Different heights in the terrain?

Will the planets be just flat with minor ups and downs and objects that resemble mountains and the like. Or will there also be different terrein heights, cliffs?

You already see some of this with some of the CSG brushes used to create maps, adding more is likely to happen at some point.

Mike

I'd love to see an official response to this question though. The lack of variety in terrain is something that keeps troubling me.

What we have right now are mostly flat planets with a few mountains and crevices. While more or less nice to look at, they serve as hardly more than obstacles that are relevant for not much else but path finding. In all honesty, I find the generated terrain rather boring at this point.

Some of the things I'd like to see:

• Flat and rough terrain that affect movement speed (and maybe accuracy if it's a bumpy ride).
• Relevant height differences that affect units' weapon systems:
  • Range of artillery would increase if placed on high ground.
  • Limited barrel inclination could affect units' ability to shoot the base/top of cliffs.
• Slopes that affect units' movement, speed as well as ability:
  • Units are slowed when going uphill and can't traverse ground that's too steep at all. The maximum traversable inclination varies with unit type.
  • Difficult terrain needs to be present for spider bots (if added) to be worthwhile.
• Terrain might affect radar coverage. If added, radar shadow would increase tactical potential of terrain features and the value of orbital radar (as it wouldn't suffer from radar shadow).

There is not that much terrain variety in the Kickstarter video either, so we could assume anything too sophisticated is out of scope of Uber's vision.

There is a bit more variety in the biome concepts, much of it seems to be eye candy though:


Please point me to it if something like this has already been discussed elsewhere.

Id love to see height variations that are simply not obstacles as well. Height effecting artillery range would be amazing. What I dont want to see are little hills and bumps that serve no other purpose than to infuriate me by blocking shots. Cybran t2 pd, anyone?

Rarrrgh! +contour

There are already Line of Sight checks that are done in PA so this will be avoided.

I was thinking about it last night.. I really like to have features like: link . Elevated platforms with ramps so tanks can drive onto the platforms.

edit: The tech for terrain elevation should be there as the game also has craters.

Nobody else wondering about this? Before playing with the BETA I haven't even considered this not being implemented since it seemed so obvious. As the topic starter says, it's basically playing on a flat surface right now with a very limited set of props making the terrain a bit too repetitive.
Even is nothing like extended range for weapons / radars would be included it would greatly enhance all tactical game play.
Are there any changes to be expected in the planet generation before release?

This has been hotly debated in the Scale Megathread:
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/scale-megathread.48650/


Here is what I want to see...







The more varied the elevations, the more interesting the gameplay.

The more chokepoints we have, the more tactical and strategic areas of value and asymmetrical advantage we gain from terrain to influence battles.

The more height difference we see, the more the physics based gameplay can shine.

Yeah having actual different levels and cliffs units can take advantage from would be absolutely amazing.

Well perhaps this thread should gain some more attention, discussing this in another thread makes it hard to find and impossible to track it's interest.

He has definately my vote. Currently the whole "height" option in planet builders limets to the height of specific mountains... And really, they are basically just annoyances then truely of added value to the maps/planets

It should use some perlin noise based height map generation:



Of topic: Shouldn't this thread be moved to general discussions?

It already does use perlin noise for height variations.
And using perlin noise for terrain never yields good results - all you will ever get are continouus up and down slopes.

The Engine already includes some height variations, currently the outcomes aren't very good, but at the very least the base capability is there already.

Not to mention that just having Height differences isn't enough, you also need to ensure that other game mechanics are capable of taking advantage of that properly.

Mike

I keep seeing people complain about flat or boring terrain, but I've found some maps that are filled with cracks and obstructions. Also, there are definitely hills. The planets are just so small that the hills end up making the planet look lumpy.

I'm pretty skeptical about the idea of "landmark" terrain features anyway, because I've always seen them in other games to just force one precise style of play. I'm worried that what you're asking for will just limit people's options rather than help in any way.

We can simplify what terrain height entails.

• Choke points
• Ramps
• Plateaus (of different heights)
• Elevation advantages
• Physics based amazingness

We have been talking about this for a very long time...I am still shocked that no game since TA had this & supcom lacked it with mostly flat maps with a few like setons that had chokepoints..Anyways we need to bring this up in the livestream tom & get a straight answer about it. But like was mentioned above the KS video shows no hills, ect..so..But then again if you read the unit stuff the all terrain bot makes you think otherwise....

My concern is how you would see the hills. As has been pointed out they already exist to a degree, but without angling the camera you can't see them.

Height based terrain colours and/or textures would be good to fix this issue.