In Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, The Unseen University appoints Rincewind the wizard as “Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography”.
When I first read it, I thought the title was hilarious. Now, seeing some of the terrain recent versions of NMS are generating, I’m starting to think the phrase was devised just for us.
So I’m going to start posting my pictures of crazy, impassable, impossible, unmanagable, landscapes here. Feel free to join in.
When legislators make new law, they often use what seems like strange and old-fashioned language. That’s because there are words and phrases that have been examined and tested in the courts for many years, and their exact legal meaning is well understood.
The phrase “Cruel and Unusual” was first introduced into law by the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which, amongst other things, prevented the King from inflicting “Cruel and Unusual Punishments” on his subjects.
Since then, the phrase has been incorporated into the laws and charters of many countries and organisations, including the United States, the United Nations, and the Council of Europe.
When Origins came out, I enjoyed finding these kinds of planets so I wondered if I could search for them. That version added new biomes without changing existing planets. It did that by adding new planets. Every system with 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 planets got one or more new planets and those new planets were new biomes like rugged, volcanic, etc. So if you visit the 5th planet, for example, and it is the highest numbered planet for that system, it will usually be one of the new biomes. Sometimes the second highest numbered planet is the new biome, but usually it is the highest numbered planet.
Using the portal, just dial a valid random address and let the first glyph be the 7th glyph (the ship glyph = planet 6). If the portal accepts it, then that is your rugged/volcanic planet. If the address is invalid (i.e. no planet 6 in that system), try planets 5,4,3,2 until it is valid. Planet 1 is never the highest numbered planet so you can skip that.
Personally, I have a love/ hate for these new extreme mountainous planets.
On one hand they are beautiful and presents more variety to the NMS. Also, I am one to always look for fun challenges in my gaming.
On the other hand, they can be a pain in the rear when you need to get up top to your ship but you can’t because the planet also has extreme sentinel activity and you can’t call the ship (true story).
