PAX West Pre-show info dump (Thanks to NoMrBond for bringing this to our attention, all credit goes to them)

[Coriform]

Does anyone know what "PQS+" is? Context:
" Modding: A major priority of development. Tools are being developed right now using Lua but the language isn't necessarily final. PQS+ has a ton of hooks for custom tools. "

[Barzon]

Its for planet modding.

[Redneck]

PQS stands for Procedural Quadtree Sphere. Its a way of rendering level of detail on a sphere (terrain) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0yZqGxEvWI And it is my hope they will introduce a voxel terrain to go along with that. (destructible terrain possible for mining operations or shielding a base from cosmic or solar radiation. Rerouting water or creating a river for hydroelectric power and so on) Think of no mans sky terrain. Harvester the creator of KSP explains alot in this video 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by Redneck

[GoldForest]

6 minutes ago, Redneck said:

And it is my hope they will introduce a voxel terrain to go along with that.

I doubt KSP will ever get voxel terrain. Too much of a resource hog. The best we'll get is pre-rendered deformation. 

Example: A drill goes into the ground and creates a mound around the drill. Drill comes out, that mound of dirt disappears. 

[Redneck]

1 minute ago, GoldForest said:

I doubt KSP will ever get voxel terrain. Too much of a resource hog. The best we'll get is pre-rendered deformation. 

Example: A drill goes into the ground and creates a mound around the drill. Drill comes out, that mound of dirt disappears. 

Exactly i was thinking same thing. I guess it depends on how well the new version of KSP2 runs performance wise compared to KSP1. No way it would work in KSP1. Perhaps KSP2 will be optimized enough that it wont take a super computer to do it. No mans sky pulls this off quite well for example

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, Redneck said:

Exactly i was thinking same thing. I guess it depends on how well the new version of KSP2 runs performance wise compared to KSP1. No way it would work in KSP1. Perhaps KSP2 will be optimized enough that it wont take a super computer to do it. No mans sky pulls this off quite well for example

No Man Sky doesn't have to deal with a thousand part craft. lol

Let's get KSP 2 running well under load before tackling big projects like voxel terrain. 

Edited September 6, 2019 by GoldForest

[Redneck]

16 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

No Man Sky doesn't have to deal with a thousand part craft. lol

Let's get KSP 2 running well under load before tackling big projects like voxel terrain. 

i hear ya. Was just thinking though a ice covered moon like Europa with a ocean under the ice. How you going to get to it without drilling? Just seems like a waste for all those underwater craft/parts to not do it. Besides isnt it the PQS system that has to render everything anyways and its already in the game. What difference would it make to render surface "A" or the now changed surface "B"? Up close at terrain level may lead to some load at the time of editing but at a distance should decrease load because PQS is decreasing?

Edited September 6, 2019 by Redneck

[GoldForest]

14 minutes ago, Redneck said:

i hear ya. Was just thinking though a ice covered moon like Europa with a ocean under the ice. How you going to get to it without drilling?

They could have a magic Drill which teleports the submarine drone under the ice, or there could be caves scattered all about. 

[Redneck]

3 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

They could have a magic Drill which teleports the submarine drone under the ice, or there could be caves scattered all about. 

possibly. I edited my post above btw just as you posted this one

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, Redneck said:

possibly. I edited my post above btw just as you posted this one

IDK anything about PQS or PQS+. 

All I know is voxel terrain is a resource hog and arguably shouldn't be in KSP 1 or KSP 2, just my opinion. 

[Redneck]

6 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

IDK anything about PQS or PQS+. 

All I know is voxel terrain is a resource hog and arguably shouldn't be in KSP 1 or KSP 2, just my opinion. 

not even in a limited capacity? Such as a drill bit/auger bit part?

Edited September 6, 2019 by Redneck

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, Redneck said:

not even in a limited capacity? 

In my opinion, no. 

Too many cons. 
Resource Hog 
A lot of random voxel deformation is unreliable, not doing what you want. 
Textures don't look good, especially when it's done next to a non-voxel terrain
Not enough argument to justify its use, seeing as random caves and holes scattered around the ice planet would serve the purpose just as well as you drilling them in would.
Magic tech that deploys your ship under the ice would be okay in the situation as well, such as the drill goes down and you get a mini VAB which you build the submarine drone from and then it deploys it in the water just outside the drill bit.

But again, all this is just my opinion.  

[Redneck]

no no its cool i like your opinion. I do find it puzzling a little. let me explain. Over the years on this forum i was a BIG advocate for multiplayer (ksp1) I was frankly shocked by how many people were opposed to multiplayer in KSP. For various reasons mind you. Some were performance concerns some were realisim breaking concerns and some were just "leave the game alone" concerns some were "multiplayer isnt possible in KSP". My argument was "Just because it has multiplayer does not mean you have to use it just play single player." All of them were proven wrong with the luna multiplayer mod. But here we are with KSP2 now with multiplayer being developed in parallel with the game and I have not heard one negative feedback about it. I find it puzzling. Now move forward and here i am throwing out an idea about Voxel terrain. You are the second one that is opposed to it. And I understand where you are coming from. But now i find myself going back to those multiplayer discussions back in the day and thinking hummmm What if? But thanks for you honest comments. Good conversation. Thanks

[Snark]

54 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

there could be caves scattered all about. 

