NMS Origins

That’s one reason I like to document systems and planets/moons along with the system portal code. … Makes it easier to return for any reason (add a base, get resources …)

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Just had a first quick look and checked pretty much all my bases. Looks like most my bases have survived the update to Origins. The only base that didn’t quite make it, was my Exo’rena base. The planet used to have large craters all over the planet surface, but that feature was apparently removed. My base was built right in the middle of one of those craters, and is now gone. Now I have parts of the base floating. I also got some trees and natural Star Bramble growing through my base. I may have to move it, not knowing if the ‘crater’ feature still exists somewhere.

Happy to see my other bases still in-tact though, although some were crippled with the desolation update which broke Short Range Teleporters. Still hoping for Hello Games to fix that issue, instead of having to use the quick mod I made to fix it.

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I’m still yet to access the new update due to obligations elsewhere :sleepy:
I tried not to look via this forum but I simply couldn’t resist peeking a bit.
I can’t wait to start discovering the ‘new’ universe.
It looks quite amazing.
This will be the first update in years where I’m way behind everyone else in figuring things out & discovering new stuff.
Soooo looking forward to it.

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ORIGINS PATCH 3.02

September 29, 2020.

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone playing the Origins Update, especially those taking the time to report any issues they encounter via Zendesk or console crash reporting.

We are listening closely to your feedback, and have identified and resolved a number of issues. These fixes have been combined into patch 3.02, which will be live on all platforms today.

Patch Notes

  • Fixed an issue that caused some buildings to move, which could result in missions leading to distant buildings or bases being buried under the terrain.
  • Fixed an issue that could prevent games from saving correctly. This fix fully restores any affected saves.
  • On PC and Xbox, fixed an issue that caused the build menu to be inaccessible after going through a portal as part of a mission. A fix for PS4 will be available shortly. The issue may be worked around by saving and reloading the game.
  • Introduced a significant optimisation for large bases.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the portal coordinates for new worlds to be considered invalid.
  • Fixed an issue that caused framerate stuttering on PC.
  • Fixed an issue that counted extinct creatures towards the planet total in the Local Information Register.
  • Fixed an issue that caused new creatures to be marked ‘Extinct’ when discovered.
  • Fixed an issue that caused incorrect creatures to spawn on weird biomes.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed Exocraft to destroy volcanoes and other large objects.
  • Fixed an issue that caused some electromagnetic power hotspots to supply less power than before.
  • Fixed an issue that caused warp tunnel audio to continue to play after the warp had finished.
  • Fixed an issue that caused industrial power grid batteries to be used as bait for robotic creatures, instead of ion batteries.
  • Fixed an issue that caused creatures to spawn in the opposite hemisphere than indicated in the discovery hint.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause volcanoes to be placed upon buildings.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented items from unlocking in the Quicksilver shop.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed some traders to continue to sell deprecated items.
  • Upgraded OpenVR to the latest revision.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause Nexus mission to be abandoned as if the player was AFK, even though they had taken off before the AFK timer finished.
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when an NPC ship took off from the planet surface.
  • Fixed a number of crashes specific to AMD video cards.
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when being hit by a projectile launched by an entity that was destroyed before the projectile hit.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause a softlock when trying to purchase a frigate in specific star systems.

We will continue to release patches as issues are identified and resolved. If you experience any issues, let us know by submitting a bug report.

Thank you,

Hello Games

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How did Hello Games add “billions of new planets” – wasn’t the universe already at its 18 quintillion maximum? Did they delete some systems to allow new worlds or what? Does anyone know?

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The 18 quintillion number comes from the maximum possible amount, based on the max value of a 64-bit unsigned integer. The actual number of planets in the game is notably smaller - not every possible galactic region coordinate is used, not every possible star in each region is generated, and not every planet in each system is generated. Origins takes advantage of that last one, to create additional planets in existing systems.

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It’s very simple, as they are maintaining two different sets of terrain generation algorithms (now doing that is not what I would call “easy”. Not “difficult” either, more like “tedious”, “annoying” or “unsafe”. But I digress…).
If the results of both sets of algorithms is different enough, you don’t have to worry about one of the old planets and one of the new planets having the same seed.

