1. If you're looking for help-related things (for example, the key rebinding tutorial), please check the FAQ and Q&A forum! A lot of the stickies from this forum have been moved there to clean up space.
    Dismiss Notice

Planet Seeds: How do they work?

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by Katzeus, Jul 26, 2013.

  1. greenskye

    greenskye Pangalactic Porcupine

    From the about page it does say "exactly" while mentioning things like alien trees. Personally I always assumed that sharing a seed would give a world with the same landscape, dungeons, monster types, loot locations (but not the specific loot itself). But I guess if we're examining this closely I can't say with certainty that my original assumption is correct. I would argue though that the spirit of the system is designed such that you can share coordinates and that those coordinates would allow another player to see your cool monster type, vegetation, landscape feature, etc. If it doesn't at least preserve those aspects, then what is the point of sharing coordinates?
     
  2. TheLoanArranger

    TheLoanArranger Ketchup Robot

    If it had been an exact word for word quote it would have been in a quote box. The two sentences may even have come from two different people. As I said, it was some time ago, so obviously it's not necessarily current. But as I said I haven't seen any reversal on it, so.

    Oh, this is definitely a pointless discussion (it doesn't even matter to me which way it ends up happening). I just don't see why you're assuming bits of the world layouts will be randomized when it's been more or less beaten to death that the universe itself will be identical for every player. It doesn't make sense to make the decision to make the universe identical and then go 'oh, but that doesn't matter because the worlds will change for each player anyway'.
     
  3. SpiroExDeus

    SpiroExDeus Cosmic Narwhal

    Well colour me apologetically disappointed.

    I envisioned a universe where the co-ordinates were initially a mix of randomly generated and hard set co-ordinates (it'd make sense for starting planets and certain mission planets to always be the same) so that, yes, if you had a planet in your instance of Starbound that matched the co-ordinates of a planet in my instance of Starbound we could share knowledge (because they would have the same seed) but that not everyone would have the same planet on the same playthrough.

    I can see the play value of being able to share that information but also the downside.

    A world full of infinite possibilities vs a world full of spoilers....

    Of course the planet list should be suitably massive so we'll still get some good play value especially when they start working on the "Director mode" stuff and modding tools.

    My other argument was basically that we couldn't be sure to what extent things were procedurally generated and to what extent they were random. Although it seems fairly clear from above that a lot will be the same, I would still like to make the point that we can't be sure of a lot of things until the game is produced. The loot would be better randomised for sure, especially if there's any kind of PVP. Imagine being up against a team all of whom have picked up a weapon from the same earmarked part of their universe because someone online said "w007! AwSUM Tresha Here ->." I'd argue the weather would have a random element to it (although it could just be a long procedurally generated weather loop, I suppose - or even a procedurally generated endless weather pattern based on a derivative of, for example, pi), the specifics of what exact monsters appear at any given time would probably also be reasonably 'random' and, personally, I'd like to see the specific distribution of ore produced with a separate one-time-generated "randomised" seed based on percentages from the initial planet seed purely because "w007! AwSUM 0r3z Here ->."

    I have been trying not to get annoyed at the fact that it has been assumed I'm making certain assumptions whereas I have actually been asking people not to make assumptions based on what has been said and positing examples as to how it MIGHT be different. The only assumption I actually made was that at least some of the initial co-ordinates used as seed values would be generated differently on game startup in each instance rather than having a specific list of planet co-ordinates from which planets are procedurally generated identically in each instance. I guess it's my fault in that I tend to try and splurge all my arguments out at once which tends to obfuscate exactly what arguments I'm actually making. I think it was a little rude, though, to make the claim that I didn't understand procedural generation (although that wasn't you - 'twas the other guy). I've been an occasional hobbyist in fractal art and also tinker a lot with probability theory. I am a programmer, albeit again only in a hobbyist capacity. I don't claim any great knowledge of the subjects but I know about "true" randomness, pseudorandomness, hard set features, procedurally generated stuff and the difference between them all.

