Deeper caves & deeper water planets

[Viceroy Günther von Lichler]

I was wondering if they have ever commented on if this is even possible within the game engine? Kinda feels like there is a very hard limit on depth.

[Lindy Bomber]

Hello Games generally does not discuss future updates until they are ready for launch. Neither do they discuss what the game engine is capable of, most players really wouldn't understand that anyway.

[Krash Megiddo]

There's no technical reason or marketing benefit for realistic deep oceans or caves. NMS has water gameplay and I doubt they will ever go back and tweak that. They might add a new planet type that engages plunging down into this planet for "reasons". Only HG knows what's on their roadmap.

[Aurumworks]

The deeper it goes, the more data it needs, the more taxing it will be on the system. Though with tall mountains being available on planets, it is not far off to imagine special biomes that have deep ocean ravines or extensive underground caverns instead. Though those biomes would then limit the mountain height generation. But, if such biomes would be put into the generator, new content for those deep places are recommended, which is probably why we haven't seen those yet.

[Jaggid Edje]

I'd like to see them do an update that focuses on oceans and deep water content just because I also want them to add a new ship type that can land on water...and an deep-ocean update would be the perfect time to add such a ship.

[knighttemplar1960]

One of the updates added more water to more planets. There was a thread a few years back with people comparing deep water planets. There are some available but you have to really look for them just like you have to do to find Earth like planets.

[Kobs]

A planet that has something like the grand canyon would be nice

[Mr. Bufferlow]

Based on the scales for pretty much everything, it appears they balanced travel convenience with distance.

Unless there was some game play entertaining reason for deeper caves or water, I would not expect they would just change those parameters. They have gotten more skillful, but seems unlikely they could change those conditions without a major rewrite of the galaxy impacting all the planets.

Those kinds of changes tend to upset current players and wreck bases.

It would be nice to see more diverse underwater flora, fauna, and minerals. It becomes very predictable on what you will find currently. I will admit that the fish schools they added was an excellent touch.

I have no idea how hard it would be, but it would be nice if there were better but less frequent hidden relics/treasures in the caves. The current batch is not even worth collecting after you reach about 10 hours in the game. They just become something to do while searching for fauna or worse, another inventory problem to manage.

I am okay with the submerged relics. Those are fun to collect and getting nanites is always appreciated.

[Happy Monkey]

On a mountainous planet, a cave entrance at a peak can make a deep cave.

The end of this video has a good example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Saiaad04_Xs

[Nostromo]

If someone is curious about how large of caves can be made on procedurally-generated planets, then Astroneer may be worth a look.

It's limited to a single solar-system, but all of the planets are procedural and every game-start gets a fresh set of generated planets.

The caves on the planets are generally gigantic. The very largest caves in NMS (that I've either seen personally, or have seen screenshots of) are, at best, medium-sized in comparison.

And.. the caves literally go down to the central core of each planet.

Ofc, you can drill-through on your own; and even pave smooth roads down into them. There is very little "bedrock" that cannot be drilled-through (thus there are no "quest objects" that are, by RNG-happenstance, unreachable due to being "embedded" below non-drillable rock).

I'm only mentioning it because it is an example of what can be done in today's state-of-the-art in procedurally-generated planets.

Now, NMS is its own game, and HG may have their own good reasons for the cave-sizes and bedrock limits in NMS; but it is certainly possible to have very, very large procedural cave systems in procedural planets.

ASTRONEER: https://store.steampowered.com/app/361420

[Johnny in the Clouds]

Originally posted by Mr. Bufferlow:

...the fish schools they added was an excellent touch...

Underwater creature animations and 'flocking' are really quite good now. Birds and insect flight appear to be more natural too in recent updates. I'd like to see tiny birds added to the game, every now and then perhaps to be discovered in trees or on rocks for a little more realism and immersion.

Each update the engine seems to be tinkered with improving the environment. I would expect ocean depths would be tinkered with over time like everything else.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1885524457
I have discovered really deep oceans, so they are there to be found. The right planet and system of course just needs to be discovered. Spending time using the Nautilon in a deep ocean is the best way to increase chances of finding amazing terrain. It's the same above ground, time needs to be spent exploring. Planets are full size after all.

[Azure Fang]

Code for "water worlds" exists in assets, but hasn't been turned on. Whether this is an artifact of unused content from the submarine update or something that's being worked on behind the scenes is unknown.