Is it me, or does Duna look more... rugged on the Tracking Station in 0.21?

[Benie]

Duna looks like it has more mini-mountains all over its surface in 0.21, and I'm dying to go there to get a closer look... IF it wasn't for the annoying load times (which I have reported).

Where my Duna Base is in 0.20, the terrain looks barely visible now. It does concern me (going to have to look for another place for my base). So of the ones who have been to Duna in 0.21, does it look more, bumpy of the flat areas in 0.20?

Edited July 29, 2013 by Benie

[Sapphire]

The terrain got overhauled some. I landed a probe near the south pole and the ground looks better, and I'm hearing from people who landed near the equator that the flat plains are all gone, so it's more mountainous.

[rodion]

Brotoro posted some before-and-afters of the terrain after migrating his savegame(s) too, showing the more bumpy terrain like you described. I haven't looked at it myself in 0.21 personally but I think it's certain that there have been major changes in relief.

[thrashing mad]

Terrain is indeed more rugged. Up close, you will see nice rolling hills and new 'sandy dunes' texture on the ground. Places like canions and craters do not stick out of place like before - there's nice fluid transition. Atmosphere radiates some light at night, making terrain faintly glowing dark red. Huge improvement - it looks vastly more realistic. Same thing was done on Eve and Moho.

[Benie]

Doesn't look like they did any changes to Laythe. Anyway, thanks guys.

[The Jedi Master]

Isn't there an Olympus Mons analog now?

[zekes]

oh boy do i have a lot of exploring to do....

[antiquark]

Has anyone tried to land an aircraft on the new Duna? The dried lakebeds were convenient landing strips in the earlier version.

[Bothersome]

I've got several planes already on Duna..

[msyblade]

I was able to get a couple of landers on Duna. Both right smack in the middle of a huge flat desert. Although, flat does not mean the same as it did in .20 . More like thousands of small, rolling sand dunes spread for many miles. (Much like the 3rd pic above, minus the "hills").

[Benie]

You could say a massive dust storm swept across the planet. Just might use that as a mission to evacuate my base in 0.20 to move it in 0.21.1.

[Brotoro]

Brotoro posted some before-and-afters of the terrain after migrating his savegame(s) too, showing the more bumpy terrain like you described. I haven't looked at it myself in 0.21 personally but I think it's certain that there have been major changes in relief.

Here are the pictures. The BEFORE shows the rover and its carrier lander in the bottom of an interesting flat-bottom valley that had very steep sides, weird mounds, and weird dimples in the surrounding countryside (some other player call the region "the devil's acme" or some such.

And below is AFTER (version 0.21). The valley is now a normal looking valley, with no remarkable features that I could see while zoomed out and panning around.

The old scenery was certainly more interesting. I suppose the new scenery is more realistic.

[antiquark]

I don't know about realistic, the old Duna was quite Mars-like. For example take a look at this actual Mars picture:

[thrashing mad]

The old scenery was certainly more interesting. I suppose the new scenery is more realistic.

Good point. I've landed in one of those huge canions, and well - it was not as awe inspiring as in previous versions. Now, if only devs could combine this new realistic look with these pronounced terrain features...

[bluemartian]

Yeah the terrain for duna is terrible now. I wanna try out the new kethane mod but I can't find a suitable landing zone. Like I've covered the entire surface of the planet with sats and rovers and across and entire planet there's not one spot of 50 meter by 50 meter FLAT LEVEL terrain. .21 is so stupid. bring back old duna, but leave the other doodads that came with .21

[bluemartian]

Duna was 1000x better in .20 and they did a terrible job. It's like they made the planet, added it to the patch but never bothered to actually try to land on the thing and explore it. It looks cool from space but at ground level it's trash.

[bluemartian]

I want to make a cool duna mining and live base but I basically cant because there's no where to build it. No where is flat enough. Like I get it, add in the hills and crap to make it look cool but have a FEW bloody flat and level landing zones. At lease f*cking one. I wanna have fun and I can't. This game is pissing me off.

Your telling me a planet hundreds or thousands of kilometers of surface area doesn't have ONE 50 meter by 50 meter flat landing zone. It's f*cking stupid and I'm getting really mad. So mad I registered for the forums so I can vent.

[boxman]

@Brotoro

I am sad to say it, but the before screenshot looks better to my eyes and also looks more similar to the photos that the nasa rovers sent back.

Like for example this one:

[borisvolodnikov]

Yeah, my interest in running rovers over Duna in .21 has waned due to the surface being mostly featureless and boring, save for some anomaly hunting.