Will other bodies ever get the proceduaral craters treatment?

[basic.syntax]

My understanding is that all special points of interest ("easter eggs") are hard-coded to specific coordinates; reworking any body that has them, would require manual repositioning of every special object on them.

[RyanRising]

My understanding is that all special points of interest ("easter eggs") are hard-coded to specific coordinates; reworking any body that has them, would require manual repositioning of every special object on them.

They need to do this anyway, from what I've seen from most of the Easter Eggs. So why not give the planets more interesting terrain while they're at it?

[fchurca]

... except Europa Eeloo. Expect no craters there.

I see, Zoom. I'm afraid I could see what you did there.

[basic.syntax]

They need to do this anyway, from what I've seen from most of the Easter Eggs. So why not give the planets more interesting terrain while they're at it?

It would be easy, practically a no-brainer to wave a magic wand of procedural cratering - except for special objects. That creates actual work, that has to be checked in testing. The extra work makes it less easy / less likely to happen. Nothing's impossible... more procedural cratering just goes further down, on the list of priorities and probability. We're in the early stages of speculation; Squad's first priority is to uncover all blocking issues, like the wheels and asteroids were: get the game working as it is today, then they can start branching out to making it even better.

[GeneCash]

I like the Mun as it is, it's very realistic. Armstrong didn't have to spend 5 minutes gritting his teeth for nothing on the Apollo 11 landing.

If I want a nap on landing, there's always Minmus.

I do wish there was some method of telling the tilt of the terrain, as I've landed so many times on "flat" spots, only to find they're tilted at 40 degrees.

[OddFunction]

To some extent. Those bodies with an atmosphere should have a much less pronounced cratering.

Eh. A planet can have both a super thick atmosphere and countless craters. It's more the presence of the combination of water and plate tectonics that influences the number of visible craters.

[NFUN]

Eh. A planet can have both a super thick atmosphere and countless craters. It's more the presence of the combination of water and plate tectonics that influences the number of visible craters.

Atmospheres, even somewhat thin or cold ones, would have some wind and weathering, though of course to a lesser extent than active bodies with a water cycle.

[OddFunction]

Atmospheres, even somewhat thin or cold ones, would have some wind and weathering, though of course to a lesser extent than active bodies with a water cycle.

A fair point; I suppose then it is a matter of when we imagine these planets 'acquired' their atmospheres.

Would be cool if heavy atmosphere planets like Eve had one or two massive craters (tourist attractions ) instead of many little ones, while planets with no atmosphere would look like my face in the seventh grade.

That would be my ideal game.

[NecroBones]

My understanding is that all special points of interest ("easter eggs") are hard-coded to specific coordinates; reworking any body that has them, would require manual repositioning of every special object on them.

They need to do this anyway, from what I've seen from most of the Easter Eggs. So why not give the planets more interesting terrain while they're at it?

I think they should un-hardcode them, and define them in a config file instead anyway... that way it would be moddable.

[tater]

Yeah, an atmosphere will affect weathering, primarily. I'd be in favor of setting the system to make small scale-size craters more rare (weathered away), and ideally, soften most of the features.

Edited June 22, 2015 by tater

[Nich]

There are tons of flat spots to land on the moon.

I was truly upset when I landed in the mountain range NE of the polar crater. 60 degree slopes, canyons 4000 meters deep, no flats on top of the mountains (they just came to a point) and the canyons are permanently in the shadows. I finally managed to get to a flat spot at the valley between 2 peaks. thank god for landing lights. It was god darn Munar highlands. The most challenging landing of my life and it is a bionome I have been to 3 times already in MUCH MUCH easier landing locations.