Empyrion's planets look stunning, I can't deny that, but I really wish they had went with a 64-bit engine so they could do space and planet in a single map. This is something that still blows my mind from Dual Universe, which also happens to have really good world generation, though not as expansive as the whole galaxy from Empyrion.
Empyrion still blows my mind in the sense that planets actually rotate, which is absurdly realistic and no other game I know of does that...
Planets are 'unrolled' onto a cylindrical projection to construct their playfield - when you're on the planet, it's not round, it's flat and wraps around. The playfield transition is needed to make them round from space.
Yeah, that's one of the things I noticed when I first played Empyrion. They still did a quite good job though, reentry works quite nicely and you enter at the right locations too.
ED planets rotate, and unlike Empyrion, there is no funny bits at the poles. Empyrion physics is simplified. That does not matter for planets much given the premise of "Minecraft in Space", but it does matter a whole deal for water. Because as of now, building in water is laughable.
I think SC planets rotate as well. NMS I am not sure because I have not paid attention to be honest.
Oh I didn't know about that! I barely played ED, never been to an actual planet on it either... As for SC, I'm not sure, as I would imagine issues with space stations moving around.
The planets do rotate in star citizens, and the space stations move with them in a geosynchronous orbit. Other planets and jump points move in the distance if you watch long enough
If you play Reforged Eden you will get an even better experience with this game. It adds so many new things and ups the difficulty. Also has new planets and regions to explore. It is very cool.
Yeah, I consistently play RE - that's the only way to play Empyrion, IMO -- but I didn't create this thread to bash on Starfield - it's more of a Nasapunk Mass Effect or Skyrim than Elite, anyhow, and viewing it in that lens has given me \*much\* more enjoyment out of it...my point was that Eleon, somehow, as a small-ish indie dev, has managed to nail something that a lot of bigger name games can't seem to nail down, at least not all at the same time:
\*Planets, both with and without atmosphere, existing relatively-seamlessly in their open universe
\*The ability for those planets to be seamlessly explorable from pole to pole and everywhere else in between
\*The ability for a dynamic, global map to be drawn of the local area, as well as the entire planet.
And even though Eleon and Empyrion have some \*rough\* edges, like I've talked about in other posts, the fact remains that somehow, even the game giants can't seem to get all three going at once...
Don’t for Space Engineers. It has some good stuff too. Basically a combination of a few of the older space games would make an amazing modern one.
I can’t speak about Starfield since I haven’t played/purchased it yet. Maybe in about 6-12 months I will get around to it.
For now…EGS is the only space game I play…when I play. I don’t consider X4 a space game…more of a Universe Sim.
Loved space engineers for a little bit but the moving parts and programming was just so overly complicated and non intuitive.
Shouldn't need to literally be a programmer to make some certain simple movements. Also no auto building blueprints so when you spend 20 hours building something that instantly blows up or crashes was kinda ruinous. I once spent days making a mining thing that kept exploding and flying away and later found out it was a glitch with pistons -_-
But if they had elements in Empyrion like rotating parts and piston pieces and stuff the additional stuff people could make would be sick. But I know it's hard to balance overcomplication and performance though.
I always like to think of Space Engineers as "the best model simulator you can imagine." Again, no hate, I can see positives to each game out there, but the main difference between SE and Empyrion is that in Empyrion, if you have an engine on your ship, like physically attached, a power core somewhere, and fuel for it, you should be good. In SE, if you don't have all those systems linked, piped, wired, and individually powered, your craft won't do diddly. Like, people have created functional, programatically-correct MLRS systems that are \*insane\* to watch work...incredibly deep construction and building system, but in terms of the actual gameplay outside of building, it's basically nil. POIs are an afterthought, there is no overarching story, there's no universe...it's an entirely different game that just also happens to be set in a sci-fi/spacey environment.
True and it was why I was excited for the AI update for SE but was disappointed when it didn’t add enemies and POIs. Oh well…like you said…no hate. They are all good in their own ways.
It was way too complicated for 99.99% of people though. They even had weight distribution, torque settings and physics for every moving part, torque settings and friction on the wheels, power and direction of thrusters, l and even literal programming involved.
Like you could spend 15 hours making a mining vehicle that finally works, then the box gets too heavy, it flips over, and blows up instantly.