Now, in any sane procgen system it would still be an issue, because the seed would obviously determine which set of algorithms will be used. But structurally NMS at this point seems to be somewhere between the genius of Dr. Frankenstein and the hobbled-together corpse of his creation (Yes, I know, the “monster” is actually good-looking in the book, just really unnerving in an uncany valley kind of way, but you get what I mean).

What it essentially boils down to is this: There is only one way they could leave old planets alone and add the new ones, and that is to complete top-level parameter generation of a system as before without touching anything, and then doing the top-level parameters of the new planets, with the kind of algorithm used not actually being part of those parameters. What you end up with is effectively two separate seeds for two separate procgen systems, and you’re generating half of the system with one, and the other half with the other…

I really, really wish they wouldn’t have done it and just reset the whole thing. It’s going to nip them in the bud at some point in the future, but maybe they plan to seize development before that happens.

Or they just remove the old system at that point and finally go through with the reset…

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Prior to the Desolation update I have been doing some research in an attempt to figure out how ‘regions’ are generated and where systems are located within. I have not quite finished my research as it requires a lot of testing. I did however find that so far every region and system actually exists, although it may not be visible in the galaxy map. I have been using the Save Editor to warp to these locations, at times ending up in a different system than shown/recognised on the Galactic map. It is as if these are basically ‘hidden’ from the ‘normal’ player, and only accessible by ‘other means’. As of yet, my testing has not been thorough enough to draw conclusions. If I can find some time, I will revisit my research on this, as I find this intriguing to say the least :wink:

Yup, I have been wanting for this to happen for quite a long time now, as I totally agree. Not only is this risky, with various possible issues involved, it most likely also affects performance if they continue to force themselves into not resetting and continue to implement exclusions to prevent existing saves from breaking.

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I still think they could have easily supported the current voxel gen on already-discovered systems, while allowing full changes to undiscovered. Now that I’ve had time to see the method they used in Origins, I’m perplexed at the path they instead chose. Appending some tweaked planets onto existing systems seems much more unstable going forward. The new gen is underwhelming, looks like the old gen just stretched vertically. Frankly this approach seems like it had to have been more difficult to do.

The reason I keep harping on my particular suggested method is because it’s based on how so much of the world generation is already setup. So many of the procedural generation settings are already configured to have multiple subsets of choices. Models have dynamic lists of textures to choose from. Assets are composed of arbitrary sets of submodels to choose from. Biome categories have multiple subbiome sets to choose from (growing since Atlas Rises). Skies are an arbitrary-sized set of palettes (expanded in Origins to include biome-specific sets). On and on. It’s not like a software company dealing with a huge burden of maintaining deprecated systems. It’s literally how the procedural generation works in NMS.

The terrain gen has many categories of settings, but currently just uses a single global set. Exe modders like RayRod have commented on how there’s no real reason this needs to be the case. The actual formulas used appear to be the same as always, just with different settings. The Back To Foundations mod demonstrates how the older-style generation is still possible in the current game just by changing some values. Entirely new, wild things are possible this way as well. HG could certainly setup the old gen, current gen, and any future gen, as subsets like all those other parts of the procedural generation already do. By including a very tiny amount of data from their existing discovery database inside the actual game files, known/occupied planets/systems could be restricted to the current gen subset. New planets/sytems would have no such restriction, any subset could be chosen. A win-win for HG and both “don’t f with my base” & “burn it all down” players.

(apologies for the wall of text) :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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The Nexus has daily Quicksilver missions again.

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Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone playing the Origins Update, especially those taking the time to report any issues they encounter via Zendesk or console crash reporting.

We are listening closely to your feedback, and have identified and resolved a number of issues. These fixes have been combined into patch 3.03, which will be live on all platforms today.

Patch Notes

  • Fixed an issue that caused vegetation and other planetary items to be spread too thin when viewed at a distance.

  • Fixed an issue that caused a different mission to be selected when moving from one step of the Artemis story to another.

  • Fixed an issue that caused an occasional checkerboard pattern to appear on the terrain on frozen and volcanic worlds.

  • Fixed an occasional visual glitch that caused stretched polygons in the grass.

