Procedural generation = destructable/deformable terrain?

Sorry if this has been discussed before (yes, I did use the search function), but we all know procedural generation will be used for PA, and it has been mentioned that giant asteroids will leave huge lava filled permanent marks on planets. However, with maps being procedurally generated, does this mean we can see general terrain destruction and deformation with regular combat? In other words, will tanks shooting at hills cause bits of rock to be chipped away, etc? Maybe this would be too taxing on the hardware, but with everything being randomly generated, I thought it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that bits of the map could also be chipped away.

It would be interesting to be able to send bombers to bomb away a hill shielding your opponent from fire, you know things like that

procedural generated just means it will be generated by algorithms. They could produce totally static maps or very dynamic voxel maps. Uber is still thinking about what exactly they will do.

I did hear them comment somewhere that a voxel-based system was considered but ultimately they decided against it. Destructible terrain would still be pretty cool, but I guess it would be a difficult thing to code in. I don't have a full understanding of procedural generation, so I was kind of taking a shot in the dark by just hoping that it would make destructible environments easier.

Terrain deformation has been confirmed already

Really? Do you have a source? I hope this is confirmed, that would be pretty neat

Here:
viewtopic.php?f=61&t=34022

with links to:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments ... ry/c5tpb0i

and

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments ... ry/c5tslkr

Well awesome! Though I'm wondering how far they'll take it. They mention you can dent/scar terrain, but they don't say whether or not we can take down hill sides or mountains, make craters with artillery, etc. Still, glad to see maps aren't entirely static. Thanks for the links

You're welcome!

Keep track of the first link (the other topic here in the forum). It gets updated quick. So you don't miss new confirmed features

Yes, destructable/deformable is in. The final form it takes will depend on the tech research we are doing now. I have some very definite ideas on direction and scope of work at this point but it's too early to say how well it pans out. We really want the terrain to have a unique look so I'm trying some very non-traditional stuff. More when I know more...

I'm excited to hear more about this.

"Robot eating plants" just popped in my mind, but i think that has nothing to do with the looks of a planet nor the topic of this thread (although when they are destroyable it would fit in here).

Thanks for the update, neutrino! We appreciate that you guys keep us up to date on stuff, and I'm happy to hear that this game isn't going to have static environments. PA is looking more unique everyday

If I remember right, didn't you say you wanted the destruction of the terrain to force players to get closer to each other and thus be more aggressive? Doesn't that imply you want entire planets to be chunked off in size bit by bit?

Be aware that having both deformable terrain and units with real acceleration speeds and turning radius turned out to be a nightmare for pathfinding and group movement in Spring Engine games like BA and Zero-k. Not sure if the latest pathfinder in version 91.0 even fixes it, I think you still get shapeless, bumpy blobs of units.

No need to tear the planets appart, making them inhabitable by turning the planet into an huge fireball is sufficient. Also the numbers of meteors and smaller moons will get lower when all are used up

The big problem with destructable terrain. Especially with the types of battle we'll be seeing, is that the map can be reduced to a featureless beige of craters overlapping each other.

Not in a cool "desert planet" way either.

Do you mean this looks bad or it has bad consequences for gameplay? Adjusting how well land units can deal with terrain roughness can tweak gameplay back in the right direction. Also, as more and more units walk over, it might be reasonable that they deform the land flatter again.

From my understanding of how RTS unit movement works, fully destructible Voxel based terrain would make the pathfinding much more difficult to compute. Plus, how would the spherical planets be rendered in squares? You'd get lumpy terrain.

I think a height map would be the best solution. For both terrain deformation and possibly as a "wink-wink-nudge-nudge-physics" approximation for water/magma simulation.

I would love to see major impacts break the crust and create areas of magma that have to slowly cool and harden. Exposed magma would do massive damage to any ground unit and medium damage to any air unit passing overhead. The magma layer would serve as an effective "minimum size" for the planet, providing a stopper to keep players from breaking all the way down to the core.

The height map terrain deformation would be easier on pathfinding because you could just limit the steepness of slope that a unit can climb. This would also allow for certain units to be better at climbing, making mountain bases tactically viabile

Our algorithms have gotten more sophisticated.

Heightmap to me is a fallback position. I want more complex topology.

This is basically how TA worked.

This sounds awesome and is beyond what I expected to see form this game. I would add that unless you goal is to eventually make most of the planet useless for building structures you need to make sure to add the ability to level terrain to engineers or a special unit. Tiberian Sun or the expansion (I can't remember) had terrain deformation but they didn't include a way to fix it. Only heavy artillery could damage it, but in a long game it eventually required you to expand the base to a ridiculous extent because your base was so cratered.

I don't want to have to spend ages bulldozing in craters. I'd rather a different mechanic than engineers filling in pot holes. Maybe a high tolerance for bodgy terrain for structure placement.

Or maybe don't worry about it, if the map is so cratered that you can't place structures any more, then maybe it's time to find a fresh planet to wreck.