Actually, there couldn't. We asked them about this specifically, with regard to the new terrain system, and their response was very definite. No overhangs, and no caves.

[GoldForest]

24 minutes ago, Redneck said:

no no its cool i like your opinion. I do find it puzzling a little. let me explain. Over the years on this forum i was a BIG advocate for multiplayer (ksp1) I was frankly shocked by how many people were opposed to multiplayer in KSP. For various reasons mind you. Some were performance concerns some were realisim breaking concerns and some were just "leave the game alone" concerns some were "multiplayer isnt possible in KSP". My argument was "Just because it has multiplayer does not mean you have to use it just play single player." All of them were proven wrong with the luna multiplayer mod. But here we are with KSP2 now with multiplayer being developed in parallel with the game and I have not heard one negative feedback about it. I find it puzzling. Now move forward and here i am throwing out an idea about Voxel terrain. You are the second one that is opposed to it. And I understand where you are coming from. But now i find myself going back to those multiplayer discussions back in the day and thinking hummmm What if? But thanks for you honest comments. Good conversation. Thanks

Well, multiplayer added to a 8 year old game is one thing, multiplayer added in from the beginning is another. Also KSP 1 isn't built for multiplayer arguably. KSP 2 will be. So I can see why the change of face there. As for voxel terrain, if the game had something that would benefit from it, I could see it maybe being a feature, but as it stands, I see no use for it in KSP 2. 

And you're welcome. 

1 minute ago, Snark said:

Actually, there couldn't. We asked them about this specifically, with regard to the new terrain system, and their response was very definite. No overhangs, and no caves.

Which is funny because in the trailer on Duna, you can clear see overhanging cliffs. You can see overhanging cliffs on the new Ice Planet/moon as well. As for no caves, I can't see them not adding caves, especially to planets or moons with water. Caves are just natural thing to find where water is present.

I also can't see why they wouldn't put in some pre-modeled caves into some of the planets. We have ravines don't we? 

[Snark]

2 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Which is funny because in the trailer on Duna, you can clear see overhanging cliffs. You can see overhanging cliffs on the new Ice Planet/moon as well. As for no caves, I can't see them not adding caves, especially to planets or moons with water. Caves are just natural thing to find where water is present.

I also can't see why they wouldn't put in some pre-modeled caves into some of the planets. We have ravines don't we? 

I don't think it has anything to do with whether it would be nice or not, just a technical limitation of the underlying terrain engine. I think it's a heightmap. A new and improved and much prettier heightmap, but still a heightmap.

[GoldForest]

2 minutes ago, Snark said:

I don't think it has anything to do with whether it would be nice or not, just a technical limitation of the underlying terrain engine. I think it's a heightmap. A new and improved and much prettier heightmap, but still a heightmap.

So what? It's like original Doom?

[Snark]

Just now, GoldForest said:

So what? It's like original Doom?

A few orders of magnitude bigger and higher resolution, with procedural detail added in at various scales, but basically yes.

It's a pretty common way to model terrain.

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, Snark said:

A few orders of magnitude bigger and higher resolution, with procedural detail added in at various scales, but basically yes.

It's a pretty common way to model terrain.

I don't understand how "You can't have something above another thing" is still a limitation today... but okay then. 

Edited September 6, 2019 by GoldForest

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

I don't understand how "You can't have something above another thing" is still a limitation today... but okay then. 

It goes along with "variation at the meter-level for dozens of (albeit small) planet-sized objects."

[Guest]

2 hours ago, GoldForest said:

I don't understand how "You can't have something above another thing" is still a limitation today... but okay then. 

Simplicity and performance. A height map is dead simple to deal with in terms of code. Very few things can go wrong. You can't model caves and overhangs with a height map, you'd need a system with one more dimension. That's a lot more complicated and can lead to a lot of unexpected problems. I can 100% understand why they wouldn't want to get bogged down dealing with collider and clipping issues in cave entrances when they have a colony system to implement. Caves and overhangs would be very far down my priority list for the game too...

[nsgallup]

On 9/5/2019 at 11:29 PM, Snark said:

Actually, there couldn't. We asked them about this specifically, with regard to the new terrain system, and their response was very definite. No overhangs, and no caves.

This is probably the most disappointing thing about new terrain. All those overhanging cliffs in the trailer looked great!

[Snark]

46 minutes ago, nsgallup said:

All those overhanging cliffs in the trailer looked great!

I'm... confused.  What overhang?  I didn't remember any overhangs, and just now went back and looked at the trailer again and I'm still not seeing any overhangs.

Cliffs, yes, but no overhangs.  Am I missing something?  Do you have some particular moment (i.e. a timestamp) where you think you're seeing an overhang?

What I'm saying is, I believe you'll get terrain like in the trailer, just no overhangs (which aren't in the trailer, as far as I can tell), that's all.

[nsgallup]

2:07 shows some examples of overhanging features

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, nsgallup said:

2:07 shows some examples of overhanging features

Yep both Duna and the ice planet had a few.

If lack of overhangs is the biggest issue with KSP2 though it is going to be a game for the ages.