman podcast) and Jean Francios(lead technical producer in the direct showcase) say the entire planet's terrain is generated when you approach and that POI is generated when you land.

 

2. Yes you can land anywhere except a body of water i would imagine. Not sure how the game engine deals with that but they demonstrate in the direct showcase clicking on a random location and a biome description and current scan percentage pops up.

[PrometheusTS]

Ok everyone it's time to talk about the elephant in the room. There is currently some wild speculation and some hurt feels over not being able to explore entire planets seamlessly. From what i have gathered from Todd in all of his Starfield interviews and from the other devs is that the procedural terrain DOES wrap around the planet so there should be nothing stopping us from circumnavigating the globe.

 

However let me put into perspective the precise reason Bethesda wants us to only explore the areas near our ship. It is very unlikely these planets are 1:1 scale so for the sake of argument let us say they are 1:16 scale. A 1/16 scale Earth would have a circumference around 1500 miles. Running at sprint speed(10mph) non stop it would take 150hrs or about a week to circumnavigate the globe. To fully explore a total area of that size would probably take 2-3 years. 100 planets would take 2-3 lifetimes.

 

So you see everyone needs to put the idea out of their minds because even if they turn out to be 1:64 scale it would be impossible the explore 100 of them fully let alone 1000.

 

The planets are very big for the sake of realism and the ability to land anywhere on them and have the content come to us is another way for us to feel free to go anywhere while not spending 300 years trying to find all the goodies.

No , I think the real reason why Bethesda wants us to explore only around our ship is that they might have failed, if they even tried, to implement a 64 floating point precision coordinate system which means that the coordinates are still in 32 bit . This means that they cannot go past a certain distance from the origin of item positioning and after a certain distance the position becomes unrelieable and unprecise leading to all sort of bugs and displacements, On the other hand with a 64 bit depth precision you can get the exact position by cms on planets at a system scale ... this is how was implemented in Starcitizen for example or for any other game that features massive spaces and item locations.

[cherbert]

I'm starting to realise the terrain is procedurally generated and bares no resemblance to the landing zone you select from the planet view. It's all random.