Discovery Scanner: Synopsis

Below are a brief set of notes which taken by the ever vigilent StuartGT on Reddit in relation to last night’s stream, which you can see here.

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Piers Jackson, Game Director​

• Joined the Elite team around 16 months ago
• Talked about the challenges of the UK’s COVID lockdowns and how the devteam adapted
• Some elements are now really streamlined, but the organic elements like personal collaboration, tactile holding tablets/notepads and discussing together, are missed
• He and the team are looking forward to getting back into the office
• Alpha phases are focussed on testing key areas: servers, new mechanics, stability, interfaces, etc. method behind the madness
• Phase 4 is about testing the migration of players’ accounts, that all the player data/info transfers over okay, and test more equipment and gameplay styles to try to break/exploit things for fixing
• Only a small subset of the content being seen/tested, the alpha isn’t the full game present even now
• Alpha build was branched from the main development trunk roughly two weeks prior to Alpha starting.
• The alpha branch has been receiving fixes for high-priority bugs that heavily impacted CMDRs, much more narrow focus.
• The content that’s been injected into the alpha has been specifically selected for things they want to try
• The main trunk has a lot of churn, been receiving 1000s and 1000s of fixes since, ready for release.
• Trunk and branch have diverged quite dramatically
• Trunk has the much wider range of content in it, named/shown examples being weapons, settlements, planetary tech
• Swarming of players by NPC AI has been reduced/balanced, was fine inside buildings but could be overbearing outside
• NPC use of grenades has been improved, with throw into cover and onto roofs if NPC has lost sight of player
• A notable fixed exploit includes CMDRs clipping into stations while armed, while CMDRs flying ships into NPC-troops-being-dropped is being looked at
• Improvements to room occlusion system so AI don’t get triggered by you being in a different room (i.e. seeing through some walls)
• New tutorial coming for Odyssey’s mechanics at launch.
• CMDR will be taken on a mission, stepped through the various gameplay mechanics via a flashback narrative.
• All CMDRs can play through the tutorial, not just new CMDRs.

Dr Kay Ross​

• Optimisation being done: some occlusion systems weren’t in place for the branched alpha, to avoid pop-in
• Will see performance improvements when Odyssey releases
• Alpha contains many placeholders of the new planetary tech
• New tech will enable identifying areas and features of planets, the type of terrain, basins, craters, etc from orbit/space
• Blending distinct regions together: flat areas and mountainous areas
• Planets now use a mix of procedural features and pre-baked, hand-crafted assets, all blended together
• Scatter system for rocks, flora, etc will now be more systemic and deterministic for each planet, so that assets are in more of a natural place
• Multiple geomes now supported, so planets can have mixed-combinations of surfaces: dusty, rocky, icy, snowy, etc.
• Most of the game has has graphical changes, which includes the stars
• Use of the new Physically Based Rendering system throughout the game gives stars a new “light”
• Different planets’ atmospheres will have different colours based on their primary composition
• Example images of atmosphere colours/types shown: red, yellow, green, blue, lots of shades
• Raleigh scattering for light refraction based on the the star light’s wavelength and planet atmosphere density
• Mie scattering for light absorption based on atmosphere elements and composition
• Oxygen, Argon, Neon, etc absorb light differently
• All produces a huge variety of visual possibilities
• Hints at more landable planets to come, only tenuous atmosphere planets have been unlocked for Odyssey’s launch