I finally made it to the center after a long meandering journey.
Wasn’t really motivated to go there, but with NEXT coming soon, and with a move to the ETARC hub in my future, I decided to make a slight detour and check out that ultimate shiny thing up close.
[this might be SPOILER territory, so proceed at your own risk]
I was poking around the haze zone at the center of the Euclid galaxy, when I noticed these strange and persistent "Contact"s appearing out of nowhere. I think I found a total of 6, with 4 roughly on the plane of the galaxy, 1 above, and one below. It gets a bit disorienting in there…
To find these "Contact"s, I traveled to a system at the edge of the center (the one I was in happened to have a black hole, but I don’t think that matters), and then used the galactic map to zoom in to the center area. When I was ~500ly out, I pinged to ‘find discoveries’ and they popped right up. When I heard the audio cue, I’d hit L1 and it would select the nearest ‘Contact’. Hitting L1 again would sometimes bring up another contact, and sometimes it wouldn’t. I moved around a lot to make sure these were actually in the haze zone right around the center, and not projections from the outside. They are clearly there, and always seemed to be in the same spots.
Interesting, “contact” indicates player-discovered systems when you scan on the galactic map. I wonder if the contacts you see are from people who modded their way into systems in the normally inaccessible “haze zone”.
That shouldn’t be possible…PS4 and PC discoveries don’t mix and based on his video footage he seems to be on PS4…unless he plays with a PS4 controller on PC.
I think this is a glitch of some sort, this uses to happen on vanilla version, a streamer discovered it, but found that the same planet would appear out of the haze zone when it wasn’t there I think…it was a long time ago so I could be wrong, check out some bids on YouTube it might hold the answer:smiley:
Yup yup, the video was from a PS4 video capture. Normal mode, day-one play-through. No mods whatsoever.
@FRANK_CADILLAC That was my first impression as well, but there are a few things that give me pause. I’m not sure if this is the same discovery you were mentioning, but when hunting for info I found this article by “Codver_Prime” about “Likholuningri” and the invisible stars. The article is a bit long and aggrandizing, but pretty interesting…
It seems that I may have approached the center on one of the “Terminal Systems”, because this is exactly what the “Path to the Galactic Core” looked like to me:
Around the Haze Zone at certain set points identifiable by the galactic sector coordinate system, the path to the core does something curious - it terminates. Follow the Path to the Galactic Core in these sectors and they will take you to a particular star, usually closest to the center. Then from that star, chose the Path to the Galactic Core waypoint, and it will not take you to the center. It will not take you anywhere. The Path just terminates. I have identified eleven sectors of space around the Euclid Haze Zone where this happens, along with a twelfth sector where the path strangely turns away from the core. These twelve sectors are geometrically arranged.
I have yet to find “Likholuningri”, but I’ll certainly look for it now.
So here’s what gives me pause to think it is a glitch- this article came out in 04/21/17. That is right after the “Path Finder Update” (March 2017), and just before the “Atlas Rises” update (August 2017). If it is a glitch, it has persisted, undisturbed by universe resetting updates, from the beginning.
Another thing- I haven’t seen a floating “Contact” glitch like this anywhere else, have you?
I have never been to the center, so I am mostly guessing. To me it looks like the Haze zone is specifically setup to render differently. The usual rendering of the star system appears to have been disabled, while contact locations still show. This may have even resulted in location being interpreted somewhat differently, although it doesn’t quite appear that way. Most of the functionality seems to have remained untouched. For whatever reason, this ‘zone’ likely required a different way of rendering, to allow it to show the way the developers wanted it to be seen. More or less like an additional bit of space with a specific feel, created for this zone specifically, to look special. It requires understanding of the code and knowing the intention behind it, to be able to fully explain. It looks interesting, but I can see it making perfect sense for a developer. I personally wouldn’t think too much of it, and by the looks of it, I doubt it is actually a glitch.
@DevilinPixy Could it just not simply be that, given a 3D coordinate system has (0,0,0) in the centre of the galaxy, the coords pointing to the inner most stars are given by numbers so small that the accuracy (number of digital places) becomes on the same scale as the value of the coords themselves - resulting in rounding errors basically?
Imagine a galaxy where the “true” position of a star is at x=0.5 but all coords are given as integers, so before placing the “Contact” marker in the galactic map, the game rounds 0.5 to 1 hence resulting in an erroneous position. If distance (=Pythagorean theorem) is the crucial number, it could be even worse since sqrt(x^2) would round to zero all of a sudden (0.5^2 = 0.25, rounded to 0, and then sqrt(0)=0).
I have a math background and I know that in math and physics this is a very real issue and headache. But what about NMS? Do you think it could apply? Or is it just qualified BS?
Could certainly apply, but I do not have the insight of knowing how things are done in the code, to be able to explain in detail. Just guessing and speculation of possibilities, which certainly has my interest to try understand. I actually doubt the contact markers to be placed erroneous, but due to a change of render it may result in feeling out of place, or appear to have strange behaviour. I just feel that the looks of that region were important to the immersive feeling they wanted to achieve. We shouldn’t look into it too much or think much of it. It achieves a special feel, which is likely what mattered most. Other than that, I don’t think there is anything special to it …
Similarly interesting was @Doopa’s effort to travel to another system without warp. Some really weird behaviour has been showcased. Personally such things intrigue me, as someone who loves math as well as coding. It does remain hard to explain however, without full insight of the code behind it.
Rounding and precision can most certainly cause issues and be a pain to work around. Having a procedurally generated environment most likely further complicates this to work with, let alone understand as an ‘outsider’. None of what you said is BS, can apply, be logically involved, in some of the weirdness seen.
I was checking out a star chain I had found in the Zahrey Void region that points almost directly towards the center of the galaxy. My objective was to tour the chain for the Hub, and after the tour was complete, I zoomed off to the center for a fun finish to the video.
But when I got there I found a fun new glitch at the core- apparently, that is where my home base went! Not sure why the home base icon was showing at the center of the galaxy, but nothing came of it. Certainly couldn’t warp there from a space station (definitely tried.)
@chelofellow: Considering this topic was started just before NEXT and now continues, I have changed category to not be in the archive. I have made a minor change to the topic title to reflect both Atlas Rises and NEXT.
Sure is interesting to see ‘Home Base’ at the center of the galaxy, although the icon shown appears to be for an Abandoned Building. Weird indeed!
Prior to NMS-NEXT, my Gal.Map would occasionaly lock on and zoom to some distant system in the centre and refuse to budge.
I don’t know what’s there but if it ever happens again I’m going to waypoint it and head for it.
It’s a mystery POI.
