Galaxy Map from Anywhere and other simple suggestions

[ekholbrook]

Maybe it's me, but I see no reason why we can't have the ability to browse the galaxy map from anywhere, not just in a ship, in outer space. Why not in a space station? Or on a planet?

Speaking of the map, why are the keys to navigate around so tied in and conflict with keys I set up to walk/fly, etc? (and ditto with screenshot mode)

Can we please customize this. All I can do is "back out" of the galaxy map and move left or right.

I cannot move forward, this immediately exits me from map or resets me to current solar system.

I am left handed. Using the ASDW keys is also a pain in the butt. Why force me use keys that are totally uncomfortable to use?


One seemingly simple thing lacking in this game too is better cloudmaps when viewing planets from space. They all are using the same bitmap? Really?

Why do almost all the planets even have clouds? A planet like Mars or an object like our moon doesn't have clouds, so why put this fake bitmap cloud map on every single planet?

Why too is it that when viewing the planet from space it looks say, green and blue, and as you fly closer, the colors totally change and even the features of the planet don't math what is viewed from space? Definitely kills the sense these are really big planets and you are just a spec of dust.

Asteroids... ugh... These pop out of the screen in a disgusting manner. There is no sense you are in an asteroid belt since they appear out only about 100 meters. Please build these out a bit more so there's a sense we are inside a belt, a mass of asterorids. Let us see them from much further away, even if simplified.

Lastly, this is not as simple but the discussion has been brough tup before:

Why is each solar system in a skybox? Hasn't anyone ever played Space Engine and see how well a true seamless, system to system type of process could be done? Elite was too slow and plainful, No Man's Sky is just totally fake since the warping screen IS the loading screen from system to system.

Please HG, take a peek at Space Engine, take a look at how they represent the galaxy, how I can be on a planet and look up at the stars, pick a star, and fly to it and into it's solar system.

Oh, and planets Rotate while you are on them and I never got disoriented. In fact, it made the experience just that much more cool and engaging. As in, you felt you really were there in space. The sun rises, the sun sets, the planets and stars rotate around the sky as you stand on the ground. It's breathtaking. This sense of "wow, I really am a tiny speck here in the universe," is amazing.

This COULD have been No Man's Sky visuals. But HG decided users would be confused. Instead we get 18 quintillion stagnant solar systems. It's ok this way I guess, but wow, could be so much better.

In No Man's Sky the sense of scale and size is not even a factor since you (a) never get a chance to really see your path or place in the universe or galaxy as a whole, (b) you can never fly to stars that you see from a planet.

The galaxy map IS better than before. But you still never really get a sense of "I am here... and wow.... this place is big and I have a long long way to go and lots of things to see."

In Space Engine, every star is an opportunity to explore. Fly from space, fly from the ground, pick a different star to start to move towards. There is no limitation. The sense of size is dramatic, and this is in part because you can see the entirety of the galaxy and it's billions of points of stars. And one little point on the outer edge (or whereever) representing your location.

No Man's Sky keeps the map to such a small window, almost like when looking at google maps, if all you could look around was your town. That's as far out as you could zoom. But you couldn't zoom out the country level. Imagine trying to do a road trip for Miami to Los Angeles and the most you could see at any time was a 2 mile radius. You'd have no sense of being anywhere or having done any significant traveling except the wear and tear and time (which NMS definitely gets acoss the that part).

But no sense of "wow, I really have long way to go, and really have travel a long way as well."

That sense of travel and accomplishment is totally missing from the game because of the poor galaxy map. A map you aren't even able to view except inside your ship in space.

It's too bad.

[Knottypine]

You have some good suggestions, and a few suggestions that I don't think are feasible.

Ability to view galaxy map from locations other than space? +1

Remap key bindings? +1

Better cloudmaps? ~ There is a mod for that (not sure about latest version) There is a lot of rendering going on, so it's designed in a way to run more smoothly on most systems

Not every planet having a cloud map? +1

Astroid popin? ~ Again, a lot of rendering going on, see above.

Like Space Engine? ~ I haven't played it... but NMS is huge. Although there is no loading travelling within a system, yes the warp is a loading screen. It's designed in such a way to maintain 'some' immersion while playing. NMS is huge and I don't really think this is avoidable currently. I could be wrong on that. I don't really think they can make the entire galaxy seamless with a radius of about 700,000 LY.

Picking a star and just flying to it? ~ No... seriously, that can be really really far away. Maybe you don't quite get how far away... but FAR. A tank of fuel will get you a few minutes, or say get you across your current system. If you want to fly several hundred LYs I don't think you could carry enough iron to make the journey. You could pick up iron along the way, but really, it would take a LONG time if that were possible.

Just a few thoughts. Also, you may consider posting your ideas in the new features section.

[urman.gamer]

I think the asteroids are in random clusters all over rather than in belts because that's the player's ability to get home if his tanks run dry. Going any direction in a system will likely lead to an asteroid drift, where you can mine iron to get moving again.

[ekholbrook]

Kind of hard to describe how Space Engine does the space distance thing other than it works and the distances are far far greater and more realistic in SE than in No Man's Sky.

It's not a game, it's a realistic simulation of the Universe with multiple galaxies (the number is said to be what sciencties believe is the true number of galaxies in the universe).

Each galaxy has billions of stars and each star as anywhere from 0 to dozens of planets and moons (including our solar system).

Our galaxy in the simulation is based on the known stars and info sciences currenly have.

The ship or method of movement is basically a method that accelerates as fast as it needs to go to make the trip and distances bearable, yet still you can literally watch the stars and planets glide by as you travel from star to star.

Unlike No Man's Sky, you can literally light off from a planet, turn towards a star, and gradually increase the speed of your ship to such a rate that while still smoothly rendered, you are really, trully flying through billions and trillions of miles towards the next stars.

Again hard to really describe. Only that it's depiction of Space is far far more realisitc than No Man's Sky in both size of galaxy and stars, and number of planets in each solar system, and how it handles distances.

There are no loading screens. It is all realtime (depends on your graphic card how well it can handle the details of the planets. And the planet procedural rendering is admitedly the weakest point.

So no it's not a game, but considering that weight Hello games put in the "trillions of stars in the galaxy" selling point, I would have hoped they could have approached something even remotely close to what this tiny studio does with Space Engine.

Not sure if this link will come through but here's a video I did of one of my fly throughs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjDZAJS09nA

I thought I made another video but that seems to be it. First minute or so I'm flying over a planet, then slowly back out, into the solar system, out further and further away, through billions of stars, and finally out to the view of the gaqlaxy.

What's interesting to note is that in this view, the points of light around and behind the galaxy, are entirely other galaxies with stars all of their own, just like our universe.

Kinda blows your mind how this simulation can handle all this.