  • Improved the displacement effect on vegetation when it is pushed by the player or creatures.

  • Fixed an issue that caused items awarded by the Planetary Archive vaults to change rarity after save/load.

  • Players may now use the back-out button to select the ‘Leave’ option in an interaction.

  • Fixed an issue that prevented players from using the Multi-Tool upgrade terminal in VR.

  • When using the Analysis Visor, more distant markers are now shown slightly faded out.

  • Fixed an issue that made it difficult to summon the starship on some planets.

  • Fixed an issue that allowed the personal forcefield to activate while using the Analysis Visor.

  • Fixed an issue that prevented teleporter destinations from other galaxies from being visible on the teleport page.

  • Fixed an issue that prevented Xbox players from setting Waypoints from the Discovery Page.

  • Fixed an issue on PC that prevented base thumbnails from showing in the teleporter.

  • Virtual keyboard is now supported in Steam VR.

  • Fixed an issue where using the Steam VR desktop overlay would spin the game camera.

  • Fixed an issue that caused incorrect discovery counts to appear on planets where nothing had been discovered.

  • Fixed an issue that could cause the Local Information Register to display the system name as the planet name and vice versa.

  • Fixed an issue that caused incorrect thumbnails to display on the Discovery Page.

  • Opening the Discovery Page immediately after discovering something now correctly takes you straight to the details of that discovery.

  • Fixed an issue that caused the discovery thumbnail in the Analysis Visor to occasionally appear corrupted.

  • Fixed an issue that caused some creatures to appear at an incorrect position or scale when viewed on the Discovery page.

  • Fixed an issue that caused some flying creatures to be classified as ‘Ground’ by the Discovery Page.

  • Fixed an issue that caused jellyfish to face the wrong way while swimming.

  • Fixed an issue that caused frozen dead worlds to report overly warm temperatures.

  • Fixed an issue that could cause your ship to teleport inside buildings when visiting bases.

  • Trader ships that land on the planet’s surface will now crush any objects they land on.

  • Fixed an issue that caused oxygen plants and carbon crystals to award too much of their substance on some planets.

  • Fixed an issue that could cause players to very occasionally warp into a system inside a planet.

  • Fix an issue that caused the Vy’keen smuggler to only say ‘Grah!’

  • Fixed a number of audio and rumble issues with the Sandworm in multiplayer.

  • Fixed an issue that caused distant thunder audio to only play occasionally.

  • Fixed a number of audio issues with creatures.

  • Improved the icon for the Data Packet.

  • Exchanging an artefact at a Planetary Archive vault now correctly awards standing with the relevant faction.

  • Fixed an issue that blocked other players from using the vaults at the Planetary Archives in multiplayer.

  • Increased the likelihood of meteor showers on dead planets.

  • Fixed a number of clipping issues in the UI.

  • Fixed a number of text issues.

  • Fixed a number of minor errors in interactions.

  • Fixed an issue that caused the Photo Mode cloud coverage option to be unavailable on some planets.

  • Improved the controls in Photo Mode, adding acceleration to the camera movement to allow more fine-tuned adjustments.

  • Added the ability to tilt the camera in Photo Mode.

  • Fixed an issue that caused screenshots taken in Photo Mode to be cropped to the wrong FOV.

  • Weather warning decals are no longer visible in Photo Mode.

  • Fixed a number of flickering issues present when using DoF controls in Photo Mode.

  • In Photo Mode, props will now be shown at the highest possible detail setting.

  • Fixed a number of memory-related crashes on console.

  • Fixed an issue that could cause poor framerate on PC VR.

  • Fixed an issue that caused some PC users with Windows hardware acceleration enabled to only see a white screen on boot.

  • Fixed a rare softlock that could occur when entering the ship at the moment you die.

We will continue to release patches as issues are identified and resolved. If you experience any issues, let us know by submitting a bug report.

Thank you,

Hello Games

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I had a curious encounter. I got a warning about a hostile scan, but rather than the usual raiders, they were black triangle bodied craft. It was a pretty good fight, and defeating one summoned reinforcements. They were even tougher, and I noticed the bounty bar at the top right of my screen with an ATLAS symbol marker in it. Defeating them brought another wave and another bounty marker. This was really becoming a scrap, and finishing them brought down the wrath of a Capital Ship, a black one, and a swarm of fighters from its bay. It was also firing on me from its own turrets when I was in range. I managed to dispatch the fighters and turned my attention to the Freighter, blasting its turrets to scrap.