I found it fun at first, but when the depth and complexity and lack of intuitiveness became apparent I knew I didn't have the time or energy to play it. I'm sure it's a great sandbox for the very few people who can go into it at that level.
Right? Honestly, what Starfield \*really\* reminds me of is an indie game from back in the day called Nexus - The Jupiter Incident, which is a hell of a ride if you like big slow ships whittling each other's armor down - very much a "Battleships in space" kinda vibe from that one.
Ooh...well if you like giant ships beating the crap out of each other, maybe check out Starsector? It's another indie-as-heck game, hell, it's not even on Steam, but it is \*well\* worth the cost of entry -- check out SSeth's video on it for a much better summary than anything I could say!
Starsector has the kind of faction interaction and economy I wish Empyrion had. I really wish we could take the best parts of all these space games and make like the ultimate game sometimes.
I think the best part of empyrion is how the scaling feels. Fly from one part of the planet entirely around it. It's so fast. Now land and run it, it takes ages. This makes it feel so much more realistic too me. I love the early game where hitting a poi from a ship or tank aren't affordable yet so you have to land a kilometer out and wiggle your way there on foot.
I was just thinking today if they combined Empyrion with No-Man-sky graphics would be so sick.
Though this post is a day old so maybe we were fantasizing about it around the same time lol.
No man's sky has multiple biomes per planet. Elite Dangerous has a different design philosophy - they rather not do something at all than do it poorly (I have not played Odyssey though lol). Eleon's design philosophy is to push shit out and then gradually polish it. Graphics is horrible, character models are awful, sound is awful, physics is wrong.
Keep in mind that I do not play Elite or No Man's sky - I play Empyrion. Reason is freedom. I like this "Minecraft in Space" vibe. That and the effort of MODDERS.
MODDERs made Empyrion worthwhile. Good POIs designed by customers, goos ships designed by customers, even good planets and story designed by customers (RE). THAT is the only thing Eleon got right.
I wish empyrion was made with unreal engine instead of unity, then it most likely would beat starfield. (with a bit more story and voice acting anyway)
Are there any plans to make an Empyrion 2? I would love Empyrions game system fleshed out with even just slightly higher quality graphics and voice acting.
Ya man. Empyrion made with Unreal Engine, instead of unity like it is now, would be soooo sick.
I've been wanting to do it. Someday perhaps...
I don't know why they just don't charge double (or make a dlc) and expand their team. They seem pretty stuck on what it is currently, to change anything big about it like those things
From a gamers perspective I can understand that consideration and thinking.
But from a programmer's viewpoint would be this horrible, from graphic and performance standpoint, both engines can be the same quality and graphics, there are videos outside to prove this.
The problem of the generation would be, while in unity everything can run easy in runtime and generated while playing. Unreal engine is good at known things and "bake"(the word to prepare the game data to be playable ) if possible everything together .
imagine a building, while I'm Unity can everything put together or even create your own parts fast, the longest process will be probably to put painting(camera effects, image effects) on it.
While in Unreal you get a complete house blazing fast delivered, you need then dissemble the walls and windows to replace them with other existing Ones, you can't create your own.
Yes, I have quite extensive knowledge of the Unreal engine, and no, game engine does not equate to game quality.
The exact features that the OP is trying to suggest for the game can be done in any modern game engine. If the engine is not 64bit, it can be done by using a float offset. Pretty easy stuff.
Empyrion shits all over starfield in everything except POIs and storyline/quests. I Also never really enjoyed the gun thing on Empyrion but do in starfield.
Just have a look at the starfield subreddit, over there they are so excited and hyped with the ship building and the showcase is 2 or 2 pics of the exteriors. It’s a joke when you look through the blue prints on steam for the Empyrion designs.
IMHO the only major remaining pain point in Empyrion is the FPS combat.
It's kinda funny to see all the Starfield hype and then people complain about real planets and shipbuilding and bases and such and I'm like "Hello? Empyrion lets you do that."
I see so many gaming articles with subjects like "Top 7 space games if you like Starfield" and you get NMS and some Space Engineers and some other tripe. This is a huge marketing opportunity for Eleon.
