Traditional Quest Map/Hub/Zone

[Urby]

I am one of the many people who believe that Starfield's moment to moment gameplay is... pretty terrible. One issue I have is the vast amount of empty space between points of interest. This is the significant flaw with procedural generation if it isn't picked up by a human at some stage.

Let me start out by saying that I have no experience with the Creation Kit, having worked primarily with the Goldsource engine as a hobby and in Unreal Engine 4 professionally.

I am also aware that what I am talking about here is a grand scale, DLC sized mod that would take years to make. However, such projects exist with Skyrim and Fallout.

The Pitch

Create a traditional Bethesda Game Studios DLC map on an existing planet's surface. Make the area an isolated questline or series of questlines that only effect the immediate area. For example, a resource rich sector of the planet which has attracted the attention of two or three mining upstarts and things are on the brink of coming to blows.

Generate a playable area in the same way that the procedural generation already does. Then, have a team of artists go over the area, clean it up and remove and glaring/bland elements. After that, insert story locations: Three main mining towns with a selection of fleshed out NPCs making up the three factions. Then, have a selection of points of interest between the three towns, places to explore, uncover unique items and interesting quests. Just off the top of my head:

1. A mine that has been attacked by an unknown aggressor. The target faction requests you assist with the investigation. You can gather evidence and decide who to blame. Results in positive or negative reputation.

2. A miner has gone missing and you find that they have fallen in love and fled to the wilderness with a competing miner. Your action determines their fate.

3. One faction tasks you with stealing powerful mining gear from another. You can decide to go through with it or warn the other faction.

The overarching quest ultimately boils down to attempting to eliminate or align two of the three factions to determine who takes control of the sector and claims the sector.

[Jaimedarkfyr]

i had a thought about this myself, im sure the different "Dungeons" generated such as the weapons lab, listening post, and so on are obviously random generation in a given map upon landing right? and im sure theres probably a code that prevents them from loading close to each other too, but im no good at code or modding or anything like that. so i thought if there is a way to lower the distance generation between structures, would it generate more? and if not, could we have some built by players and uploaded to help fill the void? 

is it possible that each map is a tile set that randomly generates? be that the case, if we upload sections of fallout 4 to be used as a tile set, would we be able to generate a full world to look like fallout 4? or would that take much more then im thinking? 

[aurreth]

Each planet is composed of tiles.  The biomes of those tiles are predetermined, so that they match what you see from space.  The when you land on a tile the terrain, plants, etc are randomly generated based on the biome.  Points of interest are randomly placed, along with various trash buildings.  There are a limited number of points of interest available to choose from, which is why you run into the same buildings with the same mobs over and over again. 

This is one of the biggest complaints about the game, that after playing for a bit there is zero variety.  All weapons labs are the same, all listening posts are the same, etc.

Without the Creation Kit building new POIs is incredibly difficult.  It can be done, but the process would be incredibly tedious.

[HeyYou]

12 hours ago, aurreth said:

Each planet is composed of tiles.  The biomes of those tiles are predetermined, so that they match what you see from space.  The when you land on a tile the terrain, plants, etc are randomly generated based on the biome.  Points of interest are randomly placed, along with various trash buildings.  There are a limited number of points of interest available to choose from, which is why you run into the same buildings with the same mobs over and over again. 

This is one of the biggest complaints about the game, that after playing for a bit there is zero variety.  All weapons labs are the same, all listening posts are the same, etc.

Without the Creation Kit building new POIs is incredibly difficult.  It can be done, but the process would be incredibly tedious.

And once the CK is released, you can expect an EXPLOSION of new POI's.

[aurreth]

20 minutes ago, HeyYou said:

And once the CK is released, you can expect an EXPLOSION of new POI's.

Maybe, maybe not.  It's a lot of work to put something like that together.  I would expect them to be more individualized and specifically placed.  One-off places like the Lair of the Mantis.

Me, I want a post-Legacy Key, repaired and cleaned up.  I find it annoying that after the end of that quest line, no matter which side you chose, there are zero changes to the game world.  Things just stop.  And you should be able to claim the Lair as a base and restore it.

[HeyYou]

Just now, aurreth said:

Maybe, maybe not.  It's a lot of work to put something like that together.  I would expect them to be more individualized and specifically placed.  One-off places like the Lair of the Mantis.

Me, I want a post-Legacy Key, repaired and cleaned up.  I find it annoying that after the end of that quest line, no matter which side you chose, there are zero changes to the game world.  Things just stop.  And you should be able to claim the Lair as a base and restore it.

I expect that the way it works is, you create the POI, populate it, etc, and then add it to an existing list of POI's that can be placed.

[aurreth]

Just now, HeyYou said:

I expect that the way it works is, you create the POI, populate it, etc, and then add it to an existing list of POI's that can be placed.

Yes, but what I mean is that I wouldn't spend a dozen hours making a "dungeon" to just stick it in a list so people might never run across it, or might hit it a dozen times.  I'd throw a unique slate into the form lists that directs you to a specific planet, to make sure the character encounters it eventually.

Sure, some people will, but I think you'll see more targeted dungeons.

[HeyYou]

19 minutes ago, aurreth said:

Yes, but what I mean is that I wouldn't spend a dozen hours making a "dungeon" to just stick it in a list so people might never run across it, or might hit it a dozen times.  I'd throw a unique slate into the form lists that directs you to a specific planet, to make sure the character encounters it eventually.

Sure, some people will, but I think you'll see more targeted dungeons.

I think that depends on how hard it is to 'set up' a "unique" location...... It's obviously possible.... as the various cities do not change from visit to visit..... But, how much of an ordeal is it? Remains to be seen.