    Think I'll stop there ;)
     
  4. greenskye

    greenskye Pangalactic Porcupine


    You have a right to your own feelings and expectations of course, but, if I may, I'd like to present another way of looking at it.

    You seem to like the idea of finding something new or special or unique in your copy of Starbound. Or at least that's how I interpreted your post. And I don't disagree. There is a certain pleasure in finding those small beautiful nooks and crannies in the games we play. Sort of like virtual sightseeing. It can be good knowing that you've been where no one else has ever been before. It's one of the things that I love about Minecraft, that first moment of discovery knowing that no one else has seen what you've seen.

    I did a little study in another thread (that actually started out as a comment to this thread that I felt like deserved it's own topic). In gist, that thread discovered that there are 422.22 quadrillion planets, which to me is so large as to be indistinguishable from infinite. If we assume every person who bought a copy of Starbound worked non-stop 24/7 to just visit every world, it'd take over 1000 years. If that is true, then it is a statistical certainty that whatever random planet you're visiting has never been seen before and probably won't ever be seen again. So provided you don't share any of your seeds, just about everyone can go through Starbound knowing with 99.9999% certainty that they are seeing entirely original, unique content that is shared with no one else.

    And I agree that we can't know all what is randomized and what is not. It's just too early to tell. The only thing I've got to go off of is what I think the developers are trying to accomplish and how I've seen other games handle similar concepts. It's really anyone's guess as to how it will actually be. There are a few things (like loot) that we can think should be randomized for balance purposes, but other than that... who knows?

    Speaking of ore distribution, how would you randomize that without changing the landscape? I guess the algorithm could make "ore spots or clusters" and then later randomly fill them in with different types of ores. But I'm not sure if that would solve the balance problem. If you knew you could always find ore in a certain spot, would it matter so much if it were silver instead of gold? Technically yes... but it just doesn't seem worth the effort.
     
  5. Katzeus

    Katzeus Chucklefisherman Chucklefish

    Well put, greenskye's linked thread here provided info that should appease anyone who feels like the seed system is going to make the universe too 'predictable'. I added Omni's post there to the OP here as well.

    TLDR; there are SO MANY planets that hitting "Random Planet" in the nav console will likely bring up an entirely uncharted planet.
     
  6. SpiroExDeus

    SpiroExDeus Cosmic Narwhal

    I hope the starting location will be random then... Guess it must be, either that or star travel would have to be near instantaneous to make use of all that variety and not have the average first planets visited being the same.
     
  7. SpiroExDeus

    SpiroExDeus Cosmic Narwhal

    Oh and thanks everybody for being clear and concise in their answers. Both models of using procedural generation (the take everything from an initial random seed model and the procedurally generate from a known quantity model) so it was just a matter of which, or what mixture of the two, Starbound was using.
     
  8. greenskye

    greenskye Pangalactic Porcupine


    Agreed. If starting locations aren't randomized then it's all for naught. Though I do wonder how they'll handle parties. I don't want to spawn 23 light years away from my friends, possibly requiring multiple "re-fuelings" just to meet up. How multiplayer/parties function is still largely a mystery, especially given how important multiplayer is to the overall game. I hope and expect them to handle it intelligently, but until we get actual details and/or the beta I can only guess. For me, this is the only issue of real concern left.
     
  9. TheLoanArranger

    TheLoanArranger Ketchup Robot

    I believe it was mentioned to be- something about "fleeing your home world and ending up in orbit around a random low level planet".
     
  10. TheLoanArranger

    TheLoanArranger Ketchup Robot

    I assume fuel costs will be relatively constant- as there's a practically infinite distance across sectors (I know it isn't literally infinite, but it might as well be) distance-based fuel costs would have to at least have a cap on them. Otherwise it would likely end up being actually impossible to meet up with a friend.

    Sorry for double posting, on a phone atm.
     
  11. Aladiia

    Aladiia Space Spelunker

    Good explanation man. Thanks for taking the time on this thread.
     
