Does a Planet restore itself?

[Lesynn]

Soo i was removing a larger amount of earth from the ground for base building. (Including parts of a hill, placing bottom plates, removing the ceiling of that hill which wasnt removed after playing the plates.

When i went to save and came back to my spot the whole ceiling was restored which i removed earlier, and the holes that i covered were there again.

What is the point in the terrain tool then?

Another situation was when i placed some earth with the terrain tool to cover a small spot in my base, saved, closed game, started again - the placed ground was gone, like i never placed it in the first place


TL;DR: Removed ground restored itself after reload, placed earth missing after reload.

[Lesynn]

bump

[fRaNtIc]

The game does not, generally, save terrain alterations by player.
But the area around a base computer should save i think?

[Chillum]

Originally posted by fRaNtIc:

the game does not generally save terrain alterations by player
but the area around a base computer should save i think?

Anything done with the terrain manipulator will be reverted.

I like to think of it as what we do with the manipulator is basically sand/weak soil and gets eroded fastlike.

[soulguard]

This could be an issue with all the patches that have been coming. Meaning that terrain data for a world "could be being overwritten to Dafault" when the game gets patched.

IF you're manipulating the ground on your base, in theory it shouldn't change. That being said, I have holes in my base ground that have not refilled.
Where did you build your base?
Are you near a prefab structure?
Wsa the ground level or rough regular terrain>

[Lesynn]

Originally posted by Chillum:

Originally posted by fRaNtIc:

the game does not generally save terrain alterations by player
but the area around a base computer should save i think?

Anything done with the terrain manipulator will be reverted.

I like to think of it as what we do with the manipulator is basically sand/weak soil and gets eroded fastlike.

So the only reason for the terrain tool is to maybe get an item or whatever down in the ground? Its totally pointless for basebuilding?

Its not saving anything even around my base computer

[Lesynn]

Originally posted by soulguard:

This could be an issue with all the patches that have been coming. Meaning that terrain data for a world "could be being overwritten to Dafault" when the game gets patched.

IF you're manipulating the ground on your base, in theory it shouldn't change. That being said, I have holes in my base ground that have not refilled.
Where did you build your base?
Are you near a prefab structure?
Wsa the ground level or rough regular terrain>

Ive just build a base computer, no special place, no other buildings around. Wanted to terraform and flatten out the surrounding. The only ground that stayed missing was were i placed bottom plates, but not all stayed missing, the ceiling from the hill respawned.
Normal terrain

[Chillum]

Originally posted by Lesynn:

Originally posted by Chillum:

Anything done with the terrain manipulator will be reverted.

I like to think of it as what we do with the manipulator is basically sand/weak soil and gets eroded fastlike.

So the only reason for the terrain tool is to maybe get an item or whatever down in the ground? Its totally pointless for basebuilding?

Its not saving anything even around my base computer

Pretty much. Has always been this way.

Used to be you could put your base underground by building off a ramp and send the ramp into the ground.....but that doesnt seem to work since next, the ground actually blocks my building. If done that way, then the ground would stay back, any way its done with the manipulator it will not stay.

[Lesynn]

Hm, ive just made another test, same planet, different base. Ive removed a much smaller area froh a hill, flattened out the ground with plates, saved, reloaded and its still removed.

But i had this with a different spot too, sometimes when coming back to the planet its still removed, sometimes its restored.

[Devolta]

Here is what I've learned, I did some testing.

- Using terrain manipulator to flatten terrain will stay after you leave the area, planet or game - if you build on it. If there is an area you did flatten and didn't build on it will come back to some degree.
- If you remove a plant or rock with the terrain manipulator, it will respawn even if you build something over it. You have to remove them with the mining laser first, then use the terrain manipulator to flatten, then build.
- I have not tested tunnels yet but had no issue with them.

As soulguard said, patches may play a part and I think that's correct. I built a base the day of NEXT launch and had about 2 patches since then, and each one messed up my base in weird ways, terrain came back, pieces were missing, trees grew in the middle of my base where I do not believe were there previous.

