For Backers Only: Planet Editor

We expect this to go live fairly soon (Currently, it will just fun to play with - you will not be able to export/play on new maps quite yet).

But, you should see this in the next build we push! As always, these shots are for you guys only. Please don't go posting them around unless you've seen me post em up on Facebook or elsewhere.

Thanks!

Called it!

Lava!!!

Niiiiiice.

But the true fun begins once we can start playing on them naturally!

Mike

The best bit about this is we can begin modding new biomes, since the editor will be using local brushes and assets.

The lava, by the way, is CRAZY early. The final product will only have passing resemblance to this very early image. You guys will get to see it, and the metal planet, and others, progress as the art for them gets started, created and finished.

Well technically we already had (some of) the assets at least, we have to render them an all, but yeah now we'll have all the extra bits as well hopefully.

No wai that's gotta be FINAL! ;p

Mike

Modifying them at the moment does nothing though, as the server generates the world (so it doesn't use local meshes). I am of course presuming that the planet editor uses the local resources, and not the server's.

Seems like a good assumption.

Very exciting!

I'm so happy right now! I just want to see the crazy planet possibilities!

My long term goal is to start exposing more stuff to the javascript so that the editor can be extended in odd ways by the community.

And yes this will allow you to screw around with your own biomes and planet types.

Oh please do! I can't wait to get down and dirty with those exposed features.

Awesome work guys! I can't wait to play with this.

Mobius strip planet here we go! Take that path finding algorithm!

Holy **** that earth planet is huge! And it's only 60% in size...

I can only imagine what would happen on a planet that's 100% size.. and if end ends up that the units are dropped to the x0.3 similar to the trailer..

THAT is going to be a massive battle. Shut up and take my- oh wait. Been there.

Keep in mind... 60% means approximately 1700 meter. 100% is 3000 I think. The largest planet that's been played on so far is the current earthlike at 700 - 750.

question - once a planet's biomes are created, it's simply stamped out onto the geo and the biome layer is then discarded?

or is the biome data exported as some sort of file, which can be updated later, by modders? My goal is to make a very different game using the engine that revolves around a rough climate simulation, which would require shifting boarders of biomes.

I mean a rough, game-ified ecosystem not a full realism simulation. Think Conways Game of Life applied to tree densities, or maybe continental shifts? just spit-balling here, wondering what the hard-limits are to the game. I'm confident in the open-ness of modability for the sake of creating other RTS games, but I'm wondering how far towards dwarf fortress this engine can be pushed ...

Very nice stuff
One technical question though :
Is there some kind of technical restriction to keep the height of canyons limited to the current value (not much higher) ? Can we expect to have higher canyons and possibly a larger set of heights ?
Thanks

Yes, it's possible. All meshes have a scale attribute that you can specify within the biome definition, and you can scale separately in the three dimensions.

Very exciting, looking forward to close quarters 1v1s and epic games on gigantic planets.