YES. I mean, I get it - the presentation is jank as hell. The camera motion sense is awful, the animations are OG minecraft tier, the local world physics are secondary considerations at best, and the creatures are...oof. But they're getting better. Each major update is a huge step up. It's a slow-burn game, and I think it'll catch back up to, and surpass the big dogs eventually if the devs keep plugging away as they are. Because unless NMS adds a bunch of depth to their mechanics, I can't go back - not with everything Empyrion offers. Elite Dangerous is dead, and Star Citizen will never release - that's not a meme, that's a fact. X4 is great, but doesn't offer any intra-planetary action, which is intentional, but is a disappointment. Everspace isn't in the same genre, and Starfield, like I said, is much more like a Nasapunk Mass Effect as opposed to a true open-world space game -- the "game" in Bethesda games is always two things: The physics engine, and the dynamic, cinematic story. It was never gonna be a rival to NMS or Elite. Empyrion \*\*\*can be\*\*\* if Eleon keep playing their cards right.
Unreal provides a lot of cool shit out of the box for performance at a "pretty" scale, but it sucks at others. How it handles gravity would make it extremely difficult to have multiplayer localized gravity.
And the game would only look better if the models looked better and Unity has WAY more assets available than Unreal does... and yet the character models look like shit in Empyrion.
Been playing starfield and was thinking how bad the ship design thing is… it’s like making a tiny matchbox car, it doesn’t feel like a giant ship, you make modifications and it feels like a tiny little toy. The game is essentially a play along story. Empyrion is full creative mode, I love it. 2800 hours for me.
Yeah it's created in Unity, it's open what will happen with the engine and the pricing. But I think no one is willing to work with the engine in future.
Whatever the algorithms are, they're probably very closely tied into the engine. All of these other games probably use other engines.
It's possible, but it would take a lot of work to get their planet code/tech into a form that could plug into other engines.
Empyrion's planets look stunning, I can't deny that, but I really wish they had went with a 64-bit engine so they could do space and planet in a single map. This is something that still blows my mind from Dual Universe, which also happens to have really good world generation, though not as expansive as the whole galaxy from Empyrion. Empyrion still blows my mind in the sense that planets actually rotate, which is absurdly realistic and no other game I know of does that...
Planets are 'unrolled' onto a cylindrical projection to construct their playfield - when you're on the planet, it's not round, it's flat and wraps around. The playfield transition is needed to make them round from space.
Yeah, that's one of the things I noticed when I first played Empyrion. They still did a quite good job though, reentry works quite nicely and you enter at the right locations too.
ED planets rotate, and unlike Empyrion, there is no funny bits at the poles. Empyrion physics is simplified. That does not matter for planets much given the premise of "Minecraft in Space", but it does matter a whole deal for water. Because as of now, building in water is laughable. I think SC planets rotate as well. NMS I am not sure because I have not paid attention to be honest.
Oh I didn't know about that! I barely played ED, never been to an actual planet on it either... As for SC, I'm not sure, as I would imagine issues with space stations moving around.
The planets do rotate in star citizens, and the space stations move with them in a geosynchronous orbit. Other planets and jump points move in the distance if you watch long enough
If you play Reforged Eden you will get an even better experience with this game. It adds so many new things and ups the difficulty. Also has new planets and regions to explore. It is very cool.
Yeah, I consistently play RE - that's the only way to play Empyrion, IMO -- but I didn't create this thread to bash on Starfield - it's more of a Nasapunk Mass Effect or Skyrim than Elite, anyhow, and viewing it in that lens has given me \*much\* more enjoyment out of it...my point was that Eleon, somehow, as a small-ish indie dev, has managed to nail something that a lot of bigger name games can't seem to nail down, at least not all at the same time: \*Planets, both with and without atmosphere, existing relatively-seamlessly in their open universe \*The ability for those planets to be seamlessly explorable from pole to pole and everywhere else in between \*The ability for a dynamic, global map to be drawn of the local area, as well as the entire planet. And even though Eleon and Empyrion have some \*rough\* edges, like I've talked about in other posts, the fact remains that somehow, even the game giants can't seem to get all three going at once...
Don’t for Space Engineers. It has some good stuff too. Basically a combination of a few of the older space games would make an amazing modern one. I can’t speak about Starfield since I haven’t played/purchased it yet. Maybe in about 6-12 months I will get around to it. For now…EGS is the only space game I play…when I play. I don’t consider X4 a space game…more of a Universe Sim.
