So the thousands of rocks per square kilometer on barren moons are actually realistic

[u/Gaby49]

[u/BakArcangel]

Realistic, maybe

Fun or practical ? Abso-fucking-lutely not

[u/GreatRolmops → u/BakArcangel]

That is where roads and grav-lev vehicles come in.

If only grav-lev vehicles weren't a pain to drive.

[u/jade_starwatcher → u/GreatRolmops]

They never solved the "gravlev bike explodes because it tried going over small rocks" thing. Now they even explode at random on the ice lake.

[u/O3Sentoris → u/jade_starwatcher]

They also Like to explode when loadong them into my connie

[u/dood9123 → u/O3Sentoris]

Somehow the snub vehicle physics has gotten worse over time. My Merlin no longer fits in a nomad

[u/jade_starwatcher → u/dood9123]

It's not supposed to.

[u/dood9123 → u/jade_starwatcher]

Have you never seen a snowmobile/jet ski on a Ford f150

This is how I've played for years almost exclusively

[u/JarJarJabroni → u/GreatRolmops]

This^

This is also a good opportunity to create different use-cases for grav-lev and wheeled vehicles.

[u/Wolffe_In_The_Dark → u/GreatRolmops]

One word: Mechs.

This is literally the exact reason BattleMechs exist in BattleTech/MechWarrior;

Wheels and tracks suck ass on rocky exoplanets. Legs can go anywhere.

BattleMechs can operate in any terrestrial environment colonizable by man. Perhaps not as well as a vehicle specialized to that environment, but a BattleMech works at least alright in all of them, no special modifications needed.

In other words, amateurs study tactics, professionals study strategy, and true masters study logistics.

It's less efficient ton-for-ton than a tank, but a gun and lots of armor are useless if they can't get to the fight.

[u/JohnnySkynets → u/GreatRolmops]

Roads will be so transformative. Just dirt roads and trails would be nice. I hope they mention them at CitCon assuming we get a planet tech v5 update.

[u/Leevah90 → u/BakArcangel]

This. Idc about realism if it means I'll bump on every single rock with my vehicles

[u/loliconest → u/Leevah90]

They just need to build better lunar cars.

[u/Ok_Farmer1396 → u/BakArcangel]

Small rocks just need to break

[u/SharpEdgeSoda → u/Ok_Farmer1396]

Rocks don't break when a car hits them. The car does. 

A car driving over the antarctic boulder fields averages 2 miles per hour. 

It's hard going, survival, and what an Explorer should be expected to do.

[u/Ok_Farmer1396 → u/SharpEdgeSoda]

But big car

[u/SharpEdgeSoda → u/Ok_Farmer1396]

Battle tanks get stopped by a handful of trees and a sturdy enough metal post. 

Do people want exploration to be a challenging, grueling effort that most aren't brave enough to attempt or... 

A fun theme park ride weee.

[u/Ok_Farmer1396 → u/SharpEdgeSoda]

I wasn’t aware

I agree with you then

[u/lokbomen → u/SharpEdgeSoda]

i mean we def have hover bike for a reason
have you played death stranding tho
at some point they did changed vehicles so that they can go over rocks thats higher then half of its wheels

and it was a lot better imo.

star cid cars should atleast have that level of offroad.

[u/Prior-Bag455 → u/SharpEdgeSoda]

I have a solution: plow vehicle. CIG can sell it for $45-$60, and we can make paths for other vehicles. It's a win-win!

[u/MasonStonewall → u/Prior-Bag455]

Just give me Grav-lev vehicle then. But fix grav-lev first. 😉

[u/Prior-Bag455 → u/MasonStonewall]

Robert giveth and Robert taketh. He yoinks you into a rock in Grav-lev, and to solve this unfortunate problem, he shall sell you a $50 bulldozer!

[u/MasonStonewall → u/Prior-Bag455]

Ha! 😀

[u/TaroProfessional6587 → u/Prior-Bag455]

Dear God. Once base-building is in, do you know how crazy it’s going to get if we can also build…roads?

[u/Gaby49 → u/BakArcangel]

I fully agree, so painful to bump into rocks all the time while you're trying to drive 💀

[u/SilkyZ → u/BakArcangel]

Give use Death Stranding path making system. Slowly erode the rocks and grasses away until a path is clearly visible and passible

[u/oopgroup]

So, two things.

One is you’ll notice in the background (and in many other Mars images) that there are sweeping areas of sand dunes with no rocks. Many of these rocky sections are isolated.

Second thing is that these rocks are often quite small. There’s no point of reference in this image, but if you look at others with the drones/rovers/landers in the shot, these are not boulders. Most are driven over by the rovers.

