What could procedural generation bring to the game?

[NZ.Zero]

So this is really intereting... Unreal Engine 5.2 has procedural generation, which in this game could be a HUGE deal as it could give Coffeestain incredible new powers to create large amounts of new content

Since we know the game is currently moving to UE5 for the next release, it seems to be a good chance they'll jump straight to UE5.2 if they can.
Heres some info on it.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DIEZhk_ES8

So what could procedural generation bring to the game?

[ShelLuser]

Originally posted by NZ.Zero:

So what could procedural generation bring to the game?

Maybe a lot of unreachable places or places where you'll get utterly stuck, maybe even up to the point where the game doesn't detect it and then refuses to let you reset ;)

[F'lar]

Since everything the devs have done has been on the opposite end of the spectrum from procedural generation, I think, personally, they won't go near it. The map has been hand-crafted top to bottom, nodes and animal spawns are fixed coordinate wise and things are predictable from game to game.

Honestly, I think PG would turn it into a game that is Not-Satisfactory and , therefore, they won't mess with it at all.

[SourHammer]

If Im not mistaken coffee stain put out a video explaining some of the things they were looking at in the engine was the ability to create more realistic looking landscape. Eliminating the copy paste look of some parts of the map.

[F'lar]

Coffee Stain released a 2-hour video on things they will be using UE5 for. Nanite and Lumen are just two examples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZywFe6eKNvk
It also shows how the artists are hand placing assets into the biomes as they revamp their look-flora, fauna and redoing things like cliff faces so they don't have that stretched texture look. They're also placing vistas around the edge of the useable map so the playable map doesn't have such an 'island feel'.

Watching this video is all the proof I need, again-that I need, that PG has no place in Satisfactory.

[Die Hand Gottes]

Originally posted by NZ.Zero:

So this is really intereting... Unreal Engine 5.2 has procedural generation, which in this game could be a HUGE deal as it could give Coffeestain incredible new powers to create large amounts of new content

Since we know the game is currently moving to UE5 for the next release, it seems to be a good chance they'll jump straight to UE5.2 if they can.
Heres some info on it.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DIEZhk_ES8

So what could procedural generation bring to the game?

Until now, this has always been denied because the effort would be too great and not because of the engine.

[Die Hand Gottes]

Originally posted by F'lar:

Coffee Stain released a 2-hour video on things they will be using UE5 for. Nanite and Lumen are just two examples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZywFe6eKNvk
It also shows how the artists are hand placing assets into the biomes as they revamp their look-flora, fauna and redoing things like cliff faces so they don't have that stretched texture look. They're also placing vistas around the edge of the useable map so the playable map doesn't have such an 'island feel'.

Watching this video is all the proof I need, again-that I need, that PG has no place in Satisfactory.

Yes, that also has something to do with the map that was lovingly created by hand that you can not easily rebuild.

[NZ.Zero]

Originally posted by Die Hand Gottes:

Until now, this has always been denied because the effort would be too great and not because of the engine.

The video explains the proc-gen is a lot easier with UE5.2 compared to other methods, so even if it was too hard in the past, it may not be now.

[F'lar]

It's not really a matter of how easy PG is. It's more that the way Satisfactory is designed, they're about as far away from PG'n the game as you can be. You're suggesting that they scrap just about everything they have for the game that they plug into the engine and, basically, start over. I don't see that happening.

[Huren Ogeko]

Adding PG to the game is not an issue of how hard it is to implement its how they would need to change the entire game to account for the randomness. Everything is calibrated and balanced for one particular layout and distribution. They would need to rethink a lot of things if you change things up every playthrough. It can be done but I think its more of a satisfactory 2 sort of thing.
I couple months back they discussed this topic on one of the olive streams. they did say that node randomization might be a more obtainable goal but even that is a post 1.0 maybe dlc thing and then its only a slight maybe.

[Remnar]

They are already adding new assets and features to the game. How they go about it is their business. PG is just a new tool for them to use if they wish. Perhaps some new flora would make use of it in certain places. Now if they brought PG to the player, that'd be a whole other can of worms.

[Huren Ogeko]

but their game isnt designed around the idea of PG. and they said that it wont be in the game without a whole redesign.
most of the features they are adding now are ones that were at least partly planned from the start but may have evolved over the time of production as they find that some things work better or worse in reality they they might have looked on paper. What they are doing now is not changing the foundation of the game its just fine tuning their original design.

[Remnar]

Like I said, PG is a tool. At the end of the day, you still have vertices, faces, edges for a mesh; textures and shaders for the image. So what does it matter what tool they use to make new assets? The game doesn't need to be designed around PG. It is a means to create content, not how that content is rendered and processed. I could be wrong.

[Huren Ogeko]

Its not about the tool its about how it fits the game design itself. They have said that they would need to fundamentally change the design and balance of the game if terrain was random because so many design choices where based on the custom map layout. They did however say that there is a slight possibility of adding a optional mode to randomize node while keeping the overall number of each nodes the same.

[NZ.Zero]

Originally posted by Huren Ogeko:

even that is a post 1.0 maybe dlc thing and then its only a slight maybe.

Yea for sure, I'm talking post 1.0. they should definitely get the basics only done for 1.0.

It's intriguing though what might be possible. proc-gen could allow them to massively scale up their production to create new worlds, which could be fantastic later in the games life... Many more worlds with randomised elements for infinite growth and amazing variety.

By the way, I totally agree that they should leave their carefully crafted world alone. It's beautiful and delicately balanced.

However, one area they've said they'll do but haven't yet is underwater. Proc gen could allow them to populate that area much more efficiently, perhaps?

[Bookslayer10]

Random distribution of nodes would be a pretty interesting option. I think mods have attempted it in the past, but adding it officially would give a lot of options to mix up your games.