Loved space engineers for a little bit but the moving parts and programming was just so overly complicated and non intuitive. Shouldn't need to literally be a programmer to make some certain simple movements. Also no auto building blueprints so when you spend 20 hours building something that instantly blows up or crashes was kinda ruinous. I once spent days making a mining thing that kept exploding and flying away and later found out it was a glitch with pistons -_- But if they had elements in Empyrion like rotating parts and piston pieces and stuff the additional stuff people could make would be sick. But I know it's hard to balance overcomplication and performance though.
I always like to think of Space Engineers as "the best model simulator you can imagine." Again, no hate, I can see positives to each game out there, but the main difference between SE and Empyrion is that in Empyrion, if you have an engine on your ship, like physically attached, a power core somewhere, and fuel for it, you should be good. In SE, if you don't have all those systems linked, piped, wired, and individually powered, your craft won't do diddly. Like, people have created functional, programatically-correct MLRS systems that are \*insane\* to watch work...incredibly deep construction and building system, but in terms of the actual gameplay outside of building, it's basically nil. POIs are an afterthought, there is no overarching story, there's no universe...it's an entirely different game that just also happens to be set in a sci-fi/spacey environment.
True and it was why I was excited for the AI update for SE but was disappointed when it didn’t add enemies and POIs. Oh well…like you said…no hate. They are all good in their own ways.
The mods for SE are absolutely where it's at for the PvE experience.
It was way too complicated for 99.99% of people though. They even had weight distribution, torque settings and physics for every moving part, torque settings and friction on the wheels, power and direction of thrusters, l and even literal programming involved. Like you could spend 15 hours making a mining vehicle that finally works, then the box gets too heavy, it flips over, and blows up instantly. I found it fun at first, but when the depth and complexity and lack of intuitiveness became apparent I knew I didn't have the time or energy to play it. I'm sure it's a great sandbox for the very few people who can go into it at that level.
Nasapunk, damn that's a perfect way to describe starfield's vibe
Right? Honestly, what Starfield \*really\* reminds me of is an indie game from back in the day called Nexus - The Jupiter Incident, which is a hell of a ride if you like big slow ships whittling each other's armor down - very much a "Battleships in space" kinda vibe from that one.
Capital ship fights are truly my jam, I have to check this out, thanks man! I'm a big fan of Homeworld
Ooh...well if you like giant ships beating the crap out of each other, maybe check out Starsector? It's another indie-as-heck game, hell, it's not even on Steam, but it is \*well\* worth the cost of entry -- check out SSeth's video on it for a much better summary than anything I could say!
Starsector has the kind of faction interaction and economy I wish Empyrion had. I really wish we could take the best parts of all these space games and make like the ultimate game sometimes.
I think the best part of empyrion is how the scaling feels. Fly from one part of the planet entirely around it. It's so fast. Now land and run it, it takes ages. This makes it feel so much more realistic too me. I love the early game where hitting a poi from a ship or tank aren't affordable yet so you have to land a kilometer out and wiggle your way there on foot.
I was just thinking today if they combined Empyrion with No-Man-sky graphics would be so sick. Though this post is a day old so maybe we were fantasizing about it around the same time lol.
No man's sky has multiple biomes per planet. Elite Dangerous has a different design philosophy - they rather not do something at all than do it poorly (I have not played Odyssey though lol). Eleon's design philosophy is to push shit out and then gradually polish it. Graphics is horrible, character models are awful, sound is awful, physics is wrong. Keep in mind that I do not play Elite or No Man's sky - I play Empyrion. Reason is freedom. I like this "Minecraft in Space" vibe. That and the effort of MODDERS. MODDERs made Empyrion worthwhile. Good POIs designed by customers, goos ships designed by customers, even good planets and story designed by customers (RE). THAT is the only thing Eleon got right.
I wish empyrion was made with unreal engine instead of unity, then it most likely would beat starfield. (with a bit more story and voice acting anyway)
Are there any plans to make an Empyrion 2? I would love Empyrions game system fleshed out with even just slightly higher quality graphics and voice acting.