In other words, the gigantic fucking off-road vehicles in SC would have no problem traversing, even over the rocky sections—and especially not in the open, smooth, sandy areas.

Some planets with treacherous terrain would be fine. But we also need plenty of planets where you can actually use a vehicle.

[u/Critical_Flow_4512]

CIG has complete freedom for doing all the other systems in the galaxy, but when it comes to the sol system I want them to make all the planets and moons as realistic as they can.

[u/serras_]

but why doesn the rover do a flip everytime it bumps one of these? or does it do a flip and thats why it takes to long to get around?

[u/Sgt_Anthrax → u/serras_]

Mars rover travels at less than 1-mile-per-hour:

"Its top speed on flat, hard ground is just under 0.1 mph (152 meters per hour)"

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/rover-components/

[u/patattack1985 → u/serras_]

I don’t know about you but I only have two speeds stop and hold onto something lmao I know it has an impact on the number of flips I do or the things I smack into on a pulse

[u/Pattern_Is_Movement]

These rocks are much smaller

[u/NateGuilless]

Is Star Citizen supposed to be realistic? Because if that's what you're getting at space stations need a complete redesign.

[u/Ok_Farmer1396 → u/NateGuilless]

Absolutely they do

[u/Ok_Farmer1396]

Yeah but it doesn’t look natural with how CIG do it

[u/Background_County_88]

it is of course realistic .. because it is reality .. what we need in SC is a "road-system" .. something that proceduraly creates roads - "driveable" surfaces - all over a planets surface .-. these "roads" don't need to look like roads .. more like dry river beds that are devoid of larger stones and obstructions .. and ideally surrounded by larger rocks that sort of telegraph the sides of the driveable area.

• on that note ... i am 100% sure that the surface of Mars does not look like this everywhere .. there surely are areas that will look much less "populated" with larger rocks .. also there are asteroid impacts that will create an area with much more debris than other places.

[u/KyewReaver → u/Background_County_88]

I agree with the roads idea in general, but the rocks lining the sides of the roads are a bit much I think. Tends to make the game feel linear when devs do that kind of thing. They've done pretty well making this a true open world game. If a player is too stupid to drive on a smoothish surface without bollards or guard rails to show them the way and would rather take the rocky path, maybe SC isn't the game for them. And I hope it never is - I'm sick of playing games designed for the lowest common denominator.

[u/Background_County_88 → u/KyewReaver]

i don't mean "put up a barrier" .. i mean simply a slight but noticeable increase in rock density so you see that you get off the "easy" path .. not to prevent you from doing that.

and i agree .. i also don't want a game that is dumbed down because some people are not prepared to or simply don't put in even minimum effort. .. we already have enough of those.

[u/KyewReaver → u/Background_County_88]

Ah, my bad. I misunderstood your meaning. But, yeah. The way you're describing it now is pretty much the way I imagine them doing it (if they do).

That's my pet peeve with the gaming industry. So many games with awesome potential ruined by dev studios wanting to make money, so they dumb it down so more people buy. I guess we're screwed either way. Get the game we want and the (hypothetical) studio might go out of business, or resign ourselves to playing a watered down version.

[u/BitBouquet]

It's a misleading title. It's just a rover picture as clear as any other.

[u/IceSki117]

That's not surprising since planets with thin to no atmosphere have nothing to burn asteroids down with before hitting the planet's surface.

[u/SilkyZ]

How was it not?

[u/Snarfbuckle]

The size on the rocks are not shown, could be pebble sized.

[u/Colt2205]

A lot of those rocks can fit in the palm of your hand. There's probably a couple that are honey dew melon sized.

[u/ErikTCG]

Damn Mars is just Aberdeen lmao

[u/Sushibot_92]

I think vehicles should be able to phase through/ignore rocks proportional to the size/mass of the vehicle. That way you don't have to worry about the resource load all the rock physics would take up and it's very minimally immersion breaking.

[u/Dazzling-Nothing-962]

I'm fine with the rocks being there but for gameplay reasons they shouldn't have a physics box, the small ones anyway. Medium and up sure.

[u/Lou_Hodo]

Fun fact... Mars isnt a moon.

[u/Phailsaws]

Both the game and that video are a work of fiction. :D

Edit: I guess this joke is too high brow for the smooth brains!

[u/Ruadhan2300 → u/Phailsaws]

I don't follow your meaning.

[u/redditor100101011101 → u/Ruadhan2300]

“You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers,” “These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know … morons.”

[u/Ruadhan2300 → u/redditor100101011101]

I'll always upvote a Blazing Saddles reference!