My current base is on the flattest ground I could find right above a natural cave with no tunnel. Nothing is sticking through the ground or growing back underneath the base foundations. So far so good, but I avoid terrain manipulation entirely when building bases. Seems to work for some, wonky for others.

[Lesynn]

About the patches, that might be the cause if there were hours / days between my terraforming, but it was a matter of minutes, while still ingame.

Hm, to explain it a bit simpler, maybe better to understand...

Ive created a "huge" cave, then i removed the top / ceiling also so it wasnt a cave anymore but a large flattened area. Then i walked away and gathered some ressources, came back and the ceiling was back / it was a cave again.

[SkyNoom]

When completing the base building nexus quest, at the end you must upload your base to the server. So, during the training process, the game informs that after loading, data on resource deposits and changes in the landscape will be saved. I don't know if this will in practice lead to saving changes in the landscape forever. I haven’t checked it myself yet, I immediately deleted that base, now I’m building an underground base on a paradise world, and I had exactly the opposite problem, I WANT the landscape on the surface to be completely restored to the original, and then I made the necessary changes and cleared the underground rooms, as a result, having received a bvz, which has only landing pads and an entrance on the surface. Does anyone have any ideas on how to initiate a default landscape restore?

[momopovich]

There is a "restore" option on the terrain manipulator which is supposed to rebuild the terrain as it was generated, within the area of effect, it works fine iirc

However you can never be sure how and when terrain regeneration happens so I'm not sure about your underground base long term viability

[knighttemplar1960]

Holy necromancy bay man! No, changes are saved locally. Even an uploaded base will not show up for other players if they are playing offline. The game sets aside a finite (and small) amount of memory for terrain modifications. Once you reach the limit the oldest terrain modifications are removed from memory storage to make room for the newest ones. This has the effect of removing the oldest terrain modifications and "regenerating" the terrain and any resources.

[chipmonk]

All ground you remove with the terrain manipulator will eventually respawn. There is a limited number of terrain edits you can make and if you edit more than that number, the first edits you made should be the first to respawn. The only safe place to build underground is in pre-existing caves. Long term players almost always build their bases above ground to avoid this issue. The underground base you are building will fill back in. It may not be today or next week but eventually the ground you removed will respawn.

[Johnny in the Clouds]

This resurrected post was written 5 years ago!!!!!

The game handling of terrain is much more robust than ever before in today's 2023 game. Terrain edits in claimed bases generally persist now more efficiently and are 'locked' in but are still subject to game edit limits and file size.


However this may help you:

There are still limits to what terrain manipulation can do. Every player has a limit of approximately 20,000+ terrain edits for each game save. That includes claimed base terrain edits, landscape geology edits and temporary edits from visiting different bases built by other players, whose edits will swell your own edit cache until you move away from the system or play offline. This is why in multiplayer sometimes terrain may reappear for some players and not others. In practice this is an enormous number casual players rarely surpass.

Once a player does pass that limit, the earlier edits are restored and terrain my reappear at a base. Terrain reappearance can simply be removed again. The flatten tool can quickly and efficiently remove large areas or the mine tool or even the geology canon (perhaps removing stubborn terrain in hard to reach internal areas, packed full of cosmetic parts).

To restore edits, switch the terrain manipulator mode to Restore and use the larger beam size. In restore mode edits will be visible as bright orange and easily restored as the beam moves over them.

Sometimes if there have been many edits which seem stubborn to restore, in that situation mine a little of the area instead and then try restoring again. The flattening tool can also be useful to mine a large area cleanly and then restoring again seems to 'flow' more predictably.

Also if a base has been built offline on a planet which is often visited by other players, perhaps a popular Nexus location or Hub then some edits may not be possible to remove when playing online, because of overlapping claimed base areas. Play offline leave the system and return to flush your cache of multiplayer bases then edit your base again, remaining offline. Upload it once online again, to 'lock' in the edits.



This post really is a bit confusing now as it is 5 years old but anyway hope that helps a bit.