World Generation Mechanics?

[Frink]

I've been playing for a few weeks now and love the game. But I was just wondering how exactly the map spawns islands. Is there a finite amount of islands that spawn? Because it feels kind of like I'm in a snow globe and heading in one direction (say away from the caravan island), but it always seems to loop me back around. I can assume it's not like Minecraft where it's basically infinite.

[Borrelnoodgeval]

i think the islands just get generated, so its always new and thus infinite, its not like minecraft where you could walk backwards and find the same things, i believe if ur far enough, islands just deload and dont excist anymore, so yeah it should be infitnite just not in a minecraft way

[Anonymous Helper]

Game spawns random islands from finite pool of handcrafted islands as your raft moves around. The world is rendered certain distance around your raft and as the raft moves, new things spawn in the direction it's moving and old stuff despawn (as in no longer exists, can't be returned to) as they get out of that radius in the direction raft is moving away from. You can encounter new instance of same island with it's resources restored infinite number of times.

Your progress in the game determines what islands can spawn. At start only small islands spawn, with the receiver you unlock Large Islands, Balboa and Caravan islands have their own set of Large Island variants.

The story locations are only exception to this rule as they only spawn when you input location specific code on the receiver. You can travel million miles, set the code and the location spawns certain distance from your raft. Story location will also keep respawning as long as you keep the code in the receiver.

There is no procedural generation in this game. Everything is handcrafted. Game world is infinite but it's not persistent and only exist certain radius around your raft. If you jump on an island and let your raft drift away, the island under you will eventually despawn when raft drifts far enough away from it.

[Frink]

Thanks for the info @Anonymous Helper ! The whole story islands spawning in front of me when it was behind me for a long time made no sense. But now it does.

[Asmosis]

Hey so i know this is an old thread but seemed the most appropriate place to ask (also top result in google).

What are all the story trigger points for random non-story islands to spawn? Does each story chapter introduce new non-story islands or is it only some of the chapters?

Also do you need to be actively following the radio signal for a particular story island for that islands related biome non-story islands to spawn? or do you just need to "pass the checkpoint" and that biome will start spawning randomly regardless of where your going?

Does sailing in a particular direction (i.e. against the wind) matter for the non-story islands?

Trying to understand all the aspects of world generation before diving into mods.

[Xas]

#coords of the related Journal Story Island biosphere determines what you encounters.

Keyed in
Vasagatan, sees tropicals,
Balboa, sees bear and honey types tropicals,
Caravan, sees pigs, cactus and deserts,
Temperance, see white snows isles, ... etc
other than the basic varieties of small, large island.

As for Tangaroa and Utopia, did not pay attention, probably small/medium size island, a crate, a tradepost, a hog or a domestic pet.

Does not matter, as long as you are drifting.

*speaking from Default game point of view.

[Asmosis]

Thanks, ok that explains why i only saw one desert island total as i went direct from caravan to temperance.

I wonder if it can be modded so that everything has a chance to spawn instead of just the story your heading towards.

[SpeedDaemon]

İlk olarak Xas tarafından gönderildi:

#coords of the related Journal Story Island biosphere determines what you encounters.

Keyed in
Vasagatan, sees tropicals,
Balboa, sees bear and honey types tropicals,
Caravan, sees pigs, cactus and deserts,
Temperance, see white snows isles, ... etc
other than the basic varieties of small, large island.

As for Tangaroa and Utopia, did not pay attention, probably small/medium size island, a crate, a tradepost, a hog or a domestic pet.

Does not matter, as long as you are drifting.

*speaking from Default game point of view.

That doesn't seem entirely true...

I've been drifting for a LONG time, building a grandiose palace of a raft, with the receiver set to Balboa after I left there. Have not seen any islands with bears or honey, just the same ones I've seen since the beginning with screechers and warthogs.

Do you actually have to leave the receiver *on*?

I've probably stopped at about 10 islands, and done "fly-bys" on 30+ more to see if they have trading posts. It's the same set of islands as before Vasagatan.

[Asmosis]

You don't need to leave it on. I've encountered several "evergreen" islands to collect honey from. The chance is still quite a bit smaller than the regular tropical large/small islands though.

Decided to start a new save and spend a few days inbetween each story chapter since i've apparently missed stuff.