LiveStream: August 14th, 2013 1PM PDT

All the planets are looking very pretty with their new decals! It is very cool to see into the actual process the artists go through to refine the procedurally generated planets. I thought it was especially funny how Tim Cox was trying to make all these really cool structures for metal planets, but he ended up mostly just using little rectangles because they looked better.

So since this livestream was all about art, I can assume that the NEXT livestream will be about tech again?

Maybe.... the tech of going to multiple planets?

I know you guys are working on it, and it'll be done when its done(TM ) But I can't help but feel that this will change the gameplay SO MUCH that it absolutely HAS to be in before the beta. Even if its buggy and barely works, I think it has to be tested at least a little before the game goes to beta status. And unless I'm mistaken that is only 16 days away?

Also I bet Neutrino wasn't on the stream because he was at PAX, but that's just a guess.

He was in the office. Watch the livestream and you can see him in the background.

What did you bet? I'd like to collect my winnings.

If that stuff is ready then it'll be part of the Live Stream.

Mike

You never bet anything in the first place!

I know, I know...

Just hungry for any kind of news on the orbital front I suppose.

This one was about tech too. But mostly, art-related tech. I bet the Metal Planet tech is gonna make some modders go WILD.

Great stream! I love your work, Steve!

Really enjoyed watching this one. The metal and lava planets look very nice, and the terrain blending makes the earth-like planets look much better.

I can't wait to play with the Booleans. That's going to be so fun for making multi-layered battlefields.

Really enjoyed the live stream.... u guys are doing an awesome job with the metal and lava planets
keep up the good work

I'm loving that the art guys are working the little spirals in everywhere they can. Good livestream.

Really like how some bits of land on the lava planet are a dull red, like they're about to be melted from underneath.

Biome edge control was probably the prettiest part of the video. Especially that densely forested/mountained/iced accident! Gotta have dense forests for forest fires!

I hope you do have forest fires, nice to hear trees and rocks will block shots. If you use a 2d cellular automata it shouldn't be too much of a performance overhead.

I admit there might be a good reason why this isn't viable that I simply haven't thought of, but, for the lava planets, why not turn the lava into the default 'negative space' and only generate the land? It seems like that would produce better results in terms of land-bridges and snaky spirally bits, particularly if you make them less blobby and more fractal. Wouldn't that work?

Also, any chance of lava-metal planet hybrids? I gotta admit, a couple of those giant circle brushes floating on the surface of a lava planet would be really awesome, like abandoned mining platforms.

I would assume it has to do with the way the planetbuilder itself works.

one thing i wonder that except for not being able to built naval on lava ... how much different will it be to play on like from a moon? how will metal patches work on it? i think it was stated that lavaplanets might be richer on metal then other biomes ... what does that mean? more metalpatches then on other biomes or does each metalpatch produce more metal itself? or will there be more reclaimable metal ?
and will we be able to use a set of hovercrafts later in game?
i would like to see a big hover transport for instance ...

am loving the evolution of the game engine, the game world is looking a lot more natural now.

It would be nice if we can get the programmers input in the next stream, just to hear what technical issues they have had/expect to encounter going forward. do they have a set of features that they are looking to implement, or do they wait for the artists to ask them to create something?

I found it very interesting to hear how the artists take their failures as a learning experience, and find ways to use it to their advantage, do the dev's have any similar stories along those lines that they would like to share with us. as i find this aspect of game development to be fascinating.

whenabouts will the beta start again?

At some point in September. There is no definitive date.

On the FAQS page it says Alpha period is till the end of August. We can assume then that beta will be beginning of September.

Very, very unlikely.

I doubt the FAQs page has been updated for some time.