    Katzeus likes this.
  12. Shahab

    Shahab Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    i wonder if every plant grows in every temprature if you plant the seed.
    like some trees can grow in very high or very low temprature only.
     
  13. Sower

    Sower Big Damn Hero

    Rather than randomize loot, I'd rather see a way to randomize all content so as to make Starbound completely unique per server. Maybe add an option where players could initially (and optionally) set a server seed which would then be used to generate all other seeds?
     
  14. TheLoanArranger

    TheLoanArranger Ketchup Robot

    422 quadrillion worlds just isn't enough.
     
  15. Sower

    Sower Big Damn Hero

    I'd rather just completely avoid the issue of seeds being posted online. How the developers define loot in this case would be relevant, as I would personally view the coordinates to certain planets themselves as a spoiler/temptation. Certain combinations of backdrops, biomes, mini-biomes, generated monsters, dungeon locations, trees, palette colors, etc... hunting for those specific combinations will probably be one of the best aspects in Starbound for me.

    But yeah, it's never enough. :p

    edit: If Starbound is going to be as popular as I think it will be, then we'll see a lot of posts like "look at this amazing planet I found, cords inside." In my opinion, there's a difference between resisting the temptation to go to certain coordinates vs hunting for those planets yourself, knowing that any seeds posted online will not be relevant to you.
     
  16. Diagnosan

    Diagnosan Subatomic Cosmonaut


    Yeah. My philosophy is going to be "just don't look".
     
  17. Katzeus

    Katzeus Chucklefisherman Chucklefish

    I'd feel the same way if the entire game was like 100 planets. I'd prob not want any spoilers before I discover each one. With the ridiculous vastness of the universe though I look forward to exploring shared planets that look cool, because more likely than not I'd never go to most of those planets "randomly"
     
  18. TheLoanArranger

    TheLoanArranger Ketchup Robot

    More likely than not. That's a good phrase when the chances are like, 60/40. maybe even 80/20. I think "effectively guaranteed" works better here, though. :)

    Math. (this isn't for your benefit, since you get this already, but...)
    Let's say 10 million people play this game. Maybe a high estimate, maybe low, but it's a good starting point. Now let's say each of those players explores 1000 worlds (unlikely, but hey. Bigger numbers illustrate the point even better.) That's 100 billion worlds explored, assuming no repeats (since what we're talking about here is the chance of you hitting a world someone else already has, the biggest possible pool of pre-explored worlds is useful.)

    There are (or will be, rather, according to a dev post in one of these threads) 422 quadrillion worlds. The chances of a random world you choose being a world someone else has already explored- 100 billion out of 422 quadrillion- or about one in 4 million. And that's after the game has been around for a while. Talking about near release, it's so negligible it's not even worth mathing. I know that's not a word, I don't care.
     
  19. greenskye

    greenskye Pangalactic Porcupine


    Guys, I just noticed something... You can have your own universe!

    Sectors take seeds. Now I don't think that currently you can define your own sector (no UI seems to exist for it), but through modding it seems to be possible to make your own sector based on whatever seed you want. Whether or not they'll enable this as an "official" feature post-release remains to be seen. They may want to reserve certain sectors (aka seeds) for future expansion. Each sector contains 400 trillion star systems. Which should be enough for anyone.

    Also notice how he mentions that they're planning for 10 sectors on release? Given that we know there will be 10 tiers in the final game, might not sectors == tiers?

    Which could also explain how multiplayer spawning and travel works. It might be that when you join a world it puts you in the same sector of the universe and, I would assume, that travel within the same sector might not be too fuel-intensive, making it relatively painless to meet up with friends.

    I don't know why I didn't notice this before. Just got too wrapped up in the potential number of planets. But I think, at least with a little modding, everyone should get what they want.
     
  20. Jman1177

    Jman1177 Void-Bound Voyager

    Oh wow, that's a really good point.. I didn't even notice that.
     

Share This Page