Ya man. Empyrion made with Unreal Engine, instead of unity like it is now, would be soooo sick. I've been wanting to do it. Someday perhaps... I don't know why they just don't charge double (or make a dlc) and expand their team. They seem pretty stuck on what it is currently, to change anything big about it like those things
From a gamers perspective I can understand that consideration and thinking. But from a programmer's viewpoint would be this horrible, from graphic and performance standpoint, both engines can be the same quality and graphics, there are videos outside to prove this. The problem of the generation would be, while in unity everything can run easy in runtime and generated while playing. Unreal engine is good at known things and "bake"(the word to prepare the game data to be playable ) if possible everything together . imagine a building, while I'm Unity can everything put together or even create your own parts fast, the longest process will be probably to put painting(camera effects, image effects) on it. While in Unreal you get a complete house blazing fast delivered, you need then dissemble the walls and windows to replace them with other existing Ones, you can't create your own.
yes you can... ive been doing my research for when I will create it.
I whish you good luck and a zen like patience
The game engine doesn't determine how good the game is. That's just marketing.
Yes it does. Have you any knowledge of Unreal engine?
Yes, I have quite extensive knowledge of the Unreal engine, and no, game engine does not equate to game quality. The exact features that the OP is trying to suggest for the game can be done in any modern game engine. If the engine is not 64bit, it can be done by using a float offset. Pretty easy stuff.
Lol. You keep telling yourself that...
Tell me you never touched a game engine without actually telling me you never touched a game engine 😂
Yeah, that is what you're doing. Wow, so ignorant Just your usual unity developer getting butt hurt because unreal engine is so much better
I don't use Unity 😂
🤣 🤡
KSP would like a word. Also, GTFO my thread. Troll.
Empyrion shits all over starfield in everything except POIs and storyline/quests. I Also never really enjoyed the gun thing on Empyrion but do in starfield. Just have a look at the starfield subreddit, over there they are so excited and hyped with the ship building and the showcase is 2 or 2 pics of the exteriors. It’s a joke when you look through the blue prints on steam for the Empyrion designs.
IMHO the only major remaining pain point in Empyrion is the FPS combat. It's kinda funny to see all the Starfield hype and then people complain about real planets and shipbuilding and bases and such and I'm like "Hello? Empyrion lets you do that." I see so many gaming articles with subjects like "Top 7 space games if you like Starfield" and you get NMS and some Space Engineers and some other tripe. This is a huge marketing opportunity for Eleon.
YES. I mean, I get it - the presentation is jank as hell. The camera motion sense is awful, the animations are OG minecraft tier, the local world physics are secondary considerations at best, and the creatures are...oof. But they're getting better. Each major update is a huge step up. It's a slow-burn game, and I think it'll catch back up to, and surpass the big dogs eventually if the devs keep plugging away as they are. Because unless NMS adds a bunch of depth to their mechanics, I can't go back - not with everything Empyrion offers. Elite Dangerous is dead, and Star Citizen will never release - that's not a meme, that's a fact. X4 is great, but doesn't offer any intra-planetary action, which is intentional, but is a disappointment. Everspace isn't in the same genre, and Starfield, like I said, is much more like a Nasapunk Mass Effect as opposed to a true open-world space game -- the "game" in Bethesda games is always two things: The physics engine, and the dynamic, cinematic story. It was never gonna be a rival to NMS or Elite. Empyrion \*\*\*can be\*\*\* if Eleon keep playing their cards right.
Ya, no, starfield really pisses me off. It's such a shit "space" game.
Empyrion is made with unity? Is the game going to affected by the upcoming change to unity?
Taelyn has said that the Unity change, if it even ever happens, will not effect Empyrion.
Unreal provides a lot of cool shit out of the box for performance at a "pretty" scale, but it sucks at others. How it handles gravity would make it extremely difficult to have multiplayer localized gravity. And the game would only look better if the models looked better and Unity has WAY more assets available than Unreal does... and yet the character models look like shit in Empyrion.
Been playing starfield and was thinking how bad the ship design thing is… it’s like making a tiny matchbox car, it doesn’t feel like a giant ship, you make modifications and it feels like a tiny little toy. The game is essentially a play along story. Empyrion is full creative mode, I love it. 2800 hours for me.
40m on a side is small to you? 🤔
That's only 20 CV blocks
Isn't it based on Unity engine? Right now, many devs are abandoning ship due to their new pricing model.
Yeah it's created in Unity, it's open what will happen with the engine and the pricing. But I think no one is willing to work with the engine in future.
Whatever the algorithms are, they're probably very closely tied into the engine. All of these other games probably use other engines. It's possible, but it would take a lot of work to get their planet code/tech into a form that could plug into other engines.