Planetary exploration is the heart of No Man’s Sky and is better today in 2023 than it’s ever been. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better though. In lieu of suggesting a complete universe reset with unlimited assets or the superformula, I’m taking a more reserved approach to new feature speculation. These 10 ideas would improve exploration and variation without needing a reset or hundreds of new assets, though a waterfall or two wouldn’t hurt. Let’s vary resources, repurpose features, and maybe add a couple new points of interest in this 60fps gameplay video.
Other spooky videos:
Best NMS Lore Video: https://youtu.be/3iDhpnlpQ2Y
#NoMansSky #NMS #HelloGames
Timecodes:
00:00:00 – Intro
00:01:17 – #10 Settlements as Points of Interest
00:03:24 – #9 Weather Variation
00:04:49 – #8 Gravity
00:05:44 – #7 Atmospherics
00:06:39 – #6 Altitude-Based Procedural Generation
00:08:06 – #5 Useless Debris
00:10:30 – #4 Caves
00:14:33 – #3 Water and Ocean Types
00:16:30 – #2 Common Resources
00:19:21 – #1 Natural Points of Interest
00:23:04 – Outro
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Cool ideas! I was especially fond of natural points of interest idea. That should already be a thing.
One thing that would really enhance the exploration experience would be some kind of boss-level threat. of course, only on some planets, like the titan worms, but make some kind of procedurally generated big bad boss-level threat that, if defeated, would give you access to some amazing loot you couldn't get anywhere else. i think no man's sky is sorely missing an actual threat of danger for more experienced players, as after the first few hours of playing nothing is really challenging anymore. imagine exploring an anomalous planet, and suddenly seeing a giant horror that blots out the sun, much like a titan worm. you make a base, tell your freinds, and then you all team up to defeat the thing. it adds a sense of reward and challenge, and adds an entirely new unique playstyle to the game.
21:45 maybe put these points of interest half way between things that show up with map markers
that way when you go from one marker to another you will come across these
The atmospherics one is such a great idea!
No Man's Sky already does take altitude into account when spawning objects!… kind of. when the generation goes to place a tree or rock etc, it makes sure that it is within a minimum and maximum distance from sea level first. Thing is everything above sea level is defined to spawn within the same limits, so you don't actually see any variation. Objects below sea level do have variation in their limits though, and this is used to stop large props sticking up out of the water because they spawned somewhere too shallow. Case in point, Hello Games could add altitude based variation by only editing a single file per biome to make certain props use different elevation values.
Greetings from the Carrot-Man 👋🥕
Great vid, all of these ideas would definetly improve nms and it’s exploration aspects
This are all great ideas, I love how kanaju presents update ideas, they’re thought out give more porpoise to the game instead of spitballing
All I want are sand planets 😭
Would be cool if they added gas giants
Hello Games NEED to see This.
I love number 3. Great idea man
I think the Anomaly needs a PvP arena. It could almost act like the holodeck from star wars. Players would walk into a room and it would initialize a menu. Every level would be a user created base, set within a specified building area. Would be so awesome
very cool ideas. I'd also like a more polished map system for each planet, so for example if we clicked on a waypoint we've discovered it'd get highlighted on the planet map.
Vesta Prime from the early trailers was the planet I desperately wanted to see. Wide-open flat spaces, the resounding echoes of large creature calls, the obvious scarcity of resources, that was what I wanted. Planets are so over-populated in resources and features now. Even on the empty planets, there's rocks everywhere. Needs something truly rare. And flying saucers.
Loved the video. Yes, please make more of these. The different points of view that you offer get my brain thinking in directions that may not be common for me. And, i always appreciate a different perspective. Thanks for this!!
I agree with all of this. Perhaps also the ability to find through exploration, very uncommonly, something of some sort of value. Maybe it's a type and specific color of chair, or a unique poster color, or a new type and/or color of light fixture you can use in your base. Maybe it's a decal that can be applied to your ship, or something you can place inside your ship's cockpit. You could have a 1 in 200 chance of finding something like that in a crashed, non-salvageable ship. Or in a ruined building or abandoned colony. Or in the debris of a crashed exocraft lost in the wilds of a lush planet. Or tucked away deep within a cave by wildlife that pilfered it from somewhere. This gives another purpose to exploration, and opens the door to a large variety of rewards in the form item/color combinations that don't require a significant amount of resource investment to develop.
Terrain Generation Variety would be the fix for exploration, but if we re talking about without terrain gen.
Maybe compressing the variety of terrain within a reasonable walking distance like it was in Vanilla/Foundation/Pathfinder. Right now the terrain gen Variety is found by using the exocrafts or ship. This would help the 5 minute I've seen it all feeling.
Free roaming biological horrors in caves would be scary. Dont even need to shoot their eggs, they're just there!
Excellent video. I marvel at your consistently thoughtful, interesting, and creative takes on this game. Well done.
My wishlist, everything you've added: more dense forests and mountains so that you can't see as far; multi biome planets; snowy peaked mountains; sand dunes; ice caps; higher percentage of blue skies; deeper oceans with sub biomes.
Also more animals rendered in a smaller space with more audible animal ambience. More realistic trees like on the desert planets, like birch and oak. Better animal AI.
The list goes on, so maybe Hello Games should work on making an official, cross gen community mod interface.
I love the elevation based vegetation idea. Would go a long way to making things look more real and interesting. Imagine building a mountain top base just past the tree line of a massive mountain? So cool.
I think as far as the oceans go, I’m surprised you didn’t mention other kinds of oceans like liquid methane or liquid nitrogen, which happens quite frequently across the universe, so you could freeze. There could even be liquid metal like vast oceans of mercury on the surface.
Excellent video, applause!
This is a good list of small-med effort + high impact changes. Although I do wish they'd focus more on what I call the three "holy grails" of procedural generation for a game like NMS:
1. Physics – mathematical relationships (think friction coefficients, velocities, accelerations, impulse's, momentums, gravity, fluid dynamics, etc)
2. Chemistry – Responses and reactions between different atmosphers, environments and material properties (Temperatures [freezing/melting/combusting/exploding], gases, liquids)
3. Biology – How creatures react with the environments and the player (poisons/cures, combat situations, AI behavior, composition)
When I think of what the game could be like wit those implemented, I think of the Zelda series and how they like to implement physics and chemistry into their game design, with Breath of the Wild being their strongest example of it yet: how friction goes down the toilet on rocks when raining, electricity being attracted to metals, heat on ice resulting in explosions, fire creating air currents, and so on…
Its through the unpredictable nature of those things together that creates completely unique experiences. And while those would be the hardest things to implement, the longer they wait, the more difficult(and less likely) it becomes to implement.
maybe some more ground quests like something that makes it so you don’t just hop in a spaceship a fly from one location to another like you have to follow the foot trail of animals or people and pick up clues from the environment