Planetary seeds?

[ihleslie]

There has been work done on cataloging seeds for ships, freighters, frigates, NPCs, and Multitools. I while back I changed the seed for my fighter in NMSSaveEditor. But I haven't come across discussion of changing planet seeds.

The seeds are listed in the save file. I thought I might try changing one value at a time just to see what happens. I know there are ~10^18 possibilities, but my reasoning was that maybe each of the 16 hexadecimal values controlled a certain aspect of the planet. My goal was modest - get green grass.

I change the first value, saved out, and went back into the game. Nothing changed. I exited the game and looked in the save file. The planet seed had been changed back to its original value. I even placed a flag in the scene just to make sure Steam wasn't replacing my save file. I also disconnected from the Internet so no access to Steam. Still no change. I tried changing planetary position, but that was changed back to its original as well.

Has anyone been able to do this or have ideas on what to try next. If the planet seeds are generated from other data, like galactic address, solar system type, others?, then why store the values?

Here is a quote from Sean Murray back in August 2014 https://blog.eu.playstation.com/2014/08/26/exploring-18446744073709551616-planets-mans-sky/

"The cool thing is that every planet has a single number, a random seed, that defines everything about that planet. A single random seed generates every blade of grass, tree, flower, creature."

[Gatun]

Originally posted by ihleslie:

I change the first value, saved out, and went back into the game. Nothing changed. I exited the game and looked in the save file. The planet seed had been changed back to its original value. I even placed a flag in the scene just to make sure Steam wasn't replacing my save file. I also disconnected from the Internet so no access to Steam. Still no change. I tried changing planetary position, but that was changed back to its original as well.

I did the same test awhile back with the same results. The planet seeds must be generated by the game so they are the same for everybody.

[ihleslie]

Originally posted by Gatun:

The planet seeds must be generated by the game so they are the same for everybody.

Good point. It begs the question of what is fundamental. A given voxel position in the galaxy may have hundreds of solar systems. The maximum number may be in doubt. At nomanssky.gamepedia.com it is said that SolraSystemIndex=229 is the largest ever discovered. This is a hexadecimal number and 553 in decimal. However my current system has the following UniversalAddress:

"RealityIndex":5,
"GalacticAddress":{
"VoxelX":1044,
"VoxelY":1,
"VoxelZ":-660,
"SolarSystemIndex":431,
"PlanetIndex":2

Note SolarSystemIndex = 431 or 1073 in decimal. Maybe Hello made a change in one of the updates. I guess I am just wondering "out loud" about how two of us can fly through the same region of space and see the same planets. They can't be stored, so must be generated on the fly from some very basic data.

[BaneBlackGuard]

they increased the size of galaxies so you might be reading something from NMS as it was at launch.

the answer to the seed question is that it's location is it's seed. that is why everyone sees the same thing if they go there. the portal address is the same information as the seed. what form the game consumes that data in for procgen purposes I don't know. i suspect the system location information we get from signal boosters is closer to the form that the game uses for procgen purposes.

those numbers you show ihleslie look like decimal to me not hex. it's possible it's just happenstance that none of the digits exceed 9, but that's pretty unlikely for 13 hex digits to have none exceeding 9.

16^13 total possible combinations of hex digits. 10^13 possibile combinations of hex digits not exceeding 9. a tiny fraction of a percent chance of that happening.

[NMSPlayer]

You change your planet seed by getting in your ship and going to a different one. (can't believe you edited your ship with the save editor :O )

[Gatun]

Originally posted by NMSPlayer:

You change your planet seed by getting in your ship and going to a different one. (can't believe you edited your ship with the save editor :O )

Doesn't everybody edit their ship seeds? How else are you going to get a little charmer like this one?
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1739608308

Edit - ship seed: 0x42E7483F7E736C09 (old colors)

[Ditchinit]

Originally posted by Gatun:

Originally posted by NMSPlayer:

You change your planet seed by getting in your ship and going to a different one. (can't believe you edited your ship with the save editor :O )

Doesn't everybody edit their ship seeds? How else are you going to get a little charmer like this one?
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1739608308

Ooohh ... I saw one very nearly like that while playing last night. It was on a trading station platform on the last planet I visited prior to warping to the next star toward the galaxy center. The difference between your image and the one I saw was that the one I saw also had two (one on each side) of those vertical thrust engines you commonly see on large haulers (the flat, horizontal turbo fan looking engines). But otherwise was the same body.

[ihleslie]

Originally posted by BaneBlackGuard:

they increased the size of galaxies so you might be reading something from NMS as it was at launch.

the answer to the seed question is that it's location is it's seed. that is why everyone sees the same thing if they go there. the portal address is the same information as the seed. what form the game consumes that data in for procgen purposes I don't know. i suspect the system location information we get from signal boosters is closer to the form that the game uses for procgen purposes.

those numbers you show ihleslie look like decimal to me not hex. it's possible it's just happenstance that none of the digits exceed 9, but that's pretty unlikely for 13 hex digits to have none exceeding 9.

16^13 total possible combinations of hex digits. 10^13 possibile combinations of hex digits not exceeding 9. a tiny fraction of a percent chance of that happening.

What you say about location being the seed makes sense. Interesting that they save it nonetheless. Maybe calculating the hex seed once is faster.

I didn't mean all the numbers were hex, just the SolarSystemIndex. I base that on the gamepedia link where they mention a specific SolarSystemIndex 07A, as well as saying the number is hex. So I think the probability of having only decimal in a three digit hex is closer to 1000/4,368 ~ 0.23 or 23% 1000/(4368-1000) ~ 0.30 or 30%.

[ihleslie]

Originally posted by NMSPlayer:

You change your planet seed by getting in your ship and going to a different one. (can't believe you edited your ship with the save editor :O )

Very trenchant comment.