This resulted in a pause of the action, though the fight music continued to play. I looked the ship over as its alarm continued to sound, but there was no further action. I flew off under pulse towards my own Freighter when I got another warning of a hostile scan, but this time when I slowed, the Capital Ship appeared around me. Well, this wasn’t working, as I was bouncing around in the shell of the vessel while delta bodied Fighters swarmed around it, shooting at me. I’m not sure if either of us were able to land any shots. I couldn’t manage to push my way out or back out, and this was clearly broken, so I quit the game and came back in without incident.

Has anyone else had this experience? Something told me to start recording before it started, so I captured almost all of it.

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Yes, those were sentinel ships, and the fight keeps escalating until the sentinel freighter comes in.

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Aren’t Sentinels (& their mother ships) mostly orange…not black?
Weird! :thinking:
Can you get a screenshot?

Could just be the ‘black ship’ glitch that often pops up. I haven’t witnessed it since Origins…although my playtime has been severely limited recently.

The ending-up-inside-the-freighter-hull is a bug that sometimes occurs around freighters during combat, although usually its pirate starships that get stuck inside, not us.

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Like this one from @Flora_Marsky
Screenshots 🖼 - #103 by Flora_Marsky

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Yes, that’s essentially the same mothership. The fighters look different, but it seems like I saw another kind of Sentinel fighter early in my encounters. Or maybe it was a glitched System Security fighter that didn’t officially see the light of day. I think I posted this before. Notice the blue thrust trails.

It was labeled EXperimental fighter, so maybe it was something they were toying with. And YES I posted this before! I remember now asking for the Team to put these in the game so I could have one.

Anyhow, one of two things happened to me, which is entirely possible seeing as this is still a slightly buggy game, and my Windoze is getting senile.

  • It was a pirate encounter that glitched into a Sentinel interception routine.
  • It’s something new, seeing as a number of people have asked for a Bad Guy and/or Bad Group to deal with. And there is something in the Lore that I’m going to be playing with in my little tale.

So if my encounter is unique, it’s likely a glitch. It does seem a lot like a Sentinel glitch. Though it would be super cool if Team Mercury would play with something like this down the road, and give us some super Pirates or… something much more conspiratorious. Or maybe this is something new. Here are some screenies.

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Wait one second…

…I have never seen that ship in-game or online before except in E3 trailers. To be clear, this was found recently, in-game, with no mods? Correct?

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Mods have used the model for a long time, but I have never seen it appear in an unmodded game…

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Well, that’s very interesting! The only mods I have running are the ORIGIN logo starting screen, a tool upgrade and ScanNow, a quick scanner. So this cooouuld be a glitch, but I hope not.

Team Mercury: if this was a glitch, PLEASE make it a real thing! If it’s not, carry on with your work on this! It was deadly, but really cool.

A number of us, maybe most of us, want a LOT more substance in this reality you made. I can see that in a universe facing periodic Resets, the Three Races would have lost a lot of drive to further civilization, as I’m pondering in my story. But two groups would be motivated to take advantage of it, and those are crooks and pirates. Collecting into gangs, groups and even Pirate Fleets makes a lot of sense. Many of us are looking for a singular Bad Guy or group of Bad Guys, and this fight I went through is very much like what I would expect to see once in a while. A singular Traveler with a wicked upgraded Fighter blasting their ships to scrap would be a problem. Even stopping their reign of terror here and there would be a problem, one they would want to eliminate.

Sean-sensei, I know you have a fledgling team, and it’s a lot of work to give us these marvelous updates, but put a little more meat on this ever growing skeleton. This would be some nice meat.

One thing I forgot to mention is that in the course of the fight, two of the remaining ships in the fifth wave called it quits and fled the dogfight. I chased after them but even with boost on I couldn’t catch them. I’d expect to see this behavior from pirates.

I’m going to have some new food for thought in my story. :smile:

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