Would you call this flat? As for diverse terrain, I think you should specify what you mean by diverse. Currently on Lava planets, the Red Lava is not passable by any units but air I think. So that is a pretty different from a map with sea.
Ok this is not flat (first time i saw hills in PA) but its still featureless. No cliffs, no unpassable terrain (Lava seems to be the exception), no ramps.
@Godde : Great screenshot! @tashadan : I asked this question serveral months ago. Since then Uber has stated, that they are working on more terrain features, that will be like cliffs, ramps, planeaus, etc. But this is no high priority atm. I think the problem is not that there are no high differences (look at goddes screenshot!). The real problem is, that you cant see (or really hard) this from the cameraview from above. So it would be best to add features that are good to see for exemaples a plateau or cliffs. On other post related to this, someone made the suggestion to have a "high-view" with diffenrent colors dependeing on high the terrain is. But i think thats too complicated. I must be possible to see all kinds of terrain features and high differences without additional UI-elements. I´m hopping that Uber will put in some work here and make this possible.
For me, I would concentrate more on the diversity that terrain can give you (like Stracraft 2 gave) and also this could be seen in RedAlert 3 (I mean some units can use jumps and get in places faster than other). I don't think this will happen though
All the fundamental tools present for "better" terrain are all present. As already point out, 'rolling' hills are doable to a degree in the engine, and we do already have a selection of 'terrain brushes'(Mesas, cracks, boulders and craters). They have been worked on to a point where Uber feels confident that the underlying systems and process are functional and have decided to focus their attention elsewhere for the time being. It makes sense as well because of how terrain can affect gameplay and the truth is that right now gameplay isn't all that high on the priority list. Of course it will be at some point, I expect we'll see more work on the terrain systems happen around the same time other gameplay centric things get worked on like the unit roster and overall balance but until then we just need to wait. Mike
that's unfair, you have the best screenshot on the entire forum, but I've yet to generate a planet that looks that good.
Will you share the generation seed numbers to get this planet? I would love to battle over that mountain!
It might be this planet but it looks abit different as they current PA version probably does the planet generation a bit different. I think that planets of this size are also disabled for playing currently. http://i.imgur.com/KhDE9Gn.jpg
I really liked the new desert brushes that got implemented a bit back. Adding cliffs and valleys that can be traversed. I am sure we will get some more variations of these features. It all comes down to artist time at this point.
We'd like to do more with the terrain to make it much more diverse and probably will. It's hard to give you an ETA on when you'